GENERAL CONCLUSION 



THE survey which we have taken in these pages of the 

 general course of research in the different regions of the 

 vegetable kingdom during the latter half of the nineteenth 

 century has now illustrated the vast change that came 

 over botanical speculation and opinion under the influence 

 of the work of Darwin, and to a less extent of that of 

 Hofmeister and his successors. The general trend of 

 thought turned, after the appearance of the Origin of 

 Species, in the direction of Physiology, and found in its 

 study the clue to what had before escaped explanation in 

 the various fields of research. Perhaps because this sub- 

 ject was almost entirely a new one, the records of what 

 was done seem more voluminous than might have been 

 expected. Though no doubt much appeared that was 

 crude and ill-digested and proved to be but ephemeral, 

 most of the researches remain as substantial contributions to 

 knowledge, as monuments of untiring energy and patience, 

 and as work affording points of departure that in the new 

 century will lead, indeed have already led, to results of 

 even greater importance. 



Early in the period under examination, a notable advance 

 was made under the influence of the new point of view, 

 to which so far little allusion has been made in these pages. 

 Many statements had gone forth to the world which were 

 based on little more than the opinion of one or other of 

 the leading men of earlier times, and these had been accepted 

 as fundamental facts, to doubt which savoured of heresy. 

 In the earlier years of our period there was the same 

 tendency to accept statements upon similar authority, 

 without sufficient examination of the evidence on which 



