History of Botany (1530-1860)

Oxford: Clarendon Press. Good+ with no dust jacket. 1890. First Edition. Hardcover. Ex-library, reference department. Library stamps, labels and markings. 5mm missing to cloth at head of spine. 22mm tear to cloth at head of rear joint. Narrow splits to gutters at hinges.; First edition in English. xv, [1], 568 pages + 8 pages advertisements. Dark blue cloth boards with gilt lettering, rule, and publisher's emblem on spine. Gilt border on front board. Top page edges gilt. Page dimensions: 191 x 128mm. Text in English, translated from the 1875 German first edition "Geschichte der Botanik vom 16. Jahrhundert bis 1860." "I would desire that whoever reads what I have written on Charles Darwin in the present work should consider that it contains a large infusion of youthful enthusiasm stilll remaining from the year 1859, when the 'Origin of Species' delivered us from the unlucky dogma of constancy. Darwin's later writings have not inspired me with the like feeling. So it has been with regard to Nageli. He, like Hugo von Mohl, was one of the first among German botanists who introduced into the study that strict method of thought which had long prevailed in physics, chemistry, and astronomy; but the researches of the last ten or twelve years have unfortunately shown that Nageli's method has been applied to facts which, as facts, were inaccurately observed. Darwin collected innumerable facts from the literature in support of an idea, Nageli applied his strict logic to observations which were in part untrustworthy." - from the Author's Preface to the English translation, dated 1889. "No History of Botany in English has ever been published, and it is to supply in some measure this want, long felt by English-speaking students, that this translation of Professor Sach's masterly sketch has been prepared." - Note by the Translator, page xii. .