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164
Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore
·
Charles Kingsley
89
And
now,
worshipper
of
final
causes
and
the
mere
useful
in
nature,
answer
but
one
question,—
Why
this
prodigal
variety?
All
these
Nudibranchs
live
in
much
the
same
way:
why
would
not
the
same
mould
have
done
for
them
all?
And
why,
again,
(for
we
must
push
the
argument
a
little
further,)
why
have
not
all
the
butterflies,
at
least
all
who
feed
on
the
same
plant,
the
same
markings?
Of
all
unfathomable
triumphs
of
design,
(we
can
only
express
ourselves
thus,
for
honest
induction,
as
Paley
so
well
teaches,
allows
us
to
ascribe
such
results
only
to
the
design
of
some
personal
will
and
mind,)
what
surpasses
that
by
which
the
scales
on
a
butterfly’s
wing
are
arranged
to
produce
a
certain
pattern
of
artistic
beauty
beyond
all
painter’s
skill?
What
a
waste
of
power,
on
any
utilitarian
theory
of
nature!
And
once
more,
why
are
those
strange
microscopic
atomies,
the
Diatomaceæ
and
Infusoria,
which
fill
every
stagnant
pool;
which
fringe
every
branch
of
sea-weed;
which
form
banks
hundreds
of
miles
long
on
the
Arctic
sea-floor,
and
the
strata
of
whole
moorlands;
which
pervade
in
millions
the
mass
of
every
iceberg,
and
float
aloft
in
countless
swarms
amid
the
clouds
of
the
volcanic
dust;—
why
are
their
tiny
shells
of
flint
as
fantastically
various
in
their
quaint
mathematical
symmetry,
as
they
are
countless
beyond
the
wildest
dreams
of
the
Poet?
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