2 INTRODUCTION. 



them, dries and wraps them up in paper, and whose whole 

 wisdom is expended in the determination and classification 

 of this ingeniously collected hay. This portrait of the 

 Botanist was, alas ! once true, but it pains me to observe, 

 that now, when it bears resemblance to so few, it is still held 

 fast to by very many persons ; and I have sought, therefore, 

 in the present discourses, to bring within the sphere of 

 general comprehension, the more important problems of 

 the real science of Botany, to point out how closely it is 

 connected with almost all the most abstruse branches 

 of philosophy and natural science, and to show how 

 almost every fact or larger group of facts tends, as well 

 in Botany as in every other branch of human activity, 

 to suggest the most earnest and weighty questions, 

 and to carry mankind forward beyond the possessions of 

 sense, to the anticipations of the spirit. 



If, through my efforts, the reader of these sketches shall 

 hereafter hold a worthier opinion of Botany, and the 

 Botanist shall form a more accurate conception of the 

 compass and objects of our Science, I shall be content. 

 Should they excite an interest for Botany itself in a wider 

 circle, should one or other reader be led by my words to 

 wish to penetrate further into these so agreeable and so 

 inexhaustible questions, my desires will be more than 

 accomplished. 



A few words more, as to the mode of treatment of the 

 subject may here find place. True to my own convictions, 

 I have kept free from all the pratings of the physiophilo- 

 sophers of the Schelling school, and I am firmly persuaded, 

 that Science has no need of these fopperies to make it 

 appear interesting to the uninitiated. Humboldt in his 

 Views of Nature, Dove in his masterly Lectures on the 

 Climate of Berlin, have proved that science may really 



