1891 *] The Future of Systematic Botany. 245 



as rapidly as ever ; although we may fairly consider that we 

 have now in hand sufficient material for the broadest efenerali- 

 zations. I say "material," not meaning by any means to 

 imply the knowledge which proper investigation of this 

 material is to bring- us. 



systematic botany, as formerly understood, has probably 

 done all that it can, unaided, in the natural arrangement of 

 plants. Of course it could indefinitely juggle with sequence 

 and nomenclature, but, after all, that is like arranging a card 

 catalogue, and is of such secondary importance, when the 

 real purpose of systematic botany is considered, that it can 

 hardly be taken as indicative of progress. Let me interject 

 a word at this point. It is my impression that the decriers 

 of Systematic Botany have only in mind this "juggling with 

 sequence and nomenclature" when they make their strictures, 

 and are mistaking the art of the tailor for the evolution of 

 the real man. One must be respectably clothed, but he must 

 be an unspeakable idiot if that is all that can be said of him. 

 It has always been my impression that the depreciation of any 

 other kind of scientific work argues either lack of knowledge 

 or conceit. 



But the ancient kind of Systematic Botany was not left 

 without aid, and a group of new departments was made pos- 

 sible by the microscope and the unexampled progress of 

 powers and manipulation. The study of the cell, and of 

 nascent and mature organs, and the recognition of plants as 

 living things that are the resultant of the interplay of internal 

 and external forces, have simply revivified the ancient mummy 

 called Botany, and have made it the living thing it is to-day, 

 capable of endless development. It is not to be wondered at 

 that these new and vigorous departments of work, in the first 

 glow of the vital service they have rendered, should look at 

 the older department as a thing of the past, as something to 

 b e buried out of sight, and remembered only as a part of 

 medieval history. But this is only the first glow of a natural 

 enthusiasm, and I glory in it, for it promises an enormous 

 amount of self-denying work, and the results will all fall into 

 the lap of Systematic Botany. The corpse is not buried, but 

 revivified, and this Irtish of new work has been but the 





^fusion of an elixir of life into a body that was perishin 

 f rom starvation. 



Some one has said that "tin- highest reach of the human 



