Chapter VI: Part 6

Certain general doctrines, the spirit of which runs through all the scientific works of Mr. Agassiz, are distinctly laid down in the first section of this chapter. It is headed with the statement, "The leading features of a natural zoological system are all founded in nature." The systems named from the great leaders of science are but translations of the Creator's thoughts into human language. "If it can be proved that man has not invented, but only traced this systematic arrangement in nature,--that these relations and proportions which exist throughout the animal and vegetable world have an intellectual, an ideal connection in the mind of the Creator,-- that this plan of creation, which so commends itself to our highest wisdom, has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws, but was the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in his thought, before it was manifested in tangible, external forms,-- if, in short, we can prove premeditation prior to the act of creation, we have done, once and forever, with the desolate theory which refers us to the laws of matter as accounting for all the wonders of the universe, and leaves us with no God but the monotonous, unvarying action of physical forces, binding all things to their inevitable destiny."

One more extract must be given from this section, for it is the key to the general argument which follows.

"I disclaim every intention of introducing in this work any evidence irrelevant to my subject, or of supporting any conclusions not immediately flowing from it; but I cannot overlook nor disregard here the close connection there is between the facts ascertained by scientific investigations, and the discussions now carried on respecting the origin of organized beings. And though I know those who hold it to be very unscientific to believe that thinking is not something inherent in matter, and that there is an essential difference between inorganic and living and thinking beings, I shall not be prevented by any such pretensions of a false philosophy from expressing my conviction, that, as long as it cannot be shown that matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any manifestation of thought as evidence of the existence of a thinking being as the author of such thought, and shall look upon an intelligent and intelligible connection between the facts of nature as direct proof of the existence of a thinking God, as certainly as man exhibits the power of thinking when he recognizes their natural relations."

We must content ourselves with the most general statement of the nature and bearing of the series of propositions which follow. They are illustrated by a large survey of the material universe in its manifestations of life, and of the relations between the various forms of life to each other and to the inorganic world. These propositions, thirty-one in number, might be called an analysis of the qualities of the Infinite Mind exhibited in the realm of organized and especially of animal being. Nothing but want of space prevents our reproducing at full length the very careful recapitulation to be found at the close of the chapter, or the analysis to be found in the Table of Contents. With something more of labor than the task of copying would have been, we have attempted to compress the truths already crowded in these brief and pregnant sentences into the still narrower compass of a few lines in our straitened pages.

The harmony of the universe is a manifestation of illimitable intellect, displaying itself in various modes of thought, as these are shown in the characters and relations of organized beings: unity of thought, manifesting itself independently of space, of time, of known material agencies, of special form,--illustrated by repetition of similar types in different circumstances, by identities, or partial resemblances, or serial connections, found under varying conditions of being; power of expressing the same idea in innumerable forms, as in those instances of essential identity of parts in the midst of formal differences known as _special homologies_; power of combination, as in the adjustment of organized beings to each other and to the inorganic world, or in the harmonious allotment of the most varied gifts to different beings; definite recognition of time and space, as in the life of individuals, of species, in the stages of growth, in the geographical limitation of types; prescience and omniscience, as shown in the _prophetic_ types of earlier geological ages; omnipresence, by the adjustment of the whole series of animal organisms to the various parts of the planet they inhabit.

The final _résumé_ of Mr. Agassiz is as follows:--

"We may sum up the results of this discussion, up to this point, in still fewer words.

"All organized beings exhibit in themselves all those categories of structure and of existence upon which a natural system may be founded, in such a manner, that, in tracing it, the human mind is only translating into human language the Divine thoughts expressed in Nature in living realities.

"All these beings do not exist in consequence of the continued agency of physical causes, but have made their successive appearance upon earth by the immediate intervention of the Creator. As proof, I may sum up my argument in the following manner:--

"The products of what are commonly called physical agents are everywhere the same, (that is, upon the whole surface of the globe,) and have always been the same (that is, during all geological periods); while organized beings are everywhere different, and have differed in all ages. Between two such series of phenomena there can be no causal or genetic connection.

"The combination in time and space of all these thoughtful conceptions exhibits not only thought, it shows also premeditation, power, wisdom, greatness, prescience, omniscience, providence. In one word, all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and Natural History must, in good time, become the analysis of the thoughts of the Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal and vegetable kingdoms."

To this statement we must add two paragraphs from the pages just preceding, (pp. 130, 131.)

"If I have succeeded, even very imperfectly, in showing that the
various relations observed between animals and the physical world,
as well as between themselves, exhibit thought, it follows that the
whole has an Intelligent Author; and it may not be out of place to
attempt to point out, as far as possible, the difference there may
be between Divine thinking and human thought."

"Taking nature as exhibiting thought for my guide, it appears to me,
that, while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is
simultaneous, embracing at the same time and forever, in the past,
the present, and the future, the most diversified relations among
hundreds of thousands of organized beings, each of which may present
complications, again, which to study and understand even imperfectly,
as, for instance, man himself, mankind has already spent thousands of
years. And yet, all this has been done by one Mind, must be the work
of one Mind only, of Him before whom man can only bow in grateful
acknowledgment of the prerogatives he is allowed to enjoy in this
world, not to speak of the promises of a future life."

Chapter Second is entitled, "Leading Groups of the existing systems of animals."

Its nine sections treat successively of the great types or branches of the animal kingdom, of classes, orders, families, genera, species, other natural divisions, successive development of characters, and close with some very significant conclusions on the importance of the study of classification.

