EVOLUTION 953 



shady bower, served well to illustrate the evolutionary idea of the 

 garden ; as of the preceding pages, albeit in somewhat too pessimistic 

 fashion. For the first rising, then drooping, branches could each 

 represent the trajectory of life, and this not only for the individual 

 but for many types of life as well, each running its course, and often 

 to end at earth; yet ever recuperating itself, by giving rise to new 

 branches rising higher, however they may later sink in turn. Yet we 

 may also diagrammatise this more hopefully, as a perpetual diver- 

 gence — ^like, say, that of Aloe dichotoma with its forking growth — 

 here used to represent vegetative and reproductive predominance, 

 yet with each of these capable of divergent branching anew. Or 

 let us put this more simply in purely graphic form, with vegetative 

 and reproductive predominances expressed as divergences towards 

 opposite sides, yet these again — at stages and times — exhibiting 

 counter-divergences, as from the floral orchids to their more vegeta- 

 tive and well-growing descendants, albeit less floral; and yet again 

 from such more vegetative forms, the rise of more floral types anew, 

 like Masdevallia above. Or, again, take other illustrative types above 

 chosen, as the sunflower, or the flowery asparagus, reverting to 

 more vegetative lives and forms. We may thus attempt such graphic 

 expressions for each evolutionary group-history, with its rejuvenat- 

 ing possibilities in one way or other, as we come towards understand- 

 ing it; and thus see that the stories of their lives, while agreeing in 

 broadest general principle, may each have its own particular record; 

 somewhat as on the wider level of human life-variability no two 

 biographies or histories are alike in particulars, albeit often broadly 

 akin in general. 



We do not yet venture to offer here any full genealogical trees, 

 as did the earlier evolutionists, like Haeckel, after Darwin's sugges- 

 tive diagram in the Origin of Species : yet we have already recognised 

 that for many groups there are now good ones, well substantiated 

 so far as they go ; so this present method may be found suggestive 

 towards these and more, since broadly interpretative of many 

 main divergences, and even also of minor ones, generic, specific, 

 and varietal. And it will also be found that our larger concept of the 

 life-process (E/o to Ofe) may be applied to such problems, in increas- 

 ing number of cases. If so, we may reasonably hope we are on the 

 way towards a further clearing up, not only of the principles of 

 flower-making, but of the processes of variation and evolution more 

 generally. Even from the above scanty outline, of too long delayed 

 volumes, do not such methods of life-interpretation seem at least 

 worth trial ? 



Further Illustrations — Primroses, etc. — In this way we may 

 review the natural orders of our botanic garden, their genera and 

 species and varieties too, with freshened eyes. Since Darwin so 

 admirably reinterpreted primrose-flowers, and demonstrated the 



