i68 PRESBh7T-DAY RATIONALISM 



variations in Nature. There is no evidence to show that all 

 the seeds of any individual plant, say of one season, when 

 sown in a new, but all in the same, environment ever grow up 

 with appearances markedly different from one another, as they 

 often do when they are sown in a rich and artificially prepared 

 soil of a garden. All experiments prove that if the seedlings 

 vary at all, ikey all vary alike in the same locality ; or as 

 Darwin says, in the passage quoted, they vary, "definitely," 

 i.e., in direct adaptation to the conditions of their new sur- 

 roundings. 



Now when we turn to Nature, bearing this in mind, we 

 seem to see a distinct cause and effect in the following facts. 

 Not only do we find plants of one and the same kind to be all 

 alike when growing under the same conditions ; but a vast 

 number of totally different kinds have strong points of re- 

 semblance in many ways, as long as they are all growing in 

 the same environment ; i.e., their vegetative system assumes 

 the same fades. Thus, if we turn to hot sub-tropical deserts 

 we are at once struck with the general spinescence prevailing ; 

 and the dense clothing of hair giving a blue-grey appearance 

 to nearly all the plants. Again, many plants growing by the 

 sea-side or in salt marshes are fleshy, like the samphire. 



Hence, it has long been noticed that plants growing in 

 variously composed environments are correlated with a peculiar 

 fades, respectively. 



On observing the universality of these correlations between 

 climate and form ; or the environment and the structure of plants, 

 one is led to infer — by inductive evidence based on numerous 

 coincidences — that there must be some common cause to bring 

 about these similar "adaptations" in so many different kinds 

 of plants, but all of which are growing under the same condi- 

 tions." I say "adaptations," because all those features which 

 collectively conspire to make up \!t\^ fades of the floras, are so 

 many peculiarities of structure which enable the plants to live 

 under the special conditions in which they find themselves. 

 Thus a submerged leaf living naturally under water perishes 



