PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 115 



higher manifestations of life. Ethics came next, aDd social organi- 

 zations; then anthropological questions were opened, and next those 

 of physiology and anatomy, and at last comparative anatomy and 

 structural zoology. Phytology brought up the rear and was long 

 confined to the most superficial aspects. It is only in recent times 

 that plants and all the other lowly organisms have begun to 

 receive ' proper attention, and only since this has been done has 

 there been made any real progress in solving the problem of Biol- 

 ogy- 

 It is a paradox in science that its most complicated forms must 



first be studied and its simplest forms last, while only through an 

 acquaintance with the latter can a fundamental knowledge be ob- 

 tained. The history of biological science furnishes many striking 

 illustrations of this truth, the most interesting of which is perhaps 

 to be found in the labors of the two great French savants, Cuvier 

 and Lamarck. The former spent his life and powers in the study 

 of vertebrate zoology amid the most complex living organisms. 

 The latter devoted his energies to Botany and to Invertebrate Zool- 

 ogy, including the protozoan and protistan kingdoms. The former 

 founded his great theory of types, and his cosmology of successive 

 annihilation and reconstructions of the life of the globe. The latter 

 promulgated his theory of unbroken descent with modification. 

 The conclusions of the former were accepted in his day, and are 

 rejected in ours, those of the latter were rejected in his own life- 

 time, but now form the very warp of scientific opinion. 



Let no botanist, therefore, or person contemplating the study of 

 Botany be deterred by the humble nature of the objects he would 

 cultivate. The humblest flower or coarsest weed may contain les- 

 sons of wisdom more profound than can be drawn from the most 

 complicated conditions of life or of mind. 



The city of Washington is becoming more and more a center, 

 not only of scientific learning and research, but also of art and 

 every form of liberal culture. Already the public schools have 

 reached out and taken Botany into their curriculum, and we have 

 seen that as a field for the pursuit of this branch of science the 

 environs of the National Capital are in a high degree adapted. 

 Science and culture must go hand in hand. Culture must become 

 more scientific, and science more cultured. Botany has an impor- 

 tant part to perform in this work of reconciliation, and there is no 

 good reason why Washington may not become one of the foci from 



