Page:Books from the Biodiversity Heritage Library (IA mobot31753002447982).pdf/5

 man by the powers of the Telescope, not less perfect and wonderful to the re- flecting mind are those brought to light by the Microscope. In either case all is perfection, with this difference, that in the former we witness his perfections on a scale of grandeur far too magnificent for the comprehension of our limited fa- culties, while with the other we are easily enabled to detect organic structure in objects so inconceivably minute as to be almost invisible to the naked eye. With the aid of the former the motions through space of the heavenly bodies, distant many millions of miles, can be measured with such extreme accuracy as to show that in the course of thousands of years their rates of progression has not altered even a second of time, while by the latter we are enabled to trace evidences of complex structure and organization in the filmy dust of the moth's wing, or the equally minute particle of matter constituting a grain of pollen, Nay further, we learn from its use, that so infinitely varied and so constant are the forms of these minute objects that, in many cases, the practised observer can, by marking their differences, detect the families to which they belong, and can even tell, by the shape of the red globules in a drop of blood, whether it was drawn from the veins of a man or a lower animal.

These are no doubt extreme cases and demand an amount of skill in the use of the instruments not easily attained, but much, very much that is deeply interesting, can be learned from either by the merest novice, and each renewal of the attempt to interrogate nature by their means, adds to the skill of the ob- server. Such then are some of the dishes composing the endless intellectual feast which nature provides for her votaries and of which she, most bountifully, invites all to become partakers.

The magnified figures in the accompanying plates make no pretensions to such perfection in displaying the minutiae of organization, but even in them are exhibited points of structure which could not be made out by the naked eye, and for the most part show, on a sufficiently large scale to be easily followed, these more minute and intricate portions of the flower, seed vessel, and seed, em- ployed in tracing among plants their relationships to each other: a knowledge which forms the basis of our present Natural System and which if ever the true Natural System of Botanical classification, now so ardently sought for by all philosophical Botanists, is discovered, must still prove equally useful not to say indispensable towards its acquisition.

As it is not improbable some of my readers may only know of "Natural Systems" by name without having any very precise idea of what is meant by the term, I shall here digress a little to endeavour to convey some information re- garding what Naturalists understand by it. Imperfect the effort must necessa- rily be for, in truth, even the most learned and philosophical among them, seem not to know quite clearly what they are in search of and of course can scarcely