Philosophical Character of Decandolle. 211 



DecandoUe's Tlieorie Eleinentaire, announces the same truth 

 in more clear and distinct language, stating, that he considers 

 the pistillum, or female organ, of all phsenogamous plants, to 

 be formed on the same plan, of which a polyspermous legumen, 

 or folliculus, whose seeds are disposed in a double series, may 

 be taken as a type. " A circular series of these pistilla," he 

 continues, " disposed round an imaginary axis, and whose 

 number corresponds with that of the parts of the calyx or 

 corolla, enter^ into my notion of a flower complete in all its 

 parts." 



Other hints of the same kind thrown out in this memoir, 

 and likewise in his Appendix to Flinders'" Voyages, published 

 in 1814, respecting the family Euphorbiaceae, shew, that the 

 doctrine of abortion, which Decandolle has explained so lu- 

 minously, was present also to the mind of Robert Brown, 

 and render it probable, that, in the conception of some parts 

 of the work alluded to, its author may have derived assist- 

 ance from the writings of our countrj-man. 



The Memou's of Cassiui on the Composita might also have 

 improved and enlarged, though, as they were brought out in 

 1814, they could not have originated the ideas of M. Decan- 

 dolle ; but the two sources to which he seems to have been 

 peculiarly indebted for the general views, and for the train 

 of thought which he has put forth, were, 1*/, The system 

 of crystallography which had lately been developed by the 

 Abbe Hauy ; and, 2dly, The opinions and speculations of 

 Mons. Lamarck concerning the successive progression of or- 

 ganized beings. 



The Abbe Hauy had shewn, how a number of secondary 

 forms may be produced by the same mineral species, owing 

 to an assemblage of crystals possessing the same figure being 

 piled up one upon the other in a decreasing series. 



Thus an octohedral figure may be produced by a mineral 

 whose primitive form is a cube, in consequence of the number 

 of little crystals which go to constitute the aggregate which 

 we see, decreasing in regular proportion from the sides to the 

 centre. 



This principle suggested to Mons. Decandolle the analo- 

 gous idea of regarding the apparent irregularities of struc- 



