THE LAWS OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY. 67 



John Herschel, in his admirable " Preliminary Discourse 

 on the Study of Natural Philosophy," says, page 173 : 

 " The student who makes any progress in the study of 

 natural philosophy will encounter numberless cases in 

 which this transfer of ideas from one extreme of magni- 

 tude to the other is called for. He will find, for instance, 

 the phenomena of the propagation of winds referred to 

 the same laws which regulate the propagation of motion 

 through the smallest masses of air ; those of lightning as- 

 similated to the mere communication of an electric spark, 

 and those of earthquakes to the vibrations of a stretched 

 wire. In short, he must lay his account to finding the dis- 

 tinctions of great and little altogether annihilated in na- 

 ture." 



CHAPTER Y. 



THOSE NATURAL CAUSES WHICH PRODUCE THE INEQUALITY IN 

 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BRANCHES AND BUDS OF A TREE, 

 ILLUSTRATE CLEARLY THE LAWS OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND 

 SUBORDINATION IN CIVILIZED COMMUNITIES. 



WHEN we see defined against the clear, cold winter's 

 heaven, the leafless branches and branchlets of a tree, it 

 is hardly possible to imagine anything which is apparently 

 so chaotic and irregular. 



There are branches and twigs of all possible degrees of 

 growth, mingled together without any apparent order. It 

 is a complete labyrinth of ramification an inextricable 

 maze, perplexing and without a charm. Yet there is no- 

 thing even here that is random or confused. Everything 

 about a tree is constructed according to plan and system. 

 Even this apparent chaos of branches, with their innume- 

 rable branchlets and twigs, is no exception. 



If we would obtain a clear and satisfactory perception 

 of the causes which have produced all this infinite variety 

 of ramification, and trace out plan and system in every twig, 

 branchlet, and branch, we must go back to first principles. 

 We must study the tree in the earlier periods of its life 



