2T612 THE PHILOSOPHY 



and having fo little accefs to frefli air. In this fituationj 

 they muft, of neceffity, feed upon each other. Confine a 

 man and a woman for years in a fmall ill-aired cell, and ob- 

 ferve their afpefl, and that of their progeny. Their ap- 

 pearance will be very different from that of children pro- 

 duced by healthy parents, and enjoying the benefit of the 

 fun's rays, and of the open air. 



4. That, Independently of all thefe arguments, the experi- 

 ment is^ incomplete.! Even on the fuppofition of the cxift- 

 cnce of fexes in plants, the conclufion drawn from it cannot 

 be admitted. The fame change, for inflance, might have 

 happened, if, inftead of a white female and red male, a 

 white female had been imprifoned with a red female. In 

 this cafe there could be no commixture of fexes j and yet, 

 it is highly probable, that both would have ripened their 

 feeds, and that thefe feeds would have produced plants dif- 

 ferently coloured from the fame varieties growing in a natur- 

 ral flate. Till thefe indifpenfible parts of the experiment', 

 therefore, be tried, nothing can be concluded in favour of 

 the fexual fyflem. 



5. That flowers growing from the fame root, fruits upon 

 the fame tree, or raifed from feeds of the fame individual 

 plant, often vary in colour, fize, figure, and texture. Thefe 

 varieties are apparent to the mod: fuperficial obfervers 5 but 

 they can never, with any degree of propriety, be afcrlbed to 

 the influence of fcx. The caufes of fuch variations are 

 rather to be looked for in the expofure of the plants with 

 rcT^ard to lieht and air, the nature of the foil, the mode of 

 culture, accidental injuries from dews, from electrical fire, 

 from the poifon or w^ounda of InfeiSts, and from the abforp- 

 tion of mineral folutions. In a v/ord, if v/e are to hope for 



'an explanation of thefe, and other minute changes in the ap- 

 pearances of plants, recourfe muft be had to chemical and 



