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Show 288 DAR WIN! .AN .A. tilization in flowers, for the climbing of plants, and the like. These, as we have heard, may before long be reprinted in a volume, and supplemented by some long-pending but still unfinished investigations upon the action of J)ionma and JJrosera-a capital subject for Mr. Darwin's handling. .A propos to these papers, which furnish excellent illustrations of it, let us recognize Darwin's great service to natural science in bringing back to it Teleology; so that, instead of Morphology versus Teleology, we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology. To many, no doubt, evolutionary Teleology comes in such a questionable shape as to seem shorn of all its goodness; but they will think better of it in time, when their ideas become adjusted, and they see what an impetus the new doctrines have given to investigation. They are much mistaken who suppose that Darwinism is only of speculative importance, and perhaps transient interest. In its working applications it has proved to be a new power, eminently practical and fruitful. ·And here, ag~in, we are bound to note a striking contrast to Mr. Brown, greatly as we revere his memory. He did far less work than was justly to be expected from him. Mr. Darwin not only points out the road, but labors upon it indefa~igably a~d unceasingly. A most commendable noblesse obl2ge assures us that he will go on while strength (would we could add health) remains. The vast amount of such work he has already accomplished might overtax the powers of the strongest. That it could have been done at all under constant infirm health is most wonderful. X . INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. (Trm NATION, April 2 and 9,1874.) THAT animals should feed upon plants is u'atural and normal, and the reverse seems impossible. But the. adag~, "Natura nor: agit saltatim," has its applicatiOn even here. It 1s the naturalist, rather than Nature, that draws hard and fast lines everywhere, and marks out abrupt boundaries where she shades off . with . gradations. .However opposite the parts whiCh ammals and vegetables play in the economy of the world as the two opposed kingdoms of orO'anic Nature, it is becoming more and more obvious 5 that they are not only two contiguous kingdoms, but are parts of one w~ole-antithetica] and complementary to each other, mdeed; but such "thin partitions do the bounds divide" that no definitions yet framed hold good without exception. This is a world of transition in more senses than is commonly thought; an~ one of the lessons which the philosophical naturahst l~arns, or has to learn, is, that differences the ~ost Wide and real in the main, and the most essential, may nevertheless be here and there connected or bridged over by gradations. There is a limbo filled with organisms which never rise high enough in the |