Do n't be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild 's arguments , but stand up to him like a man , and answer him -LRB- quite respectfully , of course -RRB- thus : - If Cousin Cramchild says , that if there are water-babies , they must grow into water-men , ask him how he knows that they do not ? and then , how he knows that they must , any more than the Proteus of the Adelsberg caverns grows into a perfect newt . If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a land-baby to turn into a water-baby , ask him if he ever heard of the transformation of Syllis , or the Distomas , or the common jelly - fish , of which M. Quatrefages says excellently well -- `` Who would not exclaim that a miracle had come to pass , if he saw a reptile come out of the egg dropped by the hen in his poultry-yard , and the reptile give birth at once to an indefinite number of fishes and birds ? Yet the history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful as that would be . '' Ask him if he knows about all this ; and if he does not , tell him to go and look for himself ; and advise him -LRB- very respectfully , of course -RRB- to settle no more what strange things can not happen , till he has seen what strange things do happen every day . If he says that things can not degrade , that is , change downwards into lower forms , ask him , who told him that water-babies were lower than land-babies ? But even if they were , does he know about the strange degradation of the common goose-barnacles , which one finds sticking on ships ' bottoms ; or the still stranger degradation of some cousins of theirs , of which one hardly likes to talk , so shocking and ugly it is ? And , lastly , if he says -LRB- as he most certainly will -RRB- that these transformations only take place in the lower animals , and not in the higher , say that that seems to little boys , and to some grown people , a very strange fancy . For if the changes of the lower animals are so wonderful , and so difficult to discover , why should not there be changes in the higher animals far more wonderful , and far more difficult to discover ? And may not man , the crown and flower of all things , undergo some change as much more wonderful than all the rest , as the Great Exhibition is more wonderful than a rabbit-burrow ? Let him answer that . And if he says -LRB- as he will -RRB- that not having seen such a change in his experience , he is not bound to believe it , ask him respectfully , where his microscope has been ? Does not each of us , in coming into this world , go through a transformation just as wonderful as that of a sea-egg , or a butterfly ? and do not reason and analogy , as well as Scripture , tell us that that transformation is not the last ? and that , though what we shall be , we know not , yet we are here but as the crawling caterpillar , and shall be hereafter as the perfect fly . The old Greeks , heathens as they were , saw as much as that two thousand years ago ; and I care very little for Cousin Cramchild , if he sees even less than they . And so forth , and so forth , till he is quite cross . And then tell him that if there are no water-babies , at least there ought to be ; and that , at least , he can not answer . And meanwhile , my dear little man , till you know a great deal more about nature than Professor Owen and Professor Huxley put together , do n't tell me about what can not be , or fancy that anything is too wonderful to be true . `` We are fearfully and wonderfully made , '' said old David ; and so we are ; and so is everything around us , down to the very deal table .
Yes ; much more fearfully and wonderfully made , already , is the table , as it stands now , nothing but a piece XXXXX dead deal wood , than if , as foxes say , and geese believe , spirits could make it dance , or talk to you by rapping on it .
If as by into like of so than though till