BOOK I. 



THE ANATOMY OF PLANTS. 



Three men of genius, Grew, Malpighi, and Leuwenhoeck, 

 founded vegetable anatomy almost at the same time in 

 England, Italy, and Holland. Antiquity knew nothing 

 about it, for as it has only been with the aid of that grand 

 revealer, the microscope, that men have been able to 

 penetrate its hidden secrets, the discovery of this instru- 

 ment necessarily preceded that of the structure of plants. 



The microscope very soon taught us that the whole 

 vegetable edifice is built up from the cell, and that this is 

 only the creative element of the different organs of the 

 l^lant, notwithstanding their diversity. 



The cells represent little microscopic vesicles, at first 

 globular, but which by increase and mutual compression 

 become many-sided. And these elements, which conceal 

 themselves from our eyes, animated by an inconceivable 

 plastic force, and multiplying at a prodigious rate, cause 

 new worlds to arise. "Give me a lever and a fulcrum," said 

 Archimedes, "and I will lift the globe." M. Easpail, almost 

 paraphrasing the geometer of Syracuse, was able to say, 

 "Give me a living cellule and I will reproduce all creation." 



And indeed it is these cells, these living atoms, scarcely 