Mr. Agassiz has attempted to give definiteness to the terms above enumerated, which have been used with various significance, by limiting each one of them to covering a single category of natural relationship. Thus:--

_Branches_ or _types_ are characterized by their plan of structure.

_Classes_, by the manner in which that plan is executed, so far as
ways and means are concerned.

_Orders_, by the degrees of complication of that structure.

_Families_, by their form, so far as determined by structure.

_Genera_, by the details of the execution in special parts.

_Species_, by the relations of individuals to one another and to
the world in which they live, as well as by the proportions of their
parts, their ornamentation, etc.

"And yet there are other natural divisions which must be acknowledged
in a natural zoölogical system; but these are not to be traced so
uniformly in all classes as the former,--they are, in reality, only
limitations of the other kinds of divisions."

This chapter must be studied in the original text, the arguments by which its conclusions are supported hardly admitting of brief analysis. The most superficial reader will be interested in Mr. Agassiz's account of the mode in which he sought for the natural boundaries of the various divisions, by observing the special point of view in which various eminent naturalists have considered their subject; as, for instance, Audubon, among the biographers of species,-- Latreille, among the students of genera,--and Cuvier, at the head of those who have contemplated the higher groups, such as classes and types. The most indifferent reader will be arrested by the opinions boldly promulgated with reference to species.

"The evidence that all animals have originated in large numbers is
growing so strong, that the idea that every species existed in the
beginning in single pairs may be said to be given up almost entirely
by naturalists." "If we are led to admit as the beginning of each
species the simultaneous origin of a large number of individuals, if
the same species may originate at the same time in different
localities, these first representatives of each species, at least,
were not connected by sexual derivation; and as this applies equally
to any first pair, this fancied test criterion of specific identity
must at all events be given up, and with it goes also the pretended
real existence of the species, in contradistinction from the mode of
existence of genera, families, orders, classes and types; for what
really exists are individuals, not species." (pp. 166-167.)

Chapter Third is headed, "Notice of the principal systems of Zoology." It is divided into the six following sections: General remarks upon modern systems; Early attempts to classify animals; Period of Linnaeus; Period of Cuvier, and Anatomical systems; Physiophilosophical systems; Embryological systems.

This chapter is invaluable to the general student, as giving him in a single view not only a _conspectus_, of the most important attempts at classification in Zoology, but an examination of the principles involved in each, by the one among all living men most fitted to perform the task. No cultivated person who desires to know anything of Natural Science can pass over this portion of the work without careful study. Those who are not prepared to follow the author through the details of the Second Part will yet consider these volumes as indispensable companions for reference, as containing this brief but comprehensive encyclopedia and commentary, covering the whole philosophical machinery of zoological science.

For the first section of this chapter Mr. Agassiz adopts the fundamental divisions (branches) of Cuvier, introducing such changes among the classes and orders as the progress of science demands. The second section gives a short account of the early attempts to classify animals, more particularly of the divisions established by Aristotle. The third section embraces the period of Linnaeus, and gives his classification. The fourth, that of Cuvier, and Anatomical systems, with the classifications of Cuvier, Lamark, De Blainville, Ehrenberg, Burmeister, Owen, Milne-Edwards, Von Siebold and Stannius, Leuckart. The fifth section includes the Physiophilosophical systems, with diagrams of Oken's and Fitzinger's classifications, and a special article for the circular groups of McLeay. The sixth and last section is devoted to Embryological systems, and presents diagrams of the classifications of Von Baer, Van Beneden, Kölliker, and Vogt.

The second part of the Monograph introduces us to the consideration of a special subject of Natural History,--the North American Testudinata. Its three chapters treat successively of this order of Reptiles,--of its families,--of its North American genera and species.

The THIRD PART, contained in the second volume, is entitled, "Embryology of the Turtle." It consists of two chapters: "Development of the Egg, from its first appearance to the formation of the embryo." "Development of the Embryo, from the time the egg leaves the ovary to that of the hatching of the young." Then follow the explanation of the plates and the plates themselves, thirty-four in number.

We need not attempt to give any account of the parts devoted to the development of these particular subjects. This we must necessarily leave to the journals devoted to scientific matters, and the class of students most intimate with these departments of Natural Science.

Yet the American who asks for a model to work by in his investigations will find a great deal more than the "North American Testudinata" in the part to which that title is prefixed. The principles of classification exemplified, the methods of description illustrated, the rules of nomenclature tested,--what matter is it whether the _gran maestro_ has chosen this or that string to play the air upon, when each has compass enough for all its melody?

Still more forcibly does this comment apply to the elaborate and ample division of the work embracing the Embryology of the Turtle. He who has mastered the details of this section has at his feet the whole broad realm of which this province holds one of the key-fortresses. _Ex testudine naturam_.

We are unwilling to speak of the illustrations comparatively without more extended means of judgment than we have at hand. But that they are of superlative excellence, brilliant, delicate, accurate, life-like, and nature-like, is what none will dispute. Look at these turtles, models of real-estate owners as they are, Observe No. 13, Plate IV.,--"Chelydra Serpentina,"--"snapper", or "snappin' turtle," in the vernacular. He is out collecting rents from the naked-skinned reptiles, his brethren; in default thereof, taking the bodies of the aforesaid. Or behold No. 5, Plate VI., bewailing the wretchedness of those who have no roofs to cover them. Or No. 2, of the same plate, bestowing an archiepiscopal benediction on the houseless multitudes, before he retires for the night to slumber between his tessellated floor and his frescoed ceiling.

