THE ANATOMY OF VEGETABLES 47 



I think, be attributed to the fact that Grew was above all things 

 a naturalist, and Coleridge a philosopher, and that between the 

 two an intellectual gulf is often fixed. 



After this somewhat lengthy introduction, it is more than 

 time to turn to our main subject, the study of Nehemiah 

 Grew's work as a botanist. 



Botanical science was in a decidedly decadent condition 

 when Grew entered the field. The era of the herbal was closing. 

 The last English book of any importance which can strictly be 

 included under this head, Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum, was 

 published the year before Grew was born, and a lull in this 

 kind of work followed. It is true that Culpeper's Herbal 

 appeared later, but this bombastic work was of no botanical 

 value. It was reserved for Morison and Ray to open a new 

 era in British Systematic Botany. At the same time, fresh 

 inspiration was being breathed into the science from quite a 

 different quarter. The herbalists studied plants primarily with 

 a view to understanding their medicinal properties. Nehemiah 

 Grew also approached Botany in the first instance from the 

 medical standpoint, but it was his knowledge of anatomy which 

 opened his mind to the possibility of similar work, with the 

 bodies of plants, instead of those of animals, as the subject. 

 He tells us that he was impressed by the fact that the study 

 of animal anatomy had been carried on actively from early 

 ages, whereas that of vegetable anatomy had been scarcely so 

 much as contemplated. " But considering," he continues, " that 

 both came at first out of the same Hand, and are therefore the 

 Contrivances of the same Wisdom ; I thence fully assured my 

 self, that it could not be a vain Design, though possibly unsuc- 

 cessful, to seek it in both." 



Grew was drawn to the study of plant structure at the age of 

 twenty-three, and seven years later he produced his earliest work 

 on the subject, The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun, which was 

 published by the Royal Society in 1672. It will be remembered 

 that the Royal Society was then quite in its youth, its first 

 beginnings only dating back to about I645 1 . By a curious 

 coincidence, recalling the classic case of Darwin and Wallace 



1 Life of Robert Boyle by Thomas Birch, p. 83, 1744. 



