The Distribution and Premanence of Species.
Professor Gray, in his address before the American Association for the
advancement of science, delivered at Dubuque (Ia.) in 1872, while
remarking upon the wide extent of similar flora in the same plant zones,
says: "If we now compare, as to their flora generally, the Atlantic United
States with Japan, Mantchooria and Northern China,--_i.e._ Eastern North
America with Eastern North Asia--half the earth's circumference apart, we
find an astonishing similarity." But why astonishing? Had our
distinguished botanical professors, in this country and in Europe,
thoroughly informed themselves as to the climatic conditions, the general
physical features, geographical characteristics, soil-constituents, and
other conditional incidences of this Asiatic region, in the light of all
the physiological facts before them, the circumstance of this great
similarity of flora would have been anything but astonishing. Indeed, the
astonishment, if any, would have been expressed at the want of similarity,
had it been found to exist.
Ever since 1862, these distinguished professors have had the great
plant-charts of Mr. Arthur Renfrey before them, with the warm temperate
zone north accurately laid down in its proper isotherms, as well as the
different classes of vegetation peculiar to the two regions referred to,
and some general conclusions of value to science might have been drawn
therefrom. Besides, the fact of these similar antipodal flora was well
known to many of them before this chart was issued. They also knew that
all along the higher mountain ranges of this country, as well as in
Europe, the same alpine flora was to be found under the same or similar
alpine conditions. From Mt. St. Elias, in Alaska, to the Central American
States, and thence, through the Isthmus, to the southern extremity of the
Andes in South Patagonia, there is one unbroken line of alpine vegetation
pressing the sides or summits of the loftier mountain ranges, at altitudes
correspondingly varying with the latitudes in which they occur. And the
same is true of the Alps in Europe and the Himalaya ranges in Asia, if not
of all the mountain systems of the globe.
These, and hundreds of other equally suggestive facts, all pointing to
geographical, climatic, and other influencing conditions, as the real
objective points of inquiry, have been constantly before our botanical
friends; and yet they have been content with Mr. Darwin's theory of
climbing mountains to cross the geographical equator, under the impression
that an enormous ice-cap, or rather prodigious "ice-ulster," would
ultimately drift them into the southern hemisphere, or enable them to
"coast" their way thither with the greatest imaginable ease. But why
insist upon the migration of plants growing in the lowlands and about the
bases and sides of mountains, and not suggest some means of transport for
the equally beautiful flora, known as "alpine," on the mountain summits of
the earth? These are distributed, as we have before shown, over all our
mountain systems, in all latitudes and in all parts of the globe, as well
as in the higher regions of vegetation as we approach the north pole.
Surely, the delicate little harebells of these alpine regions should
attract some interest, if not sympathy, from those who are constantly
hunting up means of transport for the more hardy and robust plants that
seem able to take care of themselves almost anywhere.
When the next great ice-cap shall sweep down from the north pole upon
these beautiful alpine flowers they will have to travel somewhere. There
is manifestly as much necessity for them to get out of the way as for the
rest of the flora. How will they manage to get down the mountains into the
lowlands, and traverse uncongenial plains and deserts, to find other and
far-distant alpine homes? They can never, of course, get very far away
from the regions skirted by eternal frost, for their cup of joy must be
chaliced by the snow-flake, or their beautiful life is soon ended. But if
all our alpine flora have traveled from one evolutional centre, or have
been "created but once in time and place," how have they managed to cross
the thermal equator and spread themselves out over all the alpine regions
of the globe? We call upon Mr. Darwin and Professor Gray to rise and
explain. Not that we want any explanation, but that their theory of
plant-migration stands sadly in need of one.
