Natural Families predominant in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Harvest Bug.

"I very much wish," said my friend T. to me one day, "to buy a small estate in the vicinity of —— Forest. If there should be one to sell, pray let me know of it."

It was not long before an opportunity arose for my friend to satisfy his desire. But after I had made him acquainted with it, he declared himself no longer willing to purchase a property in a district where, as he had learned, one was devoured by red beasts all through the finest months of the year. What a frightful neighbourhood to live in, where you were forbidden to walk in your garden under pain of catching an itch in your legs!

Unquestionably, it is only too true that the cultivated ground, whether on the northern or the southern slope of the forest, is infested, from the beginning of summer to the beginning of winter, by Lilliputian horrors, like so many tiny red points, which cling obstinately to the skin, and there deposit, under the epidermis, their microscopic brood. Once planted there, the rougets, as the French call them, or harvest bugs, as we English call them, effect considerable mischief; and if, to relieve one's self, one indulges in "a scratch," the cutaneous surface is quickly covered by small blisters, which on a cursory examination might be taken for a skin affection not generally named in polite hearing.

But one does not perceive the galleries excavated by these annoying insects, positive tunnels or covered ways, through which they proceed to pour forth elsewhere the superfluity of their numerous progeny. Less prolific than the Acari, which create upon the skin immense patches of irritation, the harvest bugs confine themselves to a few circumscribed localities: their favourite choice being the legs, the arms, and the corners of the eyes, especially among young children. They are not above domestic animals; cats and dogs frequently suffer from them,—not, indeed, over the whole surface of the body, for they are not so wandering as the Acari,—but particularly inside the shell of the ear.

At the first glance you would scarcely believe that those red points, apparently immovable, could be living beings,—could be animals belonging to an order of some importance.

Let us attempt to isolate one of the animalcules with the point of a pin: it is not an easy thing to do, because they usually adhere to the epidermis in clusters of three or four individuals. There, now we have succeeded, and here is one before us: it is only the fifth of a millimètre in diameter, which is, for most people, the very last limit of the visual function (see the small white line in Fig. 76, a). And, in truth, it would be imperceptible to the eye but for its bright red colour. To study it carefully, of course, you must make use of a very strong lens, or, rather, of a microscope. (See Fig. 76, b.)

Fig. 76.—a Leptus Autumnalis (nat. size). b Ditto (mag.).

To this tiny animal has been given the name of Leptus autumnalis; the first, on account of its extreme delicacy; the second, because it is visible up to the end of autumn.

When examined through a microscope, it produces on the spectator the impression of a spider; but, like all other insects, it has only six legs.

Our naturalists, however, have found some difficulty in classifying it; and by way of cutting the Gordian knot of their embarrassments, some have placed it in a separate family of Microphthiræ (literally "little lice"), which is made to include all Arachnidæ with six legs. Others, who regard the wheat worm as an insect, rank it among the parasitical Apteræ.

In effect, it has all the characters of the parasitical insect—its protracted head, distinct from the rest of its body, is sometimes thrust forward in quest of its food, sometimes drawn back or concealed, to protect it from danger. Intended to suck rather than to knead or bruise, it has a sucker, but no mandibles. The head is without antennæ, and its palpi are very short, barely visible, and of a conical form. The body is ovular and very soft (whence the Grecian name leptus, λεπτός, signifying "soft"). The anterior part, corresponding to the thorax, is broader than it is long, and is marked underneath, on each side of the central line, by a black point: these two points, symmetrically placed, appear to represent the eyes.

The posterior portion, corresponding to the abdomen, is longer than it is broad, and covered with hairs. Each leg consists of six joints, easily distinguished by the hairs inserted at each articulation; and each terminates in a couple of strong crooked claws, which enable the animal to obtain a firm hold on the skin.

Thus, then, to judge from the aggregate of its characters, the harvest bug, Leptus autumnalis, belongs to the class Arachnidæ, while the number of its feet places it in the class Insects. But this is a detail which causes little annoyance to a person being devoured by the "red beasts," and only anxious to rid himself of them.

But if such be his desire, let me tell him that the best remedies are bathing the afflicted part with lotions of vinegar, or rubbing it with sulphur ointment.

I have been asked whether certain tiny parasites, such as the Ocypete rubra,—which is also red, and has six feet like the Leptus autumnalis, but which, instead of attacking man and his domestic companions, attaches itself to flies,—I have been asked whether these insectiform Arachnidæ may not be species of larva not yet arrived at their matured condition.

For my part, I must acknowledge that, whether the Ocypete rubra is or is not the transitory state of a more perfect animal, I do not know. But I am sure that the Leptus autumnalis lives and dies on the skin where it has selected its dwelling-place,—a living dwelling-place.

It is impossible to be too circumspect in the determination of certain genera and species, whose different phases of existence are little known, and which seem, so far as their characteristics are concerned, to participate of several orders or classes of articulated animals. The errors which have been committed in this respect ought at least to teach us caution.

Thus, the red, oval, six-legged animalcules, whose mobile heads are furnished with a proboscis shaped like an angular beak, and whose two palpi are large and semi-transparent,—the singular animalcules which, in June or July, are hatched in the spongy stems of certain aquatic vegetables,—notably the Potamogeton natans,—have been described[83] as forming a peculiar genus of Arachnidæ, the genus Achlysia; and this genus, created by Audouin, was ranked along with the Leptus and Ocypete in the family of Microphthiræ. Yet nothing is less exact. These Achlysia are simply the larvæ of a kind of Hydrachna or water-acarus. To be convinced of this, you have but to watch their development. At first very small and pear-shaped, these larvæ, deprived, like all larvæ, of the reproductive organs, rapidly increase in size. At the end of a few weeks you will see them adhering to a leaf of potamogeton; they thrust their proboscis into the stem, and cling to it with their palpi. Little by little, the legs, the proboscis, and the palpi, are drawn back towards the body, abandoning the skin which has hitherto formed for each of these organs a kind of horny sheath. From the larva state, the animal passes into that of the nymph. But this nymph continues to feed and enlarge; proboscis, legs, and palpi grow thinner and harder; claws, ciliæ, and hairs are developed; and, finally, through a fissure in the skin emerges the perfect animal, red as wine, with eight feet, and about two millimetres in length. This animal, placed in the family of the Hydrachnellæ, has been described by De Geer under the name of Acarus aquaticus globosus, and by Dugès under that of Hydrachna globosa, on account of its globular form.

The Cheese Mite.

From the crust of a dry old cheese,—such a kind of cheese as a bon-vivant likes with a glass of "good old ale,"—a very fine powder often crumbles off, like the dust made by wood-eating worms.

Examine this powder with your lens, or if you have good eyes, you may make use of them. You will quickly detect something moving in it, and by degrees you will see that this movement pervades the whole mass; that there is a general stir and commotion in all directions.

But you find it impossible to distinguish clearly the form of the animals which are thus agitated. You are certain, however, that they are not maggots, for they affect moist cheeses; besides, they are visible enough to everybody, and at need can make themselves felt upon your hands, and even upon your face, for they have a faculty of launching themselves to a distance by a little manœuvre familiar enough to serpents: bringing the head round towards the tail, they curve themselves like the spring of a watch, then abruptly uncoiling themselves with the help of some solid appui, they fling forth into the air, and are thus launched to very considerable distances. It is a curious species of locomotion, not unworthy the attention of the mechanician.

To clear up the mystery of a movement whose cause is not apparent at the first glance, let us sprinkle with this impalpable débris,—with this kind of sawdust, or cheese-dust,—a little strip of glass, and place it beneath the focus of a microscope.

