MODERN BIOLOGY 575 



its representatives already quoted above; owing to this exclusiveness physi- 

 ology came to be an antithesis to morphology, which proved disastrous, 

 not least because the experimental method and the physiological point of 

 view no longer served the purposes of morphology, which in consequence 

 reverted to narrow phylogenetical speculations. Botany was the first to free 

 itself from this narrowness of view; indeed, there appeared at quite an early 

 stage students of this subject who were capable of not only realizing but 

 also solving physiological problems. 



Julius Sachs was born in 1831 at Breslau, of poor parents. His studies 

 at school were embittered by privation and could be continued only thanks 

 to the kindness shown him by the aged Purkinje, whose sons were his school- 

 fellows. In their home he found help and encouragement, especially in his 

 interest in botany, which he displayed at an early age. When Purkinje moved 

 to Prague, young Sachs's prospects looked gloomy, especially as he was now 

 an orphan, but fortunately he was not forgotten by his old benefactor; he 

 was allowed to go to Prague after him and to work in his institute as an 

 assistant and draughtsman, while he completed his studies. Having received 

 his degree, he was given a post as teacher of botany at the Saxon academy 

 of forestry at Tharand, afterwards obtaining a similar situation at Bonn and 

 finally being called in 1868 to Wiirzburg, where he laboured for nearly thirty 

 years, gaining a brilliant reputation both as an investigator and as a teacher. 

 In his best days Wiirzburg was an international centre for botanical re- 

 search. Towards the close of his life his powers waned, and at the same time 

 he lost his ability to follow the development of evolution; his self-conceit 

 had always found it difficult to keep within reasonable bounds, and in his 

 old age he simply could not endure any other opinion than his own. This 

 eventually resulted in isolation, which embittered his existence. He died in 



1897. 



Sachs was one of those who was early won over to Darwinism, and 

 throughout his life he viewed biology from the angle of the doctrine of 

 descent. This was in fact the reason why in his otherwise praiseworthy 

 Geschichte der Botanik he speaks so contemptuously of Linnasus, who to him 

 was conspicuous only as a narrow-minded apostle of the constancy of species. 

 But Nageli has also exercised a great influence upon Sachs, who, for instance, 

 associates himself with a view that there are internal causes of form-develop- 

 ment in living creatures, and he also embraced the theory of protoplasm's 

 being composed of solid particles capable of absorbing water in their inter- 

 vening spaces. In regard to heredity, Sachs holds views most closely reminis- 

 cent of Weismann's germinal-plasm theory. 



Sachs creates experimental plant-biology 

 Sachs, however, is best known as the creator of experimental plant-biology. 

 This science had really made but little progress since the days of Saussure, 



