74 LITE IN NATURE. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF LIVING FORMS; OR, MORPHOLOGY. 



THE builder of an organ, it has been said, must be a 

 wise man ; and the non-mechanical part of the world 

 will willingly concede the point. We wonder at a 

 skill and forethought which can create from passive 

 wood and metal an instrument so elaborately planned, 

 so subtly tuned to harmony. It is a grand example 

 of man's dominion over matter. So with any other 

 mechanical triumph: we not only admire, but on 

 man's behalf we are proud of, the chronometer, the 

 steam-engine, the thousand contrivances for abridging 

 labour with which our manufacturing districts abound. 

 But suppose there were a man who could construct 

 one or all of these under quite different conditions ; 

 who, without altering by his own exertion the opera- 

 tion of one of the natural laws, could bid a steam- 



