14 FINAL CAUSES. 



lavish and sportive in her productions with the 

 intent to demonstrate to Man the fertihty of her 

 resources, and the inexhaustible fund from 

 which she has so prodigally drawn forth the 

 m.eans requisite for the maintenance of all these 

 diversified combinations, for their repetition in 

 endless perpetuity, and for their subordination 

 to one harmonious scheme of general good. 



The vegetable world is no less prolific in 

 wonders than the animal. In this, as in all 

 other parts of creation, ample scope is found 

 for the exercise of the reasoning faculties, and 

 at the same time abundant sources are supplied 

 of intellectual enjoyment. To discriminate the 

 different characters of plants, amidst the infinite 

 diversity of shape, of colour, and of structure, 

 which they oft'er to our observation, is the labo- 

 rious, yet fascinating, occupation of the Botanist. 

 Here, also, we are lost in admiration at the never- 

 ending variety of forms successively displayed to 

 view in the innumerable species which compose 

 this kingdom of nature, and at the energy of 

 that vegetative power, which, amidst such great 

 differences of situation, sustains the modified life 

 of each individual plant, and which continues its 

 species in endless perpetuity. Wherever circum- 



throughout this Treatise, followed the common usage of employ- 

 ing the term Nature as a synonym, expressive of the same 

 power, but veiling from our feeble sight the too dazzling splen- 

 dour of its glory. 



