58 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
How and Why. —No torn scrap of that very sea-weed, which to¬ 
morrow may manure the nearest garden, but says to us, “Proud 
man! talking of spores and vesicles, if thou darest for a moment to 
fancy that to have seen spores and vesicles is to have seen vie, or to 
know what I am, answer this. Knowest thou how the bones do grow 
in the womb ? Knowest thou even how one of these tiny black dots, 
which thou callest spores, grow on my fronds?” And to that question 
what answer shall we make ? We see tissues divide, cells develop, 
processes go on—but how and why ? These are but phenomena ; but 
what are phenomena save effects ? Causes, it may be, of other effects ; 
but still effects of other causes. And why does the cause cause that 
effect? Why should it not cause something else? Why should it 
cause anything at all ? Because it obeys a law. But why does it 
obey the law ? and how does it obey the law ? And, after all, what is 
a law? A mere custom of Nature. We see the same phenomenon 
happen a great many times; and we infer from thence that it has a 
custom of happening ; and therefore we call it a law : but we have 
not seen the law; all we have seen is the phenomenon which we 
suppose to indicate the law. We have seen things fall : but we never 
saw a little flying thing pulling them down, with “ gravitation ’’labelled 
on its back ; and the question, ivhy things fall, and how, is just where 
it was before Newton was born, and is likely to remain there. All we 
can say is, that Nature has her customs, and that other customs ensue, 
when those customs appear: but that as to what connects cause and 
effect, as to what is the reason, the final cause, or even the causa causans, 
of any phenomenon, we know not more but less than ever; for those 
laws or customs which seem to us simplest (“ endosmose,” for 
instance, or “ gravitation ”) are just the most inexplicable, logically 
unexpected, seemingly arbitrary, certainly supernatural—miraculous, 
if you will; for no natural and physical cause whatsoever can be 
assigned for them; while if anyone shall argue against their being 
miraculous and supernatural on the ground of their being so common, 
I can only answer, that of all absurd and illogical arguments, this is 
the most so. For what has the number of times which the miracle 
occurs to do with the question, save to increase the wonder? Which 
is more strange, that an inexplicable and unfathomable thing should 
occur once and for all, or that it should occur a million times every 
day all the world over ?— Charles Kingsley. 
Mr. James E. Bagnall. —Mr. Smiles, in his charming “ Life of a 
Scotch Naturalist, Thomas Edward, Associate of theLinnean Society,” 
has told the history of one of the most zealous naturalists that ever 
lived—a man who, under the most adverse circumstances, made great 
and important additions to natural knowledge. In 1806 these arduous 
labours were signally recognised and, in a sense, rewarded by his being 
elected an Associate of the Linnean Society. The society never has 
more than twenty-five Associates on its roll of members, and Edward’s 
biographer very accurately says of him when he became one of the 
number, that it was “ one of the highest honours that science could 
confer upon him.” Not only is it an honour to be elected an Associate, 
but the honour is all the greater inasmuch as no one is elected who 
has not done some really good work in at least one branch of Natural 
History. It is, therefore, a source of much pleasure to us to be able 
to announce that this honourable distinction has lately been conferred 
on our mucli-respected contributor, Mr. James E. Bagnall, of Bir¬ 
mingham, who, at a recent meeting of the Linnean Society, was 
unanimously elected an Associate, the proposition being made, 
