229 



i'cw, it is still held fast to by very many persons ; and I have sought, 

 therefore, in the present discourses, to bring within the sphere of ge- 

 neral comprehension the more important problems of the real science 

 of Botany, to point out how closely it is connected with almost all the 

 most abstruse branches of philosophy and natural science, and to show 

 how almost every fact, or larger group of facts, tends, as well in 

 Botany as in every other branch of human activity, to suggest the 

 most earnest and weighty questions, and to carry mankind forward 

 beyond the possessions of sense, to the anticipations of the spirit. 1 ' — 

 p. 1. 



To this end, instead of treating plants as so many independent be- 

 ings, isolated from all other natural objects, the author traces their 

 intimate connexion with the rest of organic and inorganic creation — 

 with the soil to which they are attached, the air which surrounds them, 

 the water in which, as a convenient vehicle for absorption, the various 

 matters necessary for their nutriment are contained, and even with the 

 animal world, which derives from the vegetable kingdom so large a 

 portion of its sustenance. He says : — 



" The vegetable world, if it be but looked upon as something more 

 than the materials for a herbarium, offers so many points of contact 

 to the human race, that those who devote themselves to its study, in- 

 stead of having to complain of want of material, become oppressed 

 with the multitude of interesting questions and problems which crowd 

 upon them. The different subjects of consideration may be conveni- 

 ently arranged under four aspects; lstly, the condition of the plant 

 itself as a question of scientific inquiry ; 2ndly, the relations of the in- 

 dividual plants to each other; 3rdly, the relations of plants as organisms 

 to the organism of the whole earth ; and 4thly, the relation of the 

 human race to the vegetable world. But since each of these four re- 

 lations is fulfilled by the plant at one and the same time, it is infinitely 

 difficult, if not impossible, to keep each aspect clear and unmixed ; 

 and when we enter upon one of these relations with the desire to sub- 

 ject it to closer investigation, we are always involuntarily constrained, 

 sooner or later, to direct our attention to the rest, and to draw them 

 within the circle of our researches. Though we establish upon these 

 questions, according to their order, the following branches of study : 

 Theoretical, or Pure Botany ; Systematic Botany ; Geographical and 

 Applied Botany ; yet not one of these can be treated from its own 

 principal point of view alone, if it would lay claim to a scientific or 

 profound character; still more difficult is it, however, to keep strictly 

 within the boundaries of these four divisions when the object in view 

 Vol. hi. 2 i 



