14 PREFACf. 



belonging to them, fhould co-operate with the 

 .female flowers ; therefore I have pointed out the 

 moft judicious method of performing that 

 operation. 



Eighthly, I have mentioned what way the 

 flues and brick-work of the bed are to be fecur- 

 ed, fo that the fl:eam of the linings may not pe- 



The fexiial hypotliefis, on its firfl appearance, was received with 

 all that caution which becomes an enhghtened age, and nature 

 was traced experimentally through all her variations before it was 

 imiverfally affented to. Tournefort refufed to give it a place in his 

 fyftem, and Pontedera, though he had carefully examined it, 

 treated it as chimerical. The learned Dr* Alfton, profeflbr of 

 botany in the univerfity of Edinburgh, violently oppofed it ; but 

 the proofs which Linneus has given amongft the aphorifms of his 

 Fundamenta Botanica, and further illuftrated in his Philofophia 

 Botanica, are fo clear, that the mind does not hefitatc a moment 

 in pronouncing animal and vegetable conception to be the fame, 

 but with this difference, that in animals fruition is voluntary, but 

 in vegetables neceffary and mechanical. The impregnation of the 

 female palm by the farina of the male, related by M. Mylius, ia 

 his letter to Dr. Watfon, eftabliflies the fa6l attefted by the anci- 

 ents concerning the palm-tree ; and as to the fru£lification in 

 other vegetables (though it may differ in particular circumftances, 

 ithas neverthelefs a conformity to that of the palm-tree with refpe<5t 

 to the parts fuppofed to be the organs of generation, which ar« 

 difcoverable either on the fame or in a feparate flower), we may, 

 from this fingle experiment, deduce an argument by analogy for 

 the confirmation of the whole fexual hypothefis. 



Befides, a very ftriking proof of the analogy between plants and 

 animals may be drawn from obfervations made in their infant 

 il-ates, at which early period they feem nouriflied and protected in 

 a limilar manner. 



netrate 



