THE EVOLUTION PROCESS 239 



like rose or daffodil, have become : 'epigy- 

 nous," i.e. with their ovaries, now sunk at 

 the bottom of a cup, the arrested and over- 

 grown apex. Passing now to forms so utterly 

 distinct as the fungi, we find the same proc- 

 ess repeating itself, the essential reproduc- 

 tive organs sinking from cone to disk, and 

 thence into cup or pouch, like fig and rose, 

 indeed closing up completely. 



Now, the farther we go in our studies of 

 flower anatomy, the more we find of this 

 subordination of the vegetative life by the 

 reproductive; witness the reduction of the 

 number of petals, stamens and carpels from 

 indefinite to few. See, however, what all 

 this amounts to. All these changes and 

 others, in fact the most important of floral 

 variations, the big lifts distinctive for the 

 evolution of orders, are thus seen no longer 

 as indefinite, and hence dependent on ex- 

 ternal selection for their guidance; but, on 

 the contrary, as parallel and definite, since 

 determined through the continued checking 

 of the vegetative process by the reproductive, 

 and thus pressed along parallel and definite 

 grooves of progressive change. But if this 

 be so, the importance we have been taught 

 by Darwin to assign to natural selection 

 becomes greatly changed from selecting and 

 accumulating supposed indefinite variations, 



