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muttor of course, srrange for an exchange of tilo daplimb
with some other duplicate from another Museum. But
may be many thing which might seem at first sight to bo
duplicates, but are not. Iu many cases tho slightor tho
differences the more instructive these are. The great, national
herbarium, for instance, ought to coutain tho floras of all parts
of tho world, and a certain number of plants mill appear to bo
identical, though coming from opposite sides of tho globe.
'I'hese coincident specinieus are, however, the very clues to tho
former rehiions of floras, or to the currents, wtaclyslns, or
other causes which can Le supposed to explain otherwiso inoxplicable
resemblances. The same is obviously true, cmteris
pribas, of all the other biological collections.
It is also true, in a somewhat different manner, of historical
objects. If, as the whole course of recent philosophy tends to
prove, things grow in the social as in tI~e physical world,
then the chuses of t,hiugs can oulg LC safely traced out by
obtaining specimens of so many stages in the growth that
tllerc can be no doubt as to tho relation of continuity. Somo
of the ancient British coins, for iust,ance, bear designs which
to all appearance are entirely iuexplicable and meaningless.
Careful study, however, consisting in tho minute aud skilful
comparison of many series of specimens of coins, showed that
these inexplicable designs were degraded copies of Byaantinc
or other earlier coinages. The point of tho matter, however,
is that no oue would recognise the resemblnnco Letween tho
first original and the last degraded copy. We must have a,
series of intermediate copies, RS necessary links in tho induction.
Now it is apparent that if those indispensablo links
being merely duplicates of each other, arc dispersed to tho
provincial Musaums of Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Newcastle
and the rest, the study of their rod import must bo
indefinitely retarded. Concentration and approximate redupliwtion
of specimens is in fact the great method of
biological and historical inquiry. This instance of the coins,
too, is only a fair specimeu of what holds of all the sciences
referred to. The forms of architecture, the derivation of
customs, the progress of inventions, the formation of languages,