The theory which the Bible genesis suggests to us is fully adequate to the
explanation wanted. It explains not only _why_ these alpine flora appear
where they do, but why they cannot appear anywhere else. It also explains
all the physiological facts to which we have referred in the foregoing
chapters. Wherever the necessary alpine conditions exist the earth
responds to the divine command, and the beautiful little alpine harebell
is cradled into life, and rejoices in the bright embroidery it wears. And
so, wherever streams are turned aside to flow through new meads and
sheltered woods, or over broken and swaly places where cowslips never grew
before, hardly a year will pass before this "wan flower" will hang therein
"its pensive head," while all along the line of the stream the black alder
will make its appearance in the lowlands, no matter how far its current
may be diverted from its original channel, or how distant the supply of
natural seeds. For nature's sternest painter can only delineate her as
"instinct with music and _the vital spark_."
If our botanical professors would come forth into the true light of
nature, they should accept the position of pupil to her, and not assert
that of teacher. So long as they continue to peep and botanize upon her
grave, or over ancient mounds and Hadrianic tumuli, they will never find
out the cunning of her processes, much less the means she employs to
accomplish her perfected ends. This modern idolatry of "hypotheses," with
our chronic neglect of what nature _does_, is the great scientific
stumbling-block of the age in which we live. Our botanists all agree that
certain plants and trees disappear--hopelessly die out--from the
_absence_ of "necessary conditions;" when will they come to recognize the
reverse of this undeniable proposition, and agree that the _presence_ of
necessary conditions may cause the same plants and trees to make their
appearance, that is, spring into life in obedience to some great primal
law, as unerringly obeyed by nature as the attractive force of the
universe itself?
For nearly half a century the fact has been known that the geographical
distribution of the European flora, and especially that of the British
Islands, was referable to latitude, elevation, and climatic conditions. As
early as 1835, Mr. Hewett Watson, a well-known botanist of that day, in
his published "Remarks on the Geographical Distribution of Plants, in
connection with Latitude, Elevation, and Climate," drew the attention of
the botanical world to this remarkable feature of plant distribution;
while the late Professor Edward Forbes pursued the same line of thought in
his attempt to show how geographical changes had affected plant areas in
Great Britain as far back as the last glacial drift. And yet all our
botanical writers have been steadily persisting on immense
plant-migrations to account for their geographical distribution, and have
given us maps without number to show how the vegetal hosts have traversed
vast continents, swam multitudinous seas, braved the fiery equator, and
scaled the summits of the loftiest Andes. In the mean time, no botanist of
any distinguished note, except M. De Candolle, has confidently ventured to
question this migration theory, so imposing and formidable has been the
array of names which have frowned down, like so many gigantic ghauts, upon
the audacious questioner.
But the present actual state of knowledge on this subject forbids us any
longer to accept theories for facts, premises for conclusions, or
fallacious reasoning for legitimate induction. Truth and daylight never
meet in a corner, and no one, in our day, need go to the bottom of a well
in search of either. We are forever stumbling over the truth without
knowing it, because our old traditional beliefs, like so many
superannuated grasshoppers, are constantly springing up in our path and
diverting our attention from her. There are physiological facts enough
daily obtruding themselves upon our attention, if we would but notice
them, in the case of wayside plants, garden and household weeds, and the
more aggressive vegetation of worn out pasture-lands, to satisfy us of the
truth of our theory, were it not for the swarms of these old traditional
grasshoppers continually rising into the air before us, and shutting out
the truth as it is in nature. And the worst feature about this whole
business is, that we have come to regard these multitudinous insects as a
delight instead of a burden.
But it is hardly necessary to pursue this subject further. We have shown,
or shall show in the succeeding pages, that all crystalline forms come
from necessary or favoring statical conditions; that all infusorial forms
come in the same way, only their conditions may be said to be dynamical
rather than statical; that all mycological forms (fungi) are dependent,
for their primary manifestation, on conditions of moisture and decay; that
all plant-life, from the lowest cryptogam to the lordliest conifer, is
dependent on some similar incidence of conditions; that the mastodon, now
only known by his fossil remains, must have wallowed forth from his
"necessary mire" (plasmic conditions) in the Eocene period; and that all
animal life must have come from some underlying law of primordial
conditions, as impressed upon matter, in harmony with the "Divine
Intendment" from the beginning; and that this law is still operative in
the production of new forms of life whenever and wherever the same may
appear. We shall also show that all living organisms, such as seeds,
fungus-spores, morphological cells, etc., perish at a temperature of about
100° C., and that _Bacteria, Torulæ_, and other infusorial forms, making
their appearance in super-heated flasks, originate not from morphological
cells, plastide particles, bioplasts, or any other vital organism, but
from indestructible vital units, which are everywhere present in the
organic matter of our globe, and ready to burgeon forth into life whenever
the necessary vital conditions exist, and the proper incidences of
environment occur.
