Wi 



or NATURAL HISTORY. 251 



SECTION IL 



Of the Sexef of Plants. 



HEN an hypothefis, or theory, has obtained a 

 general reception among even the enlightened part of man- 

 kind, it is extremely difficult to eradicate the prejudice, eith- 

 er by arguments or by fadts. There is not a notion more 

 generally adopted, than that vegetables have the diftindtion 

 of fexes, and that the influence of what is called the male is 

 indifpeniibly necelTary to the fecundation of the female, or 

 feed-bearing plant : A notion which I have long confidered 

 as a ftriking example of the danger of rafhly yielding alTent 

 to the alluring feduQions of analogical reafoning*. 



Every perfon who is acquainted with the fexual theory of 

 vegetables, and with the arguments by which it is defended, 

 muft acknowledge, that its principal fupport is derived from 

 the many beautiful analogies which fubfift between plants 

 and animals. Becaufe all animals were fuppofed to propa- 

 gate by fexual embraces, and becaufe plants refembled ani- 

 mals in their growth, their nourlfliment, their dilTemina- 

 tion, and decay, it was therefore concluded, that all vegeta- 



* The fubftance of the following fads, and reafoning, was deliv ^red, abovS 

 twenty years ago, in the Botanic Garden at Edinburgh, in prefence of the late 

 worthy and learned Dr. Hope, and his ftudents. Dr. Hope, in order to excite 

 induilry and attention in his pupils, appointed annually four of their number' 

 to give a lefturc, or difccurfc; upon fome botanical fubjsiil, which he prefcrib* 

 cd to them. To me the ProfdTor affigned the Sexes of Plants, with the liber- 

 ty of oppofmg the dotilrine of Linnaeus, and his own. Being at that time a 

 very young man, and a ftridl believer iu the fexual fyflem of plants, I willing- 

 ly undertook the talk, becaufe I thought I had the chance of fliowlng fome 

 little ingenuity in attempting to (hake a theory which I then imagined to be 

 cftabliflied upon the firmeft bafis of fad and experiment. But, after perufing 

 I/mnaeus's works, and many other books on the fubjed, I was aftonifhed to 

 find, that this theory was fupported neither by fads nor arguments, which 

 could produce convidion cvei^ in the moft prejudiced minds. This difeourfc 

 v^as afterwards publiilied in the firft edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 



