Organization of Plants. 417 



work of an industrious experimentalist, and the production of a com- 

 prehensive mind ; and as such, it must be reviewed with respect. 

 Many of the views, indeed, therein put forth are opposed to the re- 

 ceived opinions of modern philosophers ; but to this we are not at all 

 disposed to object. We would, however, protest against the dogma- 

 tic style in which the author's doctrines are promulgated, and the 

 constant arrogation of the discoveries and the ideas of other investi- 

 gators to himself. The cause of Truth is materially damaged by 

 this ; less reliance is placed on the author's investigations than they 

 probably deserve. Hence even striking facts have to struggle 

 against awakened prejudices ; and thoughts and suggestions, valuable 

 in themselves, are treated with undeserved contempt ; unkindly 

 feelings are generated, and the investigator of Nature, in consequence, 

 rapidly degenerates, in his vain endeavour to support a false position, 

 into a partizan. Having done our duty in pointing out this unfor- 

 tunate mistake, to use no severer term, we proceed to the more agree- 

 able task of examining the question under consideration, — and this we 

 hope to do with fidelity and candour. 



Dr. Draper, in the first place, ventures on the exploded speculation 

 of some naturalists of the last century, who fancied that, under the 

 influence of certain unknown "vital forces," inorganic matter was 

 converted into an inorganic body; and he refers this change to 

 the action of the solar rays. Although " the sun may breed 

 maggots in a dead dog," it cannot now-a-days be admitted that 

 either animal or vegetable life can be produced from pounded flints 

 or fragments of marble. Indeed, the author himself at length, even 

 against his own previous reasoning, appears to admit the necessity 

 of an organized germ. The influence of the sun's rays in the 

 development of the conferva? from their germs must be admitted ; 

 and the explanation given, referring their growth to the decom- 

 position of the gaseous elements of water, is satisfactory. We 

 cannot, however, say the same for the author's notices of the general 

 processes of germination, although these are founded on his own ex- 

 periments. The statement that light — and that, too, to take the au- 

 thor's own ideas, light deprived of the principles of heat and chemical 

 action — is beneficial to germination, is contrary to experience. Every 

 one knows that the covering of the soil, insuring darkness, warmth, 



