PRINCIPLE OF METAMORPHOSED SYMMETRY. 483 



to all cases, a labour so important and necessary 

 after the promulgation of any great principle, 

 Gothe himself did not execute. At first he col- 

 lected specimens and made drawings with some 

 such view 10 , but he was interrupted and diverted to 

 other matters. "And now," says he, in his later 

 publication, " when I look back on this undertak- 

 ing, it is easy to see that the object which I had 

 before my eyes was, for me, in my position, with 

 my habits and mode of thinking, unattainable. For 

 it was no less than this : that I was to take that 

 which I had stated in general, and presented to the 

 conception, to the mental intuition, in words ; and 

 that I should, in a particularly visible,* orderly, and 

 gradual manner, present it to the eye ; so as to 

 show to the outward sense that out of the germ of 

 this idea might grow a tree of physiology fit to 

 overshadow the world." 



Voigt, professor at Jena, was one of the first who 

 adopted Gothe's view into an elementary work, 

 which he did in 1808. Other botanists laboured in 

 the direction which had thus been pointed out. Of 

 those who have thus contributed to the establish- 

 ment and developement of the metamorphic doc- 

 trine, Professor De Candolle, of Geneva, is perhaps 

 the most important. His Theory of Developement 

 rests upon two main principles, abortion and adhe- 

 sion. By considering some parts as degenerated or 

 absent through the abortion of the buds which 



10 Zur Morph. i. 129. 



112 



