462 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAE BOTANY 



finely remarks, we can neither repel nor answer. " What has the wind to 

 do with the date-harvest of Bileduljerid, and with the sustenance of millions 

 of men ? What cares the gall-fly that on its activity depends the fig trade 

 of Smyrna, and the food or support of thousands of human beings ? Or 

 does the beetle, whose theft facilitates the increase of the Kamschatkan 

 Lily, imagine that their bulbs shall be the means to save the whole popu- 

 lation of Greenland from starvation in the following hard winter ? If 



FIG. 567. SWEET CHESTNUT (Castama saliva}. 



The Ion!,' catkin marked (a) consists of male (lowers ; those marked (/>) are females. 



all this is the result of unsubstantial natural laws, whence this wonderful 

 interdependence and connection of subordinate forces, to bring to pass 

 events which have so deep an influence on the history of humanity ? We 

 do, indeed, see into the mechanism of the puppet ; but who holds the 

 strings, and directs all its motions to one purpose? Here closes the office 

 of the naturalist, and, instead of answering, he turns from the world of 

 space and lifeless matter upward to where, in holy anticipation, we seek 

 the Ruler of Worlds." 



