226 Philosophy of Botany. 



tion of our knowledge of the chemical nutrition of plants, 

 which Justus Liebig has recently elaborated and made the 

 basis of rational agriculture. 



To the edifice of scientific botany, as far as we have followed 

 it, contributed successfully all nations of Europe — Italians, 

 Englishmen, Netherlanders, Swedes, and Frenchmen ; the 

 latter, since the time of Louis XIV., conspicuously so through 

 works of great originality and importance. Germany, though, 

 had to some degree since the reformation ceased to take part 

 in the progressive development ; not for deficiency of opera- 

 tors, but for want of individual creative ideas, they ranked 

 second and third, treading in the footsteps of their foreign 

 neighbors. 



Last, during the reign of Frederick the Great, a turning 

 point is reached. The national spirit announces itself in a 

 vigorous onward push in novel paths. In science the flood 

 begins to swell ; higher and higher rises the wave of youthful 

 vigor, and like in a seasonable spring, all trees, one after the 

 other, become bedecked with flowers, thus likewise Germany 

 experiences a rapid development in all sciences, in literature, 

 music, and philosophy. 



About the time of the seven-years' war, Casper Frederic 

 Wolff originated biology, or the science of life, by his micro- 

 scopic researches, examining the development of animals 

 from the egg, and of leaves and flowers in the bud. Koehl- 

 reuter, Hedwig, and Conrad Sprengel disclosed, by clever ex- 

 periments and observations, the secret of the fertilization of 

 plants. In the nineteenth century scientific botany flourishes 

 in Germany as it never did before, and it is especially by the 

 agency of German students that botany now stands on an 

 equal footing with the other sciences which formerly ex- 

 celled it. 



Should the new departure in modern botany be brought in 

 connection with the name of any single man, no better one 

 can be chosen than Goethe. He does not rank with scientists 

 professionally considered, but nevertheless he was well versed 

 in those disciplines. Although an accurate observer, reflec- 

 tion overreached observation and poetry the thought, until 

 from the lovely flower of poetry matured the natural philoso- 



