To give any kind of short summary of Grew's botanical work is well-nigh impossible. Some men are remembered for individual discoveries, and in such cases it is not difficult to give a précis of their contributions. But Nehemiah Grew is remembered because, contemporaneously with Malpighi, he actually created the science of plant anatomy,--a subject which, before his day, was practically non-existent. Modern botanists, conscious how small an addition to the fabric is now regarded as a satisfactory life-work, must stand amazed and somewhat humbled before the broad and sound foundations laid by this seventeenth century physician. It is no less than two hundred and forty years since Grew sent in his first treatise to the Royal Society, so it is scarcely wonderful that a number of his results have been rejected in course of time. It is far more remarkable that so many of his conclusions--and those the more essential ones--have been merely confirmed and extended by later work. Great however as were his actual contributions to botanical knowledge, they were perhaps less important than the far-reaching service which he rendered in helping to free biological thought from the cramping belief that the one and only object of the existence of the organic world was for the use and pleasure of man. Grew believed that the "Outward Elegancies of _Plants_" might be for the purpose of giving delight to the human race, but he was the first to point out that as the "Inward Ones, which, generally, are as Precise and Various as the Outward," are so seldom seen, their purpose can hardly be for this, but must be for the benefit of the plants themselves, "That the _Corn_ might grow, _so_; and the _Flower_, _so_, whether or no Men had a mind, leisure, or ability, to understand _how_." FOOTNOTES: [2] _Dict. Nat. Biog._, edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, vol. XXIII. 1890. [3] Enoch's Translation. A Funeral Sermon Upon the Sudden Death of Dr Nehemiah Grew, Fellow of the College of Physicians. Who died March 25th, 1712. Preach'd at Old-Jewry. By John Shower. London. 1712. [4] 1701. [5] Life of Robert Boyle by Thomas Birch, p. 83, 1744. [6] M. J. Schleiden, _Grundzüge der wissenschaftlichen Botanik_, Vol. I. p. 198, 1842. The incorrect statement that Grew was Secretary of the Royal Society at the time that Malpighi's manuscript was received by that body, is also repeated in the English translation of Schleiden's work [Schleiden's _Principles of Scientific Botany_, translated by Edwin Lankester, London, 1849, p. 38]. [7] Aloys Pollender, _Wem gebührt die Priorität in der Anatomie der Pflanzen dem Grew oder dem Malpighi?_ Bonn, 1868. [8] Marcellus Malpighi, _Anatome Plantarum_, 2 pts, London, 1875 and 1879 (see also Marcellus Malpighi, _Die Anatomie der Pflanzen, Bearbeitet von M. Möbius_, Leipzig, 1901. In this little book the more important parts of Malpighi's work are translated into German, and a number of the figures reproduced).