406 THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS. 



good, he says, " The good * * is gained at the ex- 

 pense of much lessened fertility!" The reader will 

 appreciate the difficulty of dealing with a theorist, to 

 whom all results are apparently welcome, as well those 

 which seemingly favor his theory, as those which 

 signally confute it. > 



Well, may he say, that the above case is, to him, 

 "perplexing, in an unparalleled degree." Upon the 

 theory of reversion, or proportionate development, the 

 phenomena are perfectly explicable. Some of the 

 plants have had their reproductive organs modified. 

 Hence the incapacity for self-fertilization. Their cross- 

 ing does not much improve their fertility, because all 

 those, with which they cross, are similarly modified. 

 Other plants are not modified; hence, physiologi- 

 cally, their great fertility ; and hence, physically, their 

 capacity for self-fertilization. Their great fertility is 

 not due to their self-fertilization, but to the fact that 

 they are not, or but little, modified. 



With respect to the facilities afforded to insects, Dar- 

 win, if he lists, may invoke his doctrine of Final 

 Causes, and contend, that such apparent adaptations 

 were constructed, in anticipation of the sterility which 

 would accrue from the modification of any parts of the 

 plants, and in view of the necessity there would then 

 exist for crossing the plants. The light of science has 

 as yet scarce begun to dawn, in that wide department 

 of nature, wherein lie the many beautiful correlations 

 which subsist between different organisms, and be- 

 tween organisms and the physical world. 



A chick, with its advent into the world, scarce 



