88 Artificial Systems and Terminology of [Book i: 



the design of the anatomical arrangements. But the weakest 

 side of this proof lies in the hybrids, for Linnaeus, when he 

 wrote the ' Fundamental knew of none except the mule ; 

 hybrids in plants were first described by Koelreuter in 1761,' 

 and these Linnaeus nowhere mentions; and what amount of 

 proof can be drawn from the vegetable hybrids, which 

 Linnaeus afterwards supposed himself to have observed, 

 but which were no hybrids, we shall see in the history 

 of the sexual theory ; here we need only remark that he 

 arrives at the existence of these hybrids from the idea of 

 sexuality exactly as he arrived at that of sexuality from the 

 idea of hybridisation. Then he goes on with his demon- 

 stration ; ' that an egg germinates without fecundation is 

 denied by experience, and this must hold good therefore 

 of the eggs 1 of plants — every plant is provided with flower 

 and fruit, even where these are not visible to the eye ' ; with 

 Linnaeus, of course, this is logically concluded from the 

 conception of the plant or of the ' ovum ' ; he alleges indeed 

 certain observations as well, but they are incorrect. He con- 

 tinues, ' The fructification consists of the sexual organs of the 

 flowers ; that the anthers are the male organs, the pollen the 

 fertilising matter, is proved by their nature, further by the fact 

 that the flower precedes the fruit, as also by their position, the 

 time, the loculaments (anthers), by castration, and by the 

 structure of the pollen.' Here too the main point with 

 Linnaeus is the nature of the male organs, and that we may 

 know what this nature is he refers to a former paragraph, 

 where we learn that the essence of the flower is in the anthers 

 and stigma. Almost all his demonstrations consist of such 

 reasonings in a circle and in arguing from the thing to be proved. 

 And while the passages quoted show how much he did for the 



1 The comparison of the vegetable seed with the egg in animals, which is 

 in itself incorrect, comes, as Aristotle tells us, from Empedocles, and was a 

 favourite one with the systematisis; • •• ^. ----- - . - \ - - 



