BOTANICAL -SUBJECTS. 11 



To the rea<ler who may tliiuk Avhat I say is absurd, and not 

 worth the jiaper it is printed on, I would suggest to read the 

 parts he thinks most absurd, at diifcrent tunes of the clcnj, for it 

 is a well-know^n fact that in the morning we mentally see things 

 which w^e do not see at midday ; later on, after tea, we see 

 differently from* either before or after dinner, and so on. When 

 the brain is in a different mood, it may see some truth in what at 

 other times seems so absurd. 



It is also interesting to note how differently two different minds 

 will look at a thing or criticise a book or any question. This 

 comes from the personal equation, which in other words means a 

 combination of heredity and training, i^lus the bias of acquired 

 knoAvledge, feeling, and social influence. 



If these notes will induce some one to take up botanical science 

 from an e\olutionary point of view, and treat the whole systemati- 

 cally, they will have served some good purpose. 



The thoughts contained in these pages may be considered 

 provisional, as they may undergo much modification, and some 

 m"ay be abandoneil. As there may be errors of observation, so 

 there may be errors of reflection, so to speak, that is, supposing 

 the fact observed accurate, the inference drawn from that fact may 

 be wrong. 



As these pages may possibly come under the eye of some 

 general reader, I thought the '' preliminary notes " might perhaps 

 be useful in helping him or her to understand what these notes 

 arc all about. It might appear that the "preliminary notes" 

 have nothing to do with the botanical notes, but nowadays 

 the notion of evolution has infiltrated itself into every other 

 notion, more especially into those connected with life. 



Many men and most women laugh at you, when }'ou attempt 

 to sj)eak of evolution, natural .selection, &c. All they know, or 

 care to know, about this great revolution in human thought is 

 that Darwin said we came from monkeys, and that they do not 

 believe I 



There is a vast deal of poetry in botany, which is lost in a 

 bewildering maze of words. 



In my opinion, unless botany be studied in an evolutionary sense, 

 there can be but little interest in learning an infinite number of 

 names, as Inbels to certain forms of plants. Even their 

 geographical distribution nnist be somehow fitted into their 



