BOTANY 155 



facts would warrant, men persisted in thinking out in their 

 libraries what was a priori, probably true, and then crowding 

 and trimming every fact to fit their preconceived ideas. 



And it cannot be over emphasized that the study of 

 botany is the study of plants, and not the study of what some- 

 body says about plants. It is in dealing with facts at first 

 hand that botany, in common with all natural sciences, differs 

 from such disciplines as, for example, history. Says James 

 Anthony Froude, in his Chapter on "Scientific Method Ap- 

 plied to History"* : "Historical facts are of two kinds, the 

 veritable outward fact — whatever it was which took place in 

 the order of things — and the account of it which has been 

 brought down to us by more or less competent persons." In 

 the nature of the case, historians are now forced to deal 

 almost entirely with the latter class of facts. If one writer 

 places a given oration in the mouth of a great general, while 

 another writer of equal standing makes no mention of it, we 

 can never turn back the wheels of time and have the "verit- 

 able outward fact" repeated. If, on the other hand, a given 

 botanist says a certain species of plant gave rise in his garden 

 to new forms of the value of elementary species, we are not 

 dependent upon his statement of the fact in order to know 

 whether such a thing can occur. The entire experiment may 

 be repeated and the statement verified by any one who is 

 sufficiently interested to try. And not only so, but the repeti- 

 tion and verification must be made if the phenomenon is to be 

 accepted into the realm of ascertained fact. The interpreta- 

 tions of botanical facts are indeed subject to debate, for there 

 the personality of the investigator enters in, but the facts 

 themselves are never debatable. It is only necessary to re- 

 peat the observation to determine their validity. The quoting 

 of authorities is without weight, for, as Bacon well said, in 

 his "Advancement of Learning," "as water ascends no higher 



*Froude, J. A. Short Studies on Great Subjects, p. 448. New 

 York, 1876. 



