344 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



application of utilitarianism to forms and modifica- 

 tions of plant structure, especially such as relate to 

 the subject of this chapter, we shall end with a 

 quotation from Mr. A. W. Bennett. He says, " I can- 

 not myself get away from the conclusion that we 

 must attribute the tendency to variation which is 

 admitted to be the material on which natural selec- 

 tion works, to some inherent force belonging of 

 necessity to the functions of life, whether animal or 

 vegetable, which is independent of, and in some 

 sense superior to, the forces that govern the inor- 

 ganic world. Above all, we are compelled to recur 

 to the pre-Darwinian doctrine of Design ; and to 

 believe that nature has some general purpose in the 

 different modes in which life is manifested, a purpose 

 not in all cases for the immediate advantage of the 

 individual species, but in furtherance of some design 

 of general harmony which it may take centuries of 

 unwearied observation and laborious toil before we 

 discover the key by which we may be able to 

 unlock it. 1 



1 A. W. Bennett on "Mimicry in Plants" in " Popular Science 

 Review," vol. xi. (1872), p. 10. 



