Chap, hi.] of Cell-membrane in Plants. 287 



the microscope which are beautifully executed ; they present 

 to the reader not the small fragments of earlier phytotomic 

 works but whole masses of tissue so connected together that 

 it is possible to gain some insight into the disposition of the 

 different systems of tissue and their mutual relations. The 

 superiority of Meyen's drawings of 1836 as compared with 

 those of 1830 is very striking, though he used the same micro- 

 scope in both cases and the same magnifying power of two 

 hundred and twenty times. 



To learn what were Meyen's independent contributions to 

 the advance of phytotomy, we must turn to his ■ Phytotomie - 

 of 1830; for in his later works and especially in the ' Neues 

 System der Physiologie ' of 1837 he was able to avail himself of 

 von Mohl's earliest and searching investigations; these necessarily 

 influenced his views, though he always assumed the character 

 of a rival and opponent of von Mohl, and treated not only 

 Treviranus and Link, but even Kieser and men of his stamp, as 

 entitled to equal rank with him. And as in his later writings 

 he was reluctant to acknowledge von Mohl's services to science 

 and overlooked their fundamental importance, so in his earlier 

 work in 1830 he often appears as an assailant of Moldenhawer 

 and tries to set up Link's authority against him ; we find to 

 our astonishment in the first volume of the c Neues System ' a 

 dedication to Link as the 'founder of German vegetable 

 physiology.' The position of a scientific man in relation to his 

 science as a whole is certainly most simply and clearly denned 

 by his judgment on the merits of his contemporaries and 

 predecessors, and we may conclude from what has now been 

 said that Meyen moved within the circle of ideas of the 

 Gottingen prize-essays, and did not clearly see the importance 

 of the points of view opened by Moldenhawer and von Mohl ; 

 though it must always be allowed that Meyen working in- 

 dependently far outstripped Link on his own path. 



If it was our purpose to write a biography of Meyen, we 

 should have to go through his works, and show the steps by 



