But the
empirical domain of objective contemplation, and the delineation of our
planet in its present condition, do not include a consideration
p 340
of the mysterious and insoluble problems of origin and existence.
A cosmical history of the universe, resting upon facts as its basis, has,
from the nature and limitations of its sphere, necessarily no connection
with the obscure domain embraced by a 'history of organisms',* if we
understand the word 'history' in its broadest sense.
[footnote] *The 'history of plants', which Endlicher and Unger have
described in a most masterly manner ('Grundzuge der Botanik', 1843, s.
449-468), I myself separated from the 'geography of plants' half a century
ago. In the aphorisms appended to my 'Subterranean Flora', the following
passage occurs: "Geognosia naturam animantem et inanimam vel, ut vocabulo
minus apto, ex antiquitate saltem haud petito, utar, corpora vitur capita:
Geographia oryctologica quam simpliciter Geognosiam vel Geologiam dicunt,
virque acutissimus Wernerus egregie digessit; Geographia zoologica, cujus
doctrinae fundamenta Zimmermannus et Treviranus jecerunt; et Geographic
plantarum quam aequales nostri diu intactam reliquerunt. Geographia
plantarum vincula et cognationem tradit, quibus omnia vegetabilia inter se
connexa sint, terraetractur quos teneant, in aerem atmosphaericum quae sit
eorum vis ostendit, saxa atque rupes quibus potissimum algarum primordiis
radicibusque destruantur docet, et quo pacto in telluris superficie humus
nascatur, commemorat.
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