452 THEPHILOSOPHY 



every diredlon, fo as to light precifely on the ftigmata of all the 

 fuperior, inferior,- and circumjacent female flov^ers, appears to ex- 

 ceed the common powers of human faith. Befides, this circumftance 

 would feem to indicate, that there is no fteadinefs in what is called 

 •vegetable f exes. We are even told, that trees, which had continued 

 many years under the charadler of females, but, from fome ftrange 

 metamorphofis, had fuddenly dropped their female forms, and af- 

 fumed the more robuft features peculiar to the male part of the 

 creation ! 



It was hinted above, that all the diolcous, monoecious, as well as 

 mod of the hermaphrodite flowers, being impregnated by means of 

 the wind, feemed not to accord with the rules of philofophizing; 

 we fhall now examine that dodtrine more clofely. 



The pollen is allowed to be too large to get admiflion into the 

 ftigmata, though laid upon them with the greateft dexterity. This 

 difficulty the fexualifts imagine to be removed, when they tell us, 

 that moifture makes the pollen fplit, and difcharge a fubtile aura, 

 and that this aura impregnates the feeds. But, though the poUea 

 fhould explode by the application of moifture, and difcharge a fub- 

 tile aura, this explofion could never efFed the purpofes of impreg- 

 nation : For, when the pollen was lying on the ftigma, the aura 

 muft neceflarily blow off,, inftead of being abforbed by that part of 

 the plant. Is not the fuppofuion fingular, and even contradidory, 

 that a plant ftiould be impregnated by a fubftance. forcibly blown 

 away from the female ?, 



This reafoning proceeds upon the admiffion, that the pollen is 

 laid with dexterity upon the ftigma. But it will receive additional 

 force, when I defy all the naturalifts In the univerfe to produce an 

 inftance. of a. fingle grain of pollen being ever fcen on any part of a^ 



female 



