368 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES OX BOTANICAL SUr,JECTS. 



with every other part ? A little reflection will answer this question 

 with a dec-i«le(l »f), there is not I How ean there be, wlien all 

 complex and many-celle<l plants liave evolved from one-celled 

 ancestors — the monnphifta2 How cau tliere be, when land plants, 

 which we have divided into stem, leaves, teeth, sepals, petals, 

 stamens, carpels, roots, &c., have descended from seaweeds, ha\ ing 

 their stem, leaf, stamen, and carpel a// in one organ, the /y-onr/ ? 

 Developm«Mit only means a further and further sejmration of 

 important organs on distinct and specialized parts, although 

 originally all amalgamated in one frond ; and then each part again 

 modified in myriads of ways, acconling to spontaneous atomic 

 variation, held in check Ijy heredity, and according to surroun<lings. 

 Underlvinij the whole of the mvriads of varied forms of the 

 vegetable kingdom there is a unitv which can he traced to the 

 unicellular bodies of which all living bodies are composed. 



By utilizing the liliraries, herbariums, and gaixlens of all sorts, 

 and bv utilizing the explorations of passed botanists and modern 

 microscopists, and the labours of classitiers and systematists, and, 

 not least, by utilizing the results of experiments of horticulturists, 

 there would api>ear now to be room for a "' Philosojjhy of Plants," 

 on a basis somewhat different from that given in text -books. The 

 new j)hilosophy must be built up by the method of Evolution. If 

 the writer of such a philosophy give little consideration to ."«ea- 

 weetls — ^the ance.stors of all land plants — he will miss the genesis 

 of many parts of the phaenogams of our time, and he will not be 

 making the future study of Botany as easy and as fascinating 

 as it might be made. By that omission, the writer of such a 

 philosophv would make it a ditticult, if not a repulsive stu<ly, and 

 a study largely made up of words ! 



" Without hyiK)thesis man discovers nothing," and without 

 theories and philosophies he comprehends nothing I 



:->->- 



