LENGTH OF THE YEAR. 29 



actly of the same length? Can this be chance? 

 And this occurs, it is to be observed, not in one, 

 or in a few species of plants, but in thousands. 

 Take a small portion only of known species, as 

 the most obviously endowed with this adjustment, 

 and say ten thousand. How should all these or- 

 ganized bodies be constructed for the same period 

 of a year. How should all these machines be 

 wound up so as to go for the same time ? Even 

 allowing that they could bear a year of a month 

 longer or shorter, how do they all come within 

 such limits ? No chance could produce such a 

 result. And if not by chance, how otherwise 

 could such a coincidence occur, than by an in- 

 tentional adjustment of these two things to one 

 another ? by a selection of such an organization 

 in plants, as would fit them to the earth on which 

 they were to grow ; by an adaptation of construc- 

 tion to conditions ; of the scale of the construc- 

 tion to the scale of conditions. 



It cannot be accepted as an explanation of this 

 fact in the economy of plants, that it is necessary to 

 their existence ; that no plants could possibly have 

 subsisted, and come down to us, except those 

 which were thus suited to their place on the earth. 

 This is true ; but this does not at all remove the 

 necessity of recurring to design as the origin 

 of the construction by which the existence and 

 continuance of plants is made possible. A watch 

 could not go, except there were the most exact 



