THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS. 357 



physiology, governed by the conviction, that the least 

 insight, by his readers, into that phase of the problem, 

 would suffice to explode his fanciful notion, that the 

 higher animals are evolved from the lower. 



Darwin, in connection with his "great law of na- 

 ture," that good follows from crossing, per se, and evil 

 from interbreeding, per se, is proof against any amount 

 of evidence. In some cases, the. evil from close-inter- 

 breeding, or from self-fertilization, is manifest; and, 

 then he is exultant. In other cases, where it is clear, 

 that close-interbreeding, or self-fertilization, may be 

 long carried on, without any evil effects, he finds 

 refuge in the supposition, that the animals or plants 

 must have been crossed, at some time back. 



But it is possible, and practicable, to prove even the 

 negation of his gratuitous supposition. For there is 

 one class of facts, recorded by Darwin, which should 

 suffice to give his "great law of nature," its quietus. 

 It is, viz., that certain flowers are enclosed! 



These flowers are fertile! and the fertility must have 

 been long continued; for, there is a radical impossi- 

 bility that they ever were crossed. The only means, 

 by which crossing, can be effected, is, either, by foreign 

 pollen being conveyed to the stigmatic surface of the 

 flower, by mechanical forces, winds, &c, or by the 

 transportation of such, by bees, or other insects. But, 

 in the cases mentioned, all ingress for foreign pollen, 

 is absolutely precluded. The flowers, containing the 

 stigmatic surface, are enclosed; and each flower needs 

 must have been ever fertilized by its own pollen. Of 

 these enclosed flowers, which he recognizes as milita- 

 31 



