GREATNESS OF LITERATURE. 263 



tluat fluid passes out of the body, without undergoing a pre- 

 liminary secretion in the cells of these convoluted bands. 

 Seeing the disposition of these bands, attached to the mem- 

 brane called " Mesentery " (Plate III., figs. 2 and 3), on one 

 side, and on the other floating free in the cavity, we detect 

 no means by which the disintegrated products, urea, &c. 

 could reach them. Moreover, the first step in organology 

 must be to determine whether the product of the organ is 

 present, e. g. ova in ovaries, bile in liver, urea in kidneys, and 

 so on ; and until chemical reagents have detected urea or 

 bile in these convoluted bands, we may rest on the assurance 

 that these bands are neither urinary nor biliary organs. To 

 look for such special organs in so simple an organism, seems 

 to me like seeking for a circulating library in an Esquimaux 

 villao'e. 



O 



The mention of a library carries my thoughts, by an easy 

 transition, to our evening studies. When the labours of the 

 day are over, the microscope is put up, the work-table is 

 quitted, and the delicious calm of candle-light invites us to 

 quiet intercourse with one of the great spirits of the past, or 

 one of theu' worthy successors in the present. It is well 

 thus to refresh the mind with Literature. Contact with 

 Nature, and her inexhaustible wealth, is apt to beget an im- 

 patience at man's achievements ; and there is danger of the 

 mind becoming so immersed in details, so strained to con- 

 templation of the physical glories of the universe, as to for- 

 get the higher grandem-s of the soul, the nobler beauties of 

 the moral universe. From this danger we are saved by the 

 thrill of a fine poem, the swelling sympathy with a noble 



