AND THE MICROSCOPE. 37 



detract from the merit of Linnaeus, since greater is 

 the glory to discover, to shape out a science, than 

 to build it upward after the foundations have been laid ; 

 we wish not, as we have said, to disparage Linnaeus, 

 when we describe him as the author of one of the 

 saddest of prejudices, which has long kept Botany in 

 the lowest condition, and even now is not so totally 

 overthrown but that its evil operations are still, in many 

 ways, obstacles in the onward path of science. We mean 

 Linnseus's objection to the microscope, and his contempt of 

 all knowledge only to be obtained by its help. The 

 influence of the Linnaean school was so pernicious in this 

 respect, that almost all that which had already been achieved 

 by a few distinguished men, particularly by Malpighi, at 

 the close of the seventeenth century, became so completely 

 lost to science in the eighteenth, that in the beginning of 

 the present century, even the most excellent observers did 

 not by a long way attain to the rank of Malpighi in all 

 points. The following Essay, however, will, among others, 

 bear testimony how a scientific treatment of Botany a 

 treatment which shall be more than an empty, fruitless, 

 wilderness of names committed to memory can scarcely be 

 thought of without an almost constant employment of the 

 microscope. Hither has the whole new direction of science 

 turned, and names like Robert Brown, Brisseau-Mirbel, 

 Amici and Mohl, mark the commencement of a new and 

 richly-blessed epoch. 