Fig. 77.—The Acarus domesticus.

Ah! you exclaim, what a frightful creature! These long sharp ciliæ seem to be so many lancets covering the whole body, and especially the legs; its head, like that of the harvest-bug, protrudes and recedes under a transparent carapace; thus communicating to the animal something of the aspect of a turtle. In all other respects its form exactly resembles the harvest-bug; only its body is more elongated towards the anterior extremity than that of the latter. While the harvest-bug makes us think of a spider, the body of the Acarus has a greater likeness to an insect's. (Fig. 77.) Yet the Acarus has eight legs, like a spider, and the harvest-bug six, like an insect. Attempt, then, to establish your absolute rules!

Let us continue our observation of this cheese-worm. The well-defined thorax forms nearly one-third of the fore-part of the body, which is of a shining whitish-red or reddish-white. The proboscis, shaped like a conical tube, is armed with two projecting mandibles, which, like true pincers, can be brought close together, or moved wide apart, thrust forward singly or simultaneously. Our animal, which a small lens makes very distinct, has been more than once confounded with the Sarcoptes scabiei.

Let us resume. Our cheese-dust, which to all appearance walks alone, encloses legions of mites; the old you may detect by their eight feet, the young by having six. The germs, or eggs, whence they spring, are found mixed among the excrements of the living, and the débris of the dead.

It is in this way that a crust of cheese offers us a true, a vivid image of the terrestrial crust. So may we learn to compare small things with great.

How many Animal Species are there Distributed over the Surface of the Globe?

In the present condition of scientific knowledge, no satisfactory answer can be given to this important and most interesting question.

The truth is, that what we may call Geographical Zoology is as yet in its very infancy. The few works which have been published on the subject have been published within the last eighty or ninety years; and they embrace only the vertebrate animals, notably the mammals, birds, and reptiles, or amphibia. We shall attempt to place before the reader an outline of the results that have so far been obtained.

Of all the Vertebrata, we are best acquainted with the mammals. And yet our zoologists differ very widely in respect to the number of their species, though the calculations have been made at very short intervals. For instance, in 1829, Minding computed that the globe contained 1230 species of mammals. In 1832, Charles Bonaparte reduced the total to 1149. Oken estimates it at 1500; and this last figure would seem to be the most probable.

Nothing is more curious than the distribution of these 1500 species of mammals, according to the different regions and climates of the globe.

Man, according to the best-considered data of science, forms a single family, a single genus, a single species. He alone possesses the power of adapting himself to every climate, and of taking possession of countries the most widely opposite in character. We find him among the snows of the North Pole; we find him under the blazing sun of the Tropics. We find him in the palm-fringed islands of Southern Seas, and in the barren burning waste of the inhospitable Sahara. Considered as an animal who feeds and reproduces himself, he forms alone the order of Bimana; so named in opposition to the Quadrumana, or apes, who make use of their fore-feet as we do of our two hands. Deprive man of his progressive and transmissible intellect—of those mysterious powers which we call the mind and the soul—and he would become at once the most useless and the most wretched member of the animal world.

The warm regions of the old and new continents are the true home and haunt of the apes. They are not sufficiently developed to be able to frequent the temperate or frigid zone. In our European menageries the specimens nearly all die of consumption. The Quadrumana form about one-fourteenth of the whole number of species of Mammalia.

The Carnivora, characterised by the development of their canine teeth, are spread over the whole globe. They are found in greater numbers in the torrid, however, than in the frigid zone. Their species compose at least one-third of the Mammalia.

The Rodentia, characterised by the development of the incisors, are wanting in Polynesia, and are rare in Australia. They are found in their maximum number in the torrid zone. Like the Carnivora, they form about one-third of the Mammalia.

The Ruminantia, remarkable for the development of their digestive apparatus, are distributed into 165 species, representing something less than one-ninth of the Mammalia. Africa, of all the continents, is richest in the Ruminants.

The Marsupialia, so strangely distinguished by the membranous pouch in which they enclose their young, belong to America, and especially Australia. At present about 123 species are known, or a little more than one-thirteenth of the Mammalia.

The Edentata, so named on account of their incomplete dentition, inhabit the tropical regions of the Old and New

World. They are distributed into 32 species, 19 of which belong to America. The Edentata, therefore, do not form more than one-fiftieth of the Mammalia.

The Pachydermata, which owe their name to the thickness of their skin or hide, almost exclusively belong to the Old World. None are found in Australia. The number of their species is 38, of which 5 only belong to Southern and Central America. The Pachyderms form, therefore, nearly one-thirty-seventh of the Mammalia.

The Cetaceæ,—which the naturalists of antiquity ranked among the fishes, though the females bear their young alive, and are furnished with a mammary apparatus,—chiefly frequent the Northern waters, but some of their species are found in the South Pacific. They represent, it may be assumed, about a one-hundredth part of the Mammalia.

The Birds, by their feather-clad bodies, and by the transformation of their two fore-limbs into wings, form the best-characterised class in the whole animal kingdom. But naturalists can no more agree as to the number of their species than as to the number of species composing the Mammalia. Some, taking as a foundation the rich ornithological collection in the Berlin Museum, allow for 6000 species being distributed over the surface of the globe; others, like Lessen, increase the total to 6266; while Dr Gray, no mean authority, raises it to at least 8000.

The majority of the Raptores, or birds of prey (vulture, falcon, eagle), as well as nearly all the Waders (stork, crane, heron), and Palmipedes (duck, goose, water-hen), are cosmopolitan birds. The other orders, such as the Scansores (parrot, parroquet, magpie), the Passeres (comprising nearly all the singing birds), and the Gallinaceæ (pheasant, pintado), prefer, as a general rule, the warm temperate regions. They are not found in the extreme north, nor in the equatorial climes, except in limited numbers.

Summary of the Mammalia.

Assumed total, 1600 species.

Bimanaform 1species.
Quadrumana"105 (?)"
Carnivora"510 (?)"
Rodentia"508 (?)"
Ruminantia"165"
Marsupialia"123"
Edentata"152"
Pachydermata"38"
Cetaceæ"18 (?)"
——
1600

[Of course, the foregoing is but an approximative estimate, but it will provide the reader with a tolerably accurate notion of the proportion borne by the different classes of Mammalia.]

About 5000 species of birds have been classified. By Cuvier's system they are divided into six orders:—

1. Raptores, or birds of prey.

2. Passerine birds, now generally called Insessores, or Perching-birds.

3. Scansores, or Climbing, frequently called Zygodactyli or Zygodactylous birds.

4. Gallinaceæ, now more frequently known as Rasores.

5. Grallatores, Waders, or Stilt birds.

6. Palmipedes, or Web-footed birds, now more generally recognised as Natatores, or Swimmers.

It has been proposed to separate the Brevipennes, or short-winged birds, from the Grallatores, and erect them into a separate order.

The Reptiles, of which the majority possess the faculty of living upon land and in water,—whence their name of Amphibia,—never pass beyond the limits of warm and temperate climates: their blood, which has the same temperature as the medium wherein they live—whence their name of "cold-blooded animals"—does not circulate where the mean annual temperature descends below freezing-point. Yet frogs and salamanders have been met with in Greenland, and on the banks of the Mackenzie River, in North America, under 67° latitude.

