increase of size. The flower has grown gradually larger by
cultivation. If the progress were really unlimited it might be
increased ad infinitum, but this is so gross an absurdity that we
may be quite sure that among plants as well as among animals
there is a limit to improvement, though we do not exactly know
where it is. It is probable that the gardeners who contend for
flower prizes have often applied stronger dressing without
success. At the same time it would be highly presumptuous in any
man to say that he had seen the finest carnation or anemone that
could ever be made to grow. He might however assert without the
smallest chance of being contradicted by a future fact, that no
carnation or anemone could ever by cultivation be increased to
the size of a large cabbage; and yet there are assignable
quantities much greater than a cabbage. No man can say that he
has seen the largest ear of wheat, or the largest oak that could
ever grow; but he might easily, and with perfect certainty, name
a point of magnitude at which they would not arrive. In all these
cases therefore, a careful distinction should be made, between an
unlimited progress, and a progress where the limit is merely
undefined.

It will be said, perhaps, that the reason why plants and
animals cannot increase indefinitely in size is, that they would
fall by their own weight. I answer, how do we know this but from
experience?--from experience of the degree of strength with
which these bodies are formed. I know that a carnation, long
before it reached the size of a cabbage, would not be supported
by its stalk, but I only know this from my experience of the
weakness and want of tenacity in the materials of a carnation
stalk. There are many substances in nature of the same size that