Of the smooth, white eggs, with their rounded reliefs and tenderly graduated light and shadow, all eyes are judges. But of the exquisite figures showing the various stages of development and the details of structural arrangement, the uninitiated must take the opinions of a microscopic expert: and if they will accept our testimony as that of one not unfamiliar with the instrument and the mysteries it reveals, we can assure them that these figures are of supreme excellence. The hazy semitransparency of the embryonic tissues, the halos, the granules, the globules, the cell-walls, the delicate membranous expansions, the vascular webs, are expressed with purity, softness, freedom, and a conscientiousness which reminds us of Donne's microscopic daguerreotypes, while in many points the views are literally truer to nature,--just as a sculptor's bust of a living person is often more really like him in character than a cast moulded on his features.

We have attempted to give a slight idea of the contents of these two volumes, in the compass of a few pages. We have called the reader's attention to various points of special interest, as we were going along. It remains to make such comments as suggest themselves to us, either in our character of "the scholiast," or in our own right as a freed citizen of the intellectual as well as the political republic.

WHENCE? WHY? WHITHER? These are the three great questions that arise in the soul of every race and of every thinking being. He who looks at either of them with the least new light, though he whisper what he sees ever so softly, has the world to listen to him. No matter how he got his knowledge nor what he calls it; it belongs to mankind. But "Science" has been mainly engaged with another question, in itself of very inferior interest, namely, _How?_

We must be permitted to speak of "Science" in our freest capacity, and will endeavor not to abuse our liberty. The study of natural phenomena for the sake of the pleasing variety of aspects they present, for the delight of collecting curious specimens, for the exercise of ingenuity in detecting the secret methods of Nature, for the gratification of arranging facts or objects in regular series, is an innocent and not a fruitless pursuit. Many persons are born with a natural instinct for it, and with special aptitudes which may even constitute a kind of genius. We should do honor to such power wherever we find it; honor according to its kind and its degree; but not affix the wrong label to it. Those who possess it acquire knowledge sometimes so extensive and uncommon that we regard them with a certain admiration. But knowledge is not wisdom. Unless these narrow trains of ideas are brought into relation with other and wider ranges of thought, or with the conduct of life, they cannot aspire to that loftier name.

We must go farther than this. The study of the _How?_ in Nature, or the simple observation of phenomena, is often used as an opiate to quiet the higher faculties. There can be no question of the fact that many persons pass much of their lives working in the in-door or out-door laboratories of science, just as old women knit, just as prisoners carve quaintly elaborate toys in their dungeons. The product is not absolutely useless in either case; the fingers of the body or of the mind become swift and cunning, but the soul does not grow under such culture. We are willing to allow that many of those who browse in the sleepy meadows of aimless observation,--loving to keep their heads down as they gaze at and gather their narcotic herbs, rather than lift them to the horizon beyond or the heaven above,-- act in obedience to the law of their limited natures. Still, let us recognize the limitation, and not forget that the pursuit which may be fitting and praiseworthy toil for one class of minds may be ignoble indolence for another. We must remember, on the other hand, that, however humble may be the intellectual position of the man of science or knowledge, in distinction from wisdom, the results of his labors may be of the highest importance. The most ignorant laborer may get a stone out of the quarry, and the poorest slave unearth a diamond. These intellectual artisans come to their daily task with hypertrophied special organs, fitted to their peculiar craft. Some of them are all eyes; some, all hands; some are self-recording microscopes; others, self-registering balances. If a man would watch a thermometer every hour of the day and night for ten years, and give a table of his observations, the result would be of interest and value. But the bulbous extremity of the instrument would probably contain as much thought at the end of the ten years as that of the observer.

Clearly, then, "Science" does not properly belong to "scientific" men, unless they happen also to be wise ones; not more to them than honey to bees, or books to printers. The bee _may_, certainly, feed on the honey he has made, and the printer read the books he has put in type. But _Vos non vobis_ is the rule. "Science" is knowledge, it is true, but knowledge disarticulated and parcelled out among certain specialists, like Truth in Milton's glorious comparison. He who can restore each part to its true position, and orient the lesser whole in its relations to the universe, he it is to whom science belongs. He must range through all time and follow Nature to her farthest bounds. Then he can dissect beetles like Straus Derekheim, without becoming a myope. But even this is not enough. Let us see what qualities would go to make up the ideal model of the truly wise student of Nature.

He must have, in the first place, as the substratum of his faculties, the power of observation, with the passion that keeps it active and the skilful hand to serve its needs. Secondly, a quick eye for resemblances and differences. Thirdly, a wide range of mental vision. Fourthly, the coordinating or systematizing faculty. Fifthly, a large scholarship. Lastly, and without which all these gifts fall short of their ultimate aim, an instinct for the highest forms of truth,--a centripetal tendency, always seeking the idea behind the form, the Deity in his manifestations, and thence working outward again to solve those infinite problems of life and its destinies which are, in reality, all that the thinking soul most lives for.

It is as easy to find all these qualities separate as it is to turn beneath the finger one of the letters of a revolving padlock. But they must all be brought together in line before the grand portals of Nature's hypaethral temple will open to her chosen student. How incomplete the man of science is with only one or two of these endowments may be seen by a few examples.

The power and instinct of observation combined with the most consummate skill do not necessarily make a great philosophical naturalist. Leeuwenhoek had all these. They bore admirable fruits, too. We cannot but read the old man's letters to the Royal Society, written, if we remember right, after the age of eighty, with delight and admiration. Those little lenses in their silver mountings, all ground and set and fashioned by his own hand, showed him the blood-globules, and the "pipes" of the teeth, which Purkinje and Retzius found with their achromatic microscopes a century later. We honor his skill and sagacity as they deserve; but a little trick of Mr. Dollond's, applied to the microscopic object-glass, has left all his achievements a mere matter of curious history.