Linnæus was not acquainted with more than 215 species of Amphibia, divided into four orders:—the Chelonians, or tortoises; the Saurians (as the lizard and crocodile); the Ophidians (serpents); and the Batrachians (frogs). In 1789, Lacépède raised the total to 303; in 1820, Merrem estimated it at 677. At present, the number of species of Reptilia classified and described amounts to 2000, and the four orders into which they are distributed are—

1. Ophidia, or Serpents.

2. Sauria, or Lizards.

3. Loricata, or Crocodiles.

4. Chelonia, or Tortoises.

According to Sching, there are 7 tortoises, 33 serpents, and 35 lizards.

Fishes are the least known of those superior animals whose skeleton and vertebral column are situated in the interior of the body, and which are thence named Vertebrata. The richest collections, such as those of the British Museum, and those of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, which contain about 3000 species, do not represent probably more than a fourth of the existing total, including fresh-water and salt-water fish. How many rivers and streams in both hemispheres still remain to be explored! How far we are from a knowledge of the fishes which people the different strata of the great ocean.

Agassiz divides this great class of vertebrated animals into the four orders of Cycloid, Ctenoid, Placoid, and Ganoid, according to the character of their scales. Cuvier, into Osseous fishes (with true bones), and Cartilaginous; subdividing the former into Acanthopterygii and Malacopterygii.

The difficulty of the problem we are here considering increases when we come to the inferior animals. Who would pretend to determine the number of species of Mollusca which inhabit the earth, the fresh waters and the salt? This much is certain, that it cannot be less than that of the Vertebrates.

In the vast aggregate of the Articulata, the inquirer finds himself utterly astray and bewildered. This great division is not divided into those which have, and those which have not, articulated members.

The first subdivision includes Insects, Arachnida, Crustacea, and Myriapoda; the second, Annelida and Entozoa.

Some naturalists, be it said, rank the Cirrhopoda as intermediate between the two; others place them among the Mollusca. Others, again, include the Rotifera in the second subdivision.

We shall in this place confine our remarks to the Insects. According to the most distinguished entomologists, the average number of species at present, described or not described, and preserved in entomological collections, is between 150,000 and 170,000.

This estimate is obviously below the truth. Take only the Coleoptera, which forms but one, though, it is true, the most numerous order of insects. Thirty years ago the most complete collections contained about 7000 species. In 1850, the museum at Berlin, according to Alexander von Humboldt, contained nearly 32,000. We would here call the reader's attention to the just remarks of the author of the "Natural History of the Coleoptera," an entomologist of great authority, whom a long residence in America had peculiarly qualified to pronounce an opinion on the subject before us:—

"If we remember," says the Count de Castelnau, "that there are immense regions in Asia and the two Americas of which we do not possess a single coleoptera; if we reflect that the interior of the vast continent of New Holland is, from this standpoint, entirely unknown, and that most of the archipelagoes of the great ocean have never been entomologically explored, we may conclude, without any fear of mistake, that the number of existing coleopteras exceeds one hundred thousand. However frightful this number may appear, it will seem less so if we examine only the species discovered in the neighbourhood of Paris, within a radius of twelve to fifteen leagues; and we do not hesitate to say, that in a few years the Parisian fauna alone will present material for a considerable work, which shall not treat of less than 3000 to 4000 species of Coleoptera."[84]

If we admit that the other orders of insects, the Lepidoptera, the Hemiptera, the Hymenoptera, the Neuroptera, the Orthoptera, the Diptera, the Strepsiptera, comprise, taken altogether, at least the same number of species as the Coleoptera alone, we shall gain, for the class of insects, a total of 200,000. And we shall certainly keep within the truth if we assign the same number of species to the Annelida, the Crustacea, the Arachnida, the Myriapoda, and the Monomorpha, to which, with some modification, we may apply the remarks already called forth by the Coleoptera.

Let us recapitulate. The four classes of Vertebrate Animals include approximatively:—

1,600species Mammals.
5,000 " Birds.
2,000 " Reptiles.
12,000 " Fishes.
———
20,600

If we add to these 20,600 species of Vertebrate Animals, 200,000 species of Articulata, and 22,000 Mollusca (a minimum), we shall have a total of 242,600.

But to complete the grand whole of beings "who grow, and live, and feel" (the definition of animals laid down by Linnæus), we must add the Intestinal Worms, the Echinodermata, the Acalephæ (or Sea-nettles), and the Polypes. The history of these singular creatures, which apparently form the transition between the animal and vegetable kingdom, and have thence been designated Zoophytes, leaves much, very much, to be desired before it will be possible to indicate, even approximatively, the number of their species.

And, finally, what shall we say of the Infusoria? These microscopic forms of life seem, by their extreme multiplicity, to animate all nature. It is in studying these that the inquirer needs to be constantly on his guard, that he may not mistake transitory conditions—or larvæ—for actual species, and it behoves him to understand thoroughly the difficult delimitation of specific characters. It would be far easier to ascertain the exact number of human beings who at present people the terrestrial surface, than to fix the total of the species of Infusoria now in existence; assuredly it exceeds 250,000. What an infinite variety of design is here! What a picture it presents of the inexhaustibility of the Creative Mind!

Add, then,—let us say, in conclusion,—to this last great total the aggregate of the Vertebrates, the Articulates, and the Molluscs, and for our grand whole we have a minimum of half a million of animal species! This is the very figure, observe, at which we arrived as representing the lowest limit of the totality of vegetable species, living and moving, flourishing, and dying, and reproducing, on the surface of the globe.

We leave the reader to meditate—as meditate he surely must—on the sublime thoughts, the overpowering ideas of Power and Wisdom which these considerations suggest.

What is Chlorophyll?

We are drawing towards the close of autumn; we shall soon be in sight of the "melancholy days of the year;" when, for a while, the "voice of the turtle" will cease in the leafless groves, and the banks and braes will be sadly bare of their floral garniture. As yet, however, the trees retain their glorious vesture, though streaked and varied with the gorgeous colours of decay; and in the sheltered corners of the woods, on the sunny southern slope of the grassy hill, and beneath the covert of the still fragrant hedgerow, many a blossom appeals to our souls with its promptings of sweet images and tender fancies. The arum still raises its clusters of deep-scarlet berries, and spreads its spotted leaf—

"Armed with keen tortures for the unwary tongue;"

the blue-bells hang their delicate cups among the thick herbage; and the wild marigold contrasts its yellow splendour with all this crimson and azure magnificence. The daisy, too, has not forsaken us—sweet shield of silver, embossed with gold!—but brightens still the pleasant meadow and the sloping bank.

Fig. 78.—"As yet, the trees retain their glorious vesture."

"The rose has but a summer reign,

The daisy never dies;"

and though it first makes its appearance in the merry spring-time, and is truly a child of the early year, it lingers on to become a precious ornament of our scanty autumn wreaths. Sweet flower of song!—dearer to the poet than even lily or violet!—who does not remember, and remembering feel, all the pathos of the dying exclamation of poor Keats,—"I feel the daisies already growing over me!" They heighten the commonest and cheer the saddest corners of the earth, and are ever ready, in their simple loveliness, to awaken thoughts of grateful tenderness and love—

"So glad am I when in the daisy's presence,

That I am fain to do it reverence."

To what do the leaves, now changing their hues so rapidly, and varying through all the tints of purple, brown, and yellow,—to what do they owe their normal colour, the fresh, vivid, beautiful green?

To a substance called chlorophyll—(χλωρὸς, green, and φυλλον, a leaf).

Well, what is chlorophyll?

The colouring matter of plants, which, accompanied by grains of starch, floats like very minute seeds in the fluid of their cells. In some respects it is analogous to wax; it will not dissolve in water, but is easily affected by ether or alcohol.

