92 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
these very permanent forms only exist by virtue of the 
incessant change which they are undergoing. The oak- 
tree, which gave Adam its shadow in the happy garden, 
and the nightingale which hallowed Eve's connubial 
sleep, are seen again to-day ; the oak-tree has the same 
shaped leaves, the nightingale the same warbling song, 
though the identical oak and nightingale which we are 
supposing to have inhabited Eden have both long since 
perished. We view a waterfall, and make drawings of 
its shape and measurements of its altitude, and we con¬ 
sider it the same waterfall ten years afterwards, when we 
find it occupying the same place and exhibiting the same 
form as the one represented in our drawing of ten years' 
old. Yet no one will suppose that, after an interval of 
ten years, we see the same water, the same plants, or even 
the same rocks; for, while it will be readily admitted that 
fresh floods have been continually flowing over the pre¬ 
cipice, and fresh plants springing up in the surrounding 
soil, it must be remembered also that the rocks have been 
also wearing away above, while a deposit of fresh particles 
is being continually made by the water below. Yet, in all 
these mutable things—and Nature is equally mutable all 
through—-the Invariable in type is to be easily traced, 
for that does exist even more definitely than the very 
mutation which we see. The idea of a waterfall is the 
invariable result which the fall of an ever-renewing flood 
—the dispersion of an endless succession of drops—the 
roaring and foaming of particles which never remain an 
instant in the same position, convey to the mind; so that 
out of a series of effects we gain one thought , which may 
be called the thought of Nature inherent to this parti- 
