140 GLAUCUS; OR, 



that he who has comprehended (which no man yet 

 does) the mystery of a single spore or tissue-cell, 

 has reached depths in the great " Science of Life " 

 at which an Owen would still confess himself " blind 

 by excess of light." " Knowest thou how the bones 

 grow in the womb ? " asks the Jewish sage, sadly, 

 half self-reprovingiy, as he discovers that man is not 

 the measure of all things, and that in much learning 

 may be vanity and vexation of spirit, and in much 

 study a weariness of the flesh ; and all our deeper 

 physical science only brings the same question more 

 awfully near. " Vilior alga," more worthless than 

 the very sea- weed, says the old Eoman : and yet no 

 torn scrap of that very sea-weed, which to-morrow 

 will manure the nearest garden, but says to us, 

 " Proud man ! talking of spores and vesicles, if thou 

 darest for a moment to fancy that to have seen 

 spores and vesicles is to have seen me, or to know 

 what I am, answer this. Knowest thou how the 

 bones do grow in the womb? Knowest thou even 

 how one of these tiny black dots, which thou callest 

 spores, grow on my fronds ? " And to that question 