Chlorophyll is dependent upon the action of light, if not for its formation, at all events for its development. Keep a plant in a dark room or cellar, and it will become blanched and sickly; the colouring matter dries up, and the white, wan tissue of the leaf is all that survives. The more a plant is exposed to the light, the deeper will be its green. In a shrubbery you may notice that the brown leaves of any particular ever-green or bush, if so situated as to lose the direct action of the sun's rays, will soon change colour. Instead of their natural brightness of tint, they assume a sickly greenish-yellow hue, and are said to be suffering from chlorosis. The formation of the chlorophyll is obstructed, or takes place too slowly. Of course, this peculiar condition will frequently arise from bad soil, or a long continuance of damp weather; but it is also the result of a want of light.

It should be observed that young leaves are always of a lighter green than old; simply because the latter have been exposed for a longer time to the light. And so the leaf goes on deepening and deepening in colour, until the sad days of autumn come, and the green gives way to yellow and brown and red, owing to the influence of the changing season on the chlorophyll of the plant.

In reference to this interesting subject,—which deserves to be more closely investigated,—we may place before the reader the results of certain recent experiments.[85]

MM. Prillieux, Brongniart, and Roze (Comptes Rendus, Jan. 3 and 17) have made some important observations on the apparently spontaneous movements of the grains of chlorophyll within the leaves of plants. These had been observed by Böhm to congregate under the direct action of the sun; Famitzin, confirmed by Borodine, had also recorded very marked movements in the leaves of a moss under the influence of light. This class of plants offer great facilities for these observations, inasmuch as the movements can be observed in them under the microscope without dissection. M. Prillieux kept a moss in the dark for several days, when the cells presented the appearance of a green network, between the meshes of which was a clear transparent ground. All the grains of chlorophyll were applied to the walls which separate the cells from one another; there were none on the upper or under walls which form the surfaces of the leaf. Under the influence of light the grains change their position from the lateral to the superficial walls; under favourable circumstances this change takes place in about a quarter of an hour. On attaining their new position, the grains do not remain absolutely immovable, but continually approach and separate from one another. If again darkened, they leave their new position and return to the lateral walls. Artificial light produces the same effect as daylight. M. Brongniart further observed that this movement of the chlorophyll, under the influence of light, does not consist in the change of position of isolated grains, but of masses of network, each containing a certain number of grains. In addition, M. E. Roze states that, besides the grains of chlorophyll which coat the walls of the cell, each cell is lined with a transparent mucous plasma formed of very fine threads, the extremities of which unite together the grains of chlorophyll. This protoplasm exhibits, under a high magnifying power, a very slow motion, and carries the grains of chlorophyll along with it. M. Roze believes, therefore, that the motion is a plasmic one, the protoplasm being the vital and animating part of the cell.

Carnations and Pinks.

Among the latest flowers of the autumnal garden are those old favourites, the "July-flowers," or Carnations, which, because they were "fair and sweet and medicinal," Jeremy Taylor preferred to "the prettiest tulips, that are good for nothing." I remember a time when they were among the best-prized ornaments of our parterres, and very delicious it was to inhale the balmy breath that rose into the warm air of an autumn evening from rich masses of carnations and pinks. The carnations were also called—sub consule Planco—in the merry days when I haunted the green lanes of a pretty Devonshire village, carnations, and clove July-flowers or gilliflowers; and an ancient name for the pink was that of sops-in-wine, because they were infused in the wine-cups of our much-drinking ancestors. So Drayton says:—

"Bring hither the pink and purple columbine,

With gilliflowers;

Bring coronations, and sops-in-wine,

Worn of paramours."

The same poet alludes to them under their more modern appellations:—

"The brave carnation, then, of sweet and sovereign power

(So of his colour called, although a July flower),

With the other of his kind, the speckled and the pale;—

Then the odoriferous pink, that sends forth such a gale

Of sweetness, yet in scents as various as in sorts."

The scientific name of this beautiful family of plants, whose rich dyes are not less conspicuous than their Sabæan odours, is Dianthus, or "Flower of God." They form a genus of the natural order Carophyllaceæ; the calyx is tubular, and five-toothed; there are five petals, which at the throat of the corolla are lightened (as it were) into a linear "claw." The stamens are double the number of the petals; the capsule is of a cylindrical outline, and one-celled.

Fig. 79.—"When I haunted the green lanes of a Devonshire village."

I am quite prepared to agree with a sympathetic writer on flowers that, during summer, and far into the autumn months, the greatest beauty of our gardens is the varied tribe of Carnations, while their exquisite, subtle, yet potent aroma is not to be excelled, I think, or, at all events, is not far surpassed, in strength and sweetness, by the much-lauded rose. A carnation seems, to my humble taste, the very embodiment, as it were, of the favourite qualities so insisted upon by Mr Matthew Arnold, "sweetness and light." And even in winter, when its radiant petals have disappeared, there is something graceful to the eye in the long slender leaves of the pink, covered with their sea-green powdery bloom.

The two species commonly grown in gardens are, the garden pink (Dianthus hortensis) and the carnation proper (Dianthus caryophyllus); both of which are generally referred to one original, the castle-pink, July-flower, or clove-gilliflower. The carnation, as a garden flower, was originally brought into England from Germany, where it has always been a favourite object of cultivation.

There are several hundred varieties of it, which are arranged into three principal divisions: flakes, which are diversified by broad stripes of two colours only; bizarres, which are of several colours, and very irregularly streaked; and picotees (from piquetté, spotted), whose flowers are besprinkled with different colours, and their petals fringed or serrated.

In England, the native species of pink are five in number, but they are mostly rare, or, when abundant, are found in very limited habitats.

The commonest kind is the little Deptford Pink (Dianthus Armeria), which sometimes grows in thick clusters among the meadow grass. In shape, its blossom resembles that of the garden pink; in size, it is about equal to that of the sweet william; and its flowers grow in a very similar manner. It is a scentless pink, however, with serrated or notched petals, and its rose-coloured petals curiously besprinkled with tiny spots of white.

A very pretty species is the Maiden Pink (Dianthus deltoides), which some botanists think to have been the original of our garden favourite; and a kind deserving notice for its large and fragrant flowers is the Dianthus superbus.

The maiden pink, I should add, has delicate rose-coloured blossoms, daintily touched with silver, and a white eye encircled by a deep purple ring. It is not unworthy of its fanciful and highly suggestive name.

A rare British variety is the Clustered Pink, or Childing Pink (Dianthus prolifer), which produces its flowers in plentiful clusters, but is only allowed a season's sunshine.

The India or China Pink (Dianthus chinensis) is a native of Eastern Asia, but has now become a frequent denizen in our English gardens.

One wild species, the Mountain Pink (Dianthus cœsius), it has never been my fortune to gather in its native home. It is described as a large handsome flower, and it loves to breathe the "difficult air" of the lofty mountain-top. "Never," we are told, "is it found in plain or valley; but it is one of those blossoms whose beauty gladdens the mountaineer, or bids the traveller wonder that so lovely a flower should be blushing on the lone summit, scarcely accessible to his footstep; or cheering a rock, where only the yellow lichen, or the verdant or gray moss, reminds him of vegetation. Such a sight might bid one think of the old motto, which accompanied a wild flower, 'I trust only in Heaven.' How beautiful is it in its loneliness! Scarce an eye meets it but that of the towering bird, as he dashes through the air above it, yet is it as full of lustre as the flowers we daily see and admire. Surely it should arrest the eye and the thoughts of the traveller as certainly as would a monument of human skill on such a spot. Like a lone ruin, it is a page of story, telling not only of the past, but the present, and reminding us of a Being who has reared it there, where it stands a memento of power and goodness."

"Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

—Wordsworth.

Of greater interest, however, because a native species, and more easily attained, is the Castle Pink, to which brief reference has already been made. Its perfume is like that of precious spices, and after a shower of rain, the air, for some distance, is actually interpenetrated with it. As its name indicates, it loves to grow upon the shattered walls of

"Chiefless castles breathing stern farewells;"

Fig. 80.—"On the time-worn ruins of an ancient minster."

and it may be found, unless swept away by barbarous "improvements," adorning the gray old masonry of Sandown Castle, and on ruins in the neighbourhood of Norwich. On the walls of Rochester's stately keep it grows at a height which defies the spoiler's hand; and on the time-worn ruins of an ancient minster, it shines, in the summer-noon, "with a flush of flowers." It blossoms in July, and there are not, it is said, more than half-a-dozen spots in England where it may be found wild.

To this dainty and beautiful tribe belongs that common but handsome and most fragrant flower, the Bearded Pink or Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus),—a native of central Europe and southern France, with long lanceolate leaves, bearded petals, ornamental bracts, and dense clusters or tufts of crimson or rose-coloured blossoms. It has long been a favourite with the cottager, for it is so hardy that it will grow in any soil, and will flourish even in the odd corner known as the "children's garden." Its popular name, "long, long ago," was "London tuftes;" and it owes its specific appellation of barbatus, or "bearded," to the nature of its calyx. That quaintest of quaint old botanists, delightful Gerarde, lavishes encomiums upon its beauty, and pronounces it meet "to deck up the bosoms of the beautiful, and garlands and crowns for pleasure." I suspect that now-a-days it seldom figures in a posy.

To the same order as the Dianthi—that is, to the Caryophyllaceæ—belong many wild flowers of lowly growth but abounding interest; as, for example, the corn-cockle, whose lilac-coloured petals, soaring conspicuously among the tall waving corn, have procured for it the right royal appellation of Agrostemma, or "the crown of the field." So, too, the numerous species of campion and catchfly (Silene), with their singular expanded calices; and those handsome flowers, the white and rosy lychnises, which love to air their charms by the side of running waters. The cottony down upon these plants was wont to be much used for the wicks of lamps.

Then, too, the whole tribe of chickweeds are included in the Caryophyllaceæ. They are spring flowers, with pearly white blossoms, five-petalled, like a five-rayed star, and long slender drooping leaves. Their resemblance to a star has suggested their scientific name, Stellaria; and they are truly the "stars of the earth," glistering among the thick herbage with a modest beauty. The Stellaria media supplies our song-birds with an abundant and a wholesome provision.

A handsome wild plant of this order is the Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis). It is common in Kent, and some of the neighbouring shires, but in many parts of England is never seen. Its full cluster of rose-hued blossoms is rather larger, and more loosely set together, than those of the sweet william; which, however, it much resembles in its leaves, these being opposite to each other, and nearly sheathing or surrounding the stalk at their bases.

"The juice of the soapwort," says Miss Pratt, "is one of those vegetable substances which, by making a lather with water, will cleanse linen, and remove grease as effectually as soap. It grows more generally in the neighbourhood of villages than in any other situation, as if providence had placed it there especially for the service of the cottager; yet it is very little used, either from ignorance of its properties, or because it would require some cultivation to render it sufficiently plentiful for household purposes. It needs the addition of ashes to make it a good soap for washing linen; but it is of much service to the shepherds on the Alps, who wash their flocks, previously to shearing them, with soapsuds made by boiling this plant in water. The large fruit of the horse-chestnut has similar cleansing properties, and may be used by cutting it into small pieces, or scraping it into water. It has even been suggested that if the nuts were reduced to powder, and made into balls, with some unctuous substance, they would answer all the purposes of our manufactured soap; and yet numbers of poor people see these nuts lying decaying in their neighbourhood, and have no idea of making them of any service."

On the Continent, however, the peasantry are wiser, and not only provide themselves with chestnuts for soap, but gather the beech-leaves to stuff their mattresses.

Returning to the Caryophyllaceæ, we may add that some of the plants of this order have poisonous qualities, which are due to the principle called saponine existing in many of the species of Saponaria, Silene, Lychnis, and Dianthus.

According to Lindley, the order includes no less than 53 genera, and 1055 species. They inhabit chiefly temperate and cold regions, and are ranked in three sub-orders,—Alsineæ, Sileneæ, and Mollugineæ.

The Eglantine and the Convolvulus.

What plant do our poets mean by the eglantine? What by the woodbine? Are they one and the same, or are they different?

We cannot answer those questions until we have referred to three or four passages in which they are introduced. And, first, let us take an example from Spenser:—

"And over him, art striving to compare

With nature, did an arbour green dispread,

Framèd of wanton ivy, flowering fair,

Through which the fragrant eglantine did spread

His pricking arms, entrailed with roses red,

Which dainty odours round about them threw,

And all within with flowers was garnishèd,

That when wild Zephyrus amongst them blew,

Did breathe out bounteous smells, and painted colours shew."

And now from Milton:—

"Through the sweetbriar, or the vine,

Or the twisted eglantine."

The following is from Sir Walter Scott:—

"On the hill

Let the white heath-bell flourish still,

Cherish the tulip, prune the vine,

But freely let the woodbine twine,

And leave untrimmed the eglantine."

From Burns:—

"The woodbine I will pu' when the evening star is near,

And the diamond draps of dew shall be her een sae clear."

From Michael Drayton:—

"The azured harebell next with them they neatly mixt:

T' allay whose luscious smell they woodbine placed betwixt ...

The columbine amongst they sparingly do set,

And now and then among, of eglantine a spray."

And lastly, from Shakespeare:—

"And leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,

Out-sweetened not thy breath."

There is evidently some confusion here, and the eglantine of one poet is not the eglantine of another. Sir Walter Scott, we take it, is thinking of the wild clematis or virgin's bower, when he wishes the eglantine to remain untrimmed. And Milton undoubtedly refers to the honeysuckle, which, twisting round the framework of a cottage-porch, tempts the neighbouring bees to rifle its calyxes of their honeyed sweets. But the true eglantine of our earlier poets seems to have been the prickly sweetbriar, formerly called Rosa eglantina; now known as Rosa rubiginosa. No plant is of greater value for a garden hedge, owing to the delicious fragrance exhaled not only by its flowers but by its leaves.

On the other hand, the "lush woodbine," which so often finds honourable mention in our poets, is none other than the honeysuckle, the "twisted eglantine" of Milton. Its botanical name is Caprifolium.

The eglantine and the woodbine, therefore, though occasionally confounded by careless writers, are two entirely distinct plants; the former being the sweetbriar of modern gardens, and the latter the honeysuckle.

Fig. 81.—"Our leafy hedgerows."

It has been justly said by a writer (whom we have already quoted), that of all the flowers which, towards the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, adorn our pastoral scenery, "filling the air with fragrance, and the earth with beauty," none are more generally attractive than the wild climbing plants of our leafy hedgerows. By interlacing their delicate boughs, covered with foliage and flowers,—or with berries bright and sparkling,—or, as in the wild clematis, crowned with the lightest, feathery seeds,—they wind about the trees and bushes in festoons and wreaths of the utmost elegance,—and contribute in no slight degree to the aspect of richness and beauty which the landscape exhibits at this time of the year. As their stems are so slender and delicate that they would be crushed by the burthen of their flowery clusters and numerous leaves, or rent and uprooted by the wind, unless they found support from other plants, we see them hanging by their tendrils, or by their pliant arms, about the trunks of aged trees,—the ancestral elms, or "those green-robed senators of mighty woods, tall oaks,"—like a frail maiden to the sturdy arm of some strong-shouldered brother, or, it may be, of some one "nearer and dearer still."

