18 POPULAR ILLUSTRATIONS OF 



is termed the morphology of the plant, we find an instance of a law 

 which pervades the whole of organised nature viz., the adaptation 

 of similar means in the production of widely different results. And it 

 is a law which, as far as our reason can tell us, is one of necessity. 

 Were man, for instance, with his knowledge and experience, and 

 assuming him to have the artistic skill, called upon to make a plant, 

 he would form the roots and the stem ; he would then modify the 

 material of the stem into flat expansive processes, through which 

 the vital fluids of the body could circulate, and become aerated by 

 the atmosphere. He would then alter these processes into the com- 

 plex and beautiful arrangement by which the species would be 

 propagated. It would not be consistent with the unity and 

 perfection of the plan were he now to introduce new textures. 

 He would make use of the leaves, and would modify one into a 

 bract, another into a calyx, another into a pistil, another into a 

 stamen, and thus constitute a flower. And the necessity of this is 

 apparent,- for the flower has to be nourished through the medium of 

 leaves, and therefore on just the same plan throughout. 



And so we find that Infinite Wisdom has adopted that which our 

 reason calls perfection in the creation and organisation of the world. 

 But He has done much more, for He has endowed created things 

 with a law by which they are not only perpetuated in time, but are 

 also adapted to the purposes of existence. Thus we see that, under 

 the operation of that law, the roots, the stem, the leaves, and the 

 flower of the plant act in perfect harmony with each other, and 

 seldom vary from their primitive form. If, however, man steps in 

 and alters the circumstances of existence, the law which is imma- 

 terial and cannot change, refuses to co-operate with a non-natural 

 condition of the being. Take a plant, for instance, out of its wild 

 and natural locality, and cultivate and feed it highly : it is charged 

 with a greater amount of nutrition than it was designed to assimi- 

 late, and we now see that remarkable change of the conversion of 

 the stamens of the single plant into the leaves of the corolla of the 

 double. But naturam expelles fared, tamen usque recurret. Take 

 away the excess of nutriment, and the plant will return to its 

 original form, the leaves will become stamens, and the flower single 

 again. 



