PREFACE II 



any such thing as a complete and faithful history of any period 

 when once that period is past. It was as realizing this, and also 

 as wishing to avoid presumptuousness, that the present writer 

 declined to undertake a history of botany and chose the title of 

 " Landmarks " as permitting him to evade the responsibilities of the 

 consecutive historian, and leaving him free to bring into clearer 

 light — and especially for study on the part of American botanists — 

 the lives and teachings of those and those only among botanists of 

 the past whose names are more familiar. This plan bears on its 

 face the appearance of an easier task, and such it really is; though 

 that it is a less responsible undertaking may be doubted; tor in 

 this case quite as in the other, one must everywhere investigate 

 individual merit, which is less apt to exist in proportion to a man's 

 great contemporaneous popularity than in the inverse ratio of it. 

 It will indeed be found to have happened now and then that the 

 genius who has discovered principles has also elucidated them, ap- 

 plied them to the construction of a system, and gained for himself 

 and his principles the credit and the honor that were due; 

 but perhaps rather more commonly the genius discovering prin- 

 ciples has but quietly made the simple announcement of them^ 

 has died scarcely honored, and has been almost forgotten, when 

 some other, just far enough above mediocrity to see the value of the 

 principles, and possessing industry and ambition to bring them 

 forth and build on them the system which the principles themselves 

 suggest, gets the credit of the whole, is thought to have created the 

 epoch, and enjoys the fame. But the annalist who leaves all these 

 things as he finds them, reiterating popular laudation of the parasitic 

 propagandist, and burying inventive genius yet more deeply in 

 oblivion, deplorably falsifies history. Quite as little does he de- 

 serve the name of historian if his mistakes in this regard be those 

 of ignorance; if they come of his having failed to discover merit 

 because of its having lain under the pall of forgetfulness for a cen- 

 tury or two. 



The historian who is both conscientious and discreet will give 

 small heed to popular opinion about any particular man or epoch. 

 Neither the adulation of the multitude is of any profound import, 

 nor its voiceless indifference. Its outspoken opposition and de- 

 nunciation may even be the highest praise. Such being any 

 writer's estimate of popular opinion regarding botanical eras past, 

 his readers will be surprised neither by chapters that are icono- 

 clastic, nor by such paragraphs as reveal immortal honors due to 

 men whose names had almost faded from the roll of fame. 