In reference to those climbing plants, one curious circumstance deserves to be noted.

Some of them follow the sun's apparent course, that is, from east to west,—and always twine around the stem which supports them in the direction of left to right. Such is the case with the common black briony, so common in our woods and groves.

Others invariably twine contrary to the sun, or from right to left; as is the case with the convolvulus, or large white bindweed.

This singular tendency, be it observed, is always constant in each individual of the species, and if you endeavour to train one of these plants in a different direction, you will infallibly kill it.

The convolvulus will not grow from left to right, and the black briony will not grow from right to left. Crede experto.

The convolvulus, or white bindweed (Convolvulus sepium, or Calystegia sepium), is one of the most elegant, though one of the commonest climbing plants which festoon our willows, or creep over our grassy banks, or wind in and about our hedges. Its large white bells, which the country people unpoetically call "old men's nightcaps," are remarkable for their purity of hue and exquisite beauty of outline; and the leaves, which are heart-shaped, equally claim our admiration. Like the pink field-convolvulus (Convolvulus arvensis), or the rosy-hued seaside bindweed (Calystegia soldanella), it is very tenacious of life, and if it once secures a footing, is eradicated with difficulty. Hence it is dearer to the poet and artist than to the farmer and gardener, each of whom pursues it with a determined hostility.

The Convolvulaceæ form a distinct family or order, containing forty-five genera, and upwards of seven hundred species. They are found in temperate and tropical countries; and include the dodder, sweet potato, scammony, spomœa, and the jalap plant.

Metamorphosis.—A Physico-Philosophical Meditation.[86]

If we are to understand by the term metamorphosis simply "a change," it is evident that everybody undergoes metamorphosis, is changed or transformed; nothing is, all becomes.

The water which flows on for ever, but never twice washes the same pebbly bed, will afford us an apt image of this perpetual "to become."

But even the said pebbly bed, like the hardest rock, like the seemingly everlasting granite, must and does change. The compact, chrystalline, azoic rock, without a trace of life in its dense mass, would eventually decompose if constantly assailed and affected by the moving waves of that gaseous ocean whose bed is formed by the terrestrial crust. If the rock is found covered by more or less stratified layers, its presence in the bosom of the earth will attest to passing generations the primordial incandescence of our planet at some epoch when life as yet was not,—when the liquid element, hurled far away into space under the form of vapour, exhibited the aspect of a "bearded meteor," or a comet, with blazing nucleus and incandescent tail. Many the changes which since that distant epoch have taken place upon the earth, and many more must occur before our planet ceases to contribute its strain to the grand harmony of the spheres. Our world will end as surely as it once had a beginning: its duration, though it be computed by hundreds of thousands of years, is nothing, will be nothing, compared with that of the revolution of yonder sun, circling, with its wondrous train of planets, around some mysterious centre as yet unknown. And in this period, hitherto incalculable, what chances of perturbation will necessarily arise?

Let us suppose that the centre around which oscillates, on the one part, the moon while drawing near and receding from the earth; on the other, the earth while drawing near and receding from the sun: let us suppose that these centres oscillate in the same manner around other centres as yet undetermined,—and this hypothesis is very rational, since it is based on the principle that everything moves or changes,—it may happen that in these periodical oscillations, one or more of the circulating masses will eventually fall into their focus of attraction, or will start so widely astray that the wheelwork of our world, the various parts of our planetary system, will separate,—not to be annihilated, for nothing in the universe can be annihilated,—but to be metamorphosed, and group themselves elsewhere in a different order.[87]

It is thus that in chemistry, which I would call the astronomy of atoms, it is shown that bodies are only so far decomposed as to admit of their recombination in new forms; the end of one is the beginning of another.

Now, that which is true of the systems of the elementary bodies composing terrestrial matter, is, in all probability, true also—why should it not be?—of the systems of the celestial bodies.

Differences of magnitude, of space, and of time, which overwhelm our feeble imaginations, vanish before the unity of plan of the Creator's thought. A crystalline molecule, which will not affect the finest balance, is a world, with an equator and poles of its own, and its central atom round which atomic satellites gravitate. Whether these atoms are infinitely small or infinitely great, whether the time of their revolutions is measured by thousandths of a second or by myriads of years, is of little importance so far as their gravitation (ponderation, or poising) is concerned. For this ponderation is absolutely identical, whether we call it affinity,—when speaking of the atomic movements of chemically decomposable matter; or gravitation or attraction, when referring to those atoms of the great whole which we call stars, and whose metamorphic scale is far beyond the range of beings planted on the surface of one of the stellar atoms. However profound may be the researches of our astronomers, they will never attain to a knowledge of the metamorphoses of worlds. The spectacle of celestial spheres rising anew from their ashes, like "the Arabian bird" of fable, will be as impossible for them as the knowledge of the decompositions and recompositions of our material bodies would be for chemists, planted on the surface of an atom of carbon. How, from such a standpoint, could they contemplate the manifold forms of matter, and embrace at a glance all its changes?... Well, we are relatively as powerless as these imaginary denizens of an atom of matter, rooted as we are to the crust of a planet,—a molecule suspended in the eternal ocean.

What shall we now say of the forms and movements of living matter?

In the first place, that they are infinitely more varied and more changeful than those of inanimate nature. Next, that the difference between their metamorphoses is very wide. The eye can follow the transformations of a rock exposed to the decomposing action of the agents which surround us on every side. This action is calculable, and the elements which it has dissociated may be determined and weighed. The effects of the force, called either affinity or attraction, which maintains these elements united, are not beyond the range of our observation; tables of affinity, and of atomic weights, have been constructed, which enable the chemist to dominate over matter, just as the astronomer embraces the stars, the atoms of the world, by the law of universal gravitation.

But no sooner is matter interpenetrated by that mysterious force which we call life, than our most potent means of investigation suddenly cease to be efficient. Undoubtedly, you may analyse the seed before you sow it, and thus may ascertain that it consists of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and azote. But with the same elements attempt to recompose your seed, using exactly the same proportions as those you discovered in it; and if you think that your synthesis has been successful, ensure that your grain, once confided to the earth, shall become a focus of divers movements, giving birth below to the ramifications of the root, terminated by the spongioles,—above, to the ramifications of the stem, garnished with leaves, flowers, and fruits; finally, ensure that this aggregate of organs, multiplying millions of times the weight and volume of the seed, shall always and exactly reproduce the same type or the same species.

If, with your apparatus,—if, with the means at the disposal of humanity,—you should succeed in achieving all these marvels of nature; then perhaps you might settle the great problem of what life is,—whether an independent force, or a simple modification of an universal force, of which heat, light, electricity, and magnetism, will be but different modes of manifestation.

And yet, even in such a case, you must not boast too loudly of your power; for you will find it necessary to turn and return the term you have arrived at, in every direction; nor will it furnish you with the relation or the cause of the formidable progression whose alpha and omega, whose beginning and end, escape us so absolutely.

Whence, in all its interminable metamorphoses, whence comes life? Whither goes it? Were our world to perish, its ruins would not cease, in their apparently disordered movements, to obey the law of universal gravitation: they would so group themselves as to form other worlds, resembling the system of which they were anteriorly the framework. But this force in no wise tells you why, when, and how life will make its appearance on these spheroids of revolution, which, in their state of ponderation, are attracted in the direct ratio of their masses and in the inverse ratio of the square of their distances.

