LETTER XVII. 



187 



appearances on which he grounded his behef in the 

 common character of the objects were fallacious. 



15. Nay, even Dr Carpenter himself appears to 

 have misgivings as to the entire validity of his objec- 

 tions. For, after passing in review this theory of 

 mine, and certain others more or less akin to it, and 

 stating the objections to which he deems them liable, 

 he concludes with an observation which seems to me 

 to involve a compromise of his own views. Refusing 

 to allow a proper individuality of the several products 

 which come of the bud, or to regard them as repre- 

 senting a new generation, he says — " It must be freely 

 admitted that we are forced to do a certain violence 

 to our ordinary conceptions." And it may be the 

 wisest course, perhaps (he adds), to invent new terms, 

 rather than to distort the meaning of those in common 

 use." I need scarcely say that, in my judgment, such 

 refusal is doing a real violence to those conceptions ; 

 and that, in order to maintain the sole distinction 

 that obtains between the product of the bud and the 

 product of the seed, we need no other terms than 

 those already in use, to wit, the terms gemmiparous 

 and oviparous generation. 



16. That these two modes of organic genesis stand 

 on precisely the same footing, in all that relates to 

 the essentials of the reproductive process, seems to me 

 a fair inference from the facts that have passed under 

 our view. That in the seed the union of two distinct 



