In Pander and d'Alton's admirable illustrated work[213] we find: "Just as all that is characteristic in the formation of bones springs from the _character_ of the animals, so does that character, on the other hand, develop out of their _tendencies and desires_. These _tendencies and desires_ of animals, which are _so vividly expressed_ in their whole organisation and of which that organisation only appears to be the medium, cannot be explained by special primary forces, since we can only deduce their inner reason from the general life of Nature." By this last turn the author shows indeed that he has arrived at the point where, like all other investigators of Nature, he is brought to a standstill by the metaphysical; but he also shows, that up to this point beyond which Nature eludes investigation, _tendencies and desires_ (_i.e._ will) were the utmost thing knowable. The shortest expression for his last conclusion about animals would be "As they will, so they are." [213] Pander and d'Alton, "Ueber die Skelette der Raubthiere," 1822, p. 7. The learned and thoughtful Burdach,[214] when treating of the ultimate reason of the genesis of the embryo in his great work on Physiology, bears witness no less explicitly to the truth of my view. I must not, unfortunately, conceal the fact that in a weak moment, misled Heaven knows by what or how, this otherwise excellent man brings in just here a few sentences taken from that utterly worthless, tyrannically imposed pseudo-philosophy, about 'thought' being what is primary (it is just what is last and most conditioned of all) yet 'no representation' (that is to say, a wooden iron). Immediately after however, under the returning influence of his own better self, he proclaims the real truth (p. 710): "The brain curves itself outwards to the retina, because the central part of the embryo _desires_ to take in the impressions of the activity of the world; the mucous membrane of the intestinal canal develops into the lung, because the organic body _desires_ to enter into relation with the elementary substances of the universe; organs of generation spring from the vascular system, because the individual only lives in the species, and because the life which has commenced in the individual _desires_ to multiply." This assertion of Burdach's, which so entirely agrees with my doctrine, reminds me of a passage in the ancient Mahabharata, which it is really difficult not to regard as a mythical version of the same truth. It is in the third Canto of "Sundas and Upasunda" in Bopp's "Ardschuna's Reise zu Indra's Himmel"[215] (1824); Brahma has just created Tilottama, the fairest of women, who is walking round the circle of the assembled gods. Shiva conceives so violent a longing to gaze at her as she turns successively round the circle, that four faces arise in him according to her different positions, that is, according to the four cardinal points. This may