CHAPTEE XIX 



BOTANY : ITS POSITION AND PROSPECTS IN THE FIFTIES 



HOOKER had long been conscious that something was wrong 

 with the state of botanical science, in England especially. 

 Physiology applied to plant life, as to animal life, was making 

 fruitful discoveries. But systematic botany had almost ex- 

 hausted the Linnsean and post-Linnaean impulse. The more 

 nearly the Natural System of Classification initiated by De 

 Jussieu and elaborated by De Candolle completed the catalogu- 

 ing and classifying work along established lines, which seemed 

 to be its sole remaining function, the more nearly it reached 

 a sterile completeness. Schleiden in 1842 saw that Botany 

 as an Inductive science must rest upon research into develop- 

 ment and embryology. But these morphological studies 

 with their comparison of structures which pointed to living 

 lines of natural affinity, stood apart from systematic botany 

 as a separate discipline. Though material was thus being 

 laid up for a theory of descent, the doctrine of origins was 

 still bound up with the traditional cosmogony. Eesearch was 

 cramped by the heavy hand of fundamental theory. It led 

 seemingly to no promised land of science ; no new vivifying 

 principle which should reveal the clue to those perplexing 

 problems in the affinities and distribution of plants, to which 

 no rational and satisfactory answer was forthcoming on the 

 old lines. 



The search for novelties loomed too large ; in the absence 

 of good organisation between botanists, mere species-mongering 

 had led to unspeakable confusion and overlapping. Observers 



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