Few have been more remarkable for perceiving resemblances and differences than Oken. This is the poetical side of the scientific mind; and he shares with Goethe the honor of that startling and far-reaching discovery, the vertebral character of the bones of the cranium. At this very time the four vertebral cranial bones recognized by Owen are the same Oken has described. But notwithstanding the generous tribute of Mr. Agassiz to his great merits, the writer who assigns special colors to the persons in the Trinity, (red, blue, and green,) and then allots to Satan a constituent of one of these, (yellow,) has drifted away from the solid anchorage of observation into the shoreless waste of the inane, if not amidst the dark abysses of the profane.

If the widest range of mental vision, joined, too, with great learning, could make a successful student of Nature, Lord Bacon should have stood by the side of Linnaeus. But open the "Sylva Sylvarum" anywhere and see what Bacon was as a naturalist. "It was observed in the _Great Plague_ of the last yeare, that there were scene in divers _Ditches_ and low _Grounds_ about _London_, many _Toads_ that had _Tailes_, two or three inches long, at the least: Whereas _Toads_ (usually) have no Tailes at all. Which argueth a great disposition to _Putrefaction_ in the _Soile_ and _Aire_." This in that "great birth of time," the "Instauration of the Sciences"!

The systematizing or coordinating power is worse than nothing, unless it be supported by the other qualities already mentioned. Darwin had it, and something of what is called genius with it; but where is now the "Zoönomia"?

And what is erudition without the power to correct errors by appealing to Nature, to arrange methodically, to use wisely? It would be a shame to mention any name in illustration of its insignificance. Our shelves bend and crack under the load of unwise and learned authorship. There are two stages in every student's life. In the first he is afraid of books; in the second books are afraid of him. For they are a great community of thieves, and one finds the same stolen patterns in all their pockets. Though often dressed in sheep's clothing, they have the maw of wolves. When the student has once found them out, he laughs at the pretensions of erudition, and strides gayly up and down great libraries, feeling that the most blustering folio of them all will turn as pale as if it were bound in law-calf, if he only lay his hand on its shoulder.

Nor, lastly, can any elevation of aim, any thirst for the divine springs of knowledge, enable a man to dispense with the sober habits of observation and the positive acquirements that must give him the stamina to attempt the higher flights of thought. The eagle's wings are nothing without his pectoral muscles. It is not Swedenborg and his disciples that legislate for the scientific world; they may suggest truth, but they rarely prove it, and never bring it into such systematic forms as narrow-minded Nature will insist on laying down.

That all these qualities which go to make up our ideal should exist in absolute perfection in any single man of mortal birth is not to be expected. But there are names in the history of Science which recall so imposing a combination of these several gifts, that, comparing the men who bore them with the civilization of their time, we can hardly conceive that uninspired intellect should come nearer the imaginary standard. Such a man was Aristotle. The slender and close-shaven fop, with the showy mantle on his ungraceful person and the costly rings on his fingers, who hung on the lips of Plato for twenty years, and trained the boy of Macedon to whatever wisdom he possessed,--whose life was set by destiny between the greatest of thinkers and the greatest of conquerors,--seems to have borrowed the intellect of the one and the universal aspirations of the other. But because he invaded every realm of knowledge, it must not be thought he dealt with Nature at second-hand. He was a collector and a dissector. He could display the anatomical structure of a fish as well as write a treatise on the universe or on rhetoric, or government or logic, or music or mathematics. Dethroned we call him; and yet Mr. Agassiz quotes his descriptions with respect, and confesses that the systematic classification of animals makes but one stride from Aristotle to Linnaeus.

Cuvier was such a man. Alone, and unapproached in his own spheres of knowledge, his "Report on the Progress of the Natural Sciences" is only an index to the wide range of his intellect. In one point, however, we must own that he seems slow of apprehension or limited by preconceived opinions,--in his reception of the homologies pointed out by Oken and the Physiophilosophical observers.

In the same range of intellects we should reckon Linnaeus and Humboldt, and should have reckoned Goethe, had he given himself to science.

We do not assume to say where in the category of fully equipped intelligences Mr. Agassiz belongs. But if the union of the most extraordinary observing powers with an almost poetic perception of analogies, with a wide compass of thought, the classifying instinct and habit, large knowledge of books, and personal intimacy with the leaders in various departments of knowledge, and with this the upward-looking aspect of mind and heart, which is the crowning gift of all,--if the union of these qualities can give to the man of science a claim to the nobler name of wisdom, it is not flattery, but justice, to award this distinction to Mr. Agassiz.

To him, then, we listen, when, after having sounded every note in the wide gamut of Nature, after reading the story of life as it stands written in the long series of records reaching from Cambrian fossils to ovarian germs, after tracing the divine principle of order from the starlike flower at his feet to the flower-like circle of planets which spreads its fiery corolla, in obedience to the same simple law that disposes the leaves of the growing plant,--as our eminent mathematician tells us,--he relates in simple and reverential accents the highest truths he has learned in traversing God's mighty universe. For him, and such as him,--for us, too, if we read wisely,--the toiling slaves of science, often working with little consciousness of the full proportions of the edifice they are helping to construct, have spent their busy lives. All knowledge asserts its true dignity when once brought into relation with the grand end of knowledge,--a wider and deeper view of the significance of conscious and unconscious created being, and the character of its Creator.

