96 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



primitive ones, of which, there is reason to suppose, there are still 

 many siirvi\4ng representatives. 



I feel convinced that the student of the higher forms of plant 

 life "will be able to understand them better by a study of seaweeds 

 and of still simpler and lower plants. For it is reasonable to 

 suppose that at a certain period of evolution there could not have 

 been other plant life than seaioeeds. In other words, our modern 

 Phoenogams must necessarily have descended from forms, of 

 which the seaweeds of to-day are representatives. 



From the nature of the plant cell, it could have had no other 

 commencement than in water ; therefore, the stages of development 

 of the vegetable kingdom would appear to have been roughly in 

 this order :— 



(«.) Marine plants ; 



(3.) Fresh-water plants ; 



(f.) Plants which had became partially water and partially 

 air plants ; 



(c?.) Plants living in a misty damp atmosphere, and also on 

 marshy ground ; 



(e.) Plants on dry land, at various altitudes ; 



(y.) Plants on barren lands and desert 



* 



I am aware that Ch. Darwin found the Protococcus nivalis on 

 the perpetual snow of the Andes, but I am also aware that he 

 found marine shells at 14,000 feet above the sea-level. The con- 

 clusion is, therefore, that the lands at these heights must have been, 

 at one time, under the sea. His hailing met with one of the 

 simplest cellular plants on perpetual snow, at that height, does not 

 at all mean that it did not originate in the sea. 



Many of the stages sketched out may have been developing at 

 one and the same time. Intermediate links must have existed in 

 al)undance, but in many cast>s they subsequently perished and 

 disappeared. 



It is not impossible — nay, it is very probable^that plants 

 having once emerged from water on to dry land may have been 

 again degraded, if we may call such a transition a degradation, 

 into semi-aquatic plants. But, originally, it is hardly conceivable 

 that protophyta could have been born in any other medium than 

 that of water. 



Now-a-days we must look at all nature, including ourselves, 

 from an evolutionary point of view. We must look upon every 



* To which miffht he added plants on other plants, as epiphytes and parasites. 



