Book Description

Excerpt from Th Living Plant: A Description and Interpretation of Its Functions and Structure The very first words I would write in this book are addressed to my botanical colleagues, whom I wish to inform that the work is not intended for them. In this statement I am by no means invoking immunity from scientific criticism, but emphasizing the aim of the book. It is not designed as a digest of our present scientific knowledge of plant physiology for the use of experts in that subject, but, in conformity with the aim of the series of which it is a part, it seeks to present to all who have interest to learn an accurate and vivid conception of the principal things in plant life. I was once myself such a learner, and I have tried to write such a book as I would then have delighted to read. It is, in a word, an attempt at that literature of interpretation which was foreshadowed by Francis Bacon in the fine passage that stands on its dedicatory page. This aim will explain peculiarities of the work not otherwise obvious. Thus, I have been at more pains to be clear than to be brief, assuming on the part of my reader no great knowledge of the subject, but a large willingness to take trouble to learn; and as I have tried to discuss every process with fulness enough to elucidate its nature, my book has wandered through a leisurely course to a length quite shockingly great. But I comfort myself with the reflection that the plan and the subject hardly permit other treatment; for a royal road to a real understanding of plant phenomena does neither exist nor can it be built.