The fact that I set little store by certain postulates (often deemed to be fundamental) of our present-day biology the reader will have discovered and I have not endeavoured to conceal. But it is not for the sake of polemical argument that I have written, and the doctrines which I do not subscribe to I have only spoken of by the way. My task is finished if I have been able to show that a certain mathematical aspect of morphology, to which as yet the morphologist gives little heed, is interwoven with his problems, complementary to his descriptive task, and helpful, nay essential, to his proper study and comprehension of Growth and Form. Hic artem remumque repono.

And while I have sought to show the naturalist how a few mathematical concepts and dynamical principles may help and guide him, I have tried to show the mathematician a field for his labour—a field which few have entered and no man has explored. Here may be found homely problems, such as often tax the highest skill of the mathematician, and reward his ingenuity all the more for their trivial associations and outward semblance of simplicity. Haec utinam excolant, utinam exhauriant, utinam aperiant nobis Viri mathematice docti.

That I am no skilled mathematician I have had little need to confess.