purpose, for I came to the conclusion that my book itself may be regarded as a historical fact, and that the kindly and indulgent reader may even be glad to know what one, who has lived wholly in the science and taken an interest in everything in it old and new, thought from fifteen to eighteen years ago of the then reigning theories, representing as he did the view of the majority of his fellow-botanists.
However, these remarks relate only to two famous writers on the subjects with which this History is concerned. If the work had been brought to a close with the year 1850 instead of 1860, I should hardly have found it necessary to give them so prominent a position in it. Their names are Charles Darwin and Karl Nägeli. I would desire that whoever reads what I have written on Charles Darwin in the present work should consider that it contains a large infusion of youthful enthusiasm still remaining from the year 1859, when the 'Origin of Species' delivered us from the unlucky dogma of constancy. Darwin's later writings have not inspired me with the like feeling. So it has been with regard to Nägeli. He, like Hugo von Mohl, was one of the first among German botanists who introduced into the study that strict method of thought which had long prevailed in physics, chemistry, and astronomy; but the researches of the last ten or twelve years have unfortunately shown that Nägeli's method has been applied to facts which, as facts, were inaccurately observed. Darwin collected innumerable facts from the literature in support of an idea, Nageli applied his strict logic to observations which were in part untrustworthy. The services which each of these men rendered to the science are still
