LIFE AND ORGANISATION. 101 



design, being assumed in every hypothesis, the conception of 

 any primordial unity, capable of evolving and multiplying 

 itself into all the actual forms of life, is infinitely more difficult 

 than that of many distinct primitive forms or types, brought 

 into simultaneous or successive existence by one designing 

 and creating Power. Numbers in truth (and this must ever 

 be kept in mind), admit of no line or limitation, when ap- 

 plied to problems which pass so far beyond all human 

 comprehension. Like in this to Time, similarly applied, 

 their only boundary becomes that of Infinity.* 



* Since the first edition of these Essays was printed, Mr. Darwin has 

 published another very interesting volume ' On the Fertilisation of Orchids/ 

 illustrating by close research the rarity of self -fertilisation in this curious family 

 of plants, and the singular provisions and varieties of structure by which the 

 conveyance of pollen is facilitated from one plant to another. As insects are 

 almost invariably the carriers of this pollen, we have the remarkable fact of 

 numerous and complex ^changes and adaptations of vegetable growth, satisfy- 

 ing what we may term the instinctive necessities of the plant, and at the same 

 time those of the insect life by which this transportation is carried on. 



