MAY 1 1 1 



to the windflowers, from the monkshoods to 

 the columbines and larkspurs, down to the 

 smallest abortive buttercup, what a range ! 

 Was there a founder of the family from whom 

 all these variants are descended ? Is there, as 

 Buffon dreamed, a single primeval life-growth, 

 or, as Faraday suggested, a simple, all- 

 comprehending element from which all things 

 have been evolved ? Is there one purpose, 

 changing, changeless, running through all 

 being, and is that which we are pleased to 

 call a clod, one with that which we know as 

 spirit ? Surely this is the large hope which we 

 hear in the song of the May birds, and in the 

 falling of the May blossoms leaf by leaf to the 

 ground. 



" We know in part, the seed must rot to quicken 

 And one comes up an oak, and one a lily, 

 The whole idea perfect in the germ* 

 But what we are, and how we are, and whyfore 

 We are the thing we are, behold ! we know not." 