We have also shown that the earth still obeys the divine command to bring
forth, or--if objection be made to this form of statement as
unscientific--still obeys some inexorable underlying law tantamount to
such command, and can no more help "bringing forth," when the necessary
telluric conditions favor, than the cold can help coming out of the north,
or the clouds dropping rain, when the necessary meteorological conditions
occur. Give the future American botanist the physical geography of a
country--its average rain-fall, temperature, etc., and the plant zone in
which it lies, and, whether explored or unexplored, he will give us the
general character of its vegetation, and name most of the plants and trees
peculiar to its soil. And he will do this, not because he has any faith in
the present theories of plant-migration, nor in the necessary distribution
of seeds, but because he will study his favorite science with reference to
latitude, elevation, climate, physical characteristics, rain-fall,
soil-constituents, and other influencing conditions of plant-life.
But we will now proceed to consider the duration of vegetable species, for
the purpose of showing that the evolutional changes they are undergoing,
if any, must cover infinitely vaster periods of time than we have any data
for determining, to say nothing of the unverified theories the
evolutionists have been spinning for us.
Our geologic and paleontologic records are becoming richer in materials,
more interesting in details, and more authentic in character, every year.
We are turning back page after page of these lithographic records, only
to find the domain of science widened and deepened in interest as we
advance, or as our rocks are being excavated, our mountains tunneled, our
vast mines explored, and the beds of our rivers and arms of seas
thoroughfared and traversed by the iron rail. Meanwhile, science exhibits
signs of becoming less devoted to new-fangled theories, more exacting in
her demands upon her votaries, and more eager to extend the domain of
facts as the only true basis on which to rest her claims for future
recognition. She is less dogmatic to-day than she was a year ago, and is
likely to become less so a year hence than now. And this is largely due
to her methods of research and inquiry. She is now everywhere sending out
her hardier and more enthusiastic sons into new fields of exploration, to
return laden with ampler materials to build, and richer treasures to
adorn, a temple worthy of her name. In the field of the fossilized fauna
and flora, these treasures are of the highest value and interest, all
indicating not only wide areas of distribution, but immense periods of
time, in which species have existed without any greater changes in
character than the necessary shadings into varieties would seem to
require. For nature everywhere characterizes her methods of production
and reproduction by a loving tendency to diversify and variously adorn
her species, as if to express the infinite conceptions of that power
above her, which "spake and it was done, which commanded and it was
brought forth."
From the fossilized plants of Atanekerdluk--a flora rich in species and
wonderfully preserved in type--and the Miocene flora of Spitzenburg, to
the southernmost limits of vegetation on the globe, science has reached
out her hands for materials, and gathered them with as much success as
avidity. And all scientific botanists agree in referring these fossilized
forms from the high northern latitudes, to the Miocene period--one so
remote that we can form no adequate conception of it, except as time may
be measured by geologic periods. And these materials show that varieties
of the _Sequoia_, the tulip-tree, oaks, beeches, walnuts, firs, poplars,
hazelnuts, etc., etc., all flourished in these sub-arctic regions during
the far-distant period we have named. Many of them must have grown on the
spot where their trunks are now to be found, as their roots remain
undisturbed in the soil, as well as at a time when these regions enjoyed a
warm or cold temperate climate. Many of these fossilized and carbonized
forms are identical with the living species of to-day, conclusively
showing that neither natural variation, nor any secondary causes, have
worked out any changes capable of being scientifically expressed in
genetic value.
