PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY. 207 



greatest absurdity, in the Natural sciences, still disturbs 

 the fresh springs of life." Had this been said one hun- 

 dred years or more ago, it might have been regarded as 

 an expression made at an appropriate time, but it now 

 comes much too late. We must now rather thank those 

 men who, like Humboldt, appreciate the advantage of 

 still cultivating the taste for the dead languages and 

 philological erudition. Humboldt has done this in very 

 many of his writings, very recently in his ' Cosmos/ in 

 a manner which, as we may hope, and must wish, will 

 exert its influence upon an age which is too fond of what 

 is superficial and easy, beyond which it has no desire to 

 proceed. I shall allude here to the effect upon the mind 

 which the wonderful force and simplicity of the dead 

 languages exert, when we regard the impression which 

 they produce only, without referring to the dilution 

 which they always suffer by translation into modern 

 languages. This is foreign to my present purpose. But 

 in the Natural sciences their use is really not absurd, it 

 is much to be recommended in descriptive Natural 

 History, and hitherto has always been retained. 



In these languages all European nations understand 

 each other ; the plants and animals described by us, 

 Germans, are again recognised from Lisbon to Moscow. 

 Schleiden speaks of the absurdity of species-trifling ; but 

 here again, in his peculiar style, he says too much, be- 

 cause the first point is to ascertain what is spoken of, 

 and the determination of species must serve as the alpha- 

 bet of science > and it then leads us to the answer to one 

 of the most important questions in Botany, viz. what is a 

 species, what a variety, and how the latter are produced ? 

 It is, perhaps, most proper that papers which dispense 

 with this, as it were, mechanical method of illustrating 

 objects, should be wholly written in the mother tongue ; 

 but it would be well if so much Latin were learned as to 

 cause those manuals which make use of an aphoristic 

 style of description, especially in the Natural sciences, to 

 be understood in every foreign country. The English, 



