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LXXX. Upon the System of Vegetable Physiology of M. 

 Aubert du Petit Thouars: in Reply to Sir J as. Edw. 

 Smith. By J. Lindley, Esq. F.L.S. fyc. fyc. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 



Gentlemen, 



Tl/'HEN I communicated to you in August last, an abstract 

 ™* of the opinions upon Vegetable Physiology of M. du 

 Petit Thouars, I at the same time expressed a hope that that 

 remarkable theory would attract attention in this country. 

 Little, however, did I anticipate the honour of a reply from 

 the distinguished President of the Linnean Society, and still 

 less did I suspect that my plain and inoffensive statement would 

 have caused uneasiness where I should most have desired ap- 

 probation. 



Much as is due to courtesy, to personal respect, to rank, 

 and to scientific reputation, yet I feel that more is due to the 

 interests of science, and that those interests would be compro- 

 mised by a silent acquiescence on my part, in the accuracy of 

 the statements of your learned correspondent. 



To his first statement,that no comparison has been made by 

 me between the opinions of M. du Petit Thouars and those of 

 other eminent botanists, I beg to answer ; that I did not pro- 

 pose to institute a comparison between certain systems of ve- 

 getable physiology, but that I avowedly confined myself to the 

 simple statement of particular opinions of an original cha- 

 racter, without reference to any other opinions whatsoever; that 

 if I had attempted to compare one theory with another theory, 

 or one discovery with another discovery, I should have neces- 

 sarily been obliged to consider such opinions only as are ori- 

 ginal ; and that, therefore, an examination of those contained 

 in Sir James Smith's excellent Introduction to Botany would 

 have been rendered superfluous, by a previous consideration of 

 the works of the writers from whom they have been judi- 

 ciously adopted. 



The intimation that M. du Petit Thouars' opinions are not 

 peculiar to himself, can have arisen only from the circumstance 

 that the President of the Linnean Society has not ever seen any 

 of the works of one of the most acute physiologists of our time. 

 The unvarying candour of Sir James Smith having induced him 

 to make this avowal, I can only lament that he should have been 

 prevented by such a cause from acquiring that degree of informa- 

 tion upon the subject of my letter which was indispensible to him 

 before forming an opinion upon it. In this place, and within 

 the limits necessarily prescribed to communications of the pre- 

 sent 



