59 



DIVISION II. 



MORPHOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT OF FORMS. 



1. It would be without the intention of this work 

 to enter either into an historical account of the doctrines 

 of Vegetable Metamorphosis, or Morphology, or into 

 an inquiry concerning their foundation in nature itself : 

 all that we can say is that, as many of the circumstances 

 upon which these doctrines are founded, are at once 

 evident and true that, as the fundamental principles of 

 vegetable organisation have in cases been more securely 

 settled by a consideration of these circumstances, and 

 that, moreover, as some of the most eminent continental 

 Botanists are regulating all the principles of vegetable 

 structure upon Morphological theory, we have thought 

 it right to devote a separate portion of the work to its 

 consideration, however slight that must necessarily be. 

 It must be owned, however, that the doctrines of Mor- 

 phology have been carried too far, laying so much stress 

 upon analysing down to preconceived types that the true 

 nature of the existing synthesis has been often misunder- 

 stood or disregarded ; and of the certainty of this so sa- 

 tisfied is an eminent French writer, that he says the 

 anther is no more a metamorphosed leaf, than the leaf 

 is a metamorphosed anther. 



