1863.] REVIEWS. 531 



fail, either for want of ingenuity or of materials, in accomplish- 

 ing her original intention. Who will maintain, for example, 

 that she intended to make a stem, but failed for want of forma- 

 tive energy in the plant, and could only produce a leaf, or it may 

 be only a spine ? Nobody will assert this. 



The examples of such accidental aberrations from what is 

 called the normal or common type, like degeneration, multipli- 

 cation, etc., are very unfrequent; and when they do occur, their 

 occurrence is owing, not to a latent or mysterious cause, but to 

 some accidental change in circumstances which affect or modify 

 the normal development of the plant. In botany, and in zoology 

 also, there is and there can be no change nor alteration, nor 

 modification of one organ into another. When botanists write 

 and say that the pistil or pericarp is only an altered leaf, 

 they either state what is not true, or they misapply the words. 

 They may be acquitted of the former, but may they not be 

 justly charged with altering or modifying the usual sense of the 

 Q-ueen's English ? 



The recent researches and discoveries in physiology, both vege- 

 table and animal, (thanks to the inventors of powerful magni- 

 fiers, and a thousand benedictions on the patient and ingenious 

 observers,) have taught us that there are but a very few pri- 

 mordial types or forms which by subsequent growth (develop- 

 ment is not the right word, though commonly used) produce 

 so many complicated organisms, varying quite as much in their 

 utilities as in their multiform appearances. All this amazing 

 variety of qualities, structures, forms, sizes, durations, etc., is 

 naturally produced without the change of any one organ into 

 another, and also without any suppression of parts. 



How, it may be asked, can an organ — say, for instance, a leaf — 

 be changed into an apple, or into a peach, or even into a pistil ? 

 The latter, viz. the fruits or the carpels, never had any previous 

 existence in a foliaceous embryonic condition. They always 

 existed in the state wherein they are manifest to our senses. 

 Surely a thing cannot be changed which never existed, never 

 became a thing, i.e. a leaf; and never was intended by nature 

 to become a leaf. Again, how can parts be suppressed which 

 never existed ? 



The writer knows by experience the difficulty of persuading 

 the curious inquirer that there is a suppression of a petal, and 



