bold and brilliant treatment of a subject usually so dry and repulsive.
He saw nature "wreathing through an everlasting spiral, with wheels
that never dry, on axles that never creak," and sometimes sought "to
uncover those secret recess is where nature is sitting at the fires
in the depths of her laboratory;" whilst the picture comes recommended
by the hard fidelity with which it is based on practical anatomy. It
is remarkable that this sublime genius decides, peremptorily for the
analytic, against the synthetic method; and, in a book whose genius
is a daring poetic synthesis, claims to confine himself to a rigid
experience.

He knows, if he only, the flowing of nature and how wise was that old
answer of Amasis to him who bade him drink up the sea,--"Yes, willingly,
if you will stop the rivers that flow in." Few knew as much about
nature and her subtle manners, or expressed more subtly her goings.
He thought as large a demand is made on our faith by nature, as by
miracles. "He noted that in her proceeding from first principles through
her several subordinations, there was no state through which she did
not pass, as if her path lay through all things." "For as often as she
betakes herself upward from visible phenomena, or, in other words,
withdraws herself inward, she instantly, as it were, disappears, while
no one knows what has become of her, or whither she is gone; so that
it is necessary to take science as a guide in pursuing her steps."

The pursuing the inquiry under the light of an end or final cause,
gives wonderful animation, a sort of personality to the whole writing.
This book announces his favorite dogmas. The ancient doctrines of
Hippocrates, that the brain is a gland; and of Leucippus, that the
atom may be known by the mass; or, in Plato, the macrocosm by the
microcosm; and, in the verses of Lucretius,--