Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/307

 the microscope which are beautifully executed; they present to the reader not the small fragments of earlier phytotomic works but whole masses of tissue so connected together, that it is possible to gain some insight into the disposition of the different systems of tissue and their mutual relations. The superiority of Meyen's drawings of 1836 as compared with those of 1830 is very striking, though he used the same microscope in both cases and the same magnifying power of two hundred and twenty times.

To learn what were Meyen's independent contributions to the advance of phytotomy, we must turn to his 'Phytotomie' of 1830; for in his later works and especially in the 'Neues System der Physiologic' of 1837 he was able to avail himself of von Mohl’s earliest and searching investigations; these necessarily influenced his views, though he always assumed the character of a rival and opponent of von Mohl, and treated not only Treviranus and Link, but even Kieser and men of his stamp, as entitled to equal rank with him. And as in his later writings he was reluctant to acknowledge von Mohl's services to science and overlooked their fundamental importance, so in his earlier work in 1830 he often appears as an assailant of Moldenhawer and tries to set up Link's authority against him; we find to our astonishment in the first volume of the 'Neues System' a dedication to Link as the 'founder of German vegetable physiology.' The position of a scientific man in relation to his science as a whole is certainly most simply and clearly defined by his judgment on the merits of his contemporaries and predecessors, and we may conclude from what has now been said that Meyen moved within the circle of ideas of the Gottingen prize-essays, and did not clearly see the importance of the points of view opened by Moldenhawer and von Mohl; though it must always be allowed that Meyen working independently far outstripped Link on his own path.

If it was our purpose to write a biography of Meyen, we should have to go through his works, and show the steps by