are mysteries more than we shall ever fathom.

The zoophytes and microscopic animalcules which people every shore
and every drop of water, have been now raised to a rank in the
human mind more important, perhaps, than even those gigantic
monsters whose models fill the lake at the Crystal Palace. The
research which has been bestowed, for the last century, upon these
once unnoticed atomies has well repaid itself; for from no branch
of physical science has more been learnt of the SCIENTIA
SCIENTIARUM, the priceless art of learning; no branch of science
has more utterly confounded a wisdom of the wise, shattered to
pieces systems and theories, and the idolatry of arbitrary names,
and taught man to be silent while his Maker speaks, than this
apparent pedantry of zoophytology, in which our old distinctions of
"animal," "vegetable," and "mineral" are trembling in the balance,
seemingly ready to vanish like their fellows - "the four elements"
of fire, earth, air, and water. No branch of science has helped so
much to sweep away that sensuous idolatry of mere size, which
tempts man to admire and respect objects in proportion to the
number of feet or inches which they occupy in space. No branch of
science, moreover, has been more humbling to the boasted rapidity
and omnipotence of the human reason, or has more taught those who
have eyes to see, and hearts to understand, how weak and wayward,
staggering and slow, are the steps of our fallen race (rapid and
triumphant enough in that broad road of theories which leads to
intellectual destruction) whensoever they tread the narrow path of
true science, which leads (if I may be allowed to transfer our
Lord's great parable from moral to intellectual matters) to Life;
to the living and permanent knowledge of living things and of the
laws of their existence. Humbling, truly, to one who looks back to