294 METHOD OF STUDYING NATURE. 



answer some purpose in the oblique motions of the 

 foot, just as the bastard wing appears to assist in the 

 obhque motions of the main one, though what the spe- 

 cific motion or assistance which this partially developed 

 part gives in the performance of it, can be found only 

 by a more nice and thorough analysis than has 

 hitherto been applied to the mechanics of animals. 



This delightful study is, indeed, as humbling to the 

 pride of human learning as it is gratifying to the 

 spirit of more lowly but more reverential inquiry ; 

 and the man who comes to it mailed and cuirassed all 

 over with the forms and the formulae of the schools, is 

 much in the same predicament as the young Israelite 

 when he put on the armour of the king to combat 

 with the giant Philistine — he is encumbered and 

 oppressed ; and if he would hope to conquer, he finds 

 that " the smooth stone from the brook" — that which 

 nature affords to observation, must be the true weapon 

 of his warfare, and all his learning only " the sling," 

 by means of which it is sent to its destination with 

 the requisite force. 



And if they who weary their days under the load 

 of the armour, had not their eyes dimmed and dazzled 

 by its glitter, they would see that such must be the 

 case : that natural action — the action of that which has 

 life — must have a way of its own, according to which, 

 and only according to which, it can be studied. In 

 a machine of human contrivance, not only all the 

 parts, and the precise degree in which each part con- 

 tributes to the compound effect of the whole, can be 

 determined, but the motive power can also be esti- 

 mated with the greatest accuracy, and the whole can 

 be planned, and what it could or could not accomplish 

 known, before there is one peg of it in existence, and 

 though it never should exist. 



