ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 223 



a peculiar fascination as forming the transition from the 

 abstract science of geometrical forms and statical equili- 

 brium to the study of the actual forms of real things. 

 Here, if anywhere, it seemed as if we might dis- 

 cover the link that connects the theoretically calcul- 

 able with the actually existing, the possible with the 

 real. Accordingly, we find a very general and recur- 

 ring tendency to carry over the notions of crystal- 

 lography into other sciences into the morphology 

 of plants and animals. The planes and axes of 

 geometry, and the forces of attraction between particles" 

 of matter, have formed a theme which has been end- 

 lessly repeated and varied in explaining the elements 

 and the forms of living matter. But whilst these 

 fanciful analogies l of organic crystals, of polar distribu- 

 tion, and the network of tissues, to which are also allied 

 the spiral theories of leaves and branches in plants and 

 other geometrical arrangements, have at times attracted 

 much attention, 2 and have served to give at least the 



1 " Ces comparaisons entre lea 

 formes minerales et lea formes 

 vivantes ne constituent certaine- 

 inent que cles analogies fort loin- 

 taines, et il serait imprudent de 

 les exagorer. II suffit de les signal- 

 er. Elles doivent simplement nous 

 faire mieux concevoir la separation 

 the\>rique de ces deux temps de la 

 creation vitale : la creation ou 

 syn these chimique, la creation ou 

 synthese morphologique, qui en fait 

 sont confondues par leur siuiul- 

 tHiieite, mais qui n'en sont pas 

 moins essentiellement distinctes 

 dans leur nature " (Claude Bernard, 

 ' Lemons sur les Phe*nomenes de la 

 Vie,' &c., voL L p. 296). See also on 

 the extravagances of such search 



for analogies, Jul. Sachs, 'Gesch. 

 d. Botanik,' p. 173, &c. 



2 I shall revert to this subject 

 when speaking of the elder De 

 Candolle. Here only a passing re- 

 mark on the " spiral theory," which 

 was mainly developed by K. F. 

 Schimper and Alexander Braun, 

 after the regular geometrical ar- 

 rangement of leaves around their 

 stalks had already been noticed in 

 the eighteenth century by Charles 

 Bonnet, following Csesalpinus. For 

 about thirty years, from 1830 on- 

 ward, the spiral theory was very 

 popular in Germany. In France, 

 the somewhat related theories of 

 symmetry of De Candolle, of meta- 

 morphosis of Goethe and of spiral 



