AS KNOWLEDGE, DISCIPLINE, AND PO^YER 3 II 



of that vast harmony with his own nature which seemed so obvious 

 elsewhere ? Surely not. On the contrary, it may be regarded as one 

 of the noblest characteristics of natural history knowledge, that its 

 highest flights point, not to a discrepancy between the infinite and the 

 finite mind, but to a higher and closer union than can be imagined by 

 those whose studies are confined to the physical world. For where 

 the principle of adaptation, of mere mechanical utilitarian contrivance 

 fails us, it is replaced by another which appeals to the sesthetic sense 

 as much as the mere intellect. 



Regard a case of birds, or of butterflies, or examine the shell of an 

 echinus, or a group of foraminifera, sifted out of the first handful of 

 sea sand. Is it to be supposed for a moment that the beauty of 

 outline and colour of the first, the geometrical regularity of the 

 second, or the extreme variety and elegance of the third, are any good 

 to the animals? that they perform any of the actions of their lives 

 more easily and better for being bright and graceful, rather than if 

 they were dull and plain ? So, to go deeper, is it conceivable that 

 the harmonious variation of a common plan which we find everywhere 

 in nature serves any utilitarian purpose? that the innumerable 

 varieties of antelopes, of frogs, of clupeoid fishes, of beetles, and 

 bivalve moUusks, of polyzoa, of actinozoa, and hydrozoa, are adapta- 

 tions to as many different kinds of life, and consequently varying 

 physiological necessities ? Such a supposition with regard to the 

 three last, at any rate, would be absurd ; the polyzoa, for instance, 

 presenting a remarkable uniformity in mode of life and internal 

 organization, while nothing can be more striking than the wonderful 

 variety of their external shape and of the sculpture of their cells. If 

 we turn to the vegetable world, we find it one vast illustration of the 

 same truth. Who has ever dreamed of finding an utilitarian purpose 

 in the forms and colours of flowers, in the sculpture of pollen-grains, 

 in the varied figures of the frond of ferns ? What " purpose " is 

 served by the strange numerical relations of the parts of plants, the 

 threes and fives of monocotyledons and dicotyledons ? 



Thus in travelling from one end to the other of the scale of life, 

 we are taught one lesson, that living nature is not a mechanism but 

 a poem ; not a mere rough engine-house for the due keeping of 

 pleasure and pain machines, but a palace whose foundations, indeed, 

 are laid on the strictest and safest mechanical principles, but whose 

 superstructure is a manifestation of the highest and noblest art. 



Such is the plain teaching of Nature. But if we have a right 

 to conclude from the marks of benevolent design to an infinite 



