ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 231 



scope, it became itself a scientific instrument which 

 no longer hurried over its objects in nighty motion, 

 but is disciplined by the intellect of the observer and 

 forced into methodical work." l Similarly, no doubt, 

 the increasing devotion to the pastime of sketching 

 from life and nature in our days must have the effect 

 of obliging the eyes of many persons to look stedfastly 

 and carefully at the forms and outlines of things, and 

 of thus training the artistic faculty. 



It is, however, a remarkable fact that one of the 

 greatest leaders in the morphological study of natural 

 objects, Bichat, the great observer of membranes and 

 tissues, despised the microscope, the instrument by 

 which the sciences he founded were to benefit so 

 enormously. 



The object of morphology, as distinct from that of 27. 



Morphology 



classification, can be defined as the attempt to describe, ^ 

 and if possible to comprehend and explain, the relative 

 similarity as well as the graduated differences of form 

 and structure which natural objects present to our gaze. 

 Although the study can be conducted on a large as well 

 as on a small scale, these similarities and differences sooner 

 made themselves felt in the comparatively smaller objects 

 of living nature. These can, without apparent loss of 

 their characteristic appearance and individuality, be col- 

 lected and brought together, whereas a collection of 

 minerals, with the exception of crystals and gems, always 

 presents only fragments, and forces upon us the convic- 

 tion that they can really be studied only in their habita- 

 tion, in situ. The same conviction has indeed gradually 

 1 Sachs, foe. tit., p. 237. 



