Absence of haphazard and
conduciveness of everything to an end are to be found in Nature's
works in the highest degree, and the resultant end of her
generations and combinations is a form of the beautiful.
If any person thinks the examination of the rest of the animal
kingdom an unworthy task, he must hold in like disesteem the study
of man. For no one can look at the primordia of the human frame-blood,
flesh, bones, vessels, and the like-without much repugnance. Moreover,
when any one of the parts or structures, be it which it may, is
under discussion, it must not be supposed that it is its material
composition to which attention is being directed or which is the
object of the discussion, but the relation of such part to the total
form. Similarly, the true object of architecture is not bricks,
mortar, or timber, but the house; and so the principal object of
natural philosophy is not the material elements, but their
composition, and the totality of the form, independently of which they
have no existence.
The course of exposition must be first to state the attributes
common to whole groups of animals, and then to attempt to give their
explanation. Many groups, as already noticed, present common
attributes, that is to say, in some cases absolutely identical
affections, and absolutely identical organs,-feet, feathers, scales,
and the like-while in other groups the affections and organs are
only so far identical as that they are analogous.
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