10 Rev. P. Keith on the Structure of Living Fabrics, 



of any great weight. We are not, indeed, entitled to call any 

 work of God imperfect in its kind: but surely we may call 

 it imperfect as compared with others, or as located in a scale 

 of degrees. Men have, in short, always done so. Finding a 

 standard in the highest order of a class, they have compared 

 other orders with it, and have regarded them as being more 

 or less perfect according to the degree of their proximity to 

 that order, determined by the anatomy of their fabric, or com- 

 plexity of their organization. What are the arrangements of 

 Cuvier in the animal kingdom, but arrangements founded 

 upon the comparative perfection of the organization of his 

 different divisions? Why are the Vertcbraia put in the first 

 rank, but because they are more perfect in their organization 

 than the Mollusca, which are put in the second rank, and these 

 more perfect than the Artiailata, which are put in the third 

 rank ; and so on ? Because an oyster can move itself, through 

 means of great labour, a little way on its native bed, are we 

 to say that its organization is as perfect as that of the " Le- 

 viathan that playeth, or taketh his pastime, in the great and 

 wide sea?" We do not insist upon the introducing of such a 

 division into the arrangements of a Flora; but in any compara- 

 tive view, whether of plants or of animals, its utility is obvious. 

 Yet Mr. Burnett seems scarcely inclined to admit even this. 

 For phytologists, he affirms, have through " ignorance or 

 prejudice" set up a type in the selected seed, or root, of some 

 peculiar plant, and then they have required that all other 

 plants should conform to it; and failing in that conformity, they 

 have pronounced them to have, no seed, or no root, at all. 

 Surely this is not sufficiently liberal. Phytologists were doing 

 their best according to the existing state of the science, and in 

 return for their labours they are told that they were ignorant 

 or prejudiced. If Mr. Burnett has acquired new light, let him 

 enlighten us ; but let him not censure us for faults of which 

 we are not guilty. If we have been groping our way in the 

 dark, we are now willing to open our eyes to the light of day. 

 Phytologists have in fact described many varieties and modi- 

 fications both of seeds and of roots ; — only where they have 

 found no visible organs to which they could apply the name, 

 they have said that such plants were without seeds, or without 

 roots. Yet, says Mr. Burnett, they have potential roots. 

 Be it so : and how is the phytologist to describe, or to repre- 

 sent a potential root? There is indeed a considerable advan- 

 tage in the supposition of a potential root or seed. For upon 

 this principle you may prove the existence of almost any 

 organ whatever, in almost any plant or animal whatever. 

 Thus you may prove that frogs have tails. The syllogism 



