GENERAR REM AUKS. 



589 



It is needless to enlarge upon the grounds on which I have 

 based my suspicions, their value will depend entirely on the 

 extent to which they are found to occur, and on the nature of 

 the cause disturbing these resemblances. 



The same remarks apply to the objections ; in which I have 

 fiot included the obvious resemblances they bear to organs 

 supposed to be of very minor importance — scales and hair : 

 because in reality it amounts to no objection. But as it will be 

 made, I would beg to recommend the examination of Adeno- 

 phorus, which may throw some additional light upon the ques- 

 tion. But after all, many will be inclined to observe, well, we 

 grant you the similarity, and the analogies you require, but 

 what proof have you to urge that the supposed male or- 

 gans of Mossess etc. are male organs ; we deny the possi- 

 bility in toto. That this remark may be made, is evident, 

 when we consider that Dr. Greville and Arnott deny that 

 the pistillum of Mosses is a pistillum : and if that which is 

 so evident is so flatly denied, what degree of denial may we not 

 expect in regard to these organs, which even in Mosses have 

 some obscuring circumstances connected with them. On this 

 point, I must confess that the majority of botanists appear to 

 me wholly unreasonable, I am sure that no other class of scien- 

 tific observers would deny claims founded on so many obvious 

 analogies. Is sexuality so anomalous that its advocates are 

 exposed to such strenuous and unmeaning opposition, or has 

 any one instance of reproduction without the agency of sexes 

 been proved throughout a single natural family. 



Independently of this, why so unreasonably insist on what 

 with our means, may be imposibilities. If they require abso- 

 lute demonstration of all the steps of a function, they must 

 deny that the appearance of the embyo is due to the action of 

 the boyau. 



The objectors to Jhe assumed sexual organs of Hedwig, 

 Brown, and Brongniart, seem to assert that they are gemma? ; 

 but what analogy has a sac containing grumous molecular 

 matter, deficient in green colouring matter with a gemma, 



