70 Artificial Systems and Terminology of Organs [book i. 



donous and monocotyledonous embryo, yet he may claim the 

 great merit of having founded the natural system in part upon 

 this difference in the formation of the embryo. He displays 

 more conspicuously than any systematist before Jussieu the 

 power of perceiving the larger groups of relationship in the 

 vegetable kingdom, and of denning them by certain marks ; 

 these marks moreover he determines not on a priori grounds, 

 but from acknowledged affinities; but it is only in the great 

 divisions of his system that he is thus true to the right course ; 

 in the details he commits many and grievous offences against 

 his own method, as we shall see below when we come to an 

 enumeration of his classes. Modern writers have often 

 attributed to Ray the merit of having first taught the trans- 

 mutation of species, and of being thus one of the founders 

 of the theory of descent. Let us see how much truth there is 

 in this assertion. Though plants, says Ray, which spring from 

 the same seed and produce their species again through seed, 

 belong to the same species, yet cases may occur in which the 

 specific character is not perpetual and infallible. Seeds may 

 sometimes degenerate and produce plants specifically distinct 

 from the mother-plant, though this may not often happen, and 

 so there would be a transmutation of species, as experience 

 teaches. It is true that he considered the statements of various 

 writers, that Triticum may change into Lolium, Sisymbrium 

 into Mentha, Zea into Triticum, etc., to be very doubtful, yet 

 there were, he thought, other cases which were well ascertained ; 

 it was in evidence in a court of law that a gardener in London 

 had sold cauliflower seed which had produced only common 

 cabbage. It is to be observed, he says, that such transmu- 

 tations only occur between nearly allied species and such as 

 belong to the same genus, and some perhaps would not allow 

 that such plants are specifically distinct. These words, 

 especially when judged by Ray's general views, appear only 

 to express the opinion that certain inconsiderable variations 

 are possible within a narrow circle of affinity, especially in 



