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examination of Nature is evident at once, from the fact, 

 that in such an act of judgment, we do not make one step 

 toward the accomplishment of our purpose. In reference 

 to the animals nearest approached to ourselves, we are 

 readily able to comprehend the relations of form to the 

 mode of life ; we clearly perceive that a bird's form is most 

 perfectly adapted for flight, a fish's for swimming, and we 

 admire the intelligence with which Cuvier made use of the 

 purpose for which the animals were destined, to unfold 

 with convincing certainty their form and the minutest dis- 

 tinctions of their anatomical structure. But let us enter 

 the Grotto of Antiparos, where thousands of crystals refract 

 the light of the torches with such wonderful brilliancy, and 

 realize to us the legends of the fairy world ; let us break a 

 path through the dense forests of Guiana, where the giant 

 stems of the thousand-yeared Bertholletias stand side by 

 side with the slender pillars of the Palms, the delicately 

 feathered frond of the Ferns strangely contrasted with the 

 broad simple leaf of the Banana, where the bare, thin, 

 hundred-feet-long stem of the Liane stretches from tree to 

 tree like the rigging of a ship, up and down which clambers 

 the slim tiger-cat while thousands of elegant little Mosses 

 and Liverworts clothe the trunks ; let us mark how the 

 most varied colours and most wondrous forms of the 

 splendid flower-world of the tropics fill up the intervals 

 then, indeed, the boldest imagination pauses at the seeking 

 out and establishing of definite conceptions of conformity 

 for the manifold forms and fashionings, and Nature leaves 

 us no other criterion for judgment of her work but the 

 principal of Beauty ; this alone still speaks to our feelings 

 and leads us to adore the higher Existence, of which this 

 immeasurable wealth of varied shape becomes a holy 

 revelation. But, alas ! we become aware that not even 



