CHAPTEK XIX 
BOTANY : ITS POSITION AND PROSPECTS IN THE FIFTIES 
Hooker had long been conscious that something was wrong 
with the state of botanical science, in England especially. 
Physiology appHed to plant Hfe, as to animal Hfe, was making 
fruitful discoveries. But systematic botany had almost ex- 
hausted the Linnsean and post-Linnsean impulse. The more 
nearly the Natural System of Classification initiated by De 
Jussieu and elaborated by De Candolle completed the catalogu- 
ing and classifying work along established lines, which seemed 
to be its sole remaining function, the more nearly it reached 
a sterile completeness. Schleiden in 1842 saw that Botany 
as an Inductive science must rest upon research into develop- 
ment and embryology. But these morphological studies 
with their comparison of structures which pointed to living 
Hnes of natural affinity, stood apart from systematic botany 
as a separate disciphne. Though material was thus being 
laid up for a theory of descent, the doctrine of origins was 
still bound up with the traditional cosmogony. Eesearch was 
cramped by the heavy hand of fundamental theory. It led 
seemingly to no promised land of science ; no new vivifying 
principle which should reveal the clue to those perplexing 
problems in the affinities and distribution of plants, to which 
no rational and satisfactory answer was forthcoming on the 
old Hnes. 
The search for novelties loomed too large ; in the absence 
of good organisation between botanists, mere species-mongering 
had led to unspeakable confusion and overlapping. Observers 
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