no HISTORY OF BOTANY 



Organology or " the doctrine of the life of the whole 

 plant and of its particular organs." These successive 

 " Books " are well worth perusal even at the present 

 day, not only as giving us an insight into the condition 

 of botanical knowledge eighty years ago, but also as 

 providing us with a resum of the views of many authors 

 precedent to or contemporary with Schleiden, and with 

 the author's criticisms of their achievements criti- 

 cisms often couched in the most scathing and uncom- 

 promisingly hostile phraseology. I will quote to you a 

 few sentences from Schleiden's fourth " Book/' which 

 I think will explain exactly the general attitude he took 

 up with regard to both older and contemporary work, 

 an attitude whose bluntly critical and fearlessly an- 

 tagonistic expression created quite an insurrection among 

 the botanists of his day. 



" If we consider the attempts that have hitherto been 

 made to subject the life of plants to scientific observa- 

 tion, we shall find that all those who have conducted 

 them have brought to their works groundless prejudices, 

 and, following the old beaten track, have not even paused 

 to inquire whether or not it were right, and whether or 

 not their prejudices were just ; and they have even taken 

 these latter as leading maxims to form the basis of all 

 their investigations. I have already discussed the fanciful 

 analogy between the physiology of animals and of plants. 

 In consequence of the use of this absurd analogy, almost 

 all the works which have hitherto appeared on vegetable 

 physiology are perfectly worthless, for in no instance 

 have they adopted the only true fundamental position, 

 namely, the essential peculiarity of vegetable life ; nay, 

 the larger number of writers have not even given a 

 comprehensive view of the facts already known, as such 

 would have destroyed their assumed principles. Each 

 branch of natural science, if it would lay claim to such 

 name, must have its own peculiar independent principle 

 of development, which must be drawn from its own 



