THOMAS HOPKIRK OF DALBETH. 241 



of the Leaf, and of the Flower, including its separate 

 parts and the fruit. This arrangement according to 

 the organs affected was the one at that time 

 generally adopted. It was in the state of science 

 perhaps the only one then possible, and had, at 

 least, convenience to recommend it. In Dr. Masters' 

 Vegetable Teratology, abnormalities are arranged 

 primarily according to the nature of the deviations 

 themselves, which is a more strictly scientific method 

 of dealing with the subject. Hopkirk's merit consists 

 in recognising the importance of the study of 

 malformations, at a time when these received little 

 notice, or were regarded as merely curious freaks 

 of nature. Linnaeus devoted some attention to 

 them, but it was undoubtedly the morphological 

 hypotheses of Goethe that first drew the regard 

 of botanists to their real scientific value. Hopkirk's 

 was almost the earliest British response to the 

 clear-sounding keynote from Germany, and his 

 book was the first general treatise on the subject 

 in the English language. His work was imperfect, 

 no doubt, as all such work must be. Goethe's 

 hypotheses even w^ere but grox^ings in the dark, 

 though he stumbled against truths, as men of 

 genius have a knack of doing. Still, these men 

 are not gods, knowing all things intuitively; their 

 merit lies in being able to recognise the far-off 

 peak hidden from the purblind multitude. Though 

 successive generations pile up the edifice, the honour 

 of laying firm foundation-stones in the darkness is 

 great. It would be unreasonable to criticise this 

 work of Hopkirk's from the standpoint of to-day, 

 and so I shall merely refer to a few things worthy 

 of note. He j)erhaps regarded this as his magnum 

 opus, a dissipating of bewildering hazes, a laying of 

 secure ways ; but we can hardly nowadays forget 

 in reading it that it was written nearly seventy 

 years ago, and that many of its theories have 

 grown somewhat grey. The facts observed and 

 recorded are, how^ever, still instructive and interesting. 



