PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY. 209 



idlers. He is far less original in his views than Thouars, 

 Turpin, Agardh, Nees von Essenbeck, or Oken, and in 

 description, Gaudichaud is far more vigorous and distinct. 

 As regards his accuracy, this cannot be so easily and 

 readily decided upon, as to exert any striking influence 

 upon the judgment of the reader. Thus, e. g. in the 

 first edition of his book, he follows the theory of the 

 French botanists on the stem, which he certainly defines 

 with more minuteness ; and in the treating of the stem of 

 the Palm, he criticises what I have said upon the subject, 

 but without supporting his remarks by any original ob- 

 servations. Original writers are certainly not those who 

 have produced most benefit to science, whilst on the other 

 hand they have frequently retarded its progress, and I 

 should not consider it as any recommendation, were any 

 one to assert that Schleiden was original in his botanical 

 remarks. On the whole, he recommends the critical 

 method, in fact, considers it as the only correct one ; but 

 we cannot possibly conceive criticism without some 

 preceding system ; in fact, it is quite opposed to pecu- 

 liarity and originality. It is highly valuable, and we 

 should be grateful to the author's ingenuity if he allowed 

 his criticisms to be decided and severe, but free from such 

 extravagancies, which impair rather than increase the 

 effect they produce. The observations of any writer upon 

 natural history, who only describes what he has seen, are 

 very valuable ; but it would be impossible to re-institute 

 a science from the study of nature alone. In making 

 investigations we must know what to observe, and this 

 must be acquired from instruction, and finally from 

 books. Without these means we should merely make 

 discoveries which had long been known. Had it not 

 been learned from books, we should not have been aware 

 that iodine colours starch blue. I was .deprived of this 

 resource in my earlier researches, and it has since proved 

 of much service in science. It is too great an exaggera- 

 tion, nay, it is even false, to assert that books cherish a 

 disingenuousness and tendency to dissimulation which 



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