28 
culares ; to which he attributes collectively a capsular bilocu- 
lar polyspermous fruit; whereas, in fact, the Polygale have 
two monospermous cells with pendulous seeds, and a habit 
very different from that of the Pediculares, 
Imperfection is the common lot of mortals; and, as stated 
by the celebrated German botanist, Curtius Sprengel, not 
long since deceased, to the regret of science—‘‘ We should 
congratulate ourselves when we are able to divest ourselves of 
one prejudice after another, to cast off one error after another, 
and thus entertain a hope to be somewhat nearer the truth 
than those who studied before us.”’ 
Deeply penetrated with this truth, M. de Jussieu, making 
use of Gaertner and of his own genius, prosecuted his inves- 
tigations of nature, and in numerous subsequent partial and 
separate memoirs on various families of plants, showed, for our 
instruction, that mistakes in the search after truth should not 
stop us, but encourage us to fresh efforts. 
Lastly, with all the indefatigable labours of Gaertner— 
with all the immensity in number and the accuracy of his ob- 
servations—the numerous mistakes of Gaertner himself, of the 
celebrated investigator of fruits, Louis Richard, and of the 
admirable observer, Mirbel, prove to the naturalist, that in 
order to demonstrate the structure of the fruit, itis not enough 
merely to analyse mechanically and to describe that organ. 
Unquestionably the first botanist of the day, the exemplary 
lover and favourite of the scientia amabilis, the Genevese Pro- 
fessor, A. P. DeCandolle, first showed the advantage of com- 
bining practical observation with the theory derived from the 
more or less general laws of organization, and since then his 
views of the structure of the fruit, enforced by the profound 
observations of the immortal Goethe, have become the pre- 
valent ones.* 
But on the admission of DeCandolle himself, « we, always 
inclining to extremes, are often carried off so far by our spe- 
culations, that at length we obstinately follow that which is 
contrary to the fact.” And in fact it is only the authority of 
the German genius that could have made DeCandolle overlook 
the doctrine of Link, Richard, and some others, on the attach- 
ment of the seeds in the fruit of phenogamous plants. And 
* See the Scientific Memoirs ft . ee 
Oct. 1835, p. 403. of the Imperial University of Moscow, 