There is also abundant evidence to show that many of the present tropical
forms flourished in central and southern Europe as far back as the warm
inter-glacial epoch in the Eocene period. And if these inter-glacial
periods occurred at the lowest minimum limits of eccentricity in the
earth's orbit, as calculated by Leverrier's formulæ, we can have no
conception whatever of the length of time actually intervening the period
named and our present era. Mr. Croll has given us the limits of highest
glaciation covering the last three million years, and shows that there
have been but two periods of superior eccentricity in that time, and can
be only one in the next million years, with but two or three intervening
maxima and minima that may, or may not have been, of any special value. It
is true that he assigns importance to these maxima, as affecting possible
glaciations, but there are other eminent astronomers and physicists who
differ from him, and really attach little or no importance to these of any
other intervening periods of eccentricity. If Mr. Croll is correct in his
theory and estimates, we must separate these superior glacial epochs by an
interval of not less than one million seven hundred thousand years; and
nearly three of these periods must have intervened since some of the
present tropical forms flourished in Europe. And if these forms have
undergone no specific change in all this time, how many years will it
require to work out even _one_ of Mr. Darwin's many evolutional changes?
The kinship between some of these arctic and sub-arctic fossilized flora
and the living forms of to-day, is so near that they cannot be
distinguished by a single difference. This is true of some of the
varieties of the _Sequoia_ family, the oaks, beeches, firs, hazelnuts,
etc., while others are so nearly identical that it would be difficult to
classify them as separate varieties. At all events, if they cannot be
placed in the list of identical species, they cannot be ruled out of
representative types. But why should our speculative botanists insist upon
these "evolutional changes" in plant-life--these "derivative forms" of
which they are constantly speaking? Paleontological botany has given us
the very highest antiquity of species, and the most that can be claimed is
that nature was just as prolific of diversified forms millions of years
ago as now. Because we, by forcing nature into unnatural, if not
repugnant, alliances, can produce
--"Streak'd gillyflowers,
Which some call nature's bastards."
it is no evidence that she commits any such offence against herself. Her
alliances are all loving ones. She indulges in no forced methods of
propagation. If she produced the _Sequoia gigantea_, or the great redwood
tree of our California Sierra, as far back as the Crustaceous period, she
has propagated it ever since according to her own loving methods, and it
is idle to talk of the _Sequoia Langsdorfii_ as being the original
ancestor of this tree, or any other distinguished branch of the sequoias.
How much more rational the suggestion of Professor Agassiz that these
trees--the entire family of sequoias--were quite as numerous in
individual varieties at first as now, and that the fruit of the one can
never bear the fruit of the other.
Again, take the still hardier and more numerous branches of the
_Quercus_ or oak family. M. De Candolle has expended a vast deal of
ingenuity to show that the various members of this old and
ancestrally-knotty family have all descended from two or three of the
hardier varieties. He arrives at this conclusion from a geographical
survey of what he would call the "whole field of distribution," and
"the probable historical connection between these congeneric species."
But science should deal with as few probabilities as possible,
especially where experience furnishes no guide to certainty, and only
the remotest clue to likelihood. We should never predicate
probabilities except on some degree of actual evidence, or some
likelihood of occurrence, falling within the limits, analogically or
otherwise, of human observation and experience. In no other way can we
determine whether an event is probable or not. But here we have not so
much as a probable experience to guide us. Geographical distribution in
the past is hardly a safe criterion to go by, because we can never be
absolutely certain that we have the requisite data on which to form a
determinate judgment. The _Quercus robur_ may furnish the maximum test
to-day, but a few concealed pockets of nature may bring some other
variety of the congeneric species to the front to-morrow, requiring M.
De Candolle to correct his classification. There are no less than
twenty-eight varieties of this one species of oak, all of them conceded
to be spontaneous in origin, and it has been on the earth quite as long
as the more stately tribe of Sequoias. Besides, not more than one
twenty-thousandth part of the earth's surface has been dug over to
determine the extent to which any one of its varieties has flourished
in the past.
