1. That the first beginnings of vegetable physiology were
made about the time that chemistry and physics began to take
their place among the true natural sciences, is no proof that
they called vegetable physiology into existence. She, like
general physiology, mineralogy, astronomy, geography, owed
her origin to the outburst of the spirit of enquiry in the 16th
and 17th centuries, which feeling the emptiness of the scholastic
philosophy set itself to gather valuable knowledge by observation in every direction. It was in the second half of the 17th
century that societies or academies for the study of the natural
sciences were founded in Italy, England, Germany, and France
under the influence of this feeling; the first works on vegetable
physiology play a very prominent part in their transactions; not
to speak of less important cases, it was the Royal Society of
London which published between 1660 and 1690 the memorable
works of Malpighi and Grew; the first communications of
Camerarius, which form an epoch in the history of the doctrine
of sexuality, appeared in the journals of the German Academia
Naturae Curiosorum, and the French Academy undertook about
the same time to organise methodical researches in vegetable
physiology under Dodart's direction, though the results it is
true did not answer to the goodness of the intention. This
period of movement in all branches of science, when the greatest
discoveries followed one another with marvellous rapidity,
witnessed also the first important advances in vegetable physiology; such were the first investigations into the ascending and descending sap, especially those made in England, Malpighi's
theory which assigned to leaves the functions of organs of
nutriment, Ray's first communications on the influence of light
on the colours of plants, and above all the experiments of
Camerarius, which proved the fertilising power of the pollen. It was the period of first discoveries; the attempts at explanation were certainly weak ; but phytotomy which was just commencing its own work lent aid from the first to physiology, while physics and chemistry could do but little for her. On
Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/387
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BOOK III.]
Introduction.
367
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