In nature we find all things apparently blended in the grandest confusion; but they all have mutual and reciprocal bearings which give a definite purpose to the seeming disorder, and which make each separate unit the centre of all. But we, from our inability to grasp in its fulness the order of this disorder, are obliged to seize fragments and, separating them into what we conceive to be their coherent elements, use them as exponents of the entirety. They could not so exist in nature, but would speedily die out, and it is only by the way in which we find them intermingled, that they can be maintained. Thus, as all conduce to the conservation of each, each conduces to the conservation of all.
A large collection of natural history, composed of every available item that can be gathered from every kingdom of nature’s vast domain, may perhaps be compared (_magnis componere parva_) with the constituent parts of a most elaborately-constructed and complicated clock, which its skilful artificer has designed and made to record and chime the divisions of time, and to register the days, weeks, months, and seasons, and which a virtuoso having taken to pieces, has sorted into its details of wheels and springs, levers and balances, chains, bells, and hands, which told the time when its music would peal; and arranging like to like, thinks he will thus understand more clearly the complexity of the varied movements. But, sadly disappointed, he finds he cannot comprehend the combination of the intricate machinery, although he singly admires the minute perfection of each delicate and ingenious piece lying before him which composed the structure, but which has now lost all expression, his curiosity having deprived the organism of its vitality, which is its most wonderful element.
And this is our process, for if we stop here we have but an assortment of vapid machinery, no click of whose wheels gives note of the vital hilarity of their relative and combined effects. The final cause of creation escapes us thus frittering it into details, which if we merely abide by, we but loiter at the foot of Pisgah, instead of ascending its summits to survey thence the sunny and varied landscape, the glorious sea, and, arching over all, the blue cope of heaven. The manifold relations of animate and inanimate nature, which, although they must be studied in detail, are to be appreciated in their entirety, should stimulate the efforts of the naturalist to conquer all impending difficulties, and he should not permit himself to be satisfied with this preliminary knowledge.