Since these several varieties are only one degree removed from each other,
M. De Candolle supposes divergence to be the natural law which has
governed their growth, and not hereditary fixity. But here again he has
only remote probabilities to work upon, no absolute data. We are still
speaking of his fossilized herbaria, not his modern specimens. These may
show a large number of genetically-connected individuals, or those claimed
to be so connected. And yet no naturalist can be certain that, because
they exhibit similarly marked characteristics, the one ever descended from
the other; for the universal experience-rule still holds good that "like
engenders like," and we search in vain for anything more than a similarity
of _idea_, or logical connection, which justifies a recognition of the
_individuorum similium_ in Jessieu's definition of species. But similarity
must not be mistaken for absolute likeness, which nowhere exists in
nature. Infinite diversity is the law, absolute identity the rarest
possible exception. No two oak leaves, for instance, in a million will be
found actually alike, although taken from the same tree, or trees of the
same variety; and the same may be said of the segmentation and branching
of their limbs, as well as the striatures of their corticated covering,
_Et sic de similibus_ everywhere, and with respect to every thing. Nature
is more solicitous of diversity and beauty, than of similarity and
tameness of effect, in all her landscape pictures; and the Platonic
conception that "contraries spring from contraries," may be only a
supplementary truth to that of _de similibus_. In the eye of the soul all
objective existences are discerned in their logical order, or as
consecutive thoughts of the Divine mind, as outspoken in the material
universe. To insist upon cutting down these transcendental forms[20] into
the smallest possible number of similar or identical forms, may be all
well enough to accomplish scientific classification; but the productive
power of nature can never be limited by these mental processes of our own.
The oak family can be traced back to the Miocene period, and consequently
enjoys quite as high an antiquity as the sequoias. Professor Gray, in
speaking of the _Quercus robur_ and its probable origin, says that it is
"traceable in Europe up to the commencement of the present epoch, looks
eastward, and far into the past on far-distant shores." By "far-distant
shores," he undoubtedly means Northwest America, where its remotest
descendants still flourish. But that these trees should have waded the
Pacific, or sent their acorns on a voyage of discovery after new habitats
on the Asiatic coast, is hardly more probable than Jason's voyage after
the golden fleece, in any other than a highly figurative sense. The
spontaneous appearance of a forest of oaks on the eastern shores of Asia
was just as probable, under favoring conditions--though occurring
subsequently to the time of their appearance on this continent--as that of
the miniature forests of "samphire," or small saline plants, which
spontaneously made their appearance about the salt-works of Syracuse, when
conditions actually favored. The high antiquity of the oak makes no
difference in respect to the principle of dispersion, since geographical
conditions are what govern, and not the theoretical considerations of the
speculative botanist.
Mr. A. R. Wallace's formula concerning the origin of species, that they
"have come into existence coincident both in time and place with
preëxisting closely-allied species," may or may not be true so far as
individual localization is concerned. But it proves nothing in the way of
original progeny, nor can we, by any actual data before us, satisfactorily
determine, under this formula, which of the two closely-allied species
preceded the other. If they came coincidently, both in time and place,
their existence must have been concurrent, not separated by preëxistence.
The formula may be true to this extent, that the conditions favoring the
appearance of one species may have equally favored what we call a
closely-allied species. But even in this case, the material sequence is
lost, and we have nothing to express a relationship as from parent to
progeny. For, however restricted as to localization, each species
preserves its own characteristics, the similarities always being less than
the dissimilarities. These, and other equally conclusive facts of
observation, led Professor Agassiz to question any necessary genetic
connection between the different species, or between even the same
species, in widely-separated localities; his idea being precisely that
advanced by us in connection with the Bible genesis, that localization
depended on geographical conditions, not on the migration of plants or the
dispersion of seeds.
