122 GENERAL YIEW AND BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



life. But in truth this, though it may excite wonder, 

 cannot excite wonder as "anything uncommon. It is only 

 one example of what occurs everywhere. Every tree, 

 every plant, produces innumerable flowers, the flowers 

 innumerable seeds, which drop to the earth, or are carried 

 abroad by the winds, and perish without having their 

 powers unfolded. When we see a field of thistles shed its 

 downy seeds upon the wind, so that they roll away like a 

 cloud, what a vast host of possible thistles are there. Yet 

 very probably none of them become actual thistles. Few 

 are able to take hold of the ground at all, and those that 

 do die for lack of congenial nutriment, or are crushed by 

 external causes before they are grown. The like is the 

 case with every tribe of plants and animals. The possible 

 fertility of some kinds of insects is as portentous as any- 

 thing of this kind can be. If allowed to proceed un- 

 checked, if the possible life were not perpetually 

 extinguished, the multiplying energies perpetually pros- 

 trated, they would gain dominion over the largest 

 animals, and occupy the earth. And the same is the 

 case, in different degrees, in the larger animals. The 

 female is stocked with innumerable ovules, capable of 

 becoming living things, of which incomparably the 

 greatest number end as they began, mere ovules : marks 

 of mere possibility, of vitality frustrated. The universe 

 is so full of such rudiments of things that they far out- 

 number the things which outgrow their rudiments.' l 



The explanation of events by aid of the ideas of 

 ' instinct ' and 4 Providence ' is also very frequently and 

 greatly abused. ' It cannot be example that sets the fox 

 to simulate death so perfectly that he permits himself to 

 be handled, to be conveyed to a distant spot, and there 



1 Whewell, The Plurality of Worlds, pp. 222, 223. 