We shall close this article with some remarks upon the great doctrines that dominate all the manifold subordinate thoughts which fill these crowded pages. The plan of creation, Mr. Agassiz maintains, "has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws, but was the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in his thought before it was manifested in tangible, external forms." Before Mr. Agassiz, before Linnaeus, before Aristotle, before Plato, Timaeus the Locrian spake; the original, together with the version we cite, is given with the Plato of Ficinus:--"Duas esse rerum omnium causas: mentem quidem, earum quae ratione quadam nascuntur, et necessitatem, earum quae existunt vi quadam, secundum corporum potentias et faculitates. Harrum rerum, id est, Natunae bonorum, optimum esse quoddam rerum optimarum principium, et Deum vocari.... Esse praeterea in hac Naturae universitate quiddam quod maneat et intelligible sit, rerum genitarum, quae quidem in perpetuo quodam mutationum fluxu versantur, exemplar, Ideam dici et mente comprehendi.... Permanet igitur mundus constanter talis qualis est creatus a Deo ... proponente sibi non exemplaria quaedam manuum opificio edita, sed illam Ideam intelligibilemque essentiam."--So taught the half-inspired pagan philosopher whom Plato took as his guide in his contemplations of Nature.

We trace the thought again in Dante, amidst the various fragments of ancient wisdom which he has embodied in the "Divina Commedia":

Ciò che non muore e ciò che può morire
Non è se non splendor cli quella idea
Che partorisco, amando, il nosfro Sire.
----_Paradiso_, XIII. 52-54.

Two thousand years after the old Greek had written, the Christian philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne, repeats the same doctrine in a new phraseology:--"_Before Abraham was, I am_, is the saying of Christ; yet it is true in some sense, if I say it of myself; for I was not only before myself, but _Adam_, that is, in the idea of God, and the decree of that Synod held from all eternity. And in this sense, I say, the World was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive; though my grave be _England_, my dying place was Paradise; and Eve miscarried of me before she conceived of Cain."

The slender reed through which Philosophy breathed her first musical whisperings is laid by, and the sacred lyre of Theology is silent or little heeded. But the mighty organ of Modern Science with its hundred stops, each answering to some voice of Nature, takes up the pausing strain, and as we listen we recognize through all its mingling harmonies the simple, sublime, eternal melody that came from the lips of Timaeus the Locrian! The same doctrine reappears in various forms: in the popular works of Derham and Paloy and the Bridgewater Treatises; in the learned and thoughtful pages of Burdach, and in the mystical rhapsodies of Oken. But never, we believe, was it before enforced and illustrated by so imperial a survey of the whole domain of Natural Science as in the volumes before us.

We are not disposed to discuss at any length the opinion maintained by Mr. Agassiz, that life has not grown out of the necessary action of the physical laws. If we accept the customary definitions of the physical laws, we accede most cordially to his proposition. As opposed to the fancies of Epicurus and his poet, Lucretius, or to modern atheistic doctrines of similar character, we have no qualification or condition to suggest which might change its force or significance. When we remember that the genius of such a man as Laplace shared the farthest flight of star-eyed science only to "waft us back the tidings of despair," we are thankful that so profound a student of Nature as Mr. Agassiz has tracked the warm foot-prints of Divinity throughout all the vestiges of creation.

There is danger, however, that, in accepting this doctrine as a truth, we may be led into an inexact conception of the so-called physical laws, unless we closely examine the sense in which we use the expression. The forces which act according to these laws, and the various forms of the so-called _matter_, or concrete forces, are often spoken of as if they were blind agencies and existences, acting by an inherent fate-like power of their own. But if everything outside of our consciousness resolves itself, in the last analysis, into force, or something capable of producing change, and if force existing by the will of an omniscient and omnipresent Being, to whom time has no absolute significance, is simply God himself in action, then we shall find it impossible to limit the causal agency of the physical forces. All we can say is, that commonly they appear to move in certain rectilinear paths, in which they manifest a degree of uniformity and precision so amazing that we are lost in the infinite intelligence they display,--unless we become perfectly stupid to it, and think, as in the old fable, there is no music in it because we are made deaf by its continued harmony. No single leaf ever made a mistake in falling, though in so doing it solved more problems than were ever held in all the libraries that have changed or are changing into dust or ashes.

We are willing to accept the belief of Mr. Agassiz, "that matter does not exist as such, but is everywhere and always a specific thing, as are all finite beings." But we must extend the same idea to the physical forces, and believe them to be specific agencies, and their acts specific acts,--in other words, each one of them a Divine manifestation. Theology is close upon us in these speculations. "Perhaps," says Mr. Robertson, in the volume of admirable sermons just republished, "even the Eternal himself is more closely bound to his works than our philosophical systems have conceived. Perhaps matter is only a mode of thought." Looking, then, at our recognized forms of matter and physical force as expressions of a self-limiting omnipotence, we concede that the uniform lines of action in which human observation has hitherto traced them do not, and, so far as we can see, cannot, shape the curves of the simplest organism.

It is time for us to close these volumes, to which we cannot even hope to have done justice, and leave them to those graver tribunals that will in due season award their well-weighed decisions. We have taken the Master's hand, and followed Nature through all her paths of life. We have trod with him the shores of old oceans that roll no more, and traced the Providence that orders the creation of to-day engraved in every stony feature of their obsolete organisms. We have broken into that mysterious chamber, the chosen studio of the Infinite Artist, where, beneath its marble or crystalline dome, he fashions the embryo from its formless fluids. And as we turn reluctantly away, the accents we have once already heard linger with us: "In one word, all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and Natural History must, in good time, become the analysis of the thoughts of the Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal and vegetable kingdoms."

TACKING SHIP OFF SHORE

I.

The weather leech of the topsail shivers,
The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken,
The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers,
And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.

II.

Open one point on the weather bow
Is the light-house tall on Fire Island head;
There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow,
And the pilot watches the heaving lead.

III.

I stand at the wheel and with eager eye
To sea and to sky and to shore I gaze,
Till the muttered order of "FULL AND BY!"
Is suddenly changed to "FULL FOR STAYS!"

IV.

The ship bends lower before the breeze,
As her broadside fair to the blast she lays;
And she swifter springs to the rising seas,
As the pilot calls, "STAND BY FOR STAYS!"

V.

It is silence all, as each in his place,
With the gathered coils in his hardened hands,
By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace,
Waiting the watchword impatient stands.

VI.

And the light on Fire Island head draws near,
As, trumpet-winged, the pilot's shout
From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear,
With the welcome call of "READY! ABOUT!"

VII.

No time to spare! It is touch and go,
And the captain growls, "DOWN HELM! HARD DOWN!"
As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw,
While heaven grows black with the storm-cloud's frown.

VIII.

High o'er the knight-heads flies the spray,
As we meet the shock of the plunging sea;
And my shoulder stiff to the wheel I lay,
As I answer, "AYE, AYE, SIR! HA-A-R-D A-LEE!"

IX.

With the swerving leap of a startled steed
The ship flies fast in the eye of the wind,
The dangerous shoals on the lee recede,
And the headland white we have left behind.

X.

The topsails flutter, the jibs collapse
And belly and tug at the groaning cleats,
The spanker slats, and the mainsail flaps,
And thunders the order, "TACKS AND SHEETS!"

XI.

'Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew,
Hisses the rain of the rushing squall;
The sails are aback from clew to clew,
And now is the moment for "MAINSAIL, HAUL!"

XII.

And the heavy yards like a baby's toy
By fifty strong arms are swiftly swung;
She holds her way, and I look with joy
For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.

XIII.

"LET GO AND HAUL!" 'Tis the last command,
And the head-sails fill to the blast once more;
Astern and to leeward lies the land,
With its breakers white on the shingly shore.

XIV.

What matters the reef, or the rain, or the squall?
I steady the helm for the open sea;
The first mate clamors, "BELAY THERE, ALL!"
And the captain's breath once more comes free.

XV.

And so off shore let the good ship fly;
Little care I how the gusts may blow,
In my fo'castle-bunk in a jacket dry,--
Eight bells have struck, and my watch is below.

MAMOUL.

THROUGH THE COSSITOLLAH KALEIDOSCOPE.

Under my window, in the street called Cossitollah, flows all the motliness of a Calcutta thoroughfare in two counter-setting currents;-- one Chowriagee-ward, in the direction of Nabob magnificence and grace; the other toward the Cooly squalor and deformity of the Radda Bazaar;-- and as, in the glare of the early forenoon sun, the shadows of the hither or thither passing throngs fall straight across the way, from the Parsee's _godown_, over against me, to the gate of the _pucca_ house wherein my look-out is, I watch with interest the frequent eddies occasioned by the clear-steerings of caste,--Brahmin, Warrior, and Merchant keeping severely to the Parsee side, so that the foul shadow of Soodra or Pariah may not pollute their sacred persons. It is as though my window were a tower of Allahabad, and below me, in Cossitollah, were the shy meeting of the waters. Thus, looking up or down, I mark how the limpid Jumna of high caste holds its way in a common bed, but never mingling with the turbid Ganges of an unclean rabble.

Reader, should you ever "do" the City of Palaces, permit me to commend with especial emphasis to your consideration this same Cossitollah, as a representative street, wherein the European and Asiatic elements of the Calcutta panorama are mingled in the most picturesque proportions; for Cossitollah is the link that most directly joins the pitiful benightedness of the Black Town to the imposing splendors of Kumpnee Bahadoor,--the short, but stubborn chain of responsibility, as it were, whereby the ball of helpless and infatuated stock-and-stone-worship is fastened to the leg of British enlightenment and accountability.

From the Midaun, or Parade Ground, with its long-drawn arrays of Sepoy chivalry, its grand reviews before the _Burra Lard Sahib_, (as in domestic Bengalee we designate the Governor-General,) its solemn sham battles, and its welkin-rending regimental bands, by whose brass and sheepskin God saves the Queen twice a day; from Government House, with its historic pride, pomp, and circumstance, and its red tape, its aides-de-camp, and its adjutant-birds, its stirring associations, and its stupid architecture; from the pensioned aristocracy of Chowringhee the Magnificent; from the carnival concourse of the Esplanade, with its kaleidoscopic surprises; from the grim patronage of Fort William, with its in-every-department well-regulated fee-faw-fum; in fine, from Clive, and Hastings, and Wellington, and Gough, and Hardinge, and Napier, and Bentinck, and Ellenborough, and Dalhousie, and all the John Company that has come of them; from the tremendous and overwhelming SAHIB, to that most profoundly abject of human objects, the Hindoo PARIAH, (who approaches thee, O Awful Being! O Benign Protector of the Poor! O Writer in the Salt-and-Opium Office! on his hands and knees, and with a wisp of grass in his mouth, to denote that he is thy beast,)-- from all those to this, the shortest cut is through Cossitollah.