The actual geographical distribution of species--any species--does not
depend solely on lines of ancestry, however great their persistence of
specific characters; nor on any principle of natural selection, nor on the
possibility of fertile monstrosities, but on the simple incidence of
conditions; and M. De Candolle, in his "Geographie Botanique," virtually
concedes this, while treating of geographical considerations in connection
with distribution. He in fact says, in so many words, that the actual
distribution of species in the past "seems to have been a consequence of
preceding conditions." [21] And he is forced to this conclusion by his
virtual abandonment of plant-migration, and the alleged means of
seed-distribution.
The question after all, says Professor Gray, is not "how plants and
animals originated, but how they came to exist where they are, and what
they are." On only one of these points--that of favoring conditions--can
any satisfactory answer be given, except as we defer to the Bible genesis,
which explains all. And the reason is, that we can never determine what
forms are specific without tracing them back to their origin, and this is
impossible. Orders, genera, species, etc., are only so many lines of
thought on which we arrange our classifications, just as the parallel
wires of an abacus, with their sliding balls, are the lines on which we
make our mathematical computations. Agassiz would not allow that varieties
existed in nature, except as man's agency effected them, that is, as they
were brought about by artificial processes.
These artificial processes are quite numerous, and many of them have been
practised from remote antiquity. But they seem to have no counterpart in
nature, except as insects may contribute to modifications by the
distribution of pollen. But all modifications of this character tend
towards infertility, while few plants accept any fertilizing aid from
other and different species. Any break in their hereditary tendencies,
resulting in a metamorphosis that involves the integrity of their stamens
and pistils, is stoutly resisted by nature. In considering the question of
species, therefore, we should confine our observations to those produced
by natural, not artificial, methods; to plants as propagated by the loving
tendencies of nature, not by the arbitrary and exacting methods of
man--those looking to his gratification only. All these fall into the
category, of "nature's bastards," as Shakespeare happily defines them. In
view of these considerations, and the new methods of classification, such
as grouping genera into families or orders, and these into sub-orders,
tribes, sub-tribes, etc., we can readily understand why the great Harvard
Professor should have wholly eliminated community of descent from his idea
of "species," or hesitated to regard varieties otherwise than as the
result of man's agency.
Indeed, the whole question of species, as well as varieties, is likely to
undergo material modifications in the future. On some points the botanists
and zoologists differ widely already, many making likeness among
individuals a secondary consideration, and genealogical succession the
absolute test of species. Others, on the contrary, make resemblance the
fundamental rule, and look upon habitual fecundity within hereditary
limits as provisional, or answering to temporary needs only. These
differences of opinion would seem to be the more tenaciously held as the
question of new varieties presses for solution at the hands of nature,
rather than by the agency of man. All these varieties tend less to new
races than to cluster about type-centres, and can go no further than
certain fixed limits of variation, beyond which all oscillations cease.
But none of these questions touch the real marrow of the controversy as to
origin, or aid us in determining the duration of species.
The presence of the two great families of trees--the sequoias and the
oaks--as far back as the Miocene period, if not extending through the
Eocene into the Cretacious, is conclusive of the point we would make, that
no great evolutional changes have taken place in the last two or three
million years, and none are likely to take place in the next million
years, except that the _Sequoia gigantea_ may drop out, from the vandalism
of man or the next glacial drift.
M. Ch. Martins, in his "Voyage Botanique én Norwege," says "that each
species of the vegetable kingdom is a kind of thermometer which has its
own zero." It may also be said to have its hygrometric and telluric
gauges, or instruments to determine the necessary conditions of moisture
and soil-constituents. When the temperature is below zero, the
physiological functions of the plant are suspended, either in temporary
hybernation or death. And so when the hygrometric gauge falls below the
point of actual sustentation, the plant shrinks and dies; while, without
the necessary conditions, it would never have made its appearance. There
was nothing more imperative in the command for the earth to bring forth
than the necessary conditions on which plant-life depended in the first
instance, and still depends, as we have endeavored to show.
