OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY 299 



first doubt were distinct species, but he subsequently saw 

 them growing on the same bush; and he then adds, 

 "Voil^ done dans un m6me individu des loges et un 

 style qui se rattachent tantot a un axe verticale et 

 tantot a un gynobase." 



We thus see that with plants many morphological 

 changes may be attributed to the laws of growth and the 

 inter-action of parts, independently of natural selection. 

 But with respect to Nageli's doctrine of an innate ten- 

 dency toward perfection or progressive development, can 

 it be said in the case of these strongly pronounced 

 variations that the plants have been caught in the act of 

 progressing toward a higher state of development? On 

 the contrary, I should infer from the mere fact of the 

 parts in question differing or varying greatly on the same 

 plant that such modifications were of extremely small im- 

 portance to the plants themselves, of whatever importance 

 they may generally be to us for our classifications. The 

 acquisition of a useless part can hardly be said to raise 

 an organism in the natural scale; and in the case of the 

 imperfect, closed flowers above described, if any new 

 principle has to be invoked, it must be one of retro- 

 gression rather than of progression ; and so it must be 

 with many parasitic and degraded animals. We are igno- 

 rant of the exciting cause of the above specified modifi- 

 cations; but if the unknown cause were to act almost 

 uniformly for a length of time, we may infer that the 

 result would be almost uniform; and in this case all 

 the individuals of the species would be modified in the 

 same manner. 



From the fact of the above characters being unim- 

 portant for the welfare of the species, any slight varia- 



