86 Science and the Bible. [Jan.
another
grand law, which science has evolved from the mass of facts before us
in the plant-ldngdom. And this law has its more special announcements :
follow the leaves, from one leaf (a) as a starting point around the stem, taking the course of the spiral, to another leaf (b) in
the same vertical line with the first; and if there are 2 or 3 leaves
in the spiral, the spiral goes around but once before reaching leaf b ; if there are 5 leaves in the spiral, the spiral revolves 2 times before it reaches leaf b ;
if there are 8 leaves, it revolves 3 times; if 13 leaves, it revolves 5
times; if 21 leaves, 8 times; and so on, and the converse, by an
inflexible rule. Placing the number of leaves above, and number of
turns below, the following series expresses the relation:
2/1,3/1,5/2,8/3,13/5,21/8 Now the last 8, the number of revolutions for
a spiral of 21 leaves, is the sum of 5 and 3 of the two next preceding
spirals in the series ; and 21, of 13 and 8 of the same two preceding
spirals. In this way the series extends on, in exact mathematical
relation. Thus law rises above law, in God's plan, to mathematical
harmonies; and when we shall establish the connection between the
nature of growth and the production of such spirals, this will be still
another law, not obliterating the former, but only opening a profounder
view into the mysteries of creation.
In
the animal kingdom also, there are laws above laws in a long
progression. There are relations of structure or concurrent conditions
that run through the kingdom as a whole; others for each class; others
still of less profound character, but no less strict or beautiful, for
each order, or family, or genus; and then in a species itself there are
still other analogies between different parts, which are like higher
tones in the grand system of harmonies. These science has partly
studied out, and still she labors to comprehend them all.
As
one example: after tracing the analogies of parts between the fore and
hind limbs of a quadruped, it has gone on and shown that in the Divine
plan, one system or type of structure is at the basis of the arm of
man, the leg of the horse or lion, the wing of the bird, the paddle of
the whale
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