TRANSLATIONS AND SELECTED ARTICLES. 221 



and already they have borne their fruits. They have especially pro- 

 moted the advancement of two branches of botany, which the imper- 

 fection of optical instruments had previously left in a great compara- 

 tive inferiority : organogeny and anatomy. Researches in organogeny 

 have been numerous and important. Pursued with ardour and perse- 

 verance by such botanists as Mirbel, Robert Brown, Payer, Hugo 

 Mohl, Brongniart, Schleiden, and Duchartres, they have caused to be 

 recognised much more clearly than before, the general symmetry of 

 the flower ; that is to say, the disposition in relation to each other of 

 the different parts that compose it. They have given the key to a 

 crowd of apparent anomalies, bringing back, for example, to the or- 

 dinary type of monocotyledonous vegetables, the flowers, at first view 

 so singular, of the Cannese [Marantacese and Zingiberacene] orchi- 

 dacese, &c. They have shown the real resemblance of plants, which 

 their strikingly different forms seemed to separate widely ; and have 

 confirmed, in a very great number of cases, divisions previously estab- 

 lished by botanists, as well as justified modifications of a number of 

 others, by exhibiting natural affinities more perfectly. And finally, 

 they have completely justified the celebrated saying which Goethe 

 had placed at the head of his works : "To see the origin of things 

 is the best means of explaining them" 



Anatomy ought also to afford precious assistance to natural classifi- 

 cation. It is already very long since Mirbel expressed the opinion 

 that the study of the comparative structure of vegetables might afford 

 sufficient characters for limiting natural groups. He even believed 

 that this truth might be generalised and applied to the vegetable 

 kingdom as a whole. Such a conclusion was then, and would still be 

 at this time, at least premature. Further researches can alone inform 

 us to what extent we can rely on the constancy of anatomical charac- 

 ters, and on their value in respect to classification. Nevertheless we 

 may well wonder, as M. Chatin expressed it in 1840 {Appl. de 

 V anatomic Comp. Vegetale a la classification, these 1840), " at the 

 feeble progress made by vegetable comparative anatomy, and the small 

 amoimt of utility hitherto derived from it in respect to natural ar- 

 rangement ; whilst in Zoology, anatomy serves as the solid basis of 

 the labours of all classifiers." 



However, if the degree of importance which ought to be attributed 

 to comparative anatomy is not yet well settled, numerous researches 

 on the subject already exist ; and we may affirm, that hitherto nothing 



Vol. VII. P 