Dr. J.G. Cooper, in an interesting article prepared by him at the expense
of the Smithsonian Institute, on the distribution of the forests and trees
of North America, with notes and observations on the physical geography,
climate, etc., of the country, after classifying, arranging, and
tabulating the results of the various observations forwarded to that
institution, indulges in the following general observations: "We have with
a tropical summer a tropical variety of trees, but chiefly of northern
forms. Again, with our arctic winters, we have a group of trees, which,
though of tropical forms, are so adapted to the climate as to lose their
leaves, like the northern forms, in winter. But, here, it must be
distinctly understood, is no alteration _produced_ by climate. Trees are
made for and not _by_ climate, and they keep their characteristics
throughout their whole range, which with some extends through a great
variety of climate." The italics are the authors, and we suppose he means
by "tropical" and "arctic," the sub-tropical and sub-arctic.
In making his general observations, he had before him large collections of
the leaves, fruits, bark, and wood of trees from all parts of the United
States, including portions of Mexico, the Canadas and Alaska, and
extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But one of the most important
elements--in fact, the _most_ important--is wanting in the tables before
us, and that is, the elevation at which these thousands of specimens were
obtained. So great an oversight as this should not have occurred, although
it may not have been entirely Dr. Cooper's fault. He had his materials to
work upon, and may have done the best that any one could with them. And
yet it is just as important to know at what _elevation_ a particular tree
grows in its own plant zone, as to know whether it comes from a sub-arctic
or sub-tropical region.
But this was not the comment we designed to make. Dr. Cooper labors, with
most professional botanists, under the delusion that all our plants and
trees originated in some one "centre of creation," at some period or other
in time and place, and have been steadily spreading themselves outward
from that centre until they occupy their present areas of distribution. We
have no objection to his clinging to this superannuated faith and belief,
if he derives any pleasure in flushing up these "traditional
grasshoppers." But we have a right to insist that he shall be logical. He
wants it distinctly understood that trees are made _for_, and not _by_,
climate. Then his "centre of creation" should be everywhere, not a
localized one. For he insists that no alteration can be produced by
climate, but that the characteristics of each specific form are preserved
throughout its entire range of distribution. But if these nomadic and
migratory forms have wandered thus far from their centres of creation, it
would seem that the trees had either adapted themselves to the climate, or
the climate to the trees. But our Smithsonian systematizer will allow us
neither horn of this dilemma. He insists that the trees were made for the
climate, and that they have preserved their characteristic features during
their entire ambulation upon the earth's surface.
With the change of a single monosyllabic predicate, this proposition is
undoubtedly true. We have never heard that plants or trees were "made."
They were ordered "to grow," or rather the earth was commanded to bring
them forth, which is an equivalent induction. And the fact that they grow
now, renders it absolutely certain that they grew at first, when "out of
the ground made the Lord God _to grow_" every plant of the field, and
every tree that is pleasant to the sight. We accept this genesis for the
want of a better. And if Dr. Cooper will add to his climatic conditions,
the hygrometric and other conditions necessary for the development and
growth of his plants and trees, we will agree with him to the fullest
extent of his novel position--that trees neither adapt themselves to the
climate, nor the climate to the trees; although it is true that trees
modify climate quite as much as they are modified by it. The true
physiological formula is undoubtedly this:--Trees make their appearance
_in_ climatic and other environing conditions, and flourish, without
material change in characteristics, so long as these conditions favor.
_Why_ they make their appearance is not a debatable question, except as we
assume a preëxisting vital principle, and apply to its elucidation our
subtlest dialectical methods. We are told that God commanded the earth to
bring them forth, after _his_ spirit (the animating soul of life) had
moved upon the face of the depths--the chaotic and formless mass of the
earth in the beginning. Plato has uttered no profounder or more
comprehensive truth than this, with all his conceptions of Deity and the
perfect archetypal world after which he conceived our own to be modeled.
Our preference for the Bible genesis over the Platonic conception is, that
it is vastly simpler and constitutes a more objective reality to the human
soul. Besides, we find _it true in fact_, since the earth is constantly
teeming with life, as if in obedience to some great primal law impressed
upon matter by an infinitely superior intelligence to our own.--
"If this faith fail,
The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble."