Act 5 — DOCTRINE OF FORM.

There is a connection natural and necessary between the forms and essences of things; some law which compels figure and faculty into correspondence; some tie which binds nature, function, and end to shape, volume, and intrinsic arrangement.

That a wheel must be circular, a lever inflexible, and a screw, wedge and inclined plane shall have a determinate form, is clearly a condition of adaptation to use; and because in machinery the arrangement of inert matter is thus essential to the action and aim of all contrivance and mutual adjustment of parts, we are apt to think configuration entirely a question of mechanical fitness, and indifferent to and independent of structures having no such office. But it is not so. Facts beyond number show that it has definite and fixed relation to substance universally, without limitation to a particular kind or sphere of use, or manner or purpose of being.

I. There are examples enough to prove that the fundamental law, connecting shape and arrangement with function, is stronger in the vital and spiritual than in the mechanical sphere, and even supercedes its settled order and method. An instance of this overruling force:—The elephant in general organization is a quadruped, eminently; but his sagacity rises so high above the ordinary level of brutes as to require the service of a proboscis, which is nearly equal in capabilities of use to the human hand. Furnished with a sort of finger at the extremity of this excellent instrument of prehension, he can draw a cork, lift a shilling piece from the ground, or separate one blade of grass from a number with dexterity and despatch. In this his eminence of intellect is indicated, for external instruments are in accurate relation to internal faculties, and considerable handicraft bespeaks a proportionately high range of mental power. Now observe how his organization differs from that of other quadrupeds, and approaches, against all the analogies of classification, toward the arrangements of the human form. He has the rudiments of five toes on each foot, shown externally by five toe-nails. This is one toe more than belongs to any beast below the monkey tribe. He has a kneepan on the hind leg, and the flexure of the limb is backward, like the human, and unlike other quadrupeds. The breast of the female is removed from its usual position upon the pelvis, to the chest or breast bone, as in the more elevated races; and all the organs of reproductive life correspond to those of the higher orders. All this is unexplained by any mechanical necessity or advantage, and is so far, in violation of the analogies of that lower constitution by which he is linked to the order of four footed animals. Of his internal organization I have no means of information within reach, but I am satisfied a priori that the human configuration and position of ports are approximated wherever the quadruped form and attitude leaves it possible. Comparative anatomists make great account of all instances of mechanical accommodations which they meet with, but they are in nothing so remarkable or so conspicuous as those which we are now noticing. They have the advantage of being understood, and are therefore much insisted upon; but the facts which we have given and hinted at are at once so striking and so conclusive, as to leave no doubt and no necessity for further proof of the preeminence of the law which they indicate.

II. In looking over the world of animal and vegetable forms there is nothing more remarkable than the continual sacrifice of strength to beauty, and of quantity or bulk to symmetry and shapeliness. Use seems postponed to appearance, and order, attitude and elegance take rank of quantity in the forms of things. I suppose that the law under consideration determines these conditions of structure; and that the beauty to which the sacrifice is credited, as an end and object, is only an incident; and, that the pleasure derived arises upon the felt correspondence of such forms with our faculties, innately adjusted to the harmonies of this universal law—in other words—that there is an intrinsic force of essence which compels organization, limits its dimensions, and determines its figure, and so, all substances take shape and volume from a law higher and more general than individual use and efficiency. Beauty, being but the name for harmony between faculty and object, may well serve as a rule of criticism, but the efficient cause which determines form lies deeper; it lies, doubtless, in the necessary relation of organization and essence—structure and use—appearance and office—making one the correspondent and exponent of the other in the innermost philosophy of signs.

The abrogation of a rule, and departure from an established method of conformation, belonging to a whole class of natural beings, in order to attain the forms and order of arrangement of another class into whose higher style of constitution the lower has been somewhat advanced, as in the case of the elephant; and, the clear evidence that mechanical perfection is everywhere in the human mechanism subordinated to a law of configuration, which has respect to another standard and a higher necessity—each, in its own way, demonstrates that form is not only a necessity of mechanics, but is still more eminently an essential condition of all substance. Facts from these sources hold a sort of raking position in the array of our argument, but the multitude and variety of examples which muster regularly under the rule are, of themselves, every way adequate to maintain it.

III. Our proposition (to vary the statement of it) is, that form, or figure, and, doubtless, dimension also, have a fixed relation to the special qualities and characters of beings and things, and that it is not indifferent in the grand economy of creation whether they be put into their present shapes or into some other; but, on the contrary, the whole matter of configuration and dimension is determined by laws which arise out of the nature of things.

In generals the evidence is clear, and it must, therefore, be true in the minutest particulars; for the law of aggregates is the law of individuals—the mass and the atom have like essential conditions. It is, indeed, difficult to trace facts into the inmost nature of things, and quite impossible to penetrate by observation as deep as principles lead by the process of mental investigation—so much more limited in the discovery of truth, even the truth of physics, are the senses than the reasoning faculties. We need, however, but open our eyes to see that the diversities of form among all created things are, at least, as great as their differences of character and use; and whether there be a determinate relation of appearance to constitution or not, there is at least an unlikeness of configuration or dimension, or of both, wherever there is unlikeness of quality; and that this difference of form thus commensurate with difference of constitution, is not merely a matter of arbitrary distinctiveness among the multifarious objects of creation, as names or marks are sometimes attached to things for certainty of reference and recognition, appears from such facts and considerations as follow—

1. All mineral substances in their fixed, that is, in their crystaline form, are angular with flat sides and straight edges. This is not only a general rule and an approximate statement, but exactly accurate and universal; for in the few instances of crystals occurring with convex or curvilinear faces, such as the diamond, it is known that their primary forms have plane or flat faces and a parallel cleavage—making the rule good against accidental influences and superficial appearances.

Here then we have a mode of configuration appropriate to and distinctive of one whole kingdom of nature.

2. In vegetables we have a different figure and characteristic conformation. Their trunks, stems, roots and branches are nearly cylindrical, and uniformly so, in all individuals clearly and completely within the class.

Soon as we enter the precincts of life curvature of lines and convexity of surface begin to mark the higher styles of existence, the law being that nothing which lives and grows by the reception and assimilation of food is angular, rectilinear or included within plane surfaces. Inert bodies take straight, but life assumes curve lines.

3. In animal forms the curve or life line is present of necessity, but it undergoes such modification and departure from that which marks vegetable existence as our law demands. We no longer have almost cylindrical simplicity of shape as the sign of character and kind, but, retaining curvity, which is common to vitality of all modes, we find the cylinder shaped or tapered toward the conical, with continually increasing approach to a higher style of configuration as we ascend toward a higher character of function.

In the human body all that belongs to the whole inferior creation is represented and reproduced, for man is logically a microcosm, and in his body we find the various orders of natural beings marked by their appropriate modes of construction and configuration—from a hair to a heart, the multifarious parts bring with them the forms native to their respective varieties of being.

The bones have in them the material of the mineral kingdom, and they have conformity of figure. In the short, square bones of the wrist, in the teeth, and several other instances, the flatness, straightness and angularity proper to crystalized matter, marks its presence as an element of the structure.

The correspondence of the vascular system with the forms proper to vegetation, is most striking. A good drawing of the blood vessels is a complete picture of a tree. Now, animals and vegetables differ widely in their manner of taking in food, but they are alike in the method and end of the distribution of the nutritious fluids, and between them the resemblance of form obtains only in this, as our law requires. There is nothing in trees, shrubs or grasses, that has any outline likeness to the esophagus, stomach or intestinal tube; nothing in them has any resemblance of office, and nothing, therefore, is formed upon their pattern. The roots of trees, which are the avenues of their principal aliment, are merely absorbing and circulating instruments—a sort of counterpart branches in function—and they have, therefore, what scientific people call the arborescent arrangement wherever they find it.

If it is answered here that a hydraulic necessity determines the general form of circulating vessels, and that certain immediate mechanical advantages belong to the cylindrical over the square or polygonal shape of tube, our point is not affected. We are showing, now, that the expected conformity never fails. It is essential to our position that mechanical requirements shall not over-rule the general law. The instance given is in accordance, and a presumption rises that even mechanical conformation itself is covered and accommodated by the great principle which we are illustrating. It is enough for us, however, that no facts contradict, though it be doubted whether all the instances cited afford us the expected support.

But, leaving the functions and organs, which belong to all living and growing beings in common, and entering the province of animal life and animal law proper, we everywhere observe a significant departure from the angular and cylindrical forms of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms, and an approach, in proportion to the rank and value of the organ and its use, toward an ideal or model, which is neither conical nor heart-shaped, exactly, but such a modification of them as carries the standard figure farthest from that uniformity of curve which marks a globe, from the parallelism of fibre which belongs to the cylinder, and from the flatness of base and sharpness of apex which bound the cone.

The limbs that take their shape from the muscles of locomotion, and the internal parts concerned in those high vital offices, of which minerals and vegetables are wholly destitute, are examples and proof of the configuration proper to the animal kingdom. The thigh, leg, arm, fore-arm, finger, the neck and shoulders, the chest, and the abdomen meeting it and resting on the pelvic bones, are felt to be beautiful or true to the standard form as they taper or conform to this intuitive life-type.

The glands are all larger at one end than the other, and those that have the highest uses are most conspicuously so, and have the best defined and most elegant contour. The descending grade of figure and function is marked by tendency to roundness and flatness. In the uses, actions and positions of these organs, there is nothing mechanical to determine their figure. The human stomach is remarkable for an elegance of form and conformity to the ideal or pattern configuration, to a degree that seems to have no other cause, and, therefore, well supports the doctrine that the importance of its office confers such excellence of shape. The facts of comparative anatomy cannot be introduced with convenience, but they are believed to be in the happiest agreement and strongest corroboration.

The heart, lungs and brain, are eminent instances of the principle. They hold a very high rank in the organization, and, while their automatic relations, uses and actions are toto cœlo dissimilar, their agreement with each other in general style of configuration, and their common tendency toward the standard intimated, is most remarkable.

Their near equality of rank and use, as measured by the significance of form, over-rides all mechanical difference in their mode of working. The heart is, in office, a forcing pump or engine of the circulation. The lungs have no motion of their own, and the porosity or cellular formation of the sponge seems to be the only quality of texture that they require for their duty, which is classed as a process of vital chemistry. The brain differs, again, into a distinct category of function, which accepts no classification, but bears some resemblance to electrical action. Yet, differing thus by all the unlikeness that there is between mechanical, chemical and electro-vital modes of action, they evidently derive their very considerable resemblance of figure from their nearly equal elevation and dignity of service in the frame. This near neighborhood of use and rank allows, however, room enough for their individual differences and its marks. The heart is lowest of the three in rank, and nearest the regularly conical form. The lungs, as their shape is indicated by the cavity which they occupy, are more delicately tapered at their apex, and more oblique and variously incurvated at their base. And the brain, whether viewed in four compartments, or two, or entire, (it admits naturally of such division,) answers still nearer to the highest style and form of the life pattern; and with the due degree of resemblance, or allusion to it, in its several parts, according to their probable value; for the hemispheres are shaped much more conformably to the ideal than the cerebellum or the cerebral apparatus at the base of the brain, where the office begins to change from that of generating the nervous power to the lower service of merely conducting it out to the dependencies.

IV. Hitherto we have looked for proof and illustration only to well marked and clearly defined examples of the orders and kinds of things examined. But the borders of kingdoms and classes, the individuals which make the transitions, and the elements and qualities common to several provinces which link kind to kind and rank to rank, confess the same law, and even more nicely illustrate where, to superficial view, they seem to contradict it.

Every species of beings in the creation is a reproduction, with modifications and additions, but a real reproduction, in effect, of all that is below it in the scale; so that the simplest and the lowest continues and reappears in all, through all variety of advancement, up to the most complex and the highest; in some sense, as decimals include the constituent units, and hundreds include the tens, and other multiples of these embrace them again, until the perfect number is reached, if there be any such bound to either numerals or natures.

1. The rectilinear and parallel arrangement of parts proper to crystalization, which is the lowest plastic power of nature known to us, continues, proximately, in the stems and branches of vegetables. This will accord with our theory, if ascribed to the abundant mineral elements present in the woody fibre, and to its insensibility and enduring nature, as shown by its integral preservation for ages after death, to a degree that rivals the rocks themselves. But the stems of trees are not exactly cylindrical and their fibres are not quite parallel; for there is something of life in them that refuses the arrangement of dead matter. From root to top they taper, but so gradually that it is only decidedly seen at considerable distances or in the whole length.

2. A section of a timber tree shows a regular concentric arrangement of rings—the successive deposits of sequent years—and its cleavage proves that it has also a radiated disposition of fibres. In the flat bones of the head this same arrangement of parts obtains. The cartilaginous base of bone has a life of perhaps equal rank with that of the vegetable structure; it has its insensibility, elasticity, and durability at least, with scarcely any higher qualities; and the osseous deposit is thrown into figure and order similar to the ligneous.

3. The fruits, kernels, and seeds of plants, being the highest results of the vegetable grade of living action, and so bordering upon the sphere of animal existence, and even intruding into it, begin to take its proper forms, and they are spheroidal, oblate spheroids, conical exactly, ovoid, and even closely touch upon the heart-shaped; yet without danger of confusion with the forms distinctive of the higher style of life. This comparison, it must be remarked also, is between the fruits of one kind and the organic structures of the other, and not of organ with organ, which in different kinds shows the greatest diversity, but of spheres of existence immediately contiguous, and therefore closely resembling each other.

