158 UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI BULLETIN 



elementary facts about the life processes of plants, and it is 

 partly owing to this necessity that botany is such an efficient 

 discipline in secondary, as well as in more advanced, educa- 

 tion. 



It should be mentioned in passing that the method of 

 science, all too briefly outlined above, is not different, in kind, 

 from the method of every day thinking. The difference lies 

 in the fact that in scientific investigation infinite care and a 

 constant re-examination and testing are absolutely essential 

 to progress.* 



I have dwelt at length upon this question of method 

 because a clear understanding of it is necessary to any ade- 

 quate comprehension of what science in general, and, there- 

 fore, botanical science in particular really is. I would define 

 botany as the application of the scientific method, as out- 

 lined above, to the study of plants. Or, botany may be de- 

 fined as the science which attempts, by the application of 

 scientific method, to answer any reasonable question about 

 plants. Botany, therefore, differs from other natural sciences 

 in the materials with which it deals. The science itself is 

 thus distinguished from the body of fact which has resulted 

 from its pursuit. A man is a botanist, not so much because 

 he possesses information about plants, but because he is en- 

 gaged in adding to the sum total of botanical knowledge by 

 the application of the scientific method to the study of plant 

 life. 



If we classify all sciences as either abstract or concrete, 

 and the latter as either inorganic (dealing primarily with non- 

 living things) or organic (dealing primarily with living 

 things), then botany finds its natural place in the system in 

 the last mentioned group. But it should be clearly under- 

 stood .that all these subdivisions of knowledge into separate 

 knowledges are wholly artificial, and merely a convenience, 



*Cf. Huxley, T. H. The Method of Zadig. Collected Essays, 

 Vol. 2. 