This is not all. Man justly plumes himself on having arrived, by a process of experiment, at the following irrefragable axiom: that "the matter which serves for the movements of life renews itself, while the mould or form remains." You may even affirm, without appearing too adventurous, that the innumerable whirling globules which enter into the composition of the human blood are so many microscopical individuals, each with its own proper life,—infinitesimal forms which are born, and move to and fro, and disappear, and are renewed, without the individual—whose aggregate they perform—having any consciousness of all this activity.

Thus it is that the collective integral being which we call humanity, lives and is developed through the removal of the individuals composing it,—ephemeral creatures, each of whom thinks himself a god!

Must we stop there? That would be to declare humanity the last term of a progression whose commencement and end, according to our own acknowledgment, completely escape us: it would be at once a contradiction and a flagrant violation of the great law of infinite continuity which reigns everywhere.

To suppose that beyond humanity there is only nothingness, would be to enunciate an hypothesis as puerile as that which pretended the earth was not only the centre of our system, but the sole inhabited or inhabitable point in the immensity of space, and that the stars of the firmament were created for the service and pleasure of mortals. Suppose that this absurd belief were true; of what use, I ask you, would be all our agitations, all our flutterings, all our conceptions, all our conquests, all our glories, all our memories, when the end of the world would sweep away and annihilate our race? It was well worth the trouble, truly, of being born, of living, and of suffering, to terminate, after all, in so inglorious a fashion!... Adhere to your hypothesis, materialist, if you have the courage; surely, no man of sense can accept it!

Let us now resume the thread of our meditations.

The end of our system has come at last: the sun, the planets, and their satellites form but one chaotic igneous mass,—a brilliant fugitive luminary, new-born to the inhabitants of worlds which have escaped intact.

The dust of our extinguished world will not be scattered hap-hazard; the molecules of matter, indissolubly linked together by universal gravitation, will so arrange themselves as to constitute a new, and perhaps a more perfect world. But in the constitution of this new world, balanced like the old, our human bones, our ashes united with those of our ancestors, may have, as far as they are matter, their due share. As for the Thought which makes the true power of humanity, which gives to man all his value,—Thought, perfectible and transmissible,—it will contribute nothing, because it is absolutely imponderable and impassible. Will it then be lost for ever?

If the world is to last for ever, you may justly regard as immortal the indefinite transmission of Thought, and the perpetuity of the memory of certain great men. But will all this avail, if the world must perish?

The world will never end, you say; it is eternal.

But how do you know this? If it has had a beginning, as geology and astronomy prove,[90] it will also have an end. This end, however, will not be an annihilation; it will simply be, as we have already pointed out, a transformation of matter. As for the problems, whether nature itself was created, and whether it is eternal, let us leave them to the discussion of heated theoricians, who are too blind to perceive that some questions it is wisest neither to affirm nor deny, but to know how to ignore.

The error, then, which we have been considering, destroys itself through its consequences. Let us admit, in effect, that our world—such as it is, just as it is—will last for ever. In that case what becomes of the power and travail of humanity? All they have accomplished are some slight changes of the terrestrial crust, barely sufficient, here and there, to modify the influences of climate. A limited number of men labour, it is true, for the progress and full development of transmissible thought. But even supposing that, in the course of centuries, humanity succeeds in comprehending, it can only grow through the development of the faculties of all its members, and the due balance of all the social forces by means of liberty. Supposing that reason, united to science and conscience, should finally combine in one family the various tribes and peoples scattered over the earth's broad surface; do you indulge yourself in the hope of crossing the limits of the human organization, and establishing the royalty of man "through the interpretation and imitation of Nature?"

Do you cherish the idea of penetrating, through the perfect union of all your intellectual forces, the mysteries of creation?

No; you would never dare to form such a hope, to nourish such an idea, at least unless you felt that the earth (which you must first demonstrate) comprehends in itself the whole universe, that the humanity swarming on its surface is eternal, that every other creature is absolutely subordinate to it: in a word, that Man is all!

But we know how limited is human power. We are not masters even of the mechanism of the body; the movements of organic life are independent of our will; we can neither command the stomach, the lungs, nor the heart: that marvellous process of absorption and elimination, that perpetual movement hither or thither which constitutes the essence of the assimilative function, goes on in us—as in all living beings, animal or vegetable—completely outside our sphere of activity. Then, without quitting our planet, how numerous are the movements which still escape the human will!

It is quite different when we lift up our eyes to examine the face of heaven. We have no grasp whatever of the incommensurable spiraloids of innumerable worlds to which our own belongs; we have no means of communicating with the inhabitants of other planets; we cannot establish any interchange of thought with the men (if there be any) of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,—who form, perhaps, like the men of the earth, the most elevated circle of material life, varying under an infinity of forms upon each of their floating domiciles.... I see you smiling, reader, because you do not believe that these other earths—satellites of the sun, like our own—are inhabited by beings analagous to our human race. You are at liberty not to believe it. But then, to be in agreement with yourselves, you ought to declare in favour of the Science of the Past, though demonstrated to be false, against the Science of the Present. Will you do so? Certainly not. But then, of two things, one: either you will be obliged to make the earth an unique exception, a kind of monstrosity in the midst of the other mechanism of the universe, which will be to throw yourself back upon the erroneous science of the ancients; or you must perforce admit that the earth is not specially privileged, and that the other planets, its companions, have also their human inhabitants.

Is this all? Alas, all this is nothing! The other worlds whose suns appear to us under the form of scintillating points or stars, will, undoubtedly, in like manner, possess their systems of planets and satellites. Why should they divaricate from the general plan of the universe? Now, multiply the number of the stars—who has counted them?—with the probable number of their planets, and you will gain, if this be permitted you, the number of humanities who people yonder star-sown space. And it is not only with these we must be able to correspond, but with the humanities of all the nebulæ of all the firmaments—for remember our starry heaven itself is but a nebula—that we must establish an interchange of ideas, if you would have your power, and civilisation, and intellectual royalty, something more than a mere optical illusion of your pride.

You do not cease to proclaim as an axiom that "there are no abrupt intervals in Nature;" that Nature never ventures upon sudden leaps or bounds ("in natura non datur saltus"), and yet you would make an exception for the world of thought—a world which no more lies outside the laws of nature than does the physical world. The former ought even to secure our preference; it is there only that we are free, that we can become true creators, by creating for ourselves our own happiness; that we can grow great before our own eyes, by following, not the tyrannous will of the brute, but the tender voice of the angel; by listening to conscience—that pure and infallible counsellor—conscience, the foundation of all justice, the latent force of generations passing away and coming, the universal gravitation of our species as of all the ultra-terrestrial humanities.

But how can the humanities, with which we suppose the universe to be peopled,—how can they communicate with one another?

The law of attraction comprehends not only the celestial bodies, but also their intervals, the intersidereal spaces. Do these spaces present a void to the thinking beings who probably people the stars?

Everything, force and matter, testifies to an entire unity of plan or thought, and the mind which is powerful enough to rise above all the attractions and influences of the body, the mind which, by its continuous labour, alone renders life and man of any importance, the mind once detached from the animal nature which it drags behind it like a prisoner to the chariot of his conqueror, shall it be inferior to inert matter? shall it be less than a ship without its compass? Continuous here, shall that continuity be elsewhere broken up? Surely this is impossible.

