198 LIFE IN NATURE. 



alone it can exist, contain a yet unpenetrated secret. 

 It is to these we should turn our admiration and 

 devote our curiosity. All the activity we see in the 

 organic world is derived from them ; from them are 

 borrowed all the complex structure and mutual 

 adaptations it displays. We have magnified the 

 little and despised the great. 



And naturally we have done so ; for, in truth, this 

 feeling of ours respecting the organic and inorganic 

 worlds is a legitimate fruit of our ignorance. Where 

 we have known least we have seen least, and have 

 felt least wonder. Our ignorance where most pro- 

 found has been least visible to ourselves. This poor 

 organic life, being, as it were, our own, being the 

 part of nature nearest to us, least above us being, 

 perhaps we might say, the part of nature which is 

 brought down within the sphere of our appreciation 

 this we have seen truly enough to perceive its 

 wonder ; knowing it better we have regarded it with 

 a peculiar awe, and have arrogated to it a peculiar 

 value. The inorganic w r orld being larger, on a 

 grander scale, and devoted to ends less fathomable 

 by our ingenuity, this we have not known well 



