SPECIES AS TO VARIATION, ETC. 179 



their destiny — these are questions which surge up 

 from time to time ; and now and then in the progress 

 of science they come to assume a new and hopeful in- 

 terest. Botany and zoology, geology, and what our 

 author, feeling the want of a new term, proposes to 

 name epiontology, 1 all lead up to and converge into 

 this class of questions, while recent theories shape and 

 point the discussion. So we look with eager interest 

 to see what light the study of oaks by a very careful, 

 experienced, and conservative botanist, particularly 

 conversant with the geographical relations of plants, 

 may throw upon the subject. 



The course of investigation in this instance does 

 not differ from that ordinarily pursued by working 

 botanists ; nor, indeed, are the theoretical conclusions 

 other than those to which a similar study of other or- 

 ders might not have equally led. The oaks afford a 

 very good occasion for the discussion of questions 

 which press upon our attention, and perhaps they offer 

 peculiarly good materials on account of the number 

 of fossil species. 



Preconceived notions about species being laid 

 aside, the specimens in hand were distributed, accord- 



1 A name which, at the close of his article, De Candolle proposes for 

 the study of the succession of organized beings, to comprehend, therefore, 

 palaeontology and all included under what is called geographical botany 

 and zoology — the whole forming a science parallel to geology — the lat- 

 ter devoted to the history of unorganized bodies, the former, to that of 

 organized beings, as respects origin, distribution, and succession. We 

 are not satisfied with the word, notwithstanding the precedent of pale- 

 ontology ; since ontology, the science of being, has an established mean- 

 ing as referring to mental existence — i. e., is a synonym or a department 

 of metaphysics. 



