34 WILDER ON MORPHOLOGY AND TELEOLOGY 



quite as truly. The advantages are mutually conferred, and it is only a division of labor. 

 The commander of a company holds his position both from and for his men, and only thus 

 can several companies be represented in a regiment, several regiments in a brigade, and 

 so on up to the commander-in-chief, who really represents all beneath him ; but what is 

 he without them ? Every superior is, or ought to be, more truly the servant of his infe- 

 riors, who while they appear to obey him really serve themselves. Broad as is our land, it 

 cannot limit the application of our national motto. " E pluribus unum" is not merely a 

 national motto, but the concise expression of an all-pervading law, the basis of the highest 

 natural, human, and Divine order. 



It may now be asked, Which is of the greater importance, and deserving of the more at- 

 tention, morphology or teleology, the general laws, or the particular facts and uses which 

 they represent ? The answer to this question will vary with the three degrees of depth to 

 which our search is carried. At first we exclaim, " The facts, of course ; they only have 

 an actual existence, and are of any real use ; they must be diligently collected and examined ; 

 they are strange and beautiful, and our wonder and admiration are constantly aroused." 

 But there is something beyond this. The facts resemble each other, some more, some 

 less, and soon we arrange them in groups, acknowledging, if such grace be given us, that 

 those groups really did exist before we saw them ; our minds are occupied with these ; 

 we give them names, and delight in contemplating the laws and principles they suggest 

 to us. We find, moreover, that, though immaterial, they have a most substantial mental exist- 

 ence, and now we accord to this study the higher importance, and, mounted upon our 

 philosophical superstructure, are inclined utterly to ignore the groundwork. 



It is as if one had labored long in piling stones together to build a lofty tower, and at last 

 standing upon the single block which forms the summit, forgot all below, acknowledging 

 only himself and the result of his own work. If he stays there, it is clear that he can be 

 of little use to himself or to any one else ; he must descend and show to others the way up. 

 And now if he does this, if he has employed his temporary elevation in looking abroad and 

 beneath as well as above, and, more than all, if he imparts to others the superior informa- 

 tion thus acquired, and instructs them that they also may ascend, then he has accomplished 

 far more than if he had remained below surrounded and overwhelmed by the unarranged, 

 and therefore uninstructive abundance, or had stayed at the top, proud and disdainful of 

 those beneath him; and he now perceives that the former position was undesirable and the 

 latter impossible without the other, and accords to each its true value in what h can accom- 

 plish with their combined assistance. 



These three states of mind are respectively those of the unthinking but observant child, 

 of the reasoning philosophical youth, and of the wise man who, having passed through 

 both these stages, has attained to something better than either, a power and a disposition 

 to use what he has gained for others. 



Three states are mentioned. There is really a fourth, but it is the first in the series, and 

 corresponds to the embryo, which manifests no life, and is as it were the ground in which 

 are implanted the others in their order. It is the stage of inactivity, of preparation, and 

 it is easy to see the analogy between this and the lowest sub-kingdom of animals. The 

 first and the last states seem in a measure to resemble each other on a lower and higher 

 plane, as the vertebrate type stands over the radiate. And as the mature animal and the 

 full-grown tree, in all their strength and beauty, expend their best energies in the elabora- 

 tion of just such simple eggs and seeds as those from which they sprung, so the latter are 

 the morphological epitomes of what may be, the other teleological expressions of what has 

 been. 



