§ 8. LAW I. THE LAW OF DEFLECTION.--The first law, then, respecting position in true leaves, is that they fall gradually back from the uppermost one, or uppermost group. They are never set as at _a_, Fig. 23, but always as at _b_. The reader may see at once that they have more room and comfort by means of the latter arrangement. The law is carried out with more or less distinctness according to the habit of the plant; but is always acknowledged. [Illustration: FIG. 24.] In strong-leaved shrubs or trees it is shown with great distinctness and beauty: the phillyrea shoot, for instance, Fig. 24, is almost in as true symmetry as a Greek honeysuckle ornament. In the hawthorn shoot, central in Plate 52, opposite, the law is seen very slightly, yet it rules all the play and fantasy of the varied leaves, gradually depressing their lines as they are set lower. In crowded foliage of large trees the disposition of each separate leaf is not so manifest. For there is a strange coincidence in this between trees and communities of men. When the community is small, people fall more easily into their places, and take, each in his place, a firmer standing than can be obtained by the individuals of a great nation. The members of a vast community are separately weaker, as an aspen or elm leaf is thin, tremulous, and directionless, compared with the spear-like setting and firm substance of a rhododendron or laurel leaf. The laurel and rhododendron are like the Athenian or Florentine republics; the aspen like England--strong-trunked enough when put to proof, and very good for making cartwheels of, but shaking pale with epidemic panic at every breeze. Nevertheless, the aspen has the better of the great nation, in that if you take it bough by bough, you shall find the gentle law of respect and room for each other truly observed by the leaves in such broken way as they can manage it; but in the nation you find every one scrambling for his neighbor's place. This, then, is our first law, which we may generally call the Law of Deflection; or, if the position of the leaves with respect to the root be regarded, of Radiation. The second is more curious, and we must go back over our ground a little to get at it. [Illustration: 52. Spirals of Thorn.]