ORIGIN OF THE SEXUAL SYSTEM. , 51 



grounded on nothing more than some difference in the habit of 

 the two species with which the sexes are no ways concerned. 



The honour of having first suggested the true sexual distinc- 

 tions in plants appears to be due to our countryman, Sir Thomas 

 Millington, from whose hints Dr. Greiv, as the doctor himself ac- 

 knowledges, was led to the observations he has given on this 

 subject, in his Anatomy of Plants*. After this, Camerarius, More- 

 land, Geoffroy, Vaillant, Blair, Jussieu, and Bradley, pursued 

 their enquiries and experiments so far as to remove all doubt con- 

 cerning these discoveries ; and lastly, Linnaus added his observa- 

 tions, and founded thereon the system of botany, which, we are 

 going to explain in this work. 



The sexual hypothesis, on its first appearance, was received, 

 with all that caution that becomes an enlightened age ; and na- 

 ture was traced experimentally through all her variations, before 

 it was universally assented to. Tournefort refused to give it any 

 place in his system ; and Pontedera, though he had examined it, 

 treated it as chimerical; but the proofs which Linnaius has 

 stated amongst the aphorisms of his Fundamenta Botanicaf, and 

 farther explained and illustrated in his Philosophia Botanical, are 

 so clear, that the birth of animals is not more evidently the con- 

 sequence of an intercourse between the sexes, than that of vege- 

 tables ; and it would be now as ridiculous for any one, who has 

 looked at the arguments, to doubt of the one as of the other. 



We shall not attempt to lay all these proofs before the reader; 

 our business is to explain, not demonstrate ; but as it maybe sa- 

 tisfactory to see some one fact established, that carries convic- 

 tion with it, we shall here give an extract of a letter from Berlin* 



* Published in the year 1682. The doctor expresses himself thus: "In discourse 

 hereof with our learned Savilian professor, Sir Thomas Millington, he told me, he 

 conceived that the attire doth serve as the male, for the generation of the seed. I 

 immediately replied, that I was of the same opinion, and gave him, some reasons for 

 it, and answered some objections which might oppose them, &c." Anat. of Plants-, 

 p. 171. 



f Aphorism 132 to 150* 



% Page 86 to 96. x 



£2 



