334 SEXUALITY OF VEGETABLES. CHAP. VL 



Answered. These experiments are contradictory, no doubt, to 

 the experiments of Linnaeus ; but they afford no 

 argument against the doctrine of the sexes : for in 

 the first place it cannot be proved that some of the 

 pollen from the Spinach bed, or from a neighbour- 

 ing male plant of Hemp, might not have reached 

 the insulated plants by means of a favourable com- 

 bination of circumstances ; and in the next place it 

 is not certain that the plants in question were 

 not furnished with some minute and latent male 

 flowers, by which the impregnation might have been 

 effected. 



Addue- But the most truly formidable, as well as the 

 most philosophical, opponent of the doctrine of the 

 sexes was the celebrated Spallanzani, who, having 

 an hypothesis to support which that doctrine stood 

 directly in the way of, found it necessary by all 

 means to overthrow it if possible. It is the less 

 surprising, therefore, that his experiments gave ge- 

 nerally the result he wished for; though I do not 

 introduce the remark with a view to detract from 

 the degree of accuracy and of credit that is due to 

 him, as he is well known to have been a most 

 able and masterly experimenter, and to have ex- 

 hibited a degree of candour and ingenuousness that 

 must have been sufficient to prevent him from any 

 intentional misstatement, in his giving also those 

 results which were the most unfavourable to his 

 own hypothesis. 



Spallanzani's first experiment was made upon 



