Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/383

need in the 17th and 18th centuries that a man should be an Aristotelian to presuppose design and arrangements in conformity with design in all parts of physiological investigation. This is everywhere and always the original point of view which precedes all philosophy; but it is the part of advanced science to abandon this position; and as early as the 17th century philosophers recognised the fact that the teleological mode of proceeding is unscientific. But the first vegetable physiologists were not philosophers in the stricter sense of the word, and in their investigations they accepted the teleological conception of organic nature without question, because they regarded it as a self-evident fact, that every organ must be purposely and exactly so made as to be in a condition to perform the functions necessary for the permanence of the whole organism. This conception was in accordance with views then prevailing, and was even useful; it was no disadvantage in the first beginnings of the science, that it should be supposed that every, even the minutest, part of a plant was expressly contrived and made for maintaining its life, for this was a strong motive for carefully examining the organs of plants, which was the first thing requisite. This is exemplified in Malpighi, Grew, and Hales, and we shall see that even towards the end of the 17th century Konrad Sprengel made splendid discoveries respecting the relations of the structure of the flower to the insect world, while strictly carrying out his teleological principles. The teleological view was injurious to the progress of morphology from the first, though the history of systematic botany shows how hard it was for botanists to free themselves from such notions. The case was different with physiology; so long as it was a question of discovering the functions of organs, and learning the connection between the phenomena of life, teleology proved highly useful if only as a principle of research. But it was another matter when it became requisite to investigate causes, and to grasp the phenomena of vegetation in their