144 



THE POPULAB SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



What perplexity does the thought, coupled with the facts, bring into 

 the mind ! But if these aborted ovules are reminiscences of an earlier 

 age, and an acorn less differentiated from the general type of the 

 ovary, the oak becomes intelligible. And in this light of evolution all 

 aborted organs, all rudimental organs, all floral eccentricities, become 

 intelligible. Botany itself ceases to be a toy, and commands the at- 

 tention of such imperial minds as those of Spencer and Mill. Her 

 boundaries are enlarged. The plant does not stand apart, the result 

 of a single antecedent. It represents the action of countless forces 

 through countless ages. It almost justifies Tennyson's apostrophe : 



" Flower in the crannied wall, 

 I pluck yea out of the crannies — 

 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 

 Little flower — but if I could understand 

 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 

 I should know what God and man is." 



PUI^ISHmG A SEKIOK WKA^GLEK. 



By HERBERT SPENCER. 



IN" the British Quarterly Jieview for January, 1874, the writer of 

 the article to which I formerly replied,^ makes a rejoinder. It is 

 of the kind which might have been anticipated. There are men to 

 whom the discovery that they have done injustice is painful. After 

 proof of having wrongly ascribed to another such a nonsensical belief 

 as that insensible motion is heat because heat is insensible motion, 

 some would express regret. Not so my reviewer. Having by forced 

 interpretations debited me with an absurdity, he makes no apology ; 

 but, with an air implying that he had all along done this, he attacks 

 the allegation I had really made — an allegation which is at least so far 

 from an absurdity, that he describes it only as not justified by " the pres- 

 ent state of science." And here, having incidentally referred to this 

 point, I may as well, before proceeding, deal with his substituted charge 

 at the same time that I further exemplify his method. Probably, most 

 of those who see the British Quarterly will be favorably impressed 

 by the confidence of his assertion ; but those who compare my state- 

 ment with his travesty of it, and who compare both with some authori- 

 tative exposition, will be otherwise impressed. To his statement that 

 I conclude "that friction must ultimately transform all [the italics are 

 his] the energy of a sound into heat," I reply that it is glaringly un- 

 true : I have named friction as a second cause. And when he pooh- 

 poohs the effect of compression because it is " merely momentary," is 



* See Popular Science Monthly for March, 1874. 