But how are we to recognise this continuity of essence in a spirit which, like man's, appears unavoidably fixed, like a parasite, to the surface of a planet?

Here lies the whole difficulty of the question; a question all the more perplexing because, in the search after scientific truth, the mind walks surely and steadily, except when resting upon the senses,—which are the backbone, so to speak, of the experimental method.

Answers, indeed, are not wanting, for each religion has its own. Every creed attempts to solve the problem. But then, faith is required to accept the answer or solution, and alas! faith is not implanted in every soul. It is useless, therefore, to wish that it might be the gift of those who, to the authority of tradition and long-established dogmas, prefer the liberty of discussion and the axioms of science. Are our bigots actually aware of what they do when they seek to compel into their circle of belief those minds which tend to escape from it at a tangent? We assert that in so doing they are guilty of an act of iniquity, of a veritable blasphemy.

Some explanation is necessary here. You believe, we hope, in the majesty, power, wisdom, and mercy of God, in the revelations He has vouchsafed to man, in the immortality of the soul. These are great problems, however; the greatest problems a mortal can venture to discuss. Already I see the bigot frowning; he professes to be shocked by the word "problem," he would fain substitute for it that of "certainty" or "truth." Well, through faith we accept them as truths; but, metaphysically speaking, they may be regarded as problems which the All-wise has submitted to man's earnest consideration. In fact, the God in whom you and we believe, in whom you and we put all our trust, has surrounded them with something of uncertainty, has invested them with so much of doubtfulness as may test our faith.

Yes, in doing so, He has had a purpose to fulfil. Let us think of a geometrician—and an ancient writer said that God, by creating the world, created geometry—for the sake of exercising the minds of his pupils, his children, giving them a problem to be solved.

If at the same time, he placed before them the solution, he would assuredly fail in his object. No means would remain of distinguishing the capable from the incapable, the studious from the indifferent, the idler from the worker, if they all found the question answered beforehand!

True, if the problem is too difficult, if the solution lies beyond the faculties of those whom he wishes to test and put to the proof, the master will not fail to furnish them with all the elements necessary for their guidance, whether they consider it from without, or whether they consider it with the help of their own inner consciousness.

But science and conscience stand in need of an equally difficult task; the first, that it may learn to observe clearly, the latter that it may learn to act purely. And it is here, above all, that the two-fold nature of man becomes a perplexity and a stumbling-block. On the one hand, man creates theories, in order to disembarrass himself of the science which calls for the exercise of powerful and laborious observation; on the other, he creates dogmas, which he hopes may lull to sleep that ever active, ever restless conscience, which demands fertile and beneficial actions, and rejects barren or deceitful phrases.

It is true that to many minds the discussion of the questions at which we have hinted seems a sorry work, because the time given for their discussion is necessarily so limited. What is life? they say. What can be effected in so short an interval? What can man hope to accomplish in the few short years that intervene between manhood, when the mind is mature, and old age, when the intellect grows enfeebled? These are the men who echo the old poet's mournful cry:—[91]

"A good that never satisfies the mind,

A beauty fading like the April flowers,

A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined,

A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours,

An honour that more fickle is than wind,

A glory at opinion's frown that lowers,

A treasury which bankrupt Time devours,

A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind,

A vain delight our equals to command,

A style of greatness in effect a dream,

A swelling thought of holding sea and land,

A servile lot, decked with a pompous name;

Are the strange ends we toil for here below,

Till wisest death make us our urns know."

But the poet, while taking this despondent view of life, forgets—not only that it is an opportunity, but—that it is the first stage of an eternal existence, and that the progress begun now shall be continued hereafter, when the mind, freed from its material clogs, shall enter upon the full fruition of its wondrous powers. And however brief it may be, is it not better it should be devoted to noble work than to ignoble idleness? Is it not better to use it as a time of preparation than to waste it in empty pleasures? To the despairing wail of the poet just quoted we would oppose, as far worthier of a gallant spirit, Ben Jonson's admirable conclusions:—

"It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make men better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere.

A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night;

It was the plant and flower of light.

In small proportions we just beauties see,

And in short measure life may perfect be."

This is the true philosophy; to make our life as perfect as our faculties will permit, and to look upon it as the introduction to a grander life, where the problems here discussed shall find a satisfactory solution.

"Oh for the time when in our seraph wings

We veil our brows before the Eternal Throne—

The day when, drinking knowledge at its springs,

We know as we are known."

Let us beware, however, when we devote our life to the pursuit of wisdom, that we do not make a false start. Do not let us diverge into the narrow way of bigotry and dogma. It is the property of exclusive and intolerant error to dominate and to reign alone. For this reason we systematically refuse and reject all control; and it is thus men have been fatally led to lay a rash hand upon intellectual liberty,—liberty, which the All-wise Himself has refrained from touching! Such is the early taint of our race, the moral situation of humanity.

But retribution has followed close upon this violation of all that is most sacred in our human world. The schools of philosophy, and the infallible creeds, founded upon authority to the exclusion of all mental and spiritual freedom, have never ceased to be at war with one another, and instead of labouring for that union which is strength,—that union so necessary to the happiness and advancement of humanity,—they have everywhere sown irreconcilable antipathies and bloody discords. Such is the religion of those who, under a pretence of worshipping God, worship only themselves! History affords us abundant illustrations of this melancholy truth.

Finally, let us return to our metamorphosis. The butterfly, which the Greeks designated by the same word as the soul, ψυχή, springs, like every living creature, from an egg. But see what a transformation this egg undergoes! It becomes a caterpillar—a transitory form of animal life, remarkable for its voracity; this caterpillar is in its turn transformed; it grows into a chrysalis,—a temporary tomb, and whence issues the winged insect, alone adapted to the discharge of all the functions of a perfect animal. Gluttonous and greedy of enjoyment, the caterpillar lived for itself. So the caterpillar has no sex; while the butterfly hovers from flower to flower, has to seek therein its own nourishment, there to find the companion with whom its being is to be united.

This metamorphosis impresses the observer; principally because its periods are so distinct, and are so plainly marked by stages, which have all the appearance of veritable species. But he would greatly err if he thought it confined to a certain class of insects. All insects,—nay, more, all animals, including man himself,—undergo certain transformations in the course of their lives. Metamorphosis plays an important part in the unity of the general scheme of Creative Thought. If it is not always recognised, the reason is, that its phases are not boldly marked, that the periods blend into one another, that the various stages are effaced in the continuousness of the transformation.

But let not this continuity prevent the observer from detecting or discerning in that which is, that which is to come. In the caterpillar he must learn to see the chrysalis; in the chrysalis he must be ready to recognise the future butterfly. And in all these changes the thoughtful mind may acknowledge a significant emblem of that immortality of the soul, that final transformation of humanity, which the Word of God has promised to us:—

"Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,

Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light;

And, where the fields of Paradise unfold,

Quaff fragrant nectars from their cups of gold.

There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky,

Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!

Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept

On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept.

And such is man; soon from his cell of clay

To burst a seraph in the blaze of day."[92]

To assure ourselves by observation that, in living matter, there are organs irrevocably destined to decay or disappear, while others incline and grow towards perfection, is certainly one of the noblest studies imaginable. If philosophers, instead of employing their time in profitless speculations, devoted themselves to the examination of the great Book of Nature, God's second revelation, they would long ago have discovered what they are still seeking.

And we should now know how to distinguish, in man as in the insect, the rudimentary condition of his future life; and the belief in the immortality of the soul would not only be the creed of the Christian, but a scientific truth.