196 LIFE IN NATURE. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE ORGANIC AND THE INORGANIC. 



IF the ideas we have been considering in respect 

 to organic life are true, we cannot but feel that, to a 

 certain extent, our former thoughts have been 

 inverted. We have long been accustomed to hear it 

 assumed, that the organic w r orld is distinguished at 

 once by a special eminence over the rest of nature, 

 and by a special mystery ; so that it is that which of 

 all things we can least hope to understand. It 

 seenis to me, however, that this idea is the very- 

 opposite of the truth. So far from being less com- 

 prehensible than the rest of nature, the organic world 

 appears rather to be that very part of it which w r e, 

 may most truly be said to know : the inorganic world 

 with its deep-hidden forces is the mystery. For it 