V. Of these forms the globular is probably the very lowest; and, accordingly, of it we have no perfect instance in the animal body, and no near approach to it, except the eye-ball, where mechanical law compels a rotundity, that muscle, fat, and skin seem employed to hide as well as move and guard, and, in the round heads of bones, where the ball and socket-joint is required for rotatory motion. But in both these cases the offices which the roundness serves are mechanical, and so, not exceptions to our rule. The perfectly spherical must rank as a low order of form, because it results from the simplest kind of force, mere physical attraction being adequate to its production, without any inherent modifying power or tendency in the subject. It is, accordingly, very repugnant to taste in the human structure; as, for instance, rotundity of body, or a bullet-head. Nothing of that regularity of curve which returns into itself, and might be produced upon a turning lathe, and no continuity of straight lines within the capacity of square and jack-plane, are tolerable in a human feature. Lips, slit with the straightness of a button-hole, or conical precision, or roly-poly globularity, would be equally offensive in the configuration of any feature of the face or general form. Cheek, chin, nose, brow, or bosom, put up into such rotundity and uniformity of line and surface, have that mean and insignificant ugliness that nothing can relieve. In raggedest irregularity there is place and space for the light and shade of thought and feeling, but there is no trace or hint of this nobler life in the booby cushiony style of face and figure. Nose and brows, with almost any breadth of angle; and chin, with any variety of line and surface, are better, just as crystalization, flat and straight and sharp as it is, nevertheless, seems to have some share in its own make and meaning, which rolls and balls cannot lay any claim to.

VI. But the law under consideration cannot be restrained to shape only. Dimension is also a result of intrinsic qualities, and must in some way and to some extent, indicate the character to which it corresponds. Druggists are so well aware of, and so much concerned with the difference in the size of the drops of different fluids, that they have constructed a table of equivalents, made necessary by the fact. Thus a fluid drachm of distilled water contains forty-five drops, of sulphuric ether one hundred and fifty, of sulphuric acid ninety, and of Teneriffe wine seventy-eight. So that the law is absolutely universal, however varied in expression, and a specific character in fluids and other parts of the inanimate world declares itself as decidedly in bulk or volume, as difference of constitution is shown by variety of figure in the living and sentient creation.

Among the crystals termed isomorphous by chemists, the dominant ingredient which is common to them all, controls the form, but difference of size answers sufficiently to the partial unlikeness of the other less active elements; and so in the instances of cubes and octahedrons formed of dissimilar minerals where difference of constitution is indicated by varied dimensions only.

VII. Crystal and crystal, and, drop and drop, are alike within the limits of the species, or their unlikeness, if there be any, is not appreciable to our senses, and scarcely conceivable though not absolutely impossible to thought; but we know certainly that clear individuality of character is everywhere pursued and marked by peculiarity of form and size throughout the entire universe.

While among minerals and fluids dissimilarity occurs obviously only between species, among plants it begins to be conspicuous between individuals, growing more and more so as observation ascends in the vegetable kingdom. Two stalks of grass may resemble each other as much as two crystals of the same salt, but timber trees grow more unlike, and fruit trees differ enough to make their identification comparatively easy. But it is in the animal kingdom, eminently, and with increasing distinctness as the rank rises, that individuals become distinguishable from each other; for it is here that diversity of character gets opportunity, from complexity of nature, freedom of generating laws, and varied influence of circumstances, to impress dissimilarity deepest and clearest. Crystals undergo no modification of state but instant formation and the sudden violence which destroys them. Vegetables pass through the changes of germination and growth, and feel the difference of soil, and winds, and temperature, and to the limits of these influences, confess them in color, size, and shape; but animals, endowed with acuteness of sense, enjoying locomotion, and related to all the world around them—living in all surrounding nature, and susceptible of all its influences—their individual differences know no limits, and they are universally unlike in appearance as in circumstances, training and character.

Even in the lower orders there is ample proof of this. The mother bird and beast know their own young; the shepherd and the shepherd’s dog know every one of their own flock from every other on all the hills and plains; and among the millions of men that people the earth, a quick eye detects a perfectly defined difference as broad as the peculiarity of character which underlies it.

Narrowness of relations and Simplicity of function are as narrowly restrained in range of conformation; Complexity makes proportionate room for difference; and Variety is the result, the sign, and the measure of Liberty.

Detailed illustrations of the law would interest in proportion to the range of the investigation; and gratification and delight would keep pace with the deepening conviction of its universality; but the limits of an essay restrain the discussion to mere hints and suggestions, and general statements of principles which reflection must unfold into formal demonstration for every one in his own department of observation.

