98 PLANT MORPHOLOGY 



only when we attack the old problems of morphology, not simply 

 with the old method, that of comparison, but experimentally, and 

 when we regard as the basal problem of morphology not phyloge- 

 netic development, but the essence of development in a large sense. 

 Even if we had the story of development spread out clearly before 

 us, we could not content ourselves with the simple determination 

 of the same; for then we should be constrained to ask ourselves 

 how it has been brought about. But this question brings us straight 

 back to the present, to the problem of individual development. 

 For there is for natural science hardly a more significant word than 

 this of Goethe's: " Was nicht mehr entsteht, konnen wir uns als 

 entstehend nicht denken. . Das Entstandene begreifen wir nicht." 

 It is, then, the task of modern morphology to learn more exactly the 

 factors upon which at this time the origin of structures depends. 

 To this task, for which there was at that time but little preparatory 

 work, consisting of a few important attempts by the gifted Thomas 

 Knight, Wilhelm Hofmeister, who is known to most of us only as a' 

 comparative morphologist, did a too little recognized service. For 

 he pointed out, even before this trend of study became apparent in 

 zoology, that the ill-designated Entwickelungsmechanik pursues 

 essentially the same goal as the causal morphology of botany. 



We may regard as a motto this sentence from Hofmeister's Allge- 

 meine Morphologic: "Es ist ein Bediirfnis des menschlichen Geistes, 

 eine Vorstellung sich zu bilden iiber die Bedingungen der Form- 

 gestaltung wachsender Organismen im allgemeinen." This is even 

 now the problem of present-day morphology. Comparative consider- 

 ation, including, of course, the especially important history of devel- 

 opment, offers us valuable preparation for the intellectual grasp of 

 the problem, but, above all, for the pursuit of the experimental 

 method. 



That the zoologists also have felt this necessity to strike out into 

 new ways besides that of comparative morphological observation, 

 shows anew that for all organisms the problems are really the same. 

 Let us, then, take for our watchword development, not only as a 

 problem, but also for the methods with which we seek to bring our- 

 selves nearer its solution. 



SHORT PAPER 



DOCTOR J. ARTHUR HARRIS, of the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, 

 Missouri, presented a short paper on the subject of " The importance of Investiga- 

 tion of Seedling Stages," in which the speaker epitomized the recent attempts to 

 solve the problem of the phylogeny of monocotyledons by reference to the anat- 

 omy of seedlings. 



