CHAP, i.] Adherents and Opponents of Sexuality. 391 



sexual theory. As is usually the case in great revolutions in 

 science, some simply denied the new theory, many adopted 

 it without understanding the question, others formed a per- 

 verse and distorted conception of it under the influence of 

 reigning prejudices, while others again sought to appropriate 

 to themselves the merit of the real discoverer ; there were but 

 few who with a right understanding of the question advanced 

 it by new investigations. 



The botanists who endeavoured to aid in determining the 

 matter by their own observations may be distinguished into 

 those, to whom the important point was the enquiry whether 

 the pollen is absolutely necessary to the formation of seed, 

 such as Bradley, Logan, Miller, and Gleditsch, and those who 

 like Geoffrey and Morland assumed that sexuality was no 

 longer an open question, and who were bent on observing in 

 what way the pollen effects fertilisation in the ovule. But 

 there was another class of writers altogether, who, believing 

 that they could deal with the subject without making observa- 

 tions and experiments of their own, either like Leibnitz, 

 Burckhard, and Vaillant, simply accepted the results of the 

 observations of others on general grounds, or like Linnaeus 

 and his disciples, endeavoured to draw fresh proofs from 

 philosophical principles, or like Tournefort and Pontedera, 

 simply rejected the idea of sexuality in plants. Lastly, we 

 might mention Patrick Blair who did nothing himself, but 

 merely appropriated the general results of Camerarius' observa- 

 tions, and has had his reward in being quoted even by German 

 writers as one of the founders of the sexual theory J . 



We have now to see what was really brought to light by 

 further experiment and observation. BRADLEY appears to have 

 been the first who experimented on hermaphrodite flowers 

 with a view to establish the sexuality of plants (' New improve- 



1 See Patrick Blair's 'Botanic Essays,' in two parts (1720), pp. 242-276. 

 Even the Latin ode is borrowed without acknowledgment. 



