1863.] REVIEWS. 535 



called all modifications of the same original tissues ; but who will 

 say that they are identical organs ? 



From analogy, but not from morphology, it must be inferred 

 that leaf and pericarp are as distinct as horns, hide, and bone 

 are from blood, fat, and fibre. 



Considering the almost infinite number of plants that exist 

 and have existed since time began, the paucity of aberrant forms, 

 numbers, and positions, — not their multitude, — is marvellous. It 

 is a greater miracle, because it manifests a larger display of wis- 

 dom and goodness, that the sun rises every day, than that the 

 same luminary stood still in the times of Joshua, and retrograded 

 in the days of Hezekiah. It is a greater marvel that plants pre- 

 serve a sort of uniformity in species, genera, and orders, than it 

 is to find a leaf or a plant where there should be a carpel, as we 

 sometimes see in the White Clover, and in the Alpine Sheep's 

 Fescue. These are but like unity, or one, compared with the my- 

 riads of millions of normal forms. 



Where was the organic unity, the belauded discovery of 

 Goethe, in the Garden of Eden, when the trees yielding fruit 

 were created bearing fruit ? and where was the transition stage 

 or passage from a leaf to a carpel, and from a petal to a stamen, 

 when the herb yielding seed first sprang from the bosom of the 

 bounteous earth at the command of the Creator ? 



This unity of organization and progressive development savour 

 not a little of certain doctrines which were promulgated above 

 twenty years ago, and which their author never has acknow- 

 ledged, although they met with a flattering reception, and the 

 work on which they were expounded was one of the most popular 

 of that period. 



We cheerfully admit our obligations to the amiable author 

 of this essay or article on the History of Morphology, especi- 

 ally for telling us that the science was discovered above two 

 thousand years before it got a sponsor or a name. It was a 

 sturdy bantling many centuries ere Goethe was honoured with 

 its paternity. It appears to have had many- dry nurses, tutors 

 and masters since it leaped from the head of Aristotle, like 

 Minerva from that of Jupiter ; but, unlike this celestial heroine, 

 it appeared not completely equipped. Many of it weak points 

 have been detected and exposed. Both ancient and modern 

 doctors have been wrangling and squabbling about the birth, the 



