80 LIFE IN NATURE. 



apparently uninviting study becomes full of the in- 

 tensest interest, and yields the richest fruit. Not the 

 flowery meadow, but the steep and rugged path, 

 leads to the mountain's top ; and he who in studying 

 living forms contents himself with enjoying their 

 beauty, and tracing their design, sports like a child 

 with flowers in the vale, and foregoes the wider 

 horizon and the clearer day which reward him whose 

 toilsome feet achieve the summit. 



Is the study of Living Form so hard and tedious, 

 then (and chilling too), that nothing but climbing 

 up a mountain can be compared to it? By no 

 means. It is of an almost incredible simplicity. 

 And this is the wonder of it. The simplicity of the 

 mode by which organization is brought about in- 

 creases a hundredfold the wondrousness of life, 

 and adds the new mystery of an almost incon- 

 ceivable economy of means to the already over- 

 whelming mystery of multiplicity and grandeur in 

 the ends. 



It is in life as it is in thought the matter is 

 furnished from one source, the form from another. 

 Of all the expounders of a great discovery it is well 



