Botanical Letters to A Friend

Abstract

ABSTRACT Nothing distinguishes our age more than the tendency that exists on the part of those who cultivate Science to diffuse its truths as widely and extensively as possible. The age of conservation in science is. over, and the dream of those who would confine it to our universities, colleges, or royal societies, is for ever dispelled. Much as we are indebted for this condition of things to the practical sagacity of Englishmen, and can boast of a large popular scientific literature in our own language, we have yet to offer a large meed of praise to the professors of science in the German universities, for their attempts to teach beyond the limits of their college walls, and to gain an audience amongst the hitherto despised Philistines. To Humboldt, Liebig, Schleiden, Buff, Moleschott, Schacht, we are indebted for treatises tending to diffuse a knowledge of the highest truths of science, and to these we may now add the name of Unger. These Botanical Letters are an indication of the progress of botanical science. Let any one compare the manuals and introductions formerly put into the hands of students with this volume, and they will see how great has been the advancement in correct observation and generalization within the last few years. Instead of the mere dry details of the forms of the organs of plants, we are introduced to a knowledge of their intimate structure and the laws of their developement ; instead of an absurd comparison of plants and animals, and rude guesses at the functions of the former from a study of those of the latter, we have the physiology of the plant, established upon observations made upon its own structure alone. To all who have attended to the study of the physiology of plants it is known, that the use of the microscope, and that alone, has produced this change and tended to this advancement. The structure of organised bodies and their functions can no longer be studied without this instrument ; and it is only as it is skilfully used that we can expect to attain a true knowledge of the laws which govern the existence of organised beings.