2 6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the small, almost spherical crystals of oxide of iron with the minute, 

 spherical articulations of Ehrenberg's Gallionella ferruginea, which 

 likewise consist almost exclusively of oxide of iron, and undeniably 

 represent organic forms, either animal or vegetable : the crude antithe- 

 sis disappears at once, and all who reflect will conceive for science the 

 possibility, still distant, of bringing the formation of both kinds under 

 the same law of nature. There are in nature thousands of these ap- 

 parent leaps, like that from the inorganic to the organism, in regard 

 to which attentive observation will reveal to us gradual differences in- 

 stead of a specific distinction." 



This work excited a wide-spread and virulent opposition in conse- 

 quence of the bitterness of its polemics, its severe criticisms of the 

 didactic methods of investigation and the dry systems in vogue at the 

 time, and its sharp personalities. The book was called libelous in 

 France, for the author, according to Dr. Karl Midler, seemed to speak 

 well of no one except Robert Brown and Hugh Mohl, " the two living 

 men whom he most admired," and was not sparing in his criticisms of 

 them. " With incomparable acuteness, and with equal acerbity against 

 living and dead, he poured out such a flood of botanical satires and 

 personal antipathies that he would have had to be a god to escape the 

 reaction against his attacks ; and the day when this was to take place 

 was not long in coming." Yet, he did not let his vehement criticisms 

 go fofth without making an excuse for them. It was that " enough 

 merit still exists among true naturalists to permit us to leave the busi- 

 ness of mutual admiration to the literary beggars of belles-lettres jour- 

 nalism." Notwithstanding this opposition, the current in favor of 

 Schleiden's conception of the object of scientific study could not be 

 diverted ; and the medical faculty of Tubingen, one of whose mem- 

 bers was Schleiden's most eminent opponent in a number of special 

 cases, replied to his acrid charges by conferring upon him its honor- 

 ary degree. 



Schleiden's other book, " Die Pflanze und ihr Leben " (" The Plant 

 and its Life "), the object of which was to popularize botany, had a 

 brilliant success. The first edition of 1848 was rapidly followed by 

 other editions, and the work appeared in the course of the next ten years 

 in one French, one Dutch, and two English translations. The author, 

 in the preface to this work, defines his object as follows : " Most peo- 

 ple of the world, even the most enlightened, are still in the habit of 

 regarding the botanist as a dealer in barbarous Latin names, as a man 

 who gathers flowers, names them, dries them, and wraps them in pa- 

 per, and all of whose wisdom consists in determining and classifying 

 this hay which he has collected with such great pains. This portrait 

 of the botanist was, alas ! recently true ; but, now that it is no longer 

 applicable to the majority among us, I have been grieved to see that 

 many still hold to it. So I have endeavored in these lectures to place 

 within the reach of all the real principles of botanical science, and to 



