6 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables 



nowise beaten in the race of life; it is just as prolific 

 and as numerous as the Strawberry itself. Now, how 

 is this, if the history above recounted be so indubitably 

 the true one ? 



Mr. Allen sees the difficulty and undertakes to solve 

 it. And this is his solution : 1 " Science cannot answer 

 as yet After all, these questions are still in their 

 infancy, and we can scarcely yet do more than discover 

 a single stray interpretation here and there. In the 

 present case a botanist can only suggest either that the 

 Potentilla finds its own mode of dispersion equally well 

 adapted to its own peculiar circumstances, or else that 

 the lucky accident, the casual combination of circum- 

 stances, which produced the first elongation of the 

 receptacle in the Strawberry has never happened to 

 befall its more modest kinsfolk." 



But if this be true, how can the history given above 

 be assumed as certain ? If we know so little about the 

 matter, how can we be sure that the interpretation put 

 upon the Strawberry's characteristics is the true one? 

 Can we be positive that it has benefited by becoming 

 eatable, if it is not equally plain that the Potentilla has 

 been handicapped by not becoming so? To explain 

 away difficulties by pleading our ignorance is very well, 

 so far as those difficulties go, but the bearings of the 

 plea will not stop there; if we plead ignorance, we 

 cannot claim to be heard on the score of knowledge. 



In plain language, therefore, the explanation we have 

 heard comes to this, that we know nothing about either 

 the one plant or the other, and have to be satisfied with 

 guess-work, more or less ingenious. It is all very good 

 to talk about discovering an interpretation, but more 

 accurately the process should be termed imagining. 



Close to the Strawberry there will probably be found 

 another plant which likewise furnishes Mr. Allen with 

 a theme the curious plant which the learned call 

 Arum maculatum, and the unlearned "Lords and 

 Ladies" or "Cuckoo-pint.'* By these names most 



1 Evolutionist, p. 23. 



