REVIEWS 5" 



As the son of Sir William Hooker, Joseph had all the advantages of en- 

 vironment and heredity. He first came into public notice as Botanist in the 

 Erebus during Ross's expedition to the Antarctic, and the observations made in 

 these regions not merely laid the foundation for his Flora Antarlica, but were the 

 beginning of that interest in Geographical distribution on which he later became 

 a recognised authority. For a short time after his return he was connected with 

 the Geological Survey, to which fact we owe the writings on Stigmaria Lepi- 

 dostrobus and Trigtnocarpon. 



At the age of thirty we find him on his way to India, where he spent three 

 years botanising in the Himalayas, and not only established a reputation as an 

 explorer but made those extensive collections which formed the basis of the Flora 

 Ind'ca. During all this period he was an indefatigable correspondent, and the 

 letters and extracts selected by Mr. Huxley form a valuable commentary to his 

 published journals. 



Hooker was essentially a systematist, but what gives interest to his writings 

 is that probably more than any other botanist of his day and generation he 

 combined a rare faculty of critical observation of detail with a comprehensive 

 philosophical outlook. It was thus that his great experience of the species of the 

 Antarctic and of India was synthesised into the broad generalities that alone 

 could have given support to the Evolution hypothesis and enabled him with his 

 collaborator, Bentham, to produce with such marked success the monumental 

 Genera Plantarum. 



The character of his taxonomic work is summed up by a sentence in one of the 

 letters reproduced, which was written to Harvey, in which he points out that 

 "reducing a bad species is far better than making a new." 



Opinions are expressed on many important subjects, which are as pertinent 

 to-day as then. For example, writing to Henslow in 1855 he defends Botany as 

 a subject for medical students because the mental training is the best means of 

 becoming skilful in diagnosis. Or, again, the comments on the relation between 

 Science and the State have lost nothing of their importance by the lapse of 

 time. 



It is, however, as always in biography, the man rather than his career that 

 holds our chief interest, so the chapter entitled " Personal," though one of the 

 shortest of the fifty in these two volumes, is most luminous with those vivid 

 sidelights that best convey the atmosphere of character. Hooker's attitude, at a 

 time when Science and unprogressive religious orthodoxy were at daggers drawn, 

 is in striking contrast to that of many of the controversialists on both sides, and 

 indicates that high capacity for distinguishing essentials from dogma, that placed 

 him so frequently in advance of contemporary thought. We owe no small debt 

 to Mr. Huxley for the admirable selection of these letters, which throughout 

 represent that happy mean between lack of personality and indelicate intimacy. 



Many names of men famous in Science, Literature, and Art necessarily figure 

 in these pages, and for most of these short biographical footnotes are fur- 

 nished which greatly add to the reader's interest. Letters and extracts are 

 welded together by suitable explanatory matter and grouped in the numerous 

 chapters under various headings. Evolution naturally claims a large share, but 

 every espect of Hooker's many-sided activities are well represented. The work is 

 one which has its appeal to the general reader no less than to the student of 



scientific thought. 



E. J. Salisbury. 



