60 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



in one continuous and co7nmon peel. It is not improbable that 

 many of the large forms of citrus were orginally so produced. 

 At all events, there is sufficient evidence to justify such an 

 inference. The phenomenon of growing together (fusion) of two 

 or more distinct parts, and so forming an amalgated whole has 

 been, I believe, of greater frequency and of more importance in 

 creating modifications than may have been suspected.* Of course, 

 we may not believe that the peel and the pulp of the citrus are 

 two separate whorls fused together. It is a very natural dis- 

 belief. Have we, however, nothing analogous to this supposed 

 fusion of two whorls in other plants ? 



Take for instance the lily and the amaryllis, they are very 

 closely allied by derivation, yet apparently very distinct by virtue 

 of the superior ovary in the one and the inferior ovary in the other. 

 But is not the amaryllis ovary a superior one, with the base of the 

 petals fused to it, thus becoming what is called an inferior 

 ovary. On the other hand may not the ovary of the lily be con- 

 sidered an inferior ovary released from the adhesion of the base of 

 the petals. Take the hyacinth, its ovary is at the bottom of a 

 tube, but not adherent to it. How easy it would be for the tube 

 to adhere to the ovary and thus form an inferior ovary. 



The cultivated tomato is especially subject to fusion of two or 

 more ovaries, indeed in former days it was rare to find a tomato 

 which was not the result of fusion, unless the exception had been 



* I have a suspicion that the origin of the symmetrical bodies of 

 vertebrate and articulate animals may have been the fusion of two un- 

 sjmmetrieal individuals, such as we see them in certain mollusca, for 

 instance ; and that, the double individual, if it could exist at all, might in 

 time by selection become the symmetrical animal we see to-day. It is very 

 strange that we should have a pair of almost every part ; two brains, two 

 lungs, two hearts, a liver, and a spleen, and that the large intestine should 

 be divided into two parts by a suture. It is natural to suppose, from an 

 evolutionary point of view, that this symmetry should have been initiated by 

 a fusion of two unsymmetrical bodies. If two animals, which are already 

 symmetrical, can fuse more or less into one body, as we very often see in 

 newly born animals, it would appear as a possible phenomenon for two 

 ovules of an unsymmetrical animal to fuse and form a double and more 

 symmetrical one. In the infinite number of experiments that nature may 

 have perhaps made in this direction, one or more might have proved to be 

 perfectly symmetrical, and if this symmetry mere inherited, the foundation 

 would have ^been laid for the almost perfect symmetry we see in the 

 animals around us. Natural selection could be trusted, then to perfect that 

 symmetry, and make it what it is to-day. 



