234 THE THEOKY OF EVOLUTION 



first decades of the last century an investigator who 

 desired that his works should be regarded and read as 

 scientific had to write in the style of the Hegelian 

 philosophy, somewhat as Reichenbach did. 1 ' As 

 the area of a circle is not merely centre-point and cir- 

 cumference but also the relations of both to each other, 

 so in nature is everything directed, as in the thinking 

 mind, by thesis (precept, centre-point, unity), antithesis 

 (contradiction, periphery, multiplicity), and synthesis 

 (equalization, combination of the contradictions, circle 

 area, formation)/ ' The green plant kingdom arose in 

 the Algae from the water we saw these in progressive 

 formation, always maternally shaped only into beautiful 

 types until, soaring into the element of the air, the 

 Moss by anthers limited their forms. The Ferns take 

 up into themselves the budding of the Algse and Mosses, 

 and, seeking in vain to find a centre by their circulation, 

 Cycas and Zamia achieve this finally by forming the 

 acrogenetic axis of growth/ 



( Central formation begins from this point as the 

 type of the plant developing itself first from the primary 

 bud of " Isoetes/' But the node divides and repeats 

 itself, and intermediate growths extend themselves as 

 stem and scales as phantom leaves emerge from the 

 node, and the male is born and for him the primary 

 female. The scales require a stalk and proclaim the 

 flower in the trinity oi the realm of plants, etc/ 



' Empty words ' we may say, but the expressions 



i From A. Kerner v. Marilaun : Pflanzenleben, II, Leipzig-Vienna, 

 1891, p. 591. 



