Page:The Harveian oration ; delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 26th, 1879 (IA b24976465).pdf/24

 luted seed itself, which is made up of two halves held together by a commissure. This very first fact in the formation of the human body, its dual character on which so many of its functions depend, and the use of which is apparently so obvious, cannot be discussed solely in reference to final causes, seeing we find its counterpart in the fruits of the trees, and even in the less developed leguminous pod formed by the folding of a leaf. Nature thus closely unites man with the grass of the field.


 * "Nothing stands alone,
 * The chain holds on and where it ends unknown."

But we do not stop with the organic world in our search after an explanation of some of the characteristics of our framework since mechanical laws cannot be unheeded. In looking at the packing of the brain in the skull, or of the intestines in the abdomen, can it be doubted that these laws are in operation, or that James Hinton was right when he maintained that in the production of the spiral, noticeable in the heart and other organs, we have an example of the more complex laws of least resistance. The more, indeed, we