80 REVIEW. [March, 



The Professor guards against the inference that he repudiates 

 these characters as unsafe [falsos). On the contrary^ he admits 

 that they are mostly reliable [veros] ; and he says that " it is 

 very credible that those plants which approach nearest by affinity 

 should agree in the structure of their embryos, and in the forms 

 and disposition of their flowers. ^^ But he further adds, " It has 

 been discovered by practice that there is no character which is 

 not variable; not even those to which Jussieu attached the 

 greatest importance. If a character is not constant in a family, 

 a fortiori it will be more subject to variation in a section or 

 class. Some species of the genus Fraxinus have a corolla, some 

 Saxifrages have perigynous stamens. Is the Ash achlamydeous, 

 monochlamydeous, or diplochlamydeous ? and is the Saxifrage to 

 be divided between the sections perigynea and epigynece ? Can 

 any one believe that natural classes can be formed thus?" 



''^But the doctrine of Jussieu assumes another aspect when he 

 maintains that it is an axiomatic truth that the lower or less 

 important characters always follow the higher." (" ' Dicuntur 

 enim graviores characteres sequi leviores.") This reminds us of 

 the famous reponse of the Delphic oracle, Aio te, Eacida, Ro- 

 manos vincere posse ; it is impossible to tell from the text if the 

 author means that the lower follow the higher, or the higher the 

 lower. As the oracle did not tell the king of Epirus whether he 

 should conquer the Romans, or that the Romans should conquer 

 him, his majesty inferred the former ; the royal wish was father to 

 the regal interpretation. And the oracle got credit at the king's 

 expense. Botanists, like Apollo, sometimes shroud their ora- 

 cular definitions with all the ambiguity of Delphic utterances. 

 We only surmise that the author means that the structure of 

 the embryo is of higher import than the following ; but let the 

 author speak for himself, which is here translated for the ease of 

 the reader; — the Doctor's Latin is not remarkably easy. " They 

 say (viz. the natural-systematists), when once we know that a 

 certain plant is monocotyledonous or dicotyledonous, we know 

 its internal and external structure. We know its germination, 

 the structure of the stem, the nervation of the leaves, their 

 shape, and the number of parts into which the floral verticils 

 (calyx and corolla) are divided." The author goes on, and 

 shows that this rule, like every other, has its exceptions ; some 

 would say this is a proof of the universality of the rule, for ex- 

 ceptio probat regulam, as the ancient dialecticians used to say. 



