THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 38 



the rhododendron thickets of the Himalaya : but it 

 cannot be ; and " he is a fool," says old Hesiod, 

 " who knows not how much better half is than the 

 whole." Let us be content with what is within our 

 reach. And doubt not that in these tiny creatures 

 are mysteries more than we shall ever fathom. 



The zoophytes and microscopic animalcules which 

 people every shore and every drop of w^ater, have 

 been now raised to a rank in the human mind more 

 important, perhaps, than even those gigantic mon- 

 sters, whose models fill the lake at the New Crystal 

 Palace. The research which has been bestoAved, 

 for the last century, upon these once unnoticed 

 atomies, has well repaid itself ; for from no branch 

 of physical science has more been learnt of the 

 scientia scientiarum, the priceless art of learning ; 

 no branch of science has more utterly confounded 

 the wisdom of the mse, shattered to pieces systems 

 and theories, and the idolatry of arbitrar}^ names, 

 and taught man to be silent while his Maker speaks, 

 than this apparent pedantry of zoophytology, in 

 which our old distinctions of "animal," "vege- 



D 