Some inaccuracies of statement have been indulged to avoid the complexity which greater precision would have induced. Broad, frank thinking will easily bring up this looseness of language to the required closeness of thought as the advancing and deepening inquiry demands. Moreover, it may be difficult or impossible to meet every fact that presents itself with an instant correspondence in the alleged law; but such things cannot be avoided until people learn how to learn, and cease to meet novel propositions with a piddling criticism, or a wrangling spirit of controversy. Looking largely and deeply into facts in a hundred departments of observation will show the rule clear in the focal light of their concurrent proofs, or, looking out from the central position of a priori reasoning, it will be seen in every direction to be a necessary truth.

It would be curious, and more than curious, to trace ascent of form up through ascertained gradation of quality in minerals, plants, fruits, and animal structures; and it would be as curious to apply a criticism derived from this doctrine to the purpose of fixing the rank and relations of all natural beings—in other words, to construct a science of taste and beauty, and, striking still deeper, a science of universal physiognomy, useful at once as a law of classification, and as an instrument of discovery. The scale would range most probably from the globular, as the sign of the lowest character, through the regularly graded movement of departure which in nature fills up all the stages of ascending function from a drop of fluid to the model configuration of, perhaps, that cerebral organ which manifests the highest faculty of the soul.

The signs that substance and its states give of intrinsic nature and use, or the connection of configuration and function, are not understood as we understand the symbols of arithmetic, and the words of artificial language; that is, the symbols of our own creation answer to the ideas they are intended for, but the signs of the universal physiognomy of nature are neither comprehended fully, nor translated even to the extent that they are understood, into the formulæ of science and the words of oral language. Many of them are telegraphed in dumb show to our instincts, to the great enlargement of our converse with nature, both sentient and inanimate; but still a vast territory of knowledge lies beyond the rendering of our intuitions, and remains yet unexplored by our understanding; a dark domain that has not been brought under any rule of science, nor yielded its due tribute to the monarch mind. We have no dictionary that shows the inherent signification of a cube, a hexagon, an octagon, circle, ellipse, or cylinder; no tables of multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division, which, dealing in forms and their equivalents, might afford the products, quotients, and remainders of their various differences and interminglings with each other. States, qualities, and attitudes of structure, contribute much of that natural language by which we converse with the animal world beneath us, and with the angel world within us, but it remains as yet instinctual, except so far only as the fine arts have brought it out of the intuitive and oracular into rule and calculation, nor have we any methodic calculus, universally available, by which these revelations of nature may be rendered into demonstrative truth ruled by scientific method.

It is conceivable that the form of every natural being is a full report of its constitution and use, but as yet, tedious and dubious chemical analysis, observation, and experiment are our directory to the hidden truth. In some things it is otherwise. We know perfectly a passion or emotion, and the meaning of the attitudes, colors, and forms of limb, person and feature which denote them; and the interior qualities of texture, also, as they are intimated to the sight and touch, lead us without reasoning, to definitive judgments of human character. Of animals, in their degree, we receive similar impressions and with equal conviction, but we know so little more about these things, than that we know them, that we can make no advantage of such knowledge beyond its most immediate purpose in our commerce with the living beings which surround us.

It remains, therefore, for mind to explore the philosophy of form, that all which lies implied in it, waiting but still undiscovered, may come out into use, and all that we instinctively possess of it may take a scientific method, and so render the service of a law thoroughly understood.

The principle gives us familiar aid every day, yet without revealing its own secret, in physiognomy, painting, statuary, architecture, and elocution. It is obeyed in all the impersonations of metaphor, fable and myth; it is active every instant in the creations of fancy, and supplies, so to speak, the material for all the structures of thought—ruling universally in the earth, and fashioning and peopling the heavens. To the most delicate movements of the imagination it gives a corresponding embodiment of beauty; and it helps, as well, to realize the monstrous mixtures of man and beast occurring in human character by the answering monstrosity of centaur, syren, sphinx, and satyr. The old Greek theology held that the eternal Divinity made all things out of an eternal matter, after the forms of eternal, self-subsisting patterns; a statement, in its utmost depth beyond the discovery of human faculties, certainly, but not too strong to express the universal prevalence of this law in the creation. To the human intellect all things must exist in space, bounded and determined by figure appropriate to the subject; in fact, we can conceive of nothing except under such conditions; and our doctrine but refers this necessity of mind to a primordial necessity of being, ranking it among the harmonies of existence, as an adaptation of sense, thought, and feeling to the correspondent truth in the constitution of the universe.

E.