Skptembke 30, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



435 



«iit knowledge may not be sufiBoient to en- 

 able us to draw all the contours sharply or 

 to lay down accurately all the lines, but our 

 work certainly should not be blurred by 

 subtleties and purely metaphysical refine- 

 ments. The best systematist is not he who 

 attempts to make his species conform to 

 what he believes to be the ideal of nature, 

 but he who, availing himself of all the in- 

 formation which the histology, embryology 

 and ecology of the day can furnish, defines 

 his species, within broad rather than nar- 

 row limits, in clear and sharply cut words 

 which can be readily comprehended and do 

 not force one to resort to original and per- 

 haps single specimens to learn what the 

 author of the species really meant. 



The end which we all wish ultimately to 

 Teach is a knowledge of how living plants 

 act, but in the process of obtaining this 

 knowledge it is necessary to call to our aid 

 not only the physiologist, but also the sys- 

 tematist and the paleontologist, for there 

 are many questions ultimately to be settled 

 by the physiologist for which the informa- 

 tion furnished by the systematist must serve 

 as a basis, and the geological succession 

 must be supposed to throw some light on 

 present conditions. It is no disparagement 

 to systematic botany to say that it should 

 look towards physiology as its necessary 

 supplement, for, on the other hand, physiol- 

 ogy must lean on systematic botany in at- 

 tempting to solve many of its problems, and 

 the scientific basis of both rests on histol- 

 ogy, morphology, in the modern sense, and 

 embryology. The qualifications needed in 

 a physiologist are so different from those 

 required in a systematist that no one is 

 warranted in speaking of oae as of a higher 

 grade than the other. If it has become the 

 fashion in some quarters to assign the sys- 

 tematist to a secondary place it cannot be 

 attributed to the fact that his work is 

 necessarily inferior in quality, but is 

 rather due to the fact that, in too many 



cases, systematists have failed to recognize 

 what should be the legitimate aim of their 

 work. 



The utilitarian tendency is well shown 

 by what has been said in speaking of bac- 

 teria and Saccharomycetes. Did time per- 

 mit, and were the subject not one which 

 would not readily be followed with patience 

 by an audience at this late hour, other in- 

 stances, especially in Ustilaginacese, might 

 be given to illustrate further the point in 

 question. The bacteriologist bases his 

 species on grounds which he thinks best 

 suited to enable him to group together in- 

 telligently the plants he is studying, and it 

 is nothing to him that others say that his 

 species are not species, but races. After 

 all, the question whether certain forms are 

 to be considered species or races is in many 

 cases merely a question of how much or 

 how little we know about them. The races 

 of one generation of botanists often become 

 the species of the next generation, who, as 

 they study them more minutely and care- 

 fully, discover constant marks not previ- 

 ously recognized. As systematic botany 

 develops in the future it may very well be- 

 come the study of races rather than species, 

 as we now consider them. In some cases, 

 as in the Uredinacese, the time may be not 

 far distant when this condition of things 

 will be reached. We also feel warranted in 

 believing that hereafter physiological char- 

 acters will assume even a greater importance 

 than at present in the characterization of 

 species. If there are some among my hear- 

 ers who do not agree with me as to the im- 

 portance to be attached to utility, I think 

 that we shall all agree that in discussing the 

 work of botanists in other departments than 

 our own it would not be wise to exact a 

 rigid conformity to our individual con- 

 ceptions of species as distinguished from 

 races. 



W. G. Faelow. 



Haevaed Univeesity. 



