u6 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



production of fine artificial flower varieties in colour and shape. 

 His facts are in perfect harmony with the process of evolution 

 elucidated by Darwin. The great German philosopher also- 

 speculated on the more engrossing problems of life. As a 

 follower of Buffon, he held that "the more perfect organic 

 natures from fishes to mammals, and man at their head, were 

 formed on one original type which still daily changes its form 

 by propagation ; " so that, like Lamarck, G. St. Hilaire, E. 

 Darwin, and others, he was an evolutionist. He tried to 

 prove the tendency of Inheritance and of Adaptation in 

 organisms two laws of development. His study of com- 

 parative anatomy led him to the discovery of the mid-jawbone 

 in man a fact of import, for it argues for man's descent from 

 lower types. 



1750 1816. Sprengel was the first (1789) to point out 

 the close connection which exists between plants and insects, 

 and to discover how the FERTILISATION OF PLANTS BY INSECTS 

 is carried on a subject fully investigated later on by Darwin 

 and others. Sprengel showed that the shape, the colours of a 

 flower, and the honey it secretes are intended by nature to 

 attract insects to it, so that they may carry the pollen-dust 

 which clings to them (while they suck the honey) to other 

 flowers, and so fertilise the ovules in the seed-vessels which 

 would otherwise remain barren. Flowers, he also found, 

 which are neglected by insects are insignificant as a rule, but 

 their variety does not perish because they have a large 

 quantity of pollen-dust, and the wind carries it in every 

 direction to fertilise. It was not until Charles Darwin had 

 pointed out the splendid work done by Sprengel that the 

 worthy German inquirer was appreciated. 



ANATOMY, ZOOLOGY, and PALAEONTOLOGY. 



16211675. Willis studied the BRAIN, traced the course 

 of the NERVES, classified them, and introduced the doctrine of 

 LOCALISATION OF FUNCTIONS in the brain a branch which,, 

 later on, developed into phrenology, a new study unrecog- 

 nised as yet as a science. 



16311687. Steno revealed the existence of the OVARIES 



