186 H. B. GUPPY^ M.B.J F.E.S.E.j ON PLAXT-DISTRrBL'TIOK 



should appeal to the idealist. Plants do not stand alone in its 

 apphcation. The same great process of change from the 

 simple to the complex may be witnessed alike in the histor}' 

 of the cosmos, in the development of a world, in the diversifica- 

 tion of its life conditions, and in the infinite variety of its 

 Organisms. We see its workings not only in the plant and in 

 the animal, but even for man we can postulate a universally 

 distributed generalised type from which the principal races 

 have originated for the mosfc part in the regions now serving 

 as their homes. The early history of man is the history of a 

 widely spread primitive human type differentiating in situ. 

 I do not believe that if such a position were adopted for the 

 apes it could be seriously olnected to. Xo one, I imagine, 

 would tliink it worth wldle to look for their home in any one 

 locality, since like the palms they are distributed around the 

 warm regions of the globe with the breadths of oceans dividing 

 them. Like the pahns also they had a wider distribution in 

 Tertiary times, when they extended far into north temperate 

 latitudes. One may say of the apes as Prof. Huxley remarked 

 of the Gentians after vainly searching for their heme .... 

 " Ttis clear that migration helps us nothing as between the Old 

 World and America. It is the case of the tapirs (Andean and 

 Sino-Malayan) over again." We may indeed add that with 

 man's distribution it is the case of the apes over again. How 

 else can be explained the circumstance that in point of culture 

 man has differentiated on the same lines during his earliest 

 s^tages all over the globe, and that independent lines have been 

 followed only in the later stages. 



But the principle of differentiation affects us in a yet more 

 extended sense. Our customs, our amusements, our sciences 

 and even our creeds come under its sway. The differentiation 

 of a creed follows the same law that determines the differentia- 

 tion of a plant type. It is the birtli of a creed that lies out- 

 side the law just as type-creation lies beyond our field of 

 observation. All indeed who exercise the creative art, the 

 discoverer of a new ideal, the inventor of a new machine, 

 stand to that extent outside the law of differentiation. Differ- 

 ence in itself is not progress. Its end is extinction. Yet the 

 simplest creative act can set the law at defiance. The progress 

 (tf a nation, of a science, of a creed, lies not in differentiation or 

 in s])ecialisation, but in the genius of its great men. In the case 

 of human effort we may call it what we like, genius, inspiration, 

 or intuition. Yet man is only his Creator's instrument l)y 

 wliich in the ages to come He will reshape the world. 



