$56 THE PHILOSOPHY 



tiiication the next. After treating the female in this man^ 

 ner, if it had uniformly happened, that the fruit ripened 

 every year the male branch was fufpended, and that none 

 came to maturity when that operation was omitted, then 

 there would have been fome foundation for fuppofing a con- 

 nection between the ripening of the fruit and the prefence 

 of the male branch. But, as this necelTary precaution was 

 omitted, the experiment is incomplete, and the conciuilon 

 drawn from it precipitate and unphilofophic. 



In accounting for the fecundity of all the dmcous"^ and 

 fnonoecwus\ plants, the fexualifts have recourfe to the aid of 

 the winds, and of infers. They betake themfelves to this 

 ftrange refuge, in order to explain the manner in which fe- 

 male plants, when fituated at a diftance from males, are im- 

 pregnated. Some of them, as Kalm, and others, are per- 

 fectly fatisfied with this fuppofed aerial commerce of vege- 

 tables, even when the males are ten, fifteen, or twenty miles 

 diftant from the females ! Here, it may be remarked, that 

 the multiplication of fpecies is one of the moft important 

 laws of Nature. All the laws of Nature are fixed, fteady, 

 and uniform, in their operation : None of their efFcvts are 

 abandoned to thofe uncertainties which necelTarily refult 

 from chance, or from any fortuitous train of circumftances. 

 But, is there any thing, in northern climates at leaft, more 

 defultory and capricious than the direction and motion of 

 the winds } Can we form a conception of any thing more 

 cafual and uncertain than the wayward paths of infe<fl:s ? 

 The very fuppofition, therefore, that Nature has expofcd 

 the fertility of a tenth part of the whole vegetable kingdom, 

 and many of them, too, plants of the utmoft importance to 

 man, and other animals, to fuch accidental caufes, is repug- 



* Plants which have the male charadler in one individual, and the female ip 

 another. 



f Plants which liave both the male and female chrra'flers in the fame indi- 

 vidual . 



