May 22, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



739 



gradual development, and since the laws 

 governing them are not sufficiently well 

 understood, these processes have played a 

 small part in the advancement of industry. 

 We have no choice, for the most part, but 

 to accept such products as the plant may 

 yield, instead of being able either to fully 

 control its activities, or having discovered 

 the secret of its processes, to utilize them 

 in the direct production of desired mate- 

 rials. The problems here involved are 

 fundamental in character and can be solved 

 only by scientific research of the highest 

 order. It is not a question of applied sci- 

 ence, but a search for the underlying prin- 

 ciples which may lead to a full under- 

 standing of the functioning of plants, and 

 the scientific worker who achieves success 

 in this field will not only make a note- 

 worthy contribution to science itself, but 

 will also make possible profound and ad- 

 vantageous changes in the world of indus- 

 trial affairs. 



No less important than the investiga- 

 tion of the processes of plants themselves 

 is the study of the processes by which they 

 have come to be what they are. In this lies 

 one of the most fundamental problems of 

 modem botany, a problem which involves 

 no less than the ultimate elucidation of the 

 laws which have determined the evolution 

 of the vegetable kingdom. The successful 

 solution of this problem promises results 

 of profound significance, and advanced 

 workers in this line of botanical activity 

 have predicted that the time is almost at 

 hand when our present system of classi- 

 fying plants will be supplanted through 

 "the discovery of a system which shall 

 depict plants in their evolutionary se- 

 quence. ' ' 



The botany of the future will be more 

 and more concerned with a study of the 

 very recent stages in the descent of the 

 living flora, and there can be no doubt that 



this line of research will be greatly stimu- 

 lated by economic considerations. The 

 efforts to bring under control those proc- 

 esses by means of which improved species 

 or varieties may be originated, will lead 

 to a much wider study of plants, and to a 

 critical study of their relatives from widely 

 separated situations. In arboretums and 

 botanic gardens as well as in the great 

 herbariums there will be brought together 

 collections of materials for use in the in- 

 vestigation of genetic relationships. For 

 the future, it is not too much to hope or 

 expect that in proportion as our knowledge 

 of these relationships increases correspond- 

 ing advances will be made toward a solu- 

 tion of some of the complex problems of 

 evolution and heredity. 



It is a social obligation of the botanist 

 to be efficient. Stein^ in his brilliant work 

 on the philosophy of society observes that 

 "The sense of obligation can never be 

 derived from biology." It would seem to 

 be self-evident that the complex facts of 

 human life and experience can not be 

 rightly interpreted by the same natural 

 laws which govern the growth and develop- 

 ment of a biological organism, although the 

 latter view has not been without its ex- 

 ponents and followers. But public opinion, 

 though long suffering, can not be depended 

 upon to forever countenance those scientific 

 workers whose attitude toward society is 

 expressed by the old doctrine, "mind your 

 own business," and whose rule of conduct 

 recognizes no influence or appeal that lies 

 beyond the limits of their science. The 

 service of highest efficiency, however, will 

 be rendered by those who through experi- 

 ment, observation and generalization, suc- 

 ceed in dispelling the mists of shadowy 

 suggestion which have prevented a clear 

 view of many facts of nature, and who at 



3 Stein, ' ' Die soziale Frage im Lichte der Phi- 

 losophie," 1897, s. 222. 



