V. PAPAVER RHOEAS. IOI 



absolute, decency and indecency absolute, glory or 

 shame absolute, and folly or sense absolute. 



Whereas, the perception of beauty, and the power 

 of defining physical character, are based on moral 

 instinct, and on the power of defining animal or 

 human character. Nor is it possible to say that 

 one flower is more highly developed, or one 

 animal of a higher order, than another, without the 

 assumption of a divine law of perfection to which 

 the one more conforms than the other. 



5. Thus, for instance. That it should ever have 

 been an open question with me whether a poppy 

 had always two of its petals less than the other two, 

 depended wholly on the hurry and imperfection with 

 which the poppy carries out its plan. It never would 

 have occurred to me to doubt whether an iris had 

 three of its leaves smaller than the other three, be- 

 cause an iris always completes itself to its own ideal. 

 Nevertheless, on examining various poppies, as I 

 walked, this summer, up and down the hills between 

 Sheffield and Wakefield, I find the subordination of 

 the upper and lower petals entirely necessary and 

 normal ; and that the result of it is to give two distinct 

 profiles to the poppy cup, the difference between 

 which, however, we shall see better in the yellow 

 Welsh poppy, at present called Meconopsis Cambrica, 

 but which, in the Oxford schools, will be ' Papaver 



