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ship. The forms of nature are infinitely diversified, so 

 as to gratify the eye, and improve the mind by furnish- 

 ing it with ever new objects of contemplation, and ever 

 fresh incentives to study. The number of species and 

 sub-species, where there is a marked difference, is im- 

 mense ; but when we attempt to search out the varieties 

 of the same species, we find ourselves treading on the 

 confines of infinitude. No two blades of grass from the 

 same root, no two leaves of the same tree, no two flowers 

 of the same plant, are ever found precisely alike in any 

 one particular. So exhaustless are the conceptions of 

 the Divine mind, and so boundless His skill and power, 

 that no two individuals of -any created existence have 

 ever been cast in the same mould, or wrought to the 

 same pattern. And yet this endless variety is invariably 

 so constituted as to secure a general uniformity. There 

 appears everywhere a unity of design and composition, 

 amid an almost infinite diversity of forms. Every indi- 

 vidual of every species bears the unmistakable mark of 

 a specific uniformity ; and every species, however much 

 it may vary in some subsidiary particular, exhibits the 

 broad and palpable character of the genus or the family 

 to which it belongs. This law of variety with general 

 uniformity, displayed among all the members of the 

 vegetable kingdom, as well as in all the works of nature, 

 is if possible still more strikingly manifested among the 

 simplest and least organized plants. It is impossible for 

 us to conceive how simply, by a little change of arrange- 

 ment, and a little variation in the amount and propor- 

 tions of materials, such an endless multitude of objects, 

 and such a countless variety, can be produced, objects, 



