Bailey.] J-1" [Mayl, 



stance present in the leaves, which effectually protects it from the attacks 

 of mammals and caterpillars, but not from the attacks of parasitic fungi, 

 which appear to be indifferent to all protective contrivances exhibited by- 

 plants, nearly every plant supporting one or more of these minute pests, 

 the effects of which will be realized by mentioning the potato disease, 

 ' rust ' and 'smut ' in the various cereals, and the hop disease, all due to 

 parasitic fungi." 



Now, this is merely a gratuitous and ad captandruvi species of argu- 

 ment, one which is designed to please the fancy and io satisfy those super- 

 ficial spirits who are still determined to read the element of design into 

 organic nature. It does not account for the facts. These particular 

 attributes of plants are specialized features, and it is always unsafe to 

 generalize upon specializations. Each and every one of such specialized 

 features must be investigated for itself Probably the greater number of 

 spinous processes will be found to be the residua following the contraction 

 of the plant body ; others are no doubt mere correlatives of the evolution 

 of other attributes ; and some may be the eruptions of the growth-force ; 

 and the acrid and poisonous properties are quite as likely to be wholly 

 secondary and useless features. The attempt to find a definite immediate 

 use and office for every attribute in the creation is superficial and per- 

 nicious. There are many attributes of organisms which are not only use- 

 less, but positively dangerous to the possessor, and they can be under- 

 stood only as one studies them in connection with the long and eventful 

 history of the line of ascent. 



The thought which I want to leave with you, therefore, is that unlike- 

 nesses are the greatest facts in the organic creation. These unlikenesses 

 in plants are (1) the expressions of the ever-changing environmental 

 conditions in which plants grow, and of the incidental stimuli to 

 which they are exposed ; (2) the result of the force of mere growth ; (3) 

 the outcome of sexual mixing. They survive because they are unlike, 

 and thereby enter fields of least competition. The possibility of the entire 

 tragic evolution lay in the plasticity of the original life-plasma. The 

 plastic creation has grown into its own needs day by day and age by age, 

 and it is now just what it has been obliged to be. It could have been 

 nothing else. 



Eemarks by Prof L. H. Bailey . 



Prof. Cope has given us three general proofs or series of proofs of evo- 

 lution. In the first place he says there is variation ; in the second place 

 succession ; and in the third place we have the proof of embryology. I 

 might subdivide them and might add two or three more proofs which 

 appeal to me with particular force. It seems to me that we must accept 

 the truth of evolution on the mere f\ict that the earth from its beginning 

 has undergone wonderful physical changes, affecting the organisms living 

 upon it, and which must have adapted themselves to the changes by them- 



