Wood ruffe-Peacock : Floral (.\mipetih'on and Cycles. 419 



careful observations on Rock-Soil lines, and appears to be univer- 

 sally true. It may be urged that this is exactly the ordinary 

 interpretation of facts, reached from another point of view. Is 

 not 'the point of view' everything- however in explaining- the 

 operations of nature? Just the difference between the old 

 creationists and modern evolutionists ? Both are merely 

 methods of the mind, the way we approach surrounding- 

 phenomena to analyse and arrang-e them, not facts of the 

 external world. Man did not make the floral cycles of the soils 

 and localities he inhabits, thoug-h he is ever interrupting- them, 

 and causing- fresh 'false starts.' Evolution prepared the eternal 

 round of the plant cycle for any soil, long before man's advent, 

 and is ever making it more perfect and elastic through the 

 instrumentality of her greatest creation. How far have annuals, 

 biennials, and weak perennials, as now evolved, been influenced 

 by human intercourse since Eolithic times? This question may 

 hardly seem worth consideration, for it cannot be fully answered 

 with our present information. As long, however, as it remains 

 unanswered, the alien problem remains where it is — unsolved 

 and unsolvable ! If the indirect influence of man on plant life is 

 assumed for the sake of being proved, its application greatly 

 complicates every enquiry. Is it better, then, to treat ' the 

 indirect influence of human operations ' as friction is treated in 

 works on mechanics — as non-existant — for the sake ot simplified 

 illustration? This is practically what has been done up till now. 

 It appears we ought to assume that the flora of Great Britain is 

 quite uninfluenced by man, excepting as an outside force, intro- 

 ducing new species intentionally or accidentally. How do facts 

 fit in with such a method of observation ? Badly indeed ; for the 

 true difficulty of the whole alien question is to determine exactly 

 how much annuals, biennials, and certain perennials, have been 

 changed and adapted by their long intercourse with man. In 

 other words, there can be no question that man, as an uncon- 

 scious influencer and selecter of certain species, has been, and 

 still is, one of the chief powers of the organic world. When a 

 new work is written with the belief 'in indirect human modifica- 

 tion, or the dependence of species on man ' clearly in view, 

 complicated though the whole subject is by many side issues, 

 its conclusions in many cases will be wholly different from those 

 of any work yet published, though for the most part they may 

 remain the same. It will just be where we want light, especially 

 regarding those species which may be called followers of man 

 and cultivation, that our opinions will be most radically changed. 



1906 December i. 



