202 HOMOLOGIES. 
ers, and I would again ask their indulgence for 
details absolutely essential to my purpose, but 
which would indeed be very wearisome, did they 
not lead us up to an intelligent and most signifi- 
cant interpretation of their meaning. 
I should be glad to contribute my share to- 
wards removing the idea that science is the mere 
amassing of facts. It is true that scientific results 
grow out of facts, but not till they have been fer- 
tilized by thought. The facts must be collected, 
but their mere accumulation will never advance 
the sum of human knowledge by one step; it is 
the comparison of facts and their transformation 
into ideas that lead to a deeper insight into the 
significance of Nature. Stringing words together 
in incoherent succession does not make an intelli- 
gible sentence ; facts are the words of God, and we 
may heap them together endlessly, but they will 
teach us little or nothing till we place them in 
their true relations, and recognize the thought 
that binds them together as a consistent whole. 
I have spoken of the plans that lie at the 
foundation of all the variety of the Animal 
Kingdom as so many structural ideas which 
must have had an intellectual existence in the 
Creative Conception independently of any special 
material expression of them. Difficult though 
it be to present these plans as pure abstract 
formule, distinct from the animals that represent 
