266 STUDY OF COMMON PLANTS. 



have learned to distinguish species, genera, families, orders, 

 and classes ; but these are simply expressions of so many 

 different degrees of relationship that pass insensibly into 

 each other, and call for the exercise of clear judgment, 

 profound knowledge, and critical attention to details on 

 the part of those who attempt to recognize and define 

 them. 



This is a conception widely different from that which 

 supposes " that species, and even genera, are like coin from 

 the mint, or bank-notes from the printing press, each with 

 its fixed marks and signature, which he that runs may 

 read, or the practiced eye infallibly determine," but "there 

 is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, 

 having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few 

 forms or into one ; and that, whilst this planet has gone 

 cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so 

 simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most 

 wonderful, have been and are being evolved." ^ 



After gaining such a view, we may well pause to think 

 of all it implies. But the true student will not rest satis- 

 fied, even if he has found, or believes that he has found, a 

 clue to the order of the universe.^ It remains to follow 

 the clue through all the dark places into which it leads, 

 and beyond which we still see but dimly. No one has yet 

 made it perfectly plain how the various factors involved 

 work together in the production of any living thing, in its 

 natural home, with its specific characters, and its individual 



1 Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 429. 



'^ " If we may use a metaphor, we might say that Botanical Science is 

 like a mountaineer, who, after long, weary climbing, only discovers that 

 after all there still rises — steep and apparently impossible to scale — the 

 real peak ; but, notwithstanding this, on casting his eyes around, he finds 

 himself well rewarded for the toil he has undergone." — Goebel, " On the 

 Study of Adaptations in Plants," Science Progress, 1894. 



