CURRENT LITERATURE 
BOOK REVIEWS 
A history of botany 
In considering a work professedly containing selections from the contributors 
to botany,’ it is important to discover the reasons for the choice. Professor 
GREENE states that it is not his purpose to write a history of botany, or to treat 
in chronological succession of those who have upbuilt the science. As the intro- 
duction discusses a “philosophy of botanical history,’ the author’s point of 
view may be looked for there 
There have been famous eee on the philosophy of history, but there has 
_ been so little agreement that some are skeptical as to its reality. The author 
illustrates this from botanical writers, and concludes that “everyone may be 
permitted to have his own philosophy.” He proceeds to state his own in the 
following words: ‘‘Upon the historian of botany’ it seems to devolve that he shall 
have some forecast of what botany in its perfection as a science shall be like; for 
in practice he sits in judgment on each epoch and decides whether as an epoch its 
tendency was more to the advancement of the science or to its retardation; from 
which kind of procedure it becomes certain that some ideal of perfection is in his 
mind.” What the ideal is in this history may be inferred from the closing para- . 
graph of the introduction: ‘I am unwilling to conclude this introduction without 
tepeating it, that the essence and substance of botany proper are organography 
and the logical deductions that we draw from organography. They may not be 
Said to be the whole of the science, yet duly and comprehensively considered they 
will be found to come near it. The line of development of organography— 
organography as necessarily including terminology—is that along which a truly 
coherent and philosophic history of botany must needs be written.” It is legiti- 
mate to ask how far the subjective is involved in this, and how it may shape the 
ideal of the historian. The work gives evidence throughout that the taxonomic 
features of botany and the related subjects receive the fullest treatment. Organog- 
raphy comes to its own in systematic botany. No fault can be found with this 
in itself, for each man should do what he is best qualified to do by training and 
experience. But when we deal with history as such, there is danger of confusing 
the advocate and the historian. 
Considerable pains are taken to show that classifying is a very ancient process, 
REENE, Epwarp Lrg, Landmarks of botanical history. A study of certain 
asa in the development of the science of botany. Part I, Prior to 1562 A.D. 8vo. 
PP- 329. Published by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington. 1909. 
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