220 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



US, on the assumption of an unnatural or supernatural 

 guidance which converts this apparently natural unity 

 into a miracle. Quite recently, A. Braun has pointed out 

 the accordance of the botanical system, and therewith 

 of palaeontological succession, with the development of 

 the individual plant, when he says :^^ — " In the further 

 elaboration of the natural system, the gradation of the 

 vegetal kingdom, and, at the same time, the relation of 

 the system to the history of development, becomes more 

 and more spontaneously and incontrovertibly manifest. 

 The Acotyledons are verified as Cryptogams, as they 

 w^ere already considered by the old botanists of pre- 

 Linnsean times, and their relation to the Phaenogams is 

 thus more clearly pronounced. The Cryptogams are 

 separated into two essentially different divisions, 

 in which gradation is likewise distinctly pronounced 

 (cellular and vascular Cryptogams, Thallophytes and 

 Kormophytes) ; between the perfect Phsenogams and 

 the Cryptogams an intermediate grade has been shown, 

 that of the Gymnosperms. But most important of all 

 is the circumstance that the four chief grades ascer- 

 tained in the vegetal kingdom accurately correspond 

 with the grades of development occurring in the indi- 

 viduals of all the higher plants ; — the germ, the vegeta- 

 tive stem, the blossom and the fruit." But why this 

 parallelism is to be most important of all, if it is not 

 to lead us to the knowledge of true causality, is beyond 

 our comprehension. We can well imagine that the 

 "inherent causes" and the "Principle of Perfection" may 

 be welcomed as the rcfugimn ignoranticB, but not that 

 they can really satisfy inquiry. For our own standpoint, 

 the accordance of the results of botanical investigation 



