286 * DARWINIANA. 



it imtil you have found it all out for yourself, when 

 you will Lave tlie satisfaction of perceiving that Mr. 

 Brown not only knew all about it, but had put it 

 upon record. Very different from this is the way in 

 which Mr. Darwin takes his readers into his con- 

 fidence, freely displays to them the sources of his 

 information, and the worldng of his mind, and even 

 shares with them all his doubts and misgivings, while 

 ■ in a clear exposition he sets forth the reasons which 

 have guided him to his conclusions. These you may 

 hesitate or decline to adopt, but you feel sure that they 

 have been presented with perfect fairness ; and if you 

 think of arguments against them you may be confident 

 that they have all been duly considered before. 



The sagacity which characterizes these two natu- 

 ralists is seen in their success in finding decisive in- 

 stances, and their sure insight into the meaning of 

 things. As an instance of the latter on Mr. Darwin's 

 part, and a justification of our venture to compare 

 him with the facile jprincejps hotanico'ncm, we will, in 

 conclusion, allude to the single instance in which they 

 took the same subject in hand. In his papers on the 

 organs and modes of fecundation in Orchidece and 

 Asclej)iadece, Mr. Brown refers more than once to C. 

 K. Sprengel's almost forgotten work, shows how the 

 structure of the flowers in these orders largely requires 

 the agency of insects for their fecundation, and is 

 aware that " in Asclepiadece .... the insect so read- 

 ily passes from one corolla to another that it not un- 

 frequently visits every flower of the umbel." He 

 must also have contemplated the transport of pollen 

 from plant to plant by wind and insects; and we 

 know from another source that he looked upon Spren- 



