THE DEVELOPMENT OF PLANT PHYSIOLOGY UNDER 

 THE INFLUENCE OF THE OTHER SCIENCES 



BY PROFESSOR JULIUS WIESNER 

 (Translated from the German by Professor F. E. Lloyd, Columbia University) 



[Julius Wiesner, Regular Professor of Vegetable Physiology, University of Vienna, 

 and Director of the Institute of Vegetable Physiology, since 1873. b. Tschechen 

 in Mahren, Austria, January 20, 1838. Studied in Technical High Schools, 

 Brunn and Vienna; University of Vienna, 1856-60; Ph.D. 1860; J.U.D. 

 (honoris causa) Glasgow, Scotland, 1898; Privat-docent, University of Vienna, 

 1861-68. Regular Professor, Technic High School, Vienna, 1868-71; ibid. 

 Forest Academy, Vienna, 1871-73; Rector Magnificus, University of Vienna, 

 1898-99. Member of the Academies of Sciences, Vienna, Berlin, Munich, 

 Rome, and Turin, and numerous other scientific and learned societies. Author 

 of Introduction into Technical Microscopy; The Elementary Structure and 

 Growth of Living Substance; Anatomy and Physiology of Plants; Biology of 

 Plants; The Raw Materials of the Vegetable Kingdom.] 



I HAVE received the honor of an invitation to speak before this 

 great International Congress of Arts and Science on the relation of 

 plant physiology to the other sciences. I gratefully accede to the 

 request. When I accepted the invitation I did so. however, with 

 real pleasure, for, I said to myself, I shall see with my own eyes the 

 great progress which the sciences, especially the natural sciences, 

 have made in America, and I shall have the opportunity to speak on 

 a subject with which I have long been busied, and which has, so to 

 speak, become a part of my life. 



It happened that six years ago I spoke in public upon this sub- 

 ject on the occasion of my induction into the office of Rector of the 

 University of Vienna. The content of my address at that time has, I 

 believe, not remained unknown to a wider audience, arid I may pre- 

 sume that it has become known to my American colleagues through 

 a translation, with which I was honored, and which was published 

 in the Yearbook of the Smithsonian Institution for 1898. They will 

 then understand that I do not desire merely to repeat myself to-day, 

 and will bear with me, if I give my present address a somewhat differ- 

 ent turn and content, without losing sight of the main issue, which 

 is to throw light upon the interaction of the sciences and the com- 

 plete unification of all human knowledge. 



The insufficiency of human understanding compels us to move 

 the lever of research within a small area, and for all time the prin- 

 ciple of division of labor will hold good, and, by the same token, the 

 parceling off of the field of labor will advance. 



But, necessary as this division of labor is, it has its drawbacks as 

 well as its advantages, for it narrows -the horizon of the individual 

 worker, and leads not seldom to a cramped idea of the goal of the 



