IIG WALTER AUBREY KIDD, M.D., M.R.C.S., F.Z.S., ON 



part of one animal, albeit the highest of all, an extensive 

 series of ideas carried ont and of purposes portrayed. An 

 illustration of this kind reminds us of the numerous degrees 

 of purpose manifested by man in his teeming works. ]^)Ut 

 in addition to such degrees of purpose as these we find that 

 there are very great diversities of intelligence in the carrying 

 out of the same purpose and plan. 



A few instances of this may be given. The masons and 

 carpenters employed in the construction of a great Gothic- 

 cathedral are but dindy conscious, if conscious at all, of the- 

 architectural plan and the religious conceptions embodied in the 

 slowly-reared structare to which the skill, knowledge, and taste 

 of some old architect of the thirteenth century has given 

 birth, and yet they are concerned in the carrying out of his noble 

 scheme which shall delight future ages of men, not alone by its 

 great purpose and plan, but also by its delicate workmanship. 



Again, a highly-trained chemist will dispense with skill and 

 accuracy the prescription of a physician, and yet be far from 

 any true conception of the purpose immediate or remote, 

 kept in view by the latter. It is far short of the physician's- 

 knowledge of the individual patient and his physical state for 

 the chemist to be well acquainted with the ordinary uses of 

 the individual drugs prescribed. 



A navvy employed in making a new railway will be 

 practically acquainted with the laborious details of his manual 

 work, and see much of the crust of the earth in which he- 

 works ; but how different is his limited knowledge of the- 

 purpose of the whole from that of the chief engineer, the 

 financiers, and the geological adviser, from whose expert know- 

 ledge a great pioneer railway shall arise to open up new 

 centres of human life ! 



A shipwright employed in the construction of a battleship 

 will tell one much that is of importance and interest as to the 

 mechanical details of his work, and in such a man honest, 

 careful work is most necessary to the perfection of the whole ; 

 but the gulf between his technical knowledge of his own 

 department and the profound calculations, scientific and 

 pecuniary, of the chief constructor is immense, and yet each 

 is concerned in the great purpose of the whole. 



Again, how far removed is the daily work and knowledge of 

 a British private soldier from that of the commander who for 

 weeks has been maturing a strategic plan which sliall at one 

 stroke turn the flank of a formidable army and settle the issue 

 of a campaign ! Each fulfils his portion of the purpose, and yet 



