220 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 
us, on the assumption of an unnatural or supernatural 
guidance which converts this apparently natural unity 
intoa miracle. Quite recently, A. Braun has pointed out 
the accordance of the botanical system, and therewith 
of palzontological succession, with the development of 
the individual plant, when he says :°’—“In the further 
elaboration of the natural system, the gradation of the 
vegetal kingdom, and, at the same time, the relation of 
the system to the history of development, becomes more 
and more spontaneously and incontrovertibly manifest. 
The Acotyledons are verified as Cryptogams, as they 
were already considered by the old botanists of pre- 
Linnzan times, and their relation to the Phenogams is 
thus more clearly pronounced. The Cryptogams are 
separated into two essentially different divisions, 
in which gradation is likewise distinctly pronounced 
(cellular and vascular Cryptogams, Thallophytes and. 
Kormophytes) ; between the perfect Phenogams and 
the Cryptogams an intermediate grade has been shown, 
that of the Gymnosperms. But most important of all 
is the circumstance that the four chief grades ascer- 
tained in the vegetal kingdom accurately correspond 
with the grades of development occurring in the indi- 
viduals of all the higher plants ;—the germ, the vegeta- 
tive stem, the blossom and the fruit.” But why this 
parallelism is to be most important of all, if it is not 
to lead us to the knowledge of true causality, is beyond: 
our comprehension, We can well imagine that the 
“inherent causes” and the “Principle of Perfection” may 
be welcomed as the refugium ignorantig, but not that 
they can really satisfy inquiry. For our own standpoint, 
the accordance of the results of botanical investigation 
