CHAP, in.] the Dogma of Constancy of Species. 131 



or ' induction ' is, he says, less certain, but of much more 

 extensive application ; this is founded exclusively on the 

 knowledge of the relative position of organs. Armed with 

 this, we find that the flower of Albuca, which corresponds 

 to a flower of Liliaceae in everything except in having only 

 three stamens, is to be considered one of the Liliaceae, 

 because it has three filaments placed between the three 

 stamens exactly in the position of the three other stamens 

 in the Liliaceae ; it must be concluded therefore that they are 

 abortive stamens. Similar conclusions from analogy must be 

 carried from species to species, from organ to organ, and the 

 great systematists have in fact done so. In certain cases 

 abortion is produced by defect, in others by excess of nourish- 

 ment, of which he gives examples. An important sentence 

 occurs in this place ; everything in nature, he says, leads us to 

 believe that all organisms in their inner nature are regular, 

 and that different forms of abortion differently combined are 

 the cause of all irregularity ; from this point of view the 

 smallest irregularities are important, because they lead us to 

 expect greater ones in nearly allied plants ; and wherever in 

 a given system of organisation there are inequalities between 

 organs of the same name, the inequality will possibly reach 

 a maximum, that is, end by annihilating the smallest part. 

 Thus in the Labiatae with two stamens, it is the two which in 

 other cases also are the smaller, which are here completely 

 aborted. When in Crassulaceae there are twice as many 

 stamens as petals, those that alternate with the petals are 

 larger and earlier developed, and we may therefore expect 

 that those which are opposite the petals may become abortive ; 

 and therefore we may place a genus like Sedum, in which the 

 latter are sometimes wanting, with Crassulaceae ; but we could 

 not do so, if we found only the stamens that are superposed 

 upon the petals. It occurs sometimes, he continues, that an 

 organ is prevented from fulfilling its function by partial 

 abortion. In this case it may assume another function, as 



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