In the first volume of his later work the ‘Neues System,’ Meyen gives
a detailed account of phytotomy, which accords on the whole with the
scheme developed in the book we have been examining, and as might
be expected he corrects many errors, adduces many new observations,
and introduces us to many steps in advance of former knowledge; we
shall recur to some of his later views in ensuing portions of this
history with which they are more in connection, remarking only here,
that Meyen paid more attention to the contents of the cell than his
contemporaries, and especially made a number of observations on the
streaming movement, without however recognising the peculiar nature
of the protoplasm which is its substratum. The cell-wall, which he
had once considered to be homogeneous, he afterwards believed to be
composed of fine fibres, a view resting on correct but insufficient
observation and afterwards set right by von Mohl and Nägeli.
It is scarcely possible to imagine a more striking contrast between
two men pursuing the same science than that between Meyen and his much
more important contemporary Hugo von Mohl; Meyen was more a writer
than an investigator; von Mohl wrote comparatively little in a long
time, and only after most careful investigation; Meyen attended more
to the habit, the collective impression produced by objects seen with
the microscope, von Mohl troubled himself little about this, and
always went back to the foundation and true inner connection of the
structural relations; Meyen quickly formed his judgment, von Mohl often
delayed his even after long investigation; Meyen was not critical,
though always prone to opposition, in von Mohl the critical power
much overweighed that of constructive thought. Meyen has not so much
contributed to the definitive settlement of important questions,
as brought to light manifold phenomena, and so to speak accumulated
the raw material; von Mohl on the other hand aimed from the first at
penetrating as deeply as possible into vegetable cell-structure, and
employing all the anatomical facts in framing a coherent scheme.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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