Abstract
THE beginning of the forties in the present century marks an important epoch in the history of botany. The “Naturphilosophie” which had for many years so banefully influenced the development of the science, was being routed by the energetic attacks of Schleiden. Botanists were becoming alive to the fact that if their study was to have a place as a science by the side of physics and of chemistry, it must be pursued by the inductive method; that speculation must give way to research, and, above all, that development must be studied before any conclusions could be drawn from the investigation of mature forms. The early discoveries of von Mohl, and the demonstration of the cellular structure of the tissues by Schleiden, were among the first fruits of this awakening. To this period belongs also Nägeli's first contribution to science—a paper on the Development of the Pollen (1842). The first sentence in the introduction shows how thoroughly Nägeli was imbued with the same spirit which possessed Schleiden. He says:—“The right knowledge of an object includes an acquaintance with its mature form and a study of its development: the one is dependent upon the other, and the one without the other is insufficient to afford a complete conception of the object.” The actual observations detailed in the paper appear from the drawings to have been accurate, and they were an important addition to the knowledge of the subject; but their interpretation was so far influenced by Schleiden's theory of cell-formation, which was then prevalent, that the process of the development of the pollen grains is described as being one of free cell-formation.
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VINES, S. The Works of Carl Von Nägeli . Nature 23, 78–80 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/023078d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023078d0