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What is Botany? 
The phases that we have here gone through have all been focussed 
upon the normal healthy plant as subject-matter but, as phases 
of human outlook, they should, if soundly drawn up, repeat them¬ 
selves and be equally valid even if one set out to exemplify the 
whole of botanical science on one group only of plants, as for 
instance, Algae or Fungi. 
IX. The Last Phase. To cast a glance much further ahead, 
what may we imagine botanical outlook and teaching to be when 
every biological phenomenon has been considered to the full both 
in its historical and functional aspects ? 
When our knowledge becomes quantitative and completed 
botany may in great part look like a special branch of applied 
mathematics. An attempt might then be made to set out the life of 
the plant in terms of chemical dynamics for the single functioning 
unit, in statistical form for aggregates of units, and as correlation- 
coefficients for the influence of the environment. Meanwhile there 
would be an infinite number of biological constants to be determined 
for different plants. 
Though most of us feel relieved to think that this phase is still 
infinitely remote and that the atmosphere of mystery and ignorance 
is left to fascinate us, it must be recognised that there is already 
enough mathematical treatment of biological phenomena to call for 
a sound understanding of certain sides of mathematics as part of the 
equipment of students who hope to go far with work on the living 
plant. 
The only compensation that this last phase could bring would be 
that the power of man had increased as greatly as his knowledge, 
and that vegetation had become as plastic in his hands as the 
inorganic is now. 
^ 5jc 
What light do we gain by thus setting out the science of botany 
as a series of shifting phases of development, each of which has its 
infancy, its period of growth and dominance when vigorous additions 
to knowledge are being made, and then tends to yield diminishing 
returns to further research, leaving finally a definite corpus of 
t ruths of structure, function or relationship as a permanent 
addition to the Pantheon of Botanical Science. 
The steady drift of phases makes it clear that no one of the 
federated sections can expect to take precedence of the other sections 
on grounds of an absolute nature, which will be valid through all 
time. At any epoch there will be some older sections that can claim 
