ON THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS. 265 



tity of secretion, and the stamens develop more pollen. Such 

 being the case, nourishment is withheld from the pistil, which 

 is delayed in its development ; consequently such a flower is 

 very generally proterandrous." Mr. Darwin might accept 

 this as an ingenious conception of the way the specialization 

 comes about, still insisting on the advantage of the resulting 

 intercrossing — "or else the thing would hardly come to pass," 

 as the poet has it. And Mr. Henslow's hypothesis has to be 

 suj^plemented to account for proterogyny, which is not much 

 less common. But Henslow's supposed process works evil 

 instead of good, and is therefore utterly anti-Darwinian and 

 " dysteleological." For the result is a disturbance of the 

 equilibrium and proper correlation between the androeciuni 

 and gynoecium ; and this, carried further, should upon this 

 view result in the monoecious and dioecious states. So, ac- 

 cordingly, the cross-fertilization which comes into play in the 

 case of separated sexes, and in that of self-sterile hermaphro- 

 ditism, is not for any good there is in it ^jct* se, but because 

 it may no better be. And all the elaborate, exquisite, and 

 wonderfully various modes of adaptation of flowers to insects 

 are only ways of repairing the damages inflicted upon blos- 

 soms by insects through their persistent visits ! Did Mr. 

 Henslow ever ask himself the question why the sexes are 

 separate in animals ? 



The conclusion which Mr. Darwin has helped us to reach 

 is, that intercrossing should be regarded as the aim in nature 

 and on the whole most beneficial, and self-fertilization as a 

 safeguard against the risks of crossing ; that most hermaphro- 

 dite flowers have the advantage of both, the latter for imme- 

 diate sureness, the former for ultimate benefit. Upon the new 

 view, self-fertilization is the aim and the consummation, and 

 cross-fertilization at best a succedaneum. By it insects may 

 repair the damage they have caused to blossoms through en- 

 dowing them with " the fatal gift of beauty," and stimulating 

 their organs of secretion ; and by it the winds may bring 

 chance relief to those which, at length abandoned by their 

 spoilers, have lost this attractiveness and fallen to the de- 

 gradation of unisexuality. For these last, as has already been 



