694 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST.  [Vou. XXXII. 
nists snap off their pictures, they will undoubtedly look back 
with pity, if not with contempt, on our faded and indistinct 
productions. 
Whether or not species really exist in nature is a question 
which may be left to philosophy. Our so-called species are 
only attempts to arrange groups of individual plants according 
to the best light we have at the moment, knowing that when 
more is known about them our species will be remodeled. We 
should not allow ourselves to be deluded by the hope of finding 
absolute standards, but it should be our object to arrange what 
is really known, so that it can be easily grasped and utilized. 
Utility may, perhaps, sound strange, and may seem to some to 
be a very low aim in science, but in the end utility will carry 
the day in this case, for systematic botany is a means, not an 
end. Its true object should be to map out the vegetable king- 
dom in such a way that all known plants are grouped as clearly 
and distinctly as possible, in order that the horticulturist, 
the forester, the physiologist, may be able to obtain the facts 
needed by them in their work. Our present knowledge may 
not be sufficient to enable us to draw all the contours sharply, 
or to lay down accurately all the lines, but our work certainly 
should not be blurred by subtleties and purely metaphysical 
refinements. The best systematist is not he who attempts to 
make his species conform to what he believes to be the ideal 
of nature, but he who, availing himself of all the information 
which the histology, embryology, and ecology of the day can 
furnish, defines his species within broad rather than narrow 
limits, in clear and sharply cut words which can be readily 
comprehended and do not force one to resort to original and 
perhaps single specimens to learn what the author of the 
species really meant. 
The end which we all wish ultimately to reach is a knowledge 
of how living plants act; but in the process of obtaining this 
knowledge it is necessary to call to our aid not only the physi- 
ologist, but also the systematist and the paleontologist; for 
there are many questions ultimately to be settled by the phy si- 
ologist for which the information furnished by the systematist 
must serve as a basis, and the geological succession must be 
