PRINCIPLE OF METAMORPHOSED SYMMETRY. 481 



such changes as the doctrine of metamorphosis 

 asserts. 



Gothe's Metamorphosis of Plants was published 

 1790 : and his system was the result of his own 

 independent course of thought. The view which it 

 involved was not, however, absolutely new, though 

 it had never before been unfolded in so distinct 

 and persuasive a manner. Linnaeus considered the 

 leaves, calyx, corolla, stamens, each as evolved in, 

 succession from the other ; and spoke of it as pro- 

 lepsis or anticipation*, when the leaves changed 

 accidentally into bractese, these into a calyx, this 

 into a corolla, the corolla into stamens, or these 

 into the pistil. And Caspar Wolf apprehended in 

 a more general manner the same principle. " In 

 the whole plant," says he 6 , "we see nothing but 

 leaves and stalk;" and in order to prove what is 

 the situation of the leaves in all their later forms, 

 he adduces the cotyledons as the first leaves. 



Gothe was led to his system on this subject by 

 his general views of nature. He saw, he says 7 , that 

 a whole life of talent and labour was requisite to 

 enable any one to arrange the infinitely copious 

 organic forms of a single kingdom of nature. " Yet 

 I felt," he adds, "that for me there must be an- 

 other way, analogous to the rest of my habits. The 

 appearance of the changes, round and round, of 



8 Sprengel, Bot. ii. 302. Amcen. Acad. vi. 324, 365. 



6 Nov. Com. Ac. Petrop. xii. 403, xiii. 478. 



7 Zur Morph. i. 30. 



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