4 



ON HYBRIDIZATION AMONGST VEGETABLES. 



explain it ; no schoolboy was asked " "What are the elements of 

 words? " and answered, " Letters, to be sure ! " and no person 

 discovered that the first elements of words were their initials, till 

 a sentence was accidentally found written in letters as well as in 

 hieroglyphics. I may therefore safely say, that the image of 

 substantial bones stamped by the will of God in ancient days 

 upon the solid rock, unchanged and almost unchangeable, are 

 more certain documents as to old facts than any written record ; 

 because we now see the former as they are and were impressed 

 by the dispositions of the Almighty, and we may quite misun- 

 derstand the meaning of the latter. When we look to doctrine 

 and the will of God, we have nothing but the inestimable vo- 

 lume of the Bible to consult ; and yet we lament to find how 

 unable even its most precious words are to bind mankind in a 

 uniform and consistent understanding of their import, and of the 

 things absolutely necessary for our salvation ; and, excepting the 

 fact that everything was made by God, they testify very little 

 concerning the things and creatures with which He peopled the 

 world in the first ages, and that so loosely, that our understand- 

 ing could not rely upon our interpretation of its meaning, in 

 opposition to the imperishable memorials He has handed down 

 to us, if they should seem to disagree ; but, in truth, when 

 rightly examined, they do not disagree. 



According to the scriptural statement, God created vegetables 

 before the existence of the light of the sun and moon, or the pre- 

 sent course of night and daylight ; at a latter period He created 

 the birds and aquatic animals from the sea, including under that 

 name (see Gen. ii. 19) the wet soil it covered; and, at a later 

 period, land animals from the earth, which had then become fit 

 for their production : and He ordered them to yield fruit and 

 seed, and to bring forth after their kind — " cattle, and creeping 

 thing, and beast of the earth, after its kind." Here arises a 

 great question, which has never been properly considered : — 

 What is their kind ? Zoologists and botanists divide vegetables 

 and animals respectively into genus and species. Species means 

 form or appearance ; and genus means a kind. Therefore, 

 according to the words in use amongst us, we are to understand 

 that God created the genera severally, and ordered them to 

 multiply within the generic limits. And what are even generic 

 limits? According to the new lights of science, those limits 

 are varying every day ; and no two botanists or zoologists are 

 agreed about them : and we have no record of the origin of spe- 

 cific diversities. But botanists have higher divisions ; they have 

 tribes, alliances, orders, &c. ; and who shall venture to say that 

 the limitation, which the Bible calls a kind, was not that which 

 modern penmen in Europe have thought fit to call an order, or 



