140 HISTORY OF BOTANY 



Palaeophytology as an integral branch of botany 

 had scarcely got beyond the collection of certain in- 

 dependent data by men like Goeppert and Brongniart, 

 and taxonomists of living plants still ignored the existence 

 of fossil types. The section of botany we know under 

 the name of ecology had not of course come into being. 



The influence of Darwin's great generalisation was so 

 profound and cumulative in its effects that I find it 

 necessary to deal with the succeeding years of this history 

 on a plan somewhat different from that I have followed 

 up till now. Hitherto, as you may have noticed, each 

 epoch has been marked by the predominance of some 

 great name, such as that of Hales, Ray, Linnaeus, or 

 Ingen-Housz ; but after 1860 we are more concerned 

 with great ideas, in the establishment or advancement 

 of which many investigators took part. I think therefore 

 it will be preferable to follow out each of these ideas 

 separately, paying more attention to the phases through 

 which they passed than to the precise years in which the 

 successive advances took place. After all, the half century 

 following 1860 is almost a complete era in itself ; there 

 are no barren gaps in it ; research was continuous and 

 cumulative in every branch of the science. 



Perhaps the most noticeable feature is the gradual 

 linking together of the different departments of botany, 

 and the mutual help given by each to the others, dominated 

 by the central idea of the plant as a living organism 

 exhibiting progressive differentiation of structure with 

 physiological division of labour among its constituent 

 parts, and leading to the grouping of the varied forms 

 on a genuine phylogenetic basis. 



Another important development was the recognition 

 of the fact that botany as a science could not stand alone. 

 In its more strictly biological aspect it linked itself on to 

 zoology, and on its physiological side it demanded and 

 received the aid of physics and chemistry, while geology 

 was put under contribution not merely to determine the 



