DESIGN IN THE REPRODUCTION AND GROWTH OF PLANTS 369 



occasioned by prospective requirements. The plant could not foresee the necessity for producing brilliant colours 

 and storing sweet-smelling nectar to attract insects to assist in its fertilisation. The chain of events is too compli- 

 cated and too far-reaching. The only explanation that can be given is that the arrangements are the work of an 

 intelligent First Cause, Who sees the end from the beginning. It is a mere misuse of language to say that the insect 

 is endowed with instinct, and that instinct and natural selection can account for everything. As a matter of fact 

 they account for nothing. Instinct and natural selection are non-existent in the sense here indicated. They are 

 mere phrases, and a cloak for ignorance. 



Granted that instinct and natural selection exist, who, it may be asked, conferred the instinct, and the power to 

 select ? Instinct is at once a most unscientific and objectionable term, and should never be employed ; but if 

 employed it should be distinctly understood that it is, in every instance, directly or indirectly, the outcome of intel- 

 hgence ; intelligence either in the thing exhibiting it, or in its ancestors, or in the Creator Who made them. 

 Instinct, used in a loose or inexact sense, confuses all the issues of life both in the plant and the animal. 



Perhaps no better examples of the Creator's continued presence in His work can be supplied than are afforded 

 by the fertilisation of plants, and the organs and accessories used in this important function. These organs and 

 accessories include the preparation of the male and female elements on the same or on different plants ; the direction 

 and control of air currents ; the employment and guidance of insects and other animals as media for carrying and 

 mixing the generative ingredients, &c. There is a long sequence and chain of events, and the chain includes 

 inorganic and organic processes, some of them of a most complicated character. Nothing short of the very highest 

 wisdom and power such as that possessed by the Creator can supply an adequate explanation. The harmonious 

 working of so many diverse substances, organic and inorganic, necessitates a knowledge not possessed by any plant 

 or any animal. There is no warrant for asserting that cross-fertilisation, in a state of nature, is due either to instinct 

 or natural selection, or both combined. 



How, it may be asked, will instinct or natural selection explain the floating apparatus of the utricularia, the 

 movements and habits of Silene nutans (Nottingham catchfly), or of Marcgravia ne-pentJioides (a tropical orchid) in 

 their relation to cross-fertilisation ? 



In the Utricularia an intimate knowledge of hydrostatic and mechanical science is displayed not only in theory 

 but in practice, as the following account by Mr. Brown conclusively proves : ^ " Small ascidia or sacs are connected 

 with the leaves which, about the time of flowering, are filled with air, and buoy the plant to the surface. The 

 opening of each sac is surrounded by forked hairs composed of four cells, and is closed by a transverse cellular 

 membrane, hke the valve of a pump, capable of opening from without inwards, and which resists when it is pressed 

 from within outwards. The physiological action of these ascidia is full of interest. At first they are filled with a 

 somewhat gelatinous Uquid, which by its weight assists in retaining the plant at the bottom of the water. Very 

 soon the branching hairs already described, which project into the interior, secrete a gas, which accumulates as 

 the gelatinous substance diminishes. By-and-by, when the vessels are full, the plant gets hght and buoyant, and, 

 disengaging its roots from the soil, rises to the surface of the water and flowers. The flowering over, and the fruit 

 mature, the air disappears from the ascidia, the valve allows the water to enter, and again the plant sinks to the 

 bottom, to remain there until spring stimulates its ascidia again into activity." 



The adaptation of means to ends displayed by the Utricularia is profoundly impressive. The machinery em- 

 ployed is at once elaborate and compUcated, and the plant, or that which directs the operations of the plant, exhibits 

 an acquaintance with natural laws which is truly astounding. It roots and uproots itself at precisely the right 

 moments ; it fills its ascidia with a gelatinous fiuid when the plant is to be weighted and sunk, and with gas when 

 it is to be fioated and raised to the surface. When the flowering and fruiting which take place at the surface of 

 the water are over, the valves of the ascidia are opened and water admitted, which sinks the plant and prepares it 

 for its winter sojourn at the bottom. 



To take another example, observed by Sir John Lubbock in Silene nutans in connection with the visits of moths 

 and fertihsation : " The upper part of its flowering stem is viscid, from which it has derived its local name, the 

 Nottingham catchfly. This prevents the access of ants and other small creeping insects. Each flower lasts three 

 days, or rather three nights. The stamens are ten in number, arranged in two sets, the one set standmg m front 

 of the sepals, the other in front of the petals. Like other night flowers, it is white, and open towards evenmg, when 

 it also becomes extremely fragrant. The first evening, towards dusk, the stamens in front of the sepals grow very 

 rapidly for about two hours, so that they emerge from the flower ; the pollen ripens and is exposed by the burstmg 

 of the anthers ; so the flower remains through the night, very attractive to, and much visited by, moths. Towards 

 three in the morning the scent ceases, the anthers begin to shrivel up and drop off, the filaments turn themselves 

 outwards so as to be out of the way, while the petals, on the contrary, begin to roll themselves up, so that by day- 



1 Bro^vn's "Manual of Botany," p. 1.^8, 

 VOL. I, 



