44 
the economy of nature, and the laws by which it has been pro- 
duced. I may see a flower before me, which I call a rose, and 
at first sight may learn something of its form, colour, perfume, 
&c. ; but I do not know it in the scientific sense, till I have 
learned its affinities to other flowers, its uses in the world, and 
the modes by which it has been built from air and earth. 
There is, moreover, such a multitude of objects presenting 
themselves to our notice, such an infinite variety of apparently 
isolated facts, that the mind soon becomes overwhelmed by 
their numbers, and finds itself powerless to grasp them, even in 
their individual significance. 
We can, therefore, only know as we classify, as we discover 
certain unities round which the varieties cluster, and by whose 
name they are designated. This is the special province of 
science, to search for similarities amid these diversities, and 
harmonies amid these apparent discords. The work to be done 
by the student is thus greatly reduced; instead of requiring to 
examine every separate individual, he need only examine one of 
that particular sort ; the knowledge also of this one sort saves 
much study in the investigation of other individuals that 
resemble it in some points, while they differ from it in others. 
Even one point of true resemblance is useful, because it mostly 
happens that one point of likeness will be accompanied by others, 
not perhaps so patent to the senses, but still existing. It was 
something for the botanist to have found that he might group 
plants according to the structure of the embryo into three great 
classes; for this told him other particulars regarding the struc- 
ture of the stem, and the character of the flowers and leaves. 
In like manner information about the buttercup will render the 
study of monkshood much simpler, because while there are 
specific and even generic differences between these two, there 
are many important similarities. The naturalist — and by 
naturalist I mean the student of any department of nature — thus 
gradually progresses from generalizations of less significance to 
those of greater, from unity to unity, till at last the whole field 
of observation is mapped out into a few great provinces or 
kingdoms, these having their minor divisions and subdivisious, 
so that we are able to take an intelligent, even if not detailed, 
survey of the whole, and feel ourselves competent, by the 
division of labour, to .examine and relegate all phenomena to 
their Appropriate departments. 
It is, however, of the utmost importance that these unities 
should be real and not imaginary, the products of our investi- 
gations, and not the children of our wishes or our fancies. If 
the former, we gradually rise to the apprehension of that great 
