VI. But the law under consideration cannot be restrained to shape only. Dimension is also a result of intrinsic qualities, and must in some way and to some extent, indicate the character to which it corresponds. Druggists are so well aware of, and so much concerned with the difference in the size of the drops of different fluids, that they have constructed a table of equivalents, made necessary by the fact. Thus a fluid drachm of distilled water contains forty-five drops, of sulphuric ether one hundred and fifty, of sulphuric acid ninety, and of Teneriffe wine seventy-eight. So that the law is absolutely universal, however varied in expression, and a specific character in fluids and other parts of the inanimate world declares itself as decidedly in bulk or volume, as difference of constitution is shown by variety of figure in the living and sentient creation.
Among the crystals termed isomorphous by chemists, the dominant ingredient which is common to them all, controls the form, but difference of size answers sufficiently to the partial unlikeness of the other less active elements; and so in the instances of cubes and octahedrons formed of dissimilar minerals where difference of constitution is indicated by varied dimensions only.
VII. Crystal and crystal, and, drop and drop, are alike within the limits of the species, or their unlikeness, if there be any, is not appreciable to our senses, and scarcely conceivable though not absolutely impossible to thought; but we know certainly that clear individuality of character is everywhere pursued and marked by peculiarity of form and size throughout the entire universe.
While among minerals and fluids dissimilarity occurs obviously only between species, among plants it begins to be conspicuous between individuals, growing more and more so as observation ascends in the vegetable kingdom. Two stalks of grass may resemble each other as much as two crystals of the same salt, but timber trees grow more unlike, and fruit trees differ enough to make their identification comparatively easy. But it is in the animal kingdom, eminently, and with increasing distinctness as the rank rises, that individuals become distinguishable from each other; for it is here that diversity of character gets opportunity, from complexity of nature, freedom of generating laws, and varied influence of circumstances, to impress dissimilarity deepest and clearest. Crystals undergo no modification of state but instant formation and the sudden violence which destroys them. Vegetables pass through the changes of germination and growth, and feel the difference of soil, and winds, and temperature, and to the limits of these influences, confess them in color, size, and shape; but animals, endowed with acuteness of sense, enjoying locomotion, and related to all the world around them—living in all surrounding nature, and susceptible of all its influences—their individual differences know no limits, and they are universally unlike in appearance as in circumstances, training and character.
Even in the lower orders there is ample proof of this. The mother bird and beast know their own young; the shepherd and the shepherd’s dog know every one of their own flock from every other on all the hills and plains; and among the millions of men that people the earth, a quick eye detects a perfectly defined difference as broad as the peculiarity of character which underlies it.
Narrowness of relations and Simplicity of function are as narrowly restrained in range of conformation; Complexity makes proportionate room for difference; and Variety is the result, the sign, and the measure of Liberty.
Detailed illustrations of the law would interest in proportion to the range of the investigation; and gratification and delight would keep pace with the deepening conviction of its universality; but the limits of an essay restrain the discussion to mere hints and suggestions, and general statements of principles which reflection must unfold into formal demonstration for every one in his own department of observation.
Some inaccuracies of statement have been indulged to avoid the complexity which greater precision would have induced. Broad, frank thinking will easily bring up this looseness of language to the required closeness of thought as the advancing and deepening inquiry demands. Moreover, it may be difficult or impossible to meet every fact that presents itself with an instant correspondence in the alleged law; but such things cannot be avoided until people learn how to learn, and cease to meet novel propositions with a piddling criticism, or a wrangling spirit of controversy. Looking largely and deeply into facts in a hundred departments of observation will show the rule clear in the focal light of their concurrent proofs, or, looking out from the central position of a priori reasoning, it will be seen in every direction to be a necessary truth.
It would be curious, and more than curious, to trace ascent of form up through ascertained gradation of quality in minerals, plants, fruits, and animal structures; and it would be as curious to apply a criticism derived from this doctrine to the purpose of fixing the rank and relations of all natural beings—in other words, to construct a science of taste and beauty, and, striking still deeper, a science of universal physiognomy, useful at once as a law of classification, and as an instrument of discovery. The scale would range most probably from the globular, as the sign of the lowest character, through the regularly graded movement of departure which in nature fills up all the stages of ascending function from a drop of fluid to the model configuration of, perhaps, that cerebral organ which manifests the highest faculty of the soul.
The signs that substance and its states give of intrinsic nature and use, or the connection of configuration and function, are not understood as we understand the symbols of arithmetic, and the words of artificial language; that is, the symbols of our own creation answer to the ideas they are intended for, but the signs of the universal physiognomy of nature are neither comprehended fully, nor translated even to the extent that they are understood, into the formulæ of science and the words of oral language. Many of them are telegraphed in dumb show to our instincts, to the great enlargement of our converse with nature, both sentient and inanimate; but still a vast territory of knowledge lies beyond the rendering of our intuitions, and remains yet unexplored by our understanding; a dark domain that has not been brought under any rule of science, nor yielded its due tribute to the monarch mind. We have no dictionary that shows the inherent signification of a cube, a hexagon, an octagon, circle, ellipse, or cylinder; no tables of multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division, which, dealing in forms and their equivalents, might afford the products, quotients, and remainders of their various differences and interminglings with each other. States, qualities, and attitudes of structure, contribute much of that natural language by which we converse with the animal world beneath us, and with the angel world within us, but it remains as yet instinctual, except so far only as the fine arts have brought it out of the intuitive and oracular into rule and calculation, nor have we any methodic calculus, universally available, by which these revelations of nature may be rendered into demonstrative truth ruled by scientific method.