And so, in the current of its passengers, partaking the characteristics of its contrasted extremities, fantastically blending the purple and fine linen of Chowringhee with the breech-cloths of the Black Town, Cossitollah is, as I have said, preëminently the type street of Calcutta. Other localities have their peculiar throngs, and certain classes and castes are proper to certain thoroughfares;-- Sepoys and dogboys to the Midaun; _circars_ or clerks, and _ chowkeydars_ or private police, to Tank Square; a world of pampered women, fat civil servants, coachmen, _ayahs_ or nurses, _durwans_ or doorkeepers, _cha-prasseys_ or messengers, _kitmudgars_ or waiters, to Garden Reach; palanquin-bearers, the smaller fry of _banyans_ or shopkeepers, and _dandees_ or boatmen, to the Ghauts; together with no end of coolies, and _bheestees_ or water-carriers, horse-dealers, and _syces_ or grooms, to Durumtollah; sailors, British and American, Malay and Lascar, to Flag Street, the quarter of punch-houses;--but in Cossitollah all castes and vocations are met, whether their talk be of gold mohurs or cowries; here the Sahib gives the horrid leper a wide berth, and the Baboo walks carefully round the shadow of Mehtur, the sweeper. Therefore, reader, Cossitollah is by all means the street for you to draw profound conclusions from.

Come, let us sit in the window and observe; it is but forty puffs of a No. 3 cheroot, in a lazy palanquin, from one end of Cossitollah to the other; and from our window, though not exactly midway, but nearer the Bazaar, we can see from Flag Street wellnigh to the Midaun.

What is this? A close _palkee_, with a passenger; the bearers, with elbows sharply crooked, and calves all varicose, trotting to a monotonous, jerking ditty, which the _sirdar_, or leader, is impudently improvising, to the refrain of _Putterum_, ("Easy now!") at the expense of their fare's _amour-propre_.

"Out of the way there!
_Putterum_.
This is a Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Very small Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Sixpenny Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Holes in his elbows!
_Putterum_.
Capitan Slipshod!
_Putterum_.
Son of a sea-cook!
_Putterum_.
Hush! he will beat us!
_Putterum_.
Hush! he will kick us!
_Putterum_.
Kick us and curse us!
_Putterum_.
Not he, the greenhorn!
_Putterum_.
Don't understand us!
_Putterum_.
Don't know the lingo!
_Putterum_.
Let's shake the palkee!
_Putterum_.
Rattle the pig's bones!
_Putterum_.
Set down the palkee!
_Putterum_.
Call him a great lord!
_Putterum_.
Ask him for buksheesh!
_Putterum_."

And the four consummate knaves do set down the palkee, and shift the pads on their shoulders; while the sirdar slips round to the sliding-door, and timidly intruding his sweaty phiz, at an opening sufficiently narrow to guard his nose against assault from within, but wide enough to give us a glimpse, through an out-bursting cloud of cheroot-smoke, of a pair of stout legs encased in white duck, with the neatest of light pumps at the end of them, says:--

"_Buksheesh do, Sahib! buksheesh do_! O favorite slave of the Lord! O tender shepherd of the poor! O sublime and beautiful Being, upon whose turban Prosperity dances and Peace makes her bed! Whose mother is twin-sister to the Sacred Cow, and whose grandmother is the Lotos of Seven Virtues! _O Khodabund! buksheesh do_! Bestow upon thy abject and self-despising slave wherewithal to commemorate the golden hour when, by a blessed dispensation, he was permitted to lay his trembling forehead against thy victorious feet!"

"_Jou-jehennum, toom sooa_!--Go to Gehenna, you pig! What are you bothering about, with your 'boxes,' 'boxes,' nothing but 'boxes'? Insatiable brutes! _Jou_! I tell you,--_jeldie jou_! or by Doorga, the goddess of awful rows, I'll smash the palkee and outrage all your religious prejudices! _Jou_!"

Evidently our varicose friends imagine they have caught a Tartar, and that the white ducks are not so recent an importation as they at first supposed; for now they catch up the pole of the palkee nimbly, and _jou jeldie_ (that is, trot up smartly) to quite another song.

"_Jeldie jou, jeldie_!"
_Putterum_.
Carry him softly!
_Putterum_.
Swiftly and smoothly!
_Putterum_.
He is a Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Rich little Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Fierce little Rajah!
_Putterum_.
See how his eyes flash!
_Putterum_.
Hear how his voice roars!
_Putterum_.
He is a Tippoo!
_Putterum_.
Capitan Tippoo!
_Putterum_.
Tremble before him!
_Putterum_.
Serve him and please him!
_Putterum_.
Please him and serve him!
_Putterum_.
He will reward us!
_Putterum_.
He will protect us!
_Putterum_.
He will enrich us!
_Putterum_.
Charity Lord Sa'b!
_Putterum._
Out of the way there!
_Putterum_.
Way for the great ...
_Putterum_.
Rajah of ten crores!
_Putter_....
.... Ten crores!..
_Putter_....
Rajah.... ....
_Put...._
.... Lard.... ..
_Putter...._
.... ... Sa'b!
_.... rum_.

And so they have turned down Flag Street.

But what now? Here is something more imposing,--a chariot-and-four,-- four spanking Arabs in gold-mounted trappings,--a fat and elaborate coachman, very solemn,--two tall _hurkarus_, or avant-couriers, supporting the box, one on either side, with studied symmetry, like Siva and Vishnu upholding the throne of Brahma,--four _syces_ running at the horses' heads, each with his _chowree_, or fly-flapper, made from the tail of the Thibet cow,--a fifth before, to clear the way,-- a basket of _Simpkin_, which is as though one should say Champagne, behind, and our own _banyan_, our man of contracts and ready lakhs, that shrewd broker and substantial banker, the Baboo Kalidas Ramaya Mullick, on the back seat.

