38 



So long as the effects of morphosis and anamorphosis were not 

 clearly distinguished, understood, and explained, all systematical 

 efforts were vain. That which is vague arid indefinite in observa- 

 tion becomes fallacious and unfaithful in construction. Less nu- 

 merous, perhaps, certainly less various, than the vibrations of the 

 lower families, the anamorphoses of lichens have yet knotted the 

 Ariadnean thread of the system, so that neither ingenuity nor 

 thought alone can bring it straight. We may briefly here consider 

 the primary grounds of the system of lichens. That these are de- 

 pendent on the apothecia has been an opinion so generally enter- 

 tained, that the contrary was scarcely noticed by authors ; notwith- 

 standing which, this last has much influenced lichenists, and does 

 yet. But we think there is no longer any doubt that the fades ex- 

 terna is of little moment, and indicative of analogy only, and not 

 of affinity, whereof the former is inferior (Syst. Mycol. i. p. xv. 

 &c.). Considering the matter morphologically, we see clearly the 

 preeminence of the apothecia ; as indicating true affinity, as of 

 themselves limiting the superior sections, as the organ of a higher 

 metamorphosis, and especially as having definite and limited se- 

 ries of evolution. All which is contrary in the thallus, which offers 

 no constant primary difference that is not comprehended in the char- 

 acter of the family ; the morphoses and anamorphoses of which are 

 never definite ; which tends continually to new and altered forms; 

 and finally, since it is continually in evolution, presents an absolute 

 series of variation, and in its very last state of dissolution into the 

 primitive gdnidia, germinates into a new race. Fries. 



Eschweiler (Fl. Brasil. 1. c.) goes so far as to say that there is no 

 general differential character to be found in Lichenes, and he hence 

 disposes the genera in a series of tribes, without admitting higher 

 divisions. He avails himself, in distinguishing genera, of the thal- 

 lus no less than the apothecia. (It is unfortunate that his valuable 

 observations are everywhere obscured by a style singularly involved 

 and inelegant.) 



So much for the system ; a word now of our study in nature. 

 Our object is briefly each individual species ; its totality ; its 

 morphosis, metamorphosis, anamorphosis, progressive, regressive, 

 and accidental ; its relations, near and remote, of affinity and anal- 

 ogy ; in one word its history ; which one plant of a species will 

 not teach us, perhaps not a thousand : bearing ever in mind the 

 master's maxim, that however any thing may subsist below it, noth- 

 ing can ascend above its Idr,a ; nil crescere potest, quod plenum est. 

 More and more shall we thus see that previous observers are of 

 only secondary importance, that, beyond every thing else, we need 

 minds and eyes to search nature. What therefrom results, will 

 form itself indeed in words and books, and force its own way, de- 

 stroying or building up ; and thus will the silent understanding of 

 that nature which works without words become the organ of the 

 speech of nature in necessary truth and universal law. 



Auct. de Anamorphosi : Fries, Lichenogr. p. 70; Meyer, Entwick. 

 p. 187, and passim ; Wallroth, Naturgesch. der Flechten, I. passim; 



