The birds and honey-bees of thy dear love come singing.
DOCTRINE OF FORM.
There is a connection natural and necessary between the forms and essences of things; some law which compels figure and faculty into correspondence; some tie which binds nature, function, and end to shape, volume, and intrinsic arrangement.
That a wheel must be circular, a lever inflexible, and a screw, wedge and inclined plane shall have a determinate form, is clearly a condition of adaptation to use; and because in machinery the arrangement of inert matter is thus essential to the action and aim of all contrivance and mutual adjustment of parts, we are apt to think configuration entirely a question of mechanical fitness, and indifferent to and independent of structures having no such office. But it is not so. Facts beyond number show that it has definite and fixed relation to substance universally, without limitation to a particular kind or sphere of use, or manner or purpose of being.
I. There are examples enough to prove that the fundamental law, connecting shape and arrangement with function, is stronger in the vital and spiritual than in the mechanical sphere, and even supercedes its settled order and method. An instance of this overruling force:—The elephant in general organization is a quadruped, eminently; but his sagacity rises so high above the ordinary level of brutes as to require the service of a proboscis, which is nearly equal in capabilities of use to the human hand. Furnished with a sort of finger at the extremity of this excellent instrument of prehension, he can draw a cork, lift a shilling piece from the ground, or separate one blade of grass from a number with dexterity and despatch. In this his eminence of intellect is indicated, for external instruments are in accurate relation to internal faculties, and considerable handicraft bespeaks a proportionately high range of mental power. Now observe how his organization differs from that of other quadrupeds, and approaches, against all the analogies of classification, toward the arrangements of the human form. He has the rudiments of five toes on each foot, shown externally by five toe-nails. This is one toe more than belongs to any beast below the monkey tribe. He has a kneepan on the hind leg, and the flexure of the limb is backward, like the human, and unlike other quadrupeds. The breast of the female is removed from its usual position upon the pelvis, to the chest or breast bone, as in the more elevated races; and all the organs of reproductive life correspond to those of the higher orders. All this is unexplained by any mechanical necessity or advantage, and is so far, in violation of the analogies of that lower constitution by which he is linked to the order of four footed animals. Of his internal organization I have no means of information within reach, but I am satisfied a priori that the human configuration and position of ports are approximated wherever the quadruped form and attitude leaves it possible. Comparative anatomists make great account of all instances of mechanical accommodations which they meet with, but they are in nothing so remarkable or so conspicuous as those which we are now noticing. They have the advantage of being understood, and are therefore much insisted upon; but the facts which we have given and hinted at are at once so striking and so conclusive, as to leave no doubt and no necessity for further proof of the preeminence of the law which they indicate.
II. In looking over the world of animal and vegetable forms there is nothing more remarkable than the continual sacrifice of strength to beauty, and of quantity or bulk to symmetry and shapeliness. Use seems postponed to appearance, and order, attitude and elegance take rank of quantity in the forms of things. I suppose that the law under consideration determines these conditions of structure; and that the beauty to which the sacrifice is credited, as an end and object, is only an incident; and, that the pleasure derived arises upon the felt correspondence of such forms with our faculties, innately adjusted to the harmonies of this universal law—in other words—that there is an intrinsic force of essence which compels organization, limits its dimensions, and determines its figure, and so, all substances take shape and volume from a law higher and more general than individual use and efficiency. Beauty, being but the name for harmony between faculty and object, may well serve as a rule of criticism, but the efficient cause which determines form lies deeper; it lies, doubtless, in the necessary relation of organization and essence—structure and use—appearance and office—making one the correspondent and exponent of the other in the innermost philosophy of signs.
The abrogation of a rule, and departure from an established method of conformation, belonging to a whole class of natural beings, in order to attain the forms and order of arrangement of another class into whose higher style of constitution the lower has been somewhat advanced, as in the case of the elephant; and, the clear evidence that mechanical perfection is everywhere in the human mechanism subordinated to a law of configuration, which has respect to another standard and a higher necessity—each, in its own way, demonstrates that form is not only a necessity of mechanics, but is still more eminently an essential condition of all substance. Facts from these sources hold a sort of raking position in the array of our argument, but the multitude and variety of examples which muster regularly under the rule are, of themselves, every way adequate to maintain it.
III. Our proposition (to vary the statement of it) is, that form, or figure, and, doubtless, dimension also, have a fixed relation to the special qualities and characters of beings and things, and that it is not indifferent in the grand economy of creation whether they be put into their present shapes or into some other; but, on the contrary, the whole matter of configuration and dimension is determined by laws which arise out of the nature of things.
In generals the evidence is clear, and it must, therefore, be true in the minutest particulars; for the law of aggregates is the law of individuals—the mass and the atom have like essential conditions. It is, indeed, difficult to trace facts into the inmost nature of things, and quite impossible to penetrate by observation as deep as principles lead by the process of mental investigation—so much more limited in the discovery of truth, even the truth of physics, are the senses than the reasoning faculties. We need, however, but open our eyes to see that the diversities of form among all created things are, at least, as great as their differences of character and use; and whether there be a determinate relation of appearance to constitution or not, there is at least an unlikeness of configuration or dimension, or of both, wherever there is unlikeness of quality; and that this difference of form thus commensurate with difference of constitution, is not merely a matter of arbitrary distinctiveness among the multifarious objects of creation, as names or marks are sometimes attached to things for certainty of reference and recognition, appears from such facts and considerations as follow—