232 SYSTEM OF LIVING FOBMS. 



ately below it in the series to which it belongs. There is, ap- 

 parently, one exception to this order of parental extraction in 

 the developed parts of the superiorly organized tree : The 

 flower-buds, though they are the next superior development 

 to the leaves, are not an outgrowth from the leaves, but, in 

 common with these, they are the next superior outgrowth from 

 the branches ; and 'the leaves, after performing their specific 

 functions, die and drop off, without giving rise to any succeed- 

 ing and superior form of developments. The flower-buds are 

 undoubtedly an ascension of the same essences and principles 

 which, stopping one step short of them, produce the leaves, 

 and which, in each case, ascend from all the preceding devel- 

 opments of the tree as represented in roots, trunk, and 

 branches. 



It should be remarked, however, that in a less perfect class 

 of vegetable forms the cryptogamia the organs of fructifi- 

 cation, involving, of course, the principles of the bud, are de- 

 veloped upon the leaves, which, in this instance, shows the 

 relations of parent and offspring between the two develop- 

 ments, and preserves the succession between them un- 

 broken. 



Concerning the genesis of the Animal Kingdom, then, as 

 well as that of all other Series and Degrees of creation, it 

 may, so far as the known analogies of nature are concerned, 

 and without in either case affecting our views of the Divine 

 agency, be consistently believed, either that the higher tribes 

 in the Animal Kingdom (as well as in the Vegetable and 

 other Degrees of Creation), at certain periods, and under cer- 

 tain revolutionary conditions or Divine impulsions hereafter 

 to be explained proceeded by orderly descent, from the tribes 

 next below them, as their natural parents or that they pro- 

 ceeded, at the same periods and under the same conditions, 



