THE PROBLEMS OF MORPHOLOGY. 5 



before questions concerning the mode in which these parts 

 become modified.* 



This is not obviously a morphological question. But an 

 illustration or two will make it manifest, that fundamental 

 differences maybe produced between aggregates, by differences 

 in the degrees of composition of the increments : the ultimate 

 units of the increments being the same. Thus an accu- 

 mulation of things of a given kind may be made by add- 

 ing one at a time. Or the things may be tied up into 

 bundles often, and the tens placed together. Or the tens may 

 be united into hundreds, and a pile of hundreds formed. Such 

 unlikenesses in the structures of masses, are habitually seen in 

 our mercantile transactions. Articles which the consumer re- 

 cognizes as single, the retailer keeps wrapped up in dozens, 

 the wholesaler sends the gross, and the manufacturer supplies 

 in packages of a hundred gross that is, they severally increase 

 their stocks by units of simple, of compound, and of doubly- 

 compound kinds. Similarly result those differences of mor- 

 phological composition which we have first to consider. An 

 organism consists of units. These units may be aggregated 

 into a mass by the addition of unit to unit. Or they may be 

 united into groups, and the groups joined together. Or these 

 groups of groups may be so combined as to form a doubly- 

 compound aggregate. Hence there arise respecting each 

 organic form, the question is its composition of the first, 

 second, third, or fourth order ? does it exhibit units of a 

 singly-compounded kind only ; or are these consolidated into 

 units of a doubly- compounded kind, or a triply- compounded 

 tcind ? And if it displays double or triple composition, the 



* It seems needful here to say, that allusion is made in this paragraph to a pro- 

 position respecting the ultimate natures of Evolution and Dissolution, which ia 

 contained in an essay on The Classification of the Sciences, published in March, 

 1864. When the opportunity comes, I hope to make the definition there arrived 

 at, the basis of a re-organization of the second part of First Principles : giving to 

 that work a higher development, and a greater cohesion, thau it at present pour 



