428 RELATION OF PLANT PHYSIOLOGY TO OTHER SCIENCES. 



been made by the academical senate during the preceding collegiate 

 year for a celebration worthy of this rare occasion. 



But the jubilation of the anniversary has suddenly turned to deep 

 sadness. We still stand under the dazing influence of the horrible 

 deed by which our noble Empress was torn from us, and we sorrow 

 deeply with our sorely tried august Monarch, to whom we all owe so 

 much, and not least our university. 



During the more than five hundred years of its existence, the 

 University of Vienna has passed through no more brilliant epoch than 

 the half century just closing. We are surrounded by speaking wit- 

 nesses — the building in which we gather for work and for celebration, 

 the grandest palace that was ever built for a university, and a corps of 

 instruction which is scarcely rivaled in the whole world. 



Most of the professorships and our university institute were founded 

 during the reign of our present Emperor, including the professorship 

 which has been intrusted to me — exactly a cpuarter of a century. This 

 was the first regular professorship of plant anatomy and physiology, 

 not only in Austria, but above all, in any university. 



In following the time honored requirement of delivering a lecture in 

 the field of one's specialty upon the occasion of entering into the new 

 office, two themes especially present themselves — the development of 

 plant physiology and its present status. Since both subjects have been 

 recently and thoroughly discussed, I have decided to take for the sub- 

 ject of my present address one allied to and scarcely less interesting 

 than those, namely, "The relation of plant physiology to the other 

 sciences." 



In the narrow limits of the time allotted to me I can only attempt 

 to sketch in a few strokes the essential features in the reciprocal action 

 between plant physiology on the one side, and on the other side other 

 natural sciences and the social and mental sciences, and to make clear 

 that plant physiology represents not merely a branch for a few special- 

 ists, but that it is aided in its advance by the other sciences; that in 

 turn it contributes to advancement in A T arious fields of science and 

 X^ractical life, and, finally, that it reaches out as a many-branched whole 

 into the Universitas literarum. 



In my present address I shall use the term "plant physiology" in its 

 broadest sense, as the whole system of teaching relative to the structure, 

 development, and life of plants. 



Like all other sciences, plant physiology has developed in response 

 to the demands of life. As physics and chemistry had their basis in 

 the industries, so plant physiology grew by each experience gath- 

 ered from agriculture, horticulture, and sylviculture. Even if the origin 

 of plant physiology be not historically demonstrable as a result of the 

 demands of practical life, still a portion of our terminology would bear 

 witness to the correctness of the assumption. Expressions like grow, 

 blossom, and graft, designations such as leaf, stem, and root, were not 



