NOTICES OP BOOKS. 315 



to begin, considering the state of ignorance of the students upon whom 

 the Professor works ; and not, as is usually the case, with cells, cyto- 

 blasts, proximate principles, and protein compounds, which the student 

 is too often taught before he can define a root or a leaf, or distinguish 

 a root from a stem, or the parts of a flower. This department once 

 acquired (and it need not be pursued into detail yet), and the student is 

 prepared to understand the principles of classification which are founded 

 on the facts in comparative anatomy he has learned, and every step he 

 takes in which developes more knowledge of comparative anatomy, and 

 impresses on his mind all that he has learned previously. 



To teach physiology, which comes next, is impossible without a con- 

 stant reference to specimens and their organs ; and if these are treated 

 as abstractions, which they must be if the student is ignorant of com- 

 parative anatomy and system, it is obvious that he can only learn phy- 

 siology by rote, by an effort of memory and not by an effort of mind ; 

 he cannot advance a step beyond his professor or his book, and can do 

 nothing for himself, either as an observer or thinker. To learn any 

 branch of botany in such a way is opposed to all scientific principles, 

 and most especially to those that apply to the sciences of observation, 

 and the wonder is that it should ever be attempted ; but such we know 

 to be the case in most medical schools, and can only hope that the spon- 

 taneous testimony to its futility now offered by one of their most dis- 

 tinguished professors will be duly appreciated. The physiological sec- 

 tion Mr. Henfrey properly divides into two branches, physiological ana- 

 tomy and the physiology of vegetation, the latter being physiology in 

 the strict sense of the term. A chapter on Miscellaneous Phenomena 

 follows, and then the chief facts connected with Geographical and Geo- 

 logical Botany. 



With regard to the execution of the work, we can award it very high 

 praise indeed ; there is a great deal of originality in the way the sub- 

 jects are introduced and discussed ; and the morphological and physio- 

 logical parts abound with evidence of the great amount of care and 

 thought expended on the treatment of the simplest subjects as well as 

 the most abstruse. The physiological part is the best, as was to be 

 expected from the author's eminence in that department, and this, toge- 

 ther with the pages devoted to the extremely difficult subject of Crypto- 

 gamic reproduction, seem to us admirably done. The general discus- 

 sions on nomenclature, classification, and the evolution of organs, are 



