CHAP, v.i flic Influence of the History of Development. 187 



which had been accumulated in all parts of the science ; 

 no one really knew what a wealth there was at that time 

 of important facts ; least of all was it possible to form a 

 judgment on the matter from the text-books of the period, 

 which were deficient in ideas and facts, and crammed with 

 a superfluous terminology; their mode of treating their subject 

 was trivial and tasteless, and whatever was specially worth 

 knowing and important to the student they did not contain. 

 Those who undertook really scientific enquiries separated 

 themselves from those who dealt with botany after the old 

 schematism of the Linnaean school ; but botanical instruction, 

 the propagation of knowledge, was almost everywhere in the 

 hands of this school, though it was the one least fitted for the 

 task ; and thus a mass of lifeless , phrases was the instruction 

 offered to the majority of students under the name of botany, 

 with the inevitable effect of repelling the more gifted natures 

 from the study. This was the evil result of the old and 

 foolish notion, that the sole or chief business of every botanist 

 is to trifle away time in plant-collecting in wood and meadow 

 and in rummaging in herbaria, proceedings which could do 

 no good to systematic botany even as understood by the 

 Linnaean school. Even the better sort lost the sense for 

 higher knowledge while occupying themselves in this way with 

 the vegetable world ; the powers of the mind could not fail 

 after a time to deteriorate, and every text-book of the period 

 on every page supplies proof of this deterioration. 



But such a condition of things is dangerous for every 

 science ; of what profit is it, that single men of superior merit 

 advance this or that part of the science when a connected 

 view of the whole is wanting, and the beginner has no oppor- 

 tunity of studying the best things in their mutual relations. 

 However, the right man was found at the right moment to 

 rouse easy indolence from its torpor, and to show his con- 

 temporaries, not in Germany only but in all countries where 

 botany was studied, that no progress was possible in this 



