Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Progress.
PKOGBESS .
The age , like some of its scientific sons , runs wild upon the use of certain terms which tickle the ear , and by proffering to the sense a plausible-looking argument , distract the thoughts from investigating its value . Every man has his particular verbal hobby of magniloquent mystification ; for instance , what surgeon would announce to a jury that his patient had received a black eye , and would not rather
describe the injury as a hypopium , developing much sanguineous extravasation about the ophthalmic epidermis ? What young gardener , newly promoted from a hedgerow , would sacrifice his position by calling a dandelion other than by the botanical term " leontodon , " to the stupefaction of nursemaids and the perplexity of schoolboys ? Indeed , as to botany , the " rabies verborum" has so spread as to induce a doubt whether , if Solomon himself , who " spake of " that science , from the hyssop on the wall to the cedar which grew upon Lebanon , had walked arm-in-arm through the Crystal Palace with Nbrroy , king of arms , during the late horticultural exhibition ,
both would not have been considerably at a nonplus to recognise the humble families of honeysuckle and Clarke , under the hybrid association—plant and man upon one stalk— " of caprifolium , polycotyledonum Clarkii ? " Imagine these ancient worthies or the progenitors of the said Mr , Clarke , gazing upon this singular production as identifying their descendant ? Doubtless they would imagine that in the changes which had passed over the world since their time , humanity had reverted to its nristine mud . and was iust aeuin nuttin g
forth its embryo vitality in the shape of vegetation as its first stage , so that the botanist should absolutely be represented by a rhododendron , the astronomer by a sunflower—stay , we are wrong—an helianthus—an ancient spinster by a sensitive plant , or mimosa pudica , and the areca or cabbage-tree , embrace with its parental petals the cross-legged family of merchant tailors ! vol . i . 3 a
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Progress.
PKOGBESS .
The age , like some of its scientific sons , runs wild upon the use of certain terms which tickle the ear , and by proffering to the sense a plausible-looking argument , distract the thoughts from investigating its value . Every man has his particular verbal hobby of magniloquent mystification ; for instance , what surgeon would announce to a jury that his patient had received a black eye , and would not rather
describe the injury as a hypopium , developing much sanguineous extravasation about the ophthalmic epidermis ? What young gardener , newly promoted from a hedgerow , would sacrifice his position by calling a dandelion other than by the botanical term " leontodon , " to the stupefaction of nursemaids and the perplexity of schoolboys ? Indeed , as to botany , the " rabies verborum" has so spread as to induce a doubt whether , if Solomon himself , who " spake of " that science , from the hyssop on the wall to the cedar which grew upon Lebanon , had walked arm-in-arm through the Crystal Palace with Nbrroy , king of arms , during the late horticultural exhibition ,
both would not have been considerably at a nonplus to recognise the humble families of honeysuckle and Clarke , under the hybrid association—plant and man upon one stalk— " of caprifolium , polycotyledonum Clarkii ? " Imagine these ancient worthies or the progenitors of the said Mr , Clarke , gazing upon this singular production as identifying their descendant ? Doubtless they would imagine that in the changes which had passed over the world since their time , humanity had reverted to its nristine mud . and was iust aeuin nuttin g
forth its embryo vitality in the shape of vegetation as its first stage , so that the botanist should absolutely be represented by a rhododendron , the astronomer by a sunflower—stay , we are wrong—an helianthus—an ancient spinster by a sensitive plant , or mimosa pudica , and the areca or cabbage-tree , embrace with its parental petals the cross-legged family of merchant tailors ! vol . i . 3 a