Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore

“Knowest thou how the bones grow in the womb?” asks the Jewish sage, sadly, half self-reprovingly, as he discovers that man is not the measure of all things, and that in much learning may be vanity and vexation of spirit, and in much study a weariness of the flesh; and all our deeper physical science only brings the same question more awfully near. “Vilior algâ,” more worthless than the very sea-weed, says the old Roman: and yet no torn scrap of that very sea-weed, which to-morrow may manure the nearest garden, but says to us, “Proud man! talking of spores and vesicles, if thou darest for a moment to fancy that to have seen spores and vesicles is to have seen me, or to know what I am, answer this. Knowest thou how the bones do grow in the womb? Knowest thou even how one of these tiny black dots, which thou callest spores, grow on my fronds?” And to that question what answer shall we make? We see tissues divide, cells develop, processes go on— but How and Why? These are but phenomena; but what are phenomena save effects? Causes, it may be, of other effects; but still effects of other causes. And why does the cause cause that effect? Why should it not cause something else? Why should it cause anything at all? Because it obeys a law. But why does it obey the law? and how does it obey the law? And, after all, what is a law?