276 MEMOIR OF PY RAMUS DE CANDOLLE. 



conceives the grand idea of the ages of the world, and produces his 

 Epoques de la Nature; at length Georges Cuvier gives to the world his 

 Re"herches sur les Ossemens Fossiles, and the question of the revolutions 

 of the globe cannot long remain without its solution. 



The problem which the nineteenth century seems to have proposed 

 to itself in the same province is the determination of the intimate 

 laws of the organization of beings; and on this occasion the light has 

 proceeded from a source from which we could scarcely have expected 

 it. In 1790 a small work was published in Germany, entitled the 

 Metamorphosis of Plants. The author, who seemed to unite the 

 genius of the two neighboring nations in the flexibility of his powers 

 and the extent of his inquiries, was the first to see in the transformation 

 of one part into another all the secret mechanism of the development 

 of the plant. Thus a first transformation changes the leaf into the 

 calyx; a second, the calyx into the corolla; a third, the corolla into 

 organs of -a still more delicate texture. All these organs are there- 

 fore but the modifications of one organ, all the parts of the flower are 

 but modifications of the leaf; transformation is the predominating 

 principle, and the generalized expression of this striking fact con- 

 stitutes the celebrated theory of Goethe. 



For the theory of De Candolle even a greater degree of elevation 

 may be claimed. According to this, each class of beings is submitted 

 to a general plan, and this general plan is always symmetrical. All 

 organized beings, regarded in their intimate nature, are symmetrical. 

 But this primitive symmetry, on which all reposes, and from which all 

 emanates, what is it? how define it? how even determine it?* for 

 symmetry, the primitive fact, is rarely the fact which subsists. The 

 abortion, the adhesion, the degenerescence of the parts almost always 

 alters or masks it; and to rediscover this S} T mmetry, which is the 

 primitive fact, we must ascend through all the subsequent irregulari- 

 ties, which are but secondary facts. And yet these views of De Can- 

 dolle, bold and striking as they arc, may be already announced as, in 

 more than one instance, a demonstrated truth. To show this, an 



3 Doubtless the idea of a primitive symmetry subsequently altered is still in many cases 

 but a supposition, yet in many others it is the fact itself; in the Marronier d'lnde (horse- 

 chesnut) the primitive symmetry is changed under the eyes of the observer; in a multitude 

 of species the primitive symmetry, masked by the ordinary irregularities, disengages itself 

 momentarily from those irregularities, and all at once reappears. De Candolle was the 

 first who made what are termed monstrosities in the vegetable kingdom enter into a general 

 + heory; he defines them as " returns to symmetry." 



'' It is by the observation of certain monstrosities," he says, " that we have been enabled 

 to detect the true nature of certain abortive organs, and consequently the true symmetry 

 of the plants. Thus the observation of the Peloria has proved that a certain filament whLh 

 is found on the inner base of the corolla of the antirrhinum linaria and some others, is an 

 abortive stamen, since we have seen it change into a stamen " — Theor. Elem. de laBot., p. 98. 



The causes which produce anomalies, constant, and predisposed, are subject to laws so fixed 

 and regular that De Candolle finds in those anomalies the very source of genera and species. 

 " The arrangement of plants in natural orders supposes," he says, " that we may one day 

 establish the characters of those orders on that which constitutes the ground of their sym- 

 metry, and refer the varied forms of species aud genera to the action of causes which tend 

 to alter the primitive symmetry, Thus each family of plants may be represented by a 

 regular condition, sometimes visible to the eye, sometimes conceivable by the intellect; this 

 is what I call its type: adhesions, abortions, degenerescences or multiplications, separate or 

 combined together, modify this primitive type so as to give rise to the habitual characters 

 of the objects which compose them." — Organogr. Vegetale, II, p. 240. — Author. 



