MR. PA TRICK MA TTHE W. 317 



general cause underlying variations, leaves, as will 

 appear presently, less than common room for ambiguity. 

 Here are Mr. Matthew's own words : 



" There is a law universal in nature, tending to render 

 every reproductive being the best possibly suited to 

 the condition that its kind, or that organized matter 

 is susceptible of, and which appears intended to model 

 the physical and mental or instinctive, powers to their 

 highest perfection, and to continue them so. This law 

 sustains the lion in his strengh, the hare in her swift- 

 ness, and the fox in his wiles. As nature in all her 

 modifications of life has a power of increase far beyond 

 what is needed to supply the place of what falls by 

 Time's decay, those individuals who possess not the 

 requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall 

 prematurely without reproducing either a prey to their 

 natural devourers, or sinking under disease, generally 

 induced by want of nourishment, their place being 

 occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who 

 are pressing on the means of existence. 



" Throughout this volume, we have felt considerable 

 inconvenience from the adopted dogmatical classification 

 of plants, and have all along been floundering between 

 species and variety, which certainly under culture soften 

 into each other. A particular conformity, each after its 

 own kind, when in a state of nature, termed species, no 

 doubt exists to a considerable degree. This conformity 

 has existed during the last forty centuries; geologists 

 discover a like particular conformity fossil species 

 through the deep deposition of each great epoch ; but 

 they also discover an almost complete difference to exist 



