Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Darwin and Humboldt: Their Lives and Work
In the beginning of these remarks the attempt has already been made to do justice to the mark Mr. Darwin has left on the modern study of geo graphical botany (and that implies a corresponding in?uence on phyto palaeontology). To measure the in ?uence which he has had on any other branches of botany, it is sufh cient to quote again from the Origin of Species The structure of each part of each species, for whatever purpose used, will be the sum of the many inherited changes through which the species has passed during its successive adaptations to changed habits and conditions of life. These words may almost be said to be the key-note of sacns's well-known text book, which is the most authoritative modern exposition of the facts and principles of plant-structure and func tion; and there is probably not a botanical class-room or work-room in the civilized world where they are not the animating principle of both instruction and research.
Nothwithstanding the extent and variety of his botanical work, Mr. Darwin always disclaimed any right to be regarded as a professed botanist. He turned his attention 'to plants doubtless because they were con venient objects for studying organic phenomena in their least complicated forms; and this point of view, which, if one may use the expression without disrespect, had something of the amateur about it, was in itself of the greatest importance. For, from not being, till he took up any point, fa miliar with the literature bearing on it, his mind was absolutely free from any prepossession, He was never afraid of his facts or of framing any hypothesis, however startling, which seemed to explain them, However much weight he attributed to inherit ance as a factor in organic phenomena, tradition went for nothing in studying them. In any one else such an atti tude would have produced much work t at was crude and rash. But Mr.
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