TORREYA 



May, 1908 

 Vol. 8. No. 5. 



BOTANY.* LiBRAP 



NEW 



By Herbert Maule Richards. 



'.<»■' 



As you have heard in previous lectures, there is an increasing 

 tendency on the part of biologists to segregate less sharply 

 the physiological and morphological fields of work, to take a 

 broader view not only of the content but also of the methods of 

 the two branches of biological investigation. It must not be 

 supposed, however, that in this tendency towards cooperation 

 there is a return to omniscience of the type of the old-time natu- 

 ralist, who by reason of the lack of detail was able to consider 

 himself proficient in many branches of science. The modern 

 morphologist must still be a morphologist, and the physiologist 

 a physiologist, only he has a broader point of view and does not 

 hesitate to avail himself of the cognate branches of his science, 

 or of any other science, where he feels that he can further the 

 aims of his researches ; he is an eclectic and picks that which 

 will serve to advance his work along the most fruitful lines. 



Almost any investigation of wide scope is in these days an 

 example of this improved attitude, but no other perhaps illus- 

 trates so conclusively what may be called the highest type of 

 modern research as does the development of the Mutation The- 

 ory first propounded by de Vries. What de Vries has really 

 done is to bring within the range of experimental proof certain 

 questions which heretofore have been regarded as matters of ob- 

 servation and speculation alone. From this point, which might 

 be said to have had its origin in the acuteness of observation of 

 the taxonomist and morphologist, the physiological trend has 



^ * A lecture delivered at Columbia University in the Series of Science, Philosophy, 

 0. and Art, December 4, 1907, copyrighted and published by the Columbia University 

 Press, February, 1908, and reprinted by permission in Torreya, beginning with the 

 ^j^ March number, 

 s^ [No. 4, Vol. 8, of Torreya, comprising pages 65-92, was issued April 29, 1908.] 



$ 93 



