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5. Comments on the Above Opinions. The ancient philosophers and 

 naturalists admitted, as every one knows, four elements earth, water, 

 air, and fire the which, combined together in various ways, produced 

 an infinity of phenomena and things. Now, Theophrastus, wishing to 

 explain how it could happen that the fly should cause the young figs 

 to remain on the tree, bethought himself that, whilst the fig abounded 

 in humidity, it was deficient in the air and heat necessary for fermenta- 

 tion, and that the insect, by feeding, carried off precisely the super- 

 abundant humidity, and by opening the mouth gave entrance to air 

 and heat; and as this happened naturally in a poor soil and northern 

 exposure, there was no occasion for the assistance of the fly. But in 

 the present state of science, who would believe in the attribution of such 

 powers to the soil and the north wind? On the contrary, such circum- 

 stances would rather produce an opposite effect; for the want of humidity 

 and cold tend rather to contract the parts. And if any one were to see in 

 the aura cerealis of Pliny that which is now called pollen, or the fertiliz- 

 ing dust generated in the anthers, would probably be mistaken, for it 

 appears to me that the epithet cerealis denotes nothing but fertility or 

 abundance produced by the aura. The opinion of Linnaeus has, in truth, 

 all the appearance, I do not say of probability, but even of certainty, 

 of being simple and analogous to what takes place in a great number of 

 vegetables. And that of Tournefort, if one does not entirely give faith 

 to it, has, nevertheless, much of probability, considering that in other 

 fruit trees the ovary, being pierced by an insect for the purpose of 

 depositing its eggs, does not fall oft' on that account, but ripens like the 

 others, only a little earlier. 



Cavolini's theory is derived directly from Linnaeus, only that his ex- 

 planation of the manner in which the fecundation makes the fruit of 

 the fig set is ingenious, and even rational. Admitting, then, for the 

 moment, that the fact is as stated by that celebrated naturalist that is 

 to say, that in certain figs the nutritive juices cannot pass readily from 

 the branch to the fruit (on account, as he says, of the extreme tenuity 

 and curvature of the vessels), unless attracted by the embryo generated 

 by fecundation yet he has not shown that in the figs which ripen with- 

 out caprification these vessels are really less curved or larger. Now we 

 have proved that the structure of the receptacle in all the varieties of 

 fig is tolerably similar. And his observation that the fine dust of the 

 soil might produce fecundation is now wholly inadmissible. For although 

 towards the close of the last century there were some who believed they 

 had obtained perfect seeds furnished with embryo, by fecundating the 

 pistil with very fine charcoal dust, later experience has entirely dis- 

 proved it. As for the virtue attributed by authors to the alkaline salts 

 of the earth, or the phlogiston of the air, as being capable of producing 

 the same effect, it can now no longer be supported without offending the 

 dignity and grandeur of science. Gallesio's opinion is essentially that 

 of Linnseus, as to the importance and the action of fecundation; and 

 he follows Cavolini in admitting that certain figs require caprification 

 and others do not for the ripening of their fruits. But he does not see 

 the cause of this diversity either in soil or climate, but in their different 

 organization, believing that those figs only which have their flowers apt 

 for fecundation require the caprifig, as well to produce the embryo as to 

 ripen the fruit. Nothing further can be deduced from Gallesio's work, 

 in which, to my mind, there is great confusion, owing partly to precon- 



