OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY 

 OF BOTANY 



LECTURE I 



INTRODUCTORY 



DURING the past two years, in the laboratory and in the 

 field, you have been studying the structure and functions 

 of plants, and, in the library and in the lecture room, you 

 have become acquainted with some of the more theo- 

 retical and speculative aspects of the science of botany, 

 as well as with the views of recognised authorities on the 

 subjects you yourselves have been investigating. From 

 time to time I have drawn your attention to the parts 

 played by certain great men of past generations in the 

 development of an idea, or in the discovery of some fact 

 or law, jealously concealed by Nature from the unin- 

 quisitive or unsympathetic eye, and you have thus come 

 to realise, more or less consciously, that the science itself 

 has had a history, in the making of which many have 

 co-operated, some largely, some modestly, but each 

 contributing his fragment to the building of the whole. 

 In this course of lectures I propose to sketch the story 

 in a somewhat more connected form, to show you how 

 the various aspects of botanical science first came to be 

 appreciated, and how these aspects are related the one 

 to the other. I hope also to present you with an estimate, 

 of necessity a purely personal one, of the relative values 

 of the labours carried out by the men of the past, and, 



