BEAUTY AND UTILITY. 73 



Does it mean that now ? Not at all. There is not a seed in 

 the fruit : therefore the fruit cannot propagate its kind ; and 

 every single orange takes material out of the wood and leaf, 

 that is, it takes the material that would have gone to build 

 up the individual plant. Therefore this process is an injury 

 to the individual, and it is no benefit to the species. 



You see, then, that we can divide all these plants that we 

 talk about here, day after day, into these two great classes. 

 In many of them you can run the idea of beauty until the 

 power of reproducing their kind is lost ; or you can run the 

 idea of utility until the same power is lost. But what do 

 we gain in all this ? In every case we gain that which man 

 wants, that which is the prime object for him. We get the 

 most beautiful flowers, and we get luscious fruit, without seed, 

 and we have given to us means by wliich we can propagate 

 both of them. Does not this look very much as though there 

 was a purpose here, — a purpose that takes care of the 

 plant while it is wild ? But, the moment the plant passes into 

 the hands of intelligent man, it manifests this law, by which 

 it can be developed so that it cannot take care of itself ; but, 

 being take care df by man, it yields to him a hundred-fold 

 what it could have yielded when it was left to take care of 

 itself. 



Now I come to a point which would lead me to a path 

 wliich I do not propose to tread, which will be pursued by 

 the lecturer to-morrow night. But I must come up to it. 

 You will observe, that, so far, I have spoken of this variation 

 as though, once begun, it was carried on in that particular 

 line by that individual in which it appeared. Now there 

 comes in another principle, wliich is a very important one, 

 and which, I have no doubt, Professor Goodale will very fully 

 develop to-morrow night ; and that is this, — going down to 

 the lowest forms of plants, we find something equivalent to 

 sexual relation. Everybody understands there is sex in the 

 higher plants. Linnaeus, who was a great naturalist, showed 

 his intuition, his keenness of insight, when he called the 

 lower plants cyptogamous : that means the marriage-rela- 

 tion concealed. Although he could not point out, as we can, 

 the sexual relation of these lower plants, he still believed in 

 it, as is shown by his application of this word. Even in these 

 low plants, where they are made up of a few cells, there is a 



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