u 



CHAPTER I. 



History of the Sexual Theory. 



i. From Aristotle to R. J. Camerarius. 



It will contribute to a correct appreciation of the discoveries 

 made towards the end of the 1 7th century by Rudolph Jacob 

 Camerarius and his successors in regard to the sexual relations 

 of plants, if we first make ourselves acquainted with all that 

 was known of the matter up to that time from Aristotle down- 

 wards ; we shall learn at the same time how extremely un- 

 fruitful was the superficial observation of the older philosophy 

 in a question in which inductive research only could lead to 

 real results. 



That Aristotle 1 like many others after him reckoned sexual 

 fertilisation among processes of nutrition, and thus failed to 

 perceive the specific and peculiar character of the latter, is 

 shown distinctly by his assertion, that the nutritive and propa- 

 gative power of the soul is one and the same. This hasty 

 generalisation was associated in Aristotle's mind with another 

 error arising from very defective experience, which led him 

 to bring sexuality in organisms into causal connection with 

 their movement in space. He tells us in his botanical frag- 

 ments, that in all animals which have the power of locomotion, 

 the female is distinct from the male, one creature being female, 

 another male, but both being of the same species, as in 

 humankind. In plants on the contrary these powers are com- 

 bined and the male is not distinct from the female ; each 



See Ernst Meyer, « Geschichte der Botanik,' I. p. 98, &c. 



