UTILITY OF BOTANY. 57 



Boyle encountered in his researches on the elasticity 

 and pressure of the air, act as any obstacle to the 

 train of discovery which terminated in the steam- 

 enoine. The dreams of the alchemists led them on 

 in the path of experiment, and drew attention to the 

 wonders of chemistry, while they brought their advo- 

 cates (it must be admitted) to merited contempt and 

 ruin. But in this case it was moral dereliction 

 which gave to ridicule a weight and power not ne- 

 cessarily or naturally belonging to it : but among 

 the alchemists were men of superior minds, who 

 reasoned while they worked, and who, not content 

 to grope always in the dark, and blunder on their 

 subject, sought carefully in the observed nature of 

 their agents for guides in their pursuits ; — to these 

 we owe the creation of experimental philosophy." 



It perhaps would not have been amiss to have 

 begun this correspondence with the quotation I have 

 just made ; but I was anxious that a little interest 

 should be awakened in the subject before any thing 

 like a formal defence of its utility should be under- 

 taken by me. If I were disposed to add any Bota- 

 nical instance of important results arising from ap- 

 parently trifling causes, it would be easy enough to do 

 so. For instance, the microscopical investigations by 

 Grew of the nature and properties of the little cells 

 and bladders that are found beneath the skin of 

 plants, were the forerunners of all the valuable train 

 of physiological discoveries, by which the productive- 

 ness of the soil has been so much increased ; the cu- 

 rious but neglected inquiries of Kolreutcr into the 



