210 DARWINIANA 



\ 

 seeds, and others they brought with them, have mul- 

 tiplied there into numbers probably much exceeding 

 those extant in their native lands ; indeed, when we con- 

 template our own race, and our particular stock, taking 

 such recent but dominating possession of this New 

 World ; when we consider how the indigenous flora 

 of islands generally succumbs to the foreigners which 

 come in the train of man ; and that most weeds (i. e., 

 the prepotent plants in open soil) of all temperate 

 climates are not " to the manner born," but are self- 

 invited intruders — we must needs abandon the notion 

 of any primordial and absolute adaptation of plants 

 and animals to their habitats, which may stand in lieu 

 of explanation, and so preclude our inquiring any 

 further. The harmony of Nature and its admirable 

 perfection need not be regarded as inflexible and 

 changeless. Nor need Nature be likened to a statue, 

 or a cast in rigid bronze, but rather to an organism, 

 with play and adaptability of parts, and life and even 

 soul informing the whole. Under the former view 

 Nature would be "the faultless monster which the 

 world ne'er saw," but inscrutable as the Sphinx, whom 

 it were vain, or worse, to question of the whence and 

 whither. Under the other, the perfection of Nature, 

 if relative, is multifarious and ever renewed; and 

 much that is enigmatical now may find explanation in 

 some record of the past. 



That the two species of redwood we are contem- 

 plating originated as they are and where they are, and 

 for the part they are now playing, is, to say the least, 

 not a scientific supposition, nor in any sense a probable 

 one. Nor is it more likely that they are destined to 



