1gtt] COWLES—VEGETATIVE CYCLES 165 
France it was observed that BUFFON was trespassing on theological 
grounds, and he was obliged to recant any views which implied that - 
the world was not made in the beginning once for all; in Sweden 
the influence of LinNaEvs was wholly against anything dynamic; 
he never published anything dynamic himself, and when a student 
like BrBere set his face in that direction, the master frowned, and 
said that the student was departing from the true mission of the 
botanist. It is not strange, therefore, that there followed a sterile 
period of three-quarters of a century. Yet it was within this 
period that plant geography was first recognized as a definite branch 
of science, for this was the period of Humsorprt. This also was the 
period of Joacuim ScHouw, who published the first general plant 
Seography, and of the older DECANDOLLE, who gave the weight 
of his great name to several important treatises in the new subject. 
But none of these men, not even HUMBOLDT, were permeated with 
the dynamic principle, so far at least as plant geography is concerned. 
They placed descriptive plant geography on a solid foundation, 
and gave it such momentum that for a full century it dominated 
the entire field of plant geography; indeed in certain places it 
dominates plant geography today. 
France, so often the birthplace of great ideas, gave the pendulum 
an impulse in the right direction. The sane influence of BUFFON 
had not altogether been suppressed by the theologians, and finally 
there arose such men as Jusstev, who introduced a flexible natural 
system of plant classification, which finally displaced the rigid 
artificial system of Luynarus, thus making possible the develop- 
ment of evolutionary theories; such men as LaPLAcE, who con- 
ceived a theory of planetary evolution, thus making possible the 
development of evolutionary theories in other lines of science; 
and such men as Lamarck and Grorrroy STE. HILaiRE, who pro- 
Pounded evolutionary theories in biology. The birth of dynamical 
conceptions in France a century ago rejuvenated science through- 
Cut Europe, making possible the development of a LyELL and a 
Darwin. It also made possible the development of a dynamic 
trend in the new science of plant geography, though, as previously 
hoted, the momentum given to descriptive geography was too 
8reat readily to be overcome. 
