TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 841 



vegetable kingdom, might be presented to the eye in a fascinating way in a 

 carefully arranged museum. The most successful and, indeed, almost the only 

 attempt which has been made in this direction is that at Cambridge, which, I 

 believe, is due to Mr. Gardiner. But our technical methods for preserving speci- 

 mens still leave much to desire. Something more satisfactory will, it may be 

 hoped, some day be devised, and the whole subject is one which is well worth the 

 careful consideration of our Section. Henslow at least effected a vast improve- 

 ment in the mode of displaying botanical objects ; and a collection prepared by his- 

 own hands, which was exhibited at one of the Paris exhibitions, excited the warm 

 admiration of the French botanists, who always appreciate the clear illustration of 

 morphological facts. 



Old School of Natubal Histoet, 



If the old school of natural history of which Henslow in his day was a living 

 spirit is at present, as seems to be the case, continually losing its hold upon us,, 

 this has certainly not been due to its want of value as an educational discipline, or 

 to its sterility in contributing new ideas to human knowledge. Darwin's ' Origin 

 of Species ' may certainly be regarded as its offspring, and of this Huxley ' says 

 with justice : ' It is doubtful if any single book, except the " Principia," ever 

 worked so great and rapid a revolution in science, or made so deep an impression 

 on the general mind.' Yet Darwin's biographer, in that admirable Life which ranks 

 with the few really great biographies in our language, remarks (i. 165) : * In reading 

 his books one is reminded of the older naturalists rather than of the modern school 

 of writers. He was a naturalist in the old sense of the word, that is, a man who- 

 works at many branches of science, not merely a specialist in one.' This is no 

 doubt true, but does not exactly hit off the distinction between the kind of study 

 which has gone out of fashion and that which has come in. The older workers 

 in biology were occupied mainly with the external or, at any rate, grosser features 

 of organisms and their relation to surrounding conditions ; the modern, on the- 

 other hand, are engaged on the study of internal and intimate structure. Work in 

 the laboratory, with its necessary limitations, takes the place of research in the- 

 field. One may almost, in fact, say that the use of the compound microscope divides- 

 the two classes. Asa Gray has compared Robert Brown with Darwin as the * two 

 British naturaUsts ' who have, ' more than any others, impressed their influence- 

 upon science in the nineteenth century.' - Now it is noteworthy that Robert 

 Brown did all his work with a simple microscope. And Francis Darwin writes of 

 his father : ' It strikes us nowadays as extraordinary that he should have had no- 

 compound microscope when he went his "Beagle " voyage ; but in this he followed. 

 the advice of Robert Brown, who was an authority on such matters ' (i. 145). One- 

 often meets with persons, and sometimes of no small eminence, who speak as if there- 

 were some necessary antagonism between the old and the new studies. Thus I 

 have heard a distinguished systematist describe the microscope as a curse, and a 

 no less distinguished morphologist speak of a herbarium having its proper place on a 

 bonfire. To me I confess this anathematisation of the instruments of research proper 

 to any branch of our subject is not easily intelligible. Yet in the case of Darwin 

 himself it is certain that if his earlier work may be said to rest solely on the older- 

 methods, his later researches take their place with the work of the new schooL 

 At our last meeting Pfeft'er vindicated one of his latest and most important 

 observations. 



The case of Robert Brown is even more striking. He is equally great whether 

 we class him with the older or the modern school. In fact, so far as botany in 

 this country is concerned, he may be regarded as the founder of the latter. It is- 

 to him that we owe the establishment of the structure of the ovule and its develop- 

 ment into the seed. Even more important were the discoveries to which I have- 

 already referred, which ultimately led to the establishment of the group of Gymno- 

 sperms. 'No more important discovery,' says Sachs,^ 'was ever made in the 

 domain of comparative morphology and systematic botany. The first steps towards- 

 this result, which was clearly brought out by Hofmeister twenty-five years later^ 



• Proc, U.S., xliv. xvii. = JVature, x. 80. ' History, 142. 



