THE MINUTE. 



structed exactly on the same model as to essen- 

 tials as the condor; the little sphaerodactyle, 

 which we might put into a quill-barrel, and carry 

 home in the waistcoat pocket, as the mighty 

 crocodile; the mackerel- midge, which never sur- 

 passes an inch and a quarter in length, as the 

 huge basking-shark of six-and-thirty feet. 



Complexity of structure, the multiplicity and 

 variety of organs, do not depend upon actual 

 dimensions, but rather upon the position in the 

 great plan of organic existence which the creature 

 in question occupies. The harvest mouse possesses 

 a much more elaborate organisation than the 

 vast shark or colossal snake. In general, the 

 creatures of simple structure are minute, — the 

 most simple, the most minute; but we need to 

 limit this proposition by many conditions and 

 exceptions, before we shall fully apprehend the 

 true state of the case. Ignorant exhibitors of 

 oxyhydrogen microscopes will frequently, indeed, 

 be heard to declare that all the specks that are 

 seen shooting to and fro, or revolving, top- 

 fashion, in their populous drops of water, are 

 furnished with all the organs, tissues, and mem- 

 bers that constitute the human frame ; and simi- 

 lar statements were not uncommon in cheap 

 compilations of natural history a few years ago. 

 This has been abundantly shown to be erroneous ; 

 but the tendency has been to run into an opposite 

 extreme; and to assume that what are called 

 "low forms'' of organic life are exceedingly simple 

 in their structure. There is, I say, error here ; the 

 microscope is daily revealing the fact, that in such 

 beings the tissues that had been too hastily 

 thought simple and almost homogeneous are 

 really complex, and that sj^stems of organs of 

 the most elaborate character are present, which 

 10 115 



