SECTION K.—BOTANY. 
THE ADVANCEMENT OF BOTANY. 
ADDRESS BY 
PROF. T. G. HILL, D.8c., A.R.CS., F.L8., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
My first duty is an act of piety: the commemoration of our fellow 
botanists who have died since the last meeting of the British Association. 
Martinus Willem Beyerinck ; Thomas Ford Chipp; Heinrich Gustav 
Adolf Engler; Jakob Eriksson; Thore Christian Elias Fries ; Emil 
Godlewski; Hans Kniep; Rudolf Marloth; Spencer le Marchant 
Moore; Charles Edward Moss; Sergius Navaschine; Carl Emil Hansen 
Ostenfeldt and Richard von Wettstein. 
Give Honour to their Memory. 
My predecessors in this Chair have, for the most part, concerned 
themselves in their presidential addresses with those aspects of botany 
in which they were investigators. On this occasion, however, I am taking 
the risk of breaking the tradition, and this for two reasons: my imme- 
diate interests are rather too specialised for a general audience; and 
secondly, this is a special occasion, a centenary meeting, and therefore 
calls for some review of the past, a wholesome thing now and then to do. 
But for an hour’s discourse the volume of literature is overwhelming ; 
I shall, therefore, only attempt to give in outline mine own impressions. 
In considering the history of botany, there would appear to be four 
epochs: the first of sporadic and unco-ordinated investigations, often of 
first-rate importance; the second, the development of morphology and 
physiology ; the third, the renaissance in Britain; and the fourth, the 
post-war epoch. Thus do I propose to order my Address ; lightly touch- 
ing the first phase by way of introduction, and continuing certain aspects 
of the succeeding epochs forward when the occasion demands. 
INTRODUCTION. 
It has been said that research had to await the printing press, since 
the circulation of observations, deductions and ideas is the greatest 
stimulant to enquiry; this is but part of the truth. Advance in know- 
ledge of the physical sciences was only possible when reason and liberty 
grew stronger than faith and discipline, and for this cause scientific 
research did not come effectively into being until the seventeenth century. 
Systematic botany slowly but continuously advanced to our own times, 
had the fates been kinder to Commerson its momentum would have been 
greater ; but morphology, in the broad sense of the term, and physiology 
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