Design in Plants. 



ascribe to it a measure of wisdom in 

 itself and for its young, and we may imagine, as 

 some naturalists have, that the adaptations of an 

 animal grow out of conscious attempts to harmonize 

 its relations to the external world. But with the 

 plant, nothing of this kind can be claimed. -The prin- 

 ciple of natural selection may be insisted upon, and 

 the claim made, that we find the present tribes of 

 plants, only I they happen to be fitted for the 



6 in which they are found ; and thus they survive, 

 while their kindred, with less perfect relations, have 

 n destroyed. But the fact remains, that those 

 plants which now clothe the earth are what they 

 are from no attempt on their part to better their 

 condition or to complete their adaptation to the 

 world. They are what they are either by chance 

 or by design in their creation. Any other supposi- 

 tion no man would pretend to make. 



He may talk of some law by which they are fitted to 

 their place by development. But he cannot believe 

 that plants establish laws for themselves. If they 

 are under any law, that law was established for them. 

 Whether the adaptation of plants to the world is the' 

 result of chance, by which some favored ones have 

 developed in the right direction, so as to maintain 

 their ground against all destroying agencies, or 

 whether they were created as they are, and all their 

 relations established by an intelligent Designer, can 

 only be learned from a careful consideration of their 

 structure and relations. If it be said that the pro- 

 visions which they make are analogous to those 



