52 HAECKEL 



Berlin had secured a botanist of the first rank 

 a year before, Alexander Braun. He, too, was 

 a thoughtful botanist, who would in his way agree 

 very well with Schleiden. He was convinced that 

 botany did not wholly consist in the determina- 

 tion of new plant-forms and the almost fruitless 

 effort to set up a system on which all particular 

 diagnoses would be rigidly played as on a piano. 

 He believed that there must be a more profound 

 conception of it, which would take '^form," as 

 such, as one of its problems, and would aim, not 

 at the formation of as large a collection as possible, 

 but at the construction of a science for which 

 Goethe had long ago found a name — morphology, 

 or the science of forms. It happened that Braun 

 was a friendly visitor at the house of Haeckel's 

 parents at Berlin. The now convalescent fresh- 

 man became devoted to him, body and soul ; they 

 became close friends, not merely master and 

 pupil. Berlin at that time afforded many an 

 opportunity for practical botanising. Bare marsh- 

 plants then flourished in the bed of the Spree, 

 which has since been cleared. The Botanical 

 Garden was full of good things. Haeckel used 

 to tell with pride, long afterwards, with what 

 readiness he flung himself into the work, practical 

 as well as theoretical, on these excursions with 

 Professor Braun. '' On one of our botanical 

 expeditions we wanted to get a floating chara 

 from a pond. Braun took off his boots in his 

 usual way in order to wade to the spot. But I 

 was before him. I quickly undressed, forgot my 



