ANIMAL LOCOMOTION. 



Nor is this love of motion confined to the animal kingdom. 

 We admire a cataract more than a canal ; the sea is grander 

 in a hurricane than in a calm ; and the fleecy clouds which 

 constantly flit overhead are more agreeable to the eye than 

 a horizon of tranquil blue, however deep and beautiful. We 

 never tire of sunshine and shadow when together : we readily 

 tire of either by itself. Inorganic changes and movements 

 are scarcely less interesting than organic ones. The disaffected 

 growl of the thunder, and the ghastly lightning flash, scorching 

 and withering whatever it touches, forcibly remind us that 

 everything above, below, and around is in motion. Of ab- 

 solute rest, as Mr. Grove eloquently puts it, nature gives us 

 no evidence. All matter, whether living or dead, whether 

 solid, liquid, or gaseous, is constantly changing form : in other 

 words, is constantly moving. It is well it is so ; for those 

 incessant changes in inorganic matter and living organisms 

 introduce that fascinating variety which palls not upon the 

 eye, the ear, the touch, the taste, or the smell. If an absolute 

 repose everywhere prevailed, and plants and animals ceased to 

 grow ; if day ceased to alternate with night and the fountains 

 were dried up or frozen; if the shadows refused to creep, the air 

 and rocks to reverberate, the cloads to drift, and the great race 

 of created beings to move, the world would be no fitting habi- 

 tation for man. In change he finds his present solace and 

 future hope. The great panorama of life is interesting be- 

 cause it moves. One change involves another, and every- 

 thing which co-exists, co-depends. This co-existence and 

 inter-dependence causes us not only to study ourselves, but 

 everything around us. By discovering natural laws we are 

 permitted in God's good providence to harness .and yoke 

 natural powers, and already the giant Steam drags along at 

 incredible speed the rumbling car and swiftly gliding boat ; 

 the quadruped has been literally outraced on the land, and the 

 fish in the sea ; ,each has been, so to speak, beaten in its own 

 domain. That the tramway of the air may and will be tra- 

 versed by man's ingenuity at some period or other, is, reasoning 

 from analogy and the nature of things, equally certain. If 

 there were no flying things — if there were no insects, bats, 

 or birds as models, artificial flight (such are the difficulties 



