PRINCIPLE OF METAMORPHOSED SYMMETRY. 473 



him thus : " The .ife of plants is, as Mr. Gothe very prettily says, an 

 expansion and contraction, and these alternations make the various 

 periods of life." "This ' prettily J" says Gothe, "I can be well content 

 with, but the l egregie' of Usteri is much more pretty and obliging." 

 Usteri had used this term respecting Gothe in an edition of Jussieu. 



The application of the notion of metamorphosis to the explanation 

 of double and monstrous flowers had been made previously by Jussieu. 



Gothe's merit was, to have referred to it the regular formation of 

 the flower. And as Sprengel justly says,' his view had so profound a 

 meaning, made so strong an appeal by its simplicity, and was so fruit- 

 ful in the most valuable consequences, that it was not to be wondered 

 at if it occasioned further examination of the subject ; although many 

 persons pretend to slight it. The task of confirming and verifying the 

 doctrine by a general application of it to all cases, a labor so impor- 

 tant and necessary after the promulgation of any great principle, 

 Gothe himself did not execute. At first he collected specimens and 

 made drawings with some such view, 10 but he was interrupted and 

 diverted to other matters. " And now," says he, in his later publica- 

 tion, " when I look back on this undertaking, it is easy to see that the 

 object which I had before my eyes was, for me, in my position, with 

 my habits and mode of thinking, unattainable. For it was no less than 

 this : that I was to take that which I had stated in general, and pre- 

 sented to the conception, to the mental intuition, in words ; and that 

 I should, in a particularly visible, orderly, and gradual manner, present 

 it to the eye ; so as to show to the outward sense that out of the germ 

 of this idea might grow a tree of physiology fit to overshadow the 

 world." 



Voigt, professor at Jena, was one of the first who adopted Gothe's 

 view into an elementary work, which he did in 1808. Other bota- 

 nists labored in the direction which had thus been pointed out. Of 

 those who have thus contributed to the establishment and develope- 

 ment of the metamorphic doctrine, Professor De Candolle, of Geneva, 

 is perhaps the most important. His Theory of Developement rests 

 upon two main principles, abortion and adhesion. By considering 

 some parts as degenerated or absent through the abortion of the buds 

 which might have formed them, and other parts as adhering together, 

 he holds that all plants may be reduced to perfect symmetry : and 

 the actual and constant occurrence of such incidents is shown beyond 



Gesch Botan. ii. 304. 1 Zur Morph i. 229. 