"_Hi! Cliattak-wallah! Bheestee!--Hi! hi_!--You chap with the umbrella, you fellow with the water, clear the way! This Baboo comes, this Baboo rides,--he stops not, he stays not,--he is rich, he is honored. Shall a pig impede him? Shall a pig delay him? Jump, _sooa_. Jump!"

And thus, amid much vociferation, and unceremonious dispersing of the common herd, who dodge with practised agility right and left, the fat and elaborate coachman pulls up the spanking Arabs at our _godown_ gate, and the Baboo alights with the air of a gentleman of thirty lachs, to the manner born; to him all this outcry is but _Mamoul_,--usage, custom,--and _Mamoul_ is to him as air.

As the Baboo steps through the wide swinging gate and enters the place that owns him master, let us mark his reception. The _durwan_ first,--our grenadier doorkeeper, the man of proud port and commanding presence, to whom that portal is a post of honor,--our Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, in one, of courage, strength, and address enlisted with fidelity. The loyalty of Ramee Durwan is threefold, in this order: first, to his caste, next, to his beard, and then to his post; only for the two first would he abandon the last; his life he holds of less account than either.

As the Baboo passes, Ramee Durwan, you think, will be ready with profound and obsequious salaam. Not so; he draws himself up to the very last of his extraordinary inches, and touches his forehead lightly with the fingers of his right hand, only slightly inclining his head,--a not more than affable salute,--almost with a quality of concession,--gracious as well as graceful; he would do as much for any puppy of a cadet who might drop in on the Sahib. On the other hand, lowly louteth the Baboo, with eyes downcast and palm applied reverentially to his sleek forehead.

How now? This Baboo is a banyan of solid substance, and the Mullicks all are citizens of credit and renown; while Ramee Durwan gets five rupees a month, and makes his bed at the gate. Last year, they say, when little Dwarkanath Mullick, the Baboo's adopted son, nine years old, was married to the tender child Vinda, old Lulla Seal's darling, on her fifth birthday, the Baboo Kalidas Raniaya Mullick made the occasion famous by liberating fifty prisoners-for-debt, of the Soodra sort, with as many flourishes of his illustrious signature. Ramee Durwan has not a change of turbans.

And now the Baboo passes into the godown, and receives from a score of servile _cicars_, glibbest of clerks, their several reports of the day's business. Presently, from his low desk, in the lowliest corner, uprises, and comes forward quietly, Mutty Loll Roy, the head circar, venerable, placid, pensive, every way interesting; but he is only the Baboo's head circar, an humble accountant, on fifteen rupees a month. Do you perceive that fact in the style of his salutation? Hardly; for the Baboo piously raises his joined hands high above his head, and, louting lower than before, murmurs the Orthodox salutation, _Namaskarum_! Yet the Baboo contributed two thousand rupees in fireworks to the last Doorga Fooja, and sent a hundred goats to the altar; while only with many and trying shifts of saving could Mutty Loll afford gold leaf for one image, besides two tomtoms and a horn to march before it in procession. But behold the lordly beneficence in Mutty Loll's attitude and gesture, as with outstretched hands, palms upward, he greets the Baboo condescendingly with a gift of goodwill!

"_Idhur ano, Sirdar, idhur ano_!--Come hither, Karlee, my gentle bearer, thou of the good heart and gray moustache! Come hither, and enlighten this Sahib's ignorance; tell him why the Durwan is disdainful, as toward the Baboo, and the Circar solemn."

"_Man, Sahib_! That Durwan _Ksutriye_, Soldier caste, Rider caste,-- feest-i-rat-i-man (first-rate man); that Durwan have got Rajpoot blood, ver-iproud, all same Sahib. Baboo, Merchant caste,-- ver-i-good caste, plenty rich, but not so proud Durwan caste; Baboo not have Rajpoot blood, not have i-sharp i-sword, not have musiket. Durwan arm all same tiger; Durwan beard all same lion; Durwan plenty i-strong, plenty proud.

"That Circar,--ah! that Mutty Loll, too, high caste; that Circar Brahmin,--Kooleen Brahmin,--all same _Swamy_ (god); that Circar foot all same Baboo head; that Circar shoe all same Baboo turban. 'Spose Baboo not make that Circar _bhote-btote salaam_, that Circar say curse, that Circar ispeak _jou-jehannam_ (go to hell). Master und-istand i-me? I ispeak Master so Master know?"

"Very clear, Karlee,--and wholesome expounding. But here comes the Baboo to speak for himself.--Good-day, Baboo! Whither so fast with the spanking Arabs and the Simpkin?--to the garden-house?"

"To the garden-house, Sahib; and the Simpkin is for two young English friends of mine, who will do the garden-house the honor to make it their own for a day or two."

"Take care, Baboo! take care! I have my doubts as to the Simpkin. They do say the orthodoxy of 'Young Bengal' men is none the better for beefsteaks and Heidseck; such diet does not become the son of a strict and straightgoing heathen. Well may the Brahmins groan for the glaring scandals of the new lights; you'll be marrying widows next, and dining at clubs with fast ensigns."

"Sahib, Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The church of the Churruck post and the orgies of Hooly are in no danger from beef or Simpkin so long as steak or bottle costs a man his inheritance; and we of Young Bengal know too well how hard are the ways of the Pariah to try them for fun. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The 'glad tidings of great joy' your missionaries bring fall upon ears stopped with family pride and the family jewels: you know that appropriate old saw in our proverbial philosophy, 'What is the news of the day to a frog in a well?'--_Salaam, Sahib_! I have but a few minutes to spare, and the supercargo is waiting with the indigo samples."