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of Scotland is incrusted with multitudes of little shells, having within 
them little birds perfectly shaped, supposed to be barnacles. “ The 
bird in every shell that I opened,” he says, “ as well the least as the 
biggest, I found so curiously and completely formed, that there ap- 
peared nothing wanting as to the external parts for making up a 
perfect sea-fowl ; every little part appearing so distinctly, that the 
whole looked like a large bird seen through a concave or diminish- 
ing-glass, colour and feature being everywhere so clear and neat. 
The little bill like that of a goose, the eyes marked, the head, breast, 
neck, wings, tail, and feet formed ; the feathers everywhere perfectly 
shaped,” and so on. 
We may smile, I say, at this tendency to interpret natural phe- 
nomena by the aid of a vigorous imagination, but we must admit that 
it was better than that stolid uninterpretativeness which preceded it ; 
and, at any rate, it ended in the clear day of truth which the next 
generation saw in full blaze. The object of an association at such a 
period was, from the nature of the case, union of minds and hands in 
questioning nature. What could one man hope to do by his own in- 
tellect, by his own resources 'i Accordingly, we are not astonished to 
find that the primary objects which men proposed to attain by union 
in those days were natural instruction, and assistance in common in- 
quiry. The Society’s minutes of the period abound in the language of 
entreaty. Every man who had a chance of getting at information 
was earnestly called upon to avail himself of it. And we are not to 
condemn men, through the application of our superior enlightenment, 
because, like the Florentine academicians, they made it a rule to 
believe everything possible until the contrary could be proved. 
They were justified, I think, in ordering fresh hazel rods to be pro- 
duced, “ wherewith the divining experiment was tried and found 
faulty.” And we cannot blame them because, when the Duke of 
Buckingham had presented the Society with a piece of a unicorn’s 
horn, they proceeded to try its virtues in retaining within a charmed 
circle a poor spider, which, however, contrived to run away spite of 
their repeated efforts. 
Now, our circumstances are very different from theirs. Physical 
science is not, as it was then, a dreamy mystery, struggling for life 
in the breasts of a few speculative philosophers. It has made itself 
eyes in the telescope, arms in the steam-engine, wings in electricity. 
It is a living thing. Men may now rest on science itself for support, 
