CONCLUSION. 99 



variable or slightly and slowly transforming ; 

 but specific types may and do eventualy vary 

 in all their frame and parts, except the essential 

 floral organs of the Genus ... as MEN have 

 varied in color, size, features, hair, <fec. but 

 preserved the great generic characters of limbs 

 and teeth, and are -BIMANES or with two 

 hands, forming an Order distinct from the Q,uad- 

 rumanes or four handed Monkeys. 



Rosa and Ruhus were once united in the 

 same Order and family, but they are as unlike 

 as Men and Monkeys, Rosa has a calix berry 

 like enclosing the germs or pistils, while Ruhus 

 bears them on a central gynophore or fructal 

 receptacle. These are characters perfectly es- 

 sential and exclusive, like 2 hands or 4 hands. 

 All good characters ought to be such; when 

 they vary they lose their importance ; but when 

 we merely suppose they do, because we unite 

 alien plants, the mistake is ours, not a natural 

 consequence nor real fact. 



This view of natural Botany opens a wide 

 field to us : the aggregation or segregation of 

 individuals in various successive real Clusters, 

 ruled and led by several physical laws of oppo- 

 site tendencies, may gradualy unrol before us 

 the mysteries of Vegetable organization and 

 frames, with their mutual contending aims. 



These great laws that rule living bodies and 

 vegetation, are, SYMETRY that gives the 

 bodily forms to Genera, casting the moulds of 

 typical frames— PERPETUITY that by re- 

 production, perpetuates these original primitive 

 forms — DIVERSITY that bids and compels all 

 living bodies to assume gradualy a variety of 

 slight changes when reproduced, and never 

 evolves individuals perfectly alike, xvor two leaves 



