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.