BOOK ii.] Introduction. 225 



gation. The performances of both men were at first extremely 

 weak and contradicted one another; a lively dispute on the 

 nature of cells, fibres, and vessels grew up during the succeed- 

 ing years, and many German botanists soon took part in it ; 

 life was once more infused into the whole subject, especially 

 when the academy of Gottingen in 1804 offered a prize for the 

 best essay on the disputed points, for which Link, Rudolphi 

 and Treviranus contended, while Bernhardi occupied himself 

 with private researches into the nature of vessels in plants. It 

 was not much that was attained in this way ; men began once 

 more from the beginning, and after 130 years Malpighi and 

 Grew were still the authorities to whom everybody appealed. 

 Yet the questions now discussed were in the main different 

 from the old ones ; Malpighi, Grew and Leeuwenhoek had 

 chiefly set themselves the task of studying the different 

 tissues in their mutual connection ; the moderns were chiefly 

 concerned to get a clearer understanding of the more delicate 

 construction of the various tissues themselves, to know what 

 was the true account of cell-structure in parenchymatous tissue, 

 and the real nature of vessels and fibres. That very slow 

 progress was made at first in this direction was due partly 

 to the imperfectness of the microscope, and still more to very 

 unskilful preparations, to the influence of various prejudices, 

 and to too slight exertion of the mind. But a comprehensive 

 work by the younger Moldenhawer in 1812 was a considerable 

 step in advance. It is marked by careful and suitable 

 preparation of the objects, and by critical examination of what 

 was observed by the writer himself and of what had been 

 written by others ; in fact it is a fresh commencement of a 

 strict scientific treatment of phytotomy. Hugo von Mohl con- 

 tinued Moldenhawer's work after 1828, and Meyen was a con- 

 temporary and a zealous student of phytotomy : but the period 

 in the study of vegetable anatomy which reaches to 1840 may 

 be said to have been brought to a conclusion chiefly by von 

 Mohl's contributions. Weak as the beginnings were at the 



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