| XXX | (650) | XXX |
650 B O T of deception. But, after a more accurate examination, the notion of a fj>urious iflue opportunely came to his aid. The thought pleafed him on a double account: It had a direct tendency to corroborate his favourite hypothelis, and laid the foundation of another ftill more extravagant. Now, thinks he, by this ineftimable difcovery, we Ihall be enabled to take a dry and rigid plant from the mountain’s top, make it copulate with a moift and fpungy aquatic, and their offspring will participate of the rigidity and hardnefs of the former, together with the moifture arid flaccidity of the latter; and hence mankind fhall foon be blefled with an eafy purchafe of their united virtues when flourifliing in the intermediate vale ! More wonderful ftill, we fhall caufe the plants which dwell upon the frozen mountains of Greenland to intermarry with the more delicate and wayward inhabitants of the torrid zone, and the conftitutions of their children fhall be fo moulded and attempered, that they will live moft comfortably in every temperate clime!— Not contented with extracting two theories out of this iingle plant, Linnaeus forms a third ftill more wild and fantaftical: “ From this curious phenomenon,” fays he, “ it is natural to think, that only two fpecies of each genus exifted ab origins, and that all the variety of fpecies which now appear are only the fpan of fortuitous commixtures !” If either the fortuitous or artificial copulation of two different fpecies were capable of producing a third perfectly diftinCt from the other two, the number of fpecies would be infinite. According to our author, every blaft of wind, every butterfly, would daily produce hundreds of new fpecies. Neither the gardener nor hufbandman could purchafe feeds with fafety, unlefs they cotild difcover, from inipeCfion, whether they had been impregnated by the femen of the fame, or of a different fpecies. Lin naeus would have us to believe, not only that different fpecies of the fame genus copulate together, but even that genera belonging to different claffes engender, and beget mules. For example, he makes the poterium hybridum a begot by the agrimonia eupatoria the poterium fanguiforba. The agrimonia belongs to the dodecandria digynia clafs, and the poterium to the moncecia polyandria. Now, let any man ferioufly confider the unavoidable confequences that would follow on the fuppofition that this wanton proftitution of fexes really exifted among vegetables In the firft place, it would be impofifible to reduce botany to any regular fyftem ; for every feafon would produce fuch a troop of new and ftrange plants, as would confound every fcheme or method of claffification that ever was, or ever will be invented. A botanift, for inftance, carefully collects and preferves the f^eds of the poterium, in order to raife that plant next feafon; but, after fowing the feeds, to bis utter aftomfhment, not a Angle poterium appears, but every one of them is metamorphofed into a fpecies of agrimonia, a plant fo totally different that it cannot even be arranged under the fame clafs. ' adly, Linnasus is obliged to confiefs, that his vegetable mules, are not fubjeCted to that perverfe law of nature, which cruelly prevents animal mules from propagating their fpecies. On the contraty, lus vegetable.mules enjoy all the, fweets of mutual em-
A N Y. braces, and all the comforts that arife fronma nomerou progeny ! It is a happy circumftance that the oeconomy of nature is not influenced by the whims and caprices of thofe very ingenious and learned gentlemen whofe heads are conftantly hunting after hypothetical phantoms. There is hardly a general theory of the oeconomy of animals, or vegetables, which, on the fuppofition of its truth, would not in a very fhort time extirpate both animals and vegetables from the face of the earth. In the theory under confideration, we have not only mules produced by different genera and fpecies, but thefe very mules fuccefsfully propagating their kinds, and fubjeCt to be metamorphofed ad infinitum by fubfequent impregnations. This would be ftrange work indeed ! How unlike the oeconomy of nature !—Let us take an example, and trace it through a few metamorphofes. A nettle receives an impregnation from an oak, the feed falls to the ground, a plant of a very uncouth afpeCI fprings up ; it is no longer a nettle, neither is it an oak; but then it makes an excellent mule ! This mule next receives an impregnation from a turnip ; the feed now brings forth neither a nettle, an oak, nor a common mule, but fomething fo monftruous that no language can* afford a name for it! Thefe are a few of the confequences that would inevitably happen, if this theory of fexual embraces were really founded in nature. It is natural to think, that no author would venture to publifli a theory of this kind, without having previoufly made a great variety of fuccefsful experiments. If plants were really capable of unnatural commixtures^ any perfou might make many hundred mules in the fpace of twelve months. But we can affirm with confidence, that Linnaeus never made a Angle vegetable mule in his life. He has indeed collefted forty-feven plants which he calls mules. Why ? not becaufe they were produced by an artificial or fortuitous impregnation ; but becaufe the leaves. Item, or parts of fruAification have a refemblance to fome other genus or fpecies; even of thefe forty-feven he acknowledges that thirteen cannot be depended upon. The only attempts he has made to produce mules, have been confined to a few hermaphrodite plants: When endeavouring to impregnate a plant, Linnaeus proceeds in this manner: He lays hold of a hermaphrodite plant juft before the flowers begin to blow; unfolds the petals, cuts off all the ftamina, and then with his own hands performs the office of a male plant, by {baking the pollen of a different fpecies over its piftillum. This operation being finiffied, he fows the feeds next feafon :—Now, if Linnaeus’s theory were juft, thefe feeds {houfd produce mules, or plants which cannot be referred to any of- the two fpecies upon which the experiment was made. But all the changes he has ever been able to produce by his manual impregnations are confined to the colour of the flower; a different ftreak or ffiade in the petals paffes with him for a mule or mixture of the fpecies, although, , in other parts of his works, he pofitively declares, that generic or fpecific differences can never be taken from the colour offlowers, as it is conftantly liable to a thoufand" changes from caufes that are merely fortuitous. But no experiment can be made with any degYee of candor upon hermaphrodite flowers. No man can determine with
