427 
Among barbarous nations the laws which regulate the types 
of a coinage, consisting of successive copies of a given 
original, are very similar to those which, according to some 
of our best naturalists, govern the succession of types in the 
organic kingdoms of nature. As with plants or animals of 
any group or family, there are two tendencies to be traced in 
these successive copies — the one to retain the character of 
their ancestors, the other to vary from it. Again, there is a 
third principle or tendency of more importance, as far as results 
are concerned — that of the perpetuation of varieties when 
they are in any way advantageous. In nature those varieties 
appear to have become more or less persistent, which, in the 
“ struggle for life,” have presented advantages over the parent 
forms in their relation to external conditions. In the succes- 
sion of types of British coins, the requirements which new 
types had to fulfil in order to become to a certain extent 
persistent, were, firstly, to present facility of imitation, and, 
secondly, symmetry of form. The great desire in all uncivi- 
lized people appears to be the selection of simple yet symme- 
trical forms of ornament, as also the saving of trouble. 
From the diagrams placed on the walls it will be easy to see 
the divergence of successive types from the original Philippus ; 
all the alterations, however, are in accordance with the prin- 
ciples I have just laid down. Compare No. 1 (the prototype) 
with Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, in the plate, and we see the face, it is* 
true, preserved, but the rest of the head has become conven- 
tionalized, or reduced to a system ; the front hair has become 
converted into three open crescents ; the hair at the back is 
represented by two parallel rows of nearly similar locks; the 
wreath is reduced into a double row of leaves, all of one size, 
extending across the coin ; while the head is crossed at its 
centre by a straight band ending in a hook, where originally 
was the ear; and the neck has an ornamental covering of 
beaded and plain straight lines. On the reverse a greater 
