28 



culares ; to which he attributes collectively a capsular bilocu- 

 lar polyspermous fruit; whereas, in fact, the Polygalae 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, it is 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 phsenogamous plants. And 



* See the Scientific Memoirs of the Imperial University of Moscow, 

 Oct. 1835, p. 403. 



