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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 785 



what liis treatment of the problem was to be. 

 He has chosen to bring before his readers the 

 lives and teachings of botanists, and neces- 

 sarily he must choose those who have con- 

 tributed to the upbuilding of the science. 

 This treatment is in sharp contrast with the 

 chronological method in which each botanist 

 is taken up in his proper place, and his various 

 publications cited, much as they are in a pub- 

 lisher's descriptive book list. It is also quite 

 different from the treatment made familiar to 

 us by the well-known history of botany written 

 by the late Professor Sachs, in which the devel- 

 opment of each department of botany is traced 

 consecutively and consistently. In the latter 

 treatment the subject is so emphasized that 

 the men themselves fall somewhat into the 

 shadow; we think of how this or that part of 

 the science developed, but largely overlook the 

 personal element as represented by the men 

 by whose labors the development took place. 

 By the one method we have a work on botany 

 in which the present condition of each part 

 of the science is accurately given, and we are 

 shown by what steps this condition was 

 reached. In this treatment the botanists are 

 but the workmen who have helped to build the 

 edifice of science; they are important only as 

 they have added stones to its structure, and 

 while the historian mentions their names, 

 these are wholly secondary, and may be for- 

 gotten in our admiration of the aggregate 

 result of their work. By the other method we 

 are brought to consider the workmen who have 

 labored upon the edifice; how they worked; 

 how they succeeded in their endeavors; how 

 they failed here and there, and why they 

 failed, as well as why they succeeded. By this 

 treatment we learn not only what progress was 

 made in the upbuilding of the science, but also 

 how it was made. For the botanist who wishes 

 merely to know the material of the edifice, the 

 method of Sachs is preferred, but for the 

 investigator who desires to know the condi- 

 tions under which his predecessors did their 

 work the other method is indispensable. 



As indicated above, Dr. Greene has chosen 

 to write his history so as to place the emphasis 

 first upon the men who have worked in botany. 



It is thus a very human book, and as one 

 reads the biographies of the men he has se- 

 lected a vivid picture is presented of their 

 lives and their labors, as well as their environ- 

 ment. As one reads he gets some idea of the 

 atmosphere in which men lived, and he appre- 

 ciates all the more the difficulties they en- 

 countered, and the meaning of success in their 

 particular environment. 



It is understood that this history—" Land- 

 marks " — wiU cover several volumes, and cer- 

 tainly if one may judge of the succeeding 

 volumes by the first there can be no question 

 as to the desirability of continuing the work 

 as it has been begun. It opens with a most 

 readable and suggestive preface, in which the 

 author gives his definition of botany — as that 

 science " that occupies itself with the contem- 

 plation of plant as related to plant, and with 

 the whole vegetable kingdom as viewed philo- 

 sophically — not economically or commercially 

 — in its relation to the mineral on the one 

 hand, and to the animal on the other." It is, 

 however, distinctly set forth that to the bot- 

 anist all matters relating to plants must be 

 of interest, and he has clearly no sympathy 

 with those who would close their eyes to the 

 industrial relations of the science. He goes 

 so far, even, as to include as " essentially 

 botanical " those philosophic ideas, though 

 crude or erroneous, about the vegetable king- 

 dom as a whole or in part which may occur 

 to " the farmer, the woodsman and the primi- 

 tive pharmacist " and others who have much 

 to do with plants industrially. With this lib- 

 eral interpretation no broadly trained botanist 

 will find fault, nor should the workers in agri- 

 culture, forestry and other allied subjects 

 object to this inclusion of the philosophical 

 aspects of these phases of plant study. 



The introduction, covering about thirty 

 pages and devoted to The Philosophy of Bo- 

 tanical History, is well worth reading, since it 

 is full of suggestions, some of which we should 

 like to quote if there were space to do so. The 

 root-gatherers (" Ehizotomi ") " mostly illit- 

 erate men and quacks," who preceded Aristotle 

 and Theophrastus, receive liberal treatment in 

 a short chapter. This is followed (chapter 



