2 8 PEO0BBDING8 OF THE 



coniiiiiis no reference to the author of " Vegetable Staticks." 

 Our pursuits did not include consideration of the structure or 

 the working of the aniuial-uiachine and the plant-machine. Our 

 task was confined to the study of the characters, relationships, 

 qualities and distribution of those subjective entities which we 

 conventionally regard as ' species ' of animals and plants, 

 llistolugy was still part of anatomy, metabolism a branch of 

 physics. The society from which ours is an oiishoot retained 

 these studies in her own hands ; her interest in both is Btill 

 unabated. 



The later history of the two studies has differed. The evolution 

 of Cytology in the XIX. Century secured for Histology the status 

 of a separatt; science whose workers take tlieir corporate title 

 from the instrument forged for their use by Optics. This has 

 not impaired their readiness to help the systematic student of 

 liviog forms of animals and plants, while it is to the aid of their 

 technique that the success of systematic Palaeontology is largely 

 due. 



The unnamed science of which metabolism is a branch has as 

 yet no separate existence, though it has on the genetic side given 

 birth to a vigorous daugliter science and has on the nutritive side 

 become the scientific basis of more than one powerful technology. 

 The Institutes of Medicine, whose concern is with animal nutri- 

 tion, we now find split into two artificial branches, physiology 

 and pathology, whose workers view the cardinal principles of 

 their fundamental science in the light of reason at times refracted 

 by subjective prepossessions as to health and disease. These two 

 technologies, whether on their practical or doctrinal sides, remain 

 handmaids of the healing art. The corresponding vegetable 

 technology has escaped subdivision : vegetable pathology is a 

 bye-product of the systematic sciences Entomology and Mycology, 

 themselves branches of natural history. On its practical side 

 vegetable physiology forms part of the Institutes of Husbandry; 

 on its doctrinal side this technology claims the hegemony of 

 liotany. When this academic study compares itself with the 

 natui'al liistory or plants it implies, by its assumption of the title 

 " Wisseuschaftliche Botanik," that the botanical pursuits of our 

 Society are not scientific. At times vegetable physiology even 

 suggests that the cultivation of the science of natural history, so 

 far as plants are concerned, lies outside botany. The " Geschichte 

 der Botanik " of one of the ablest exponents of this comparatively 

 recent study, published in 1875, contains no reference to some 

 of those who have done most to advance our knowledge of the 

 relationships and the distribution of plant-forms. The interest 

 of this judgment lies in its endorsement of the opinion, held by 

 philosophical students in 1788, that " the natural history of 

 plants " and " vegetable staticks " belong to distinct branches 

 of natural knowledge. 



When new natural knowledge becomes available we begin by 

 considering what may be deduced from it and how it fits in with 

 what we already know. In those endowed with the genius that 



