LTNMEAK SOCIETY OF LONDON. 7 I 



EULOGITJM ON GEORGE BENTHAM, E.E.S. 

 W. T. TnisELTON Dyer, C.M.G., M.A., F.R.S. 



Mr. President,— 7 



The interesting story of Bentham'a early life has been so 

 admirably told in the Obituary Notices by his two friends, Sir 

 Joseph Hooker * and Prof. Oliver t, that it is needless to repeat 

 it at any length. They are partly based on an autobiographic 

 fragment left by himself, which his failing powers prevented 

 in)happily his completing. 



Those who hesitate to accept the modern theory that the course 

 of development of the race is independent of the influence of the 

 environment might take some comfort from the history of 

 Bentham's parentage. Descended from a family of City lawyers, 

 the qualities of exactitude, method, and admiiiistrative skill v\'ere no 

 less his natural inheritance than they were of his father and uncle. 

 In the latter, the well-known publicist, Jeremy Bentham, they 

 found their outlet in those studies, to trace the results of which, it 

 has been said, " would be to write a history of the legislation of 

 half a century." In Bentham's father the family capacity deve- 

 loped on its administrative side ; while his mother, herself a 

 person of notable mental powers, was a daughter of Dr. Fordyce, 

 a Fellow of the Eoyal Society. 



The whole bent of Bentham's early education was unconsciously 

 the best possible preparation for his ultimate scientific career. 

 Gifted with an extraordinary power of acquiring languages, he 

 rapidly learnt those of the different countries which be traversed 

 in his youth in prolonged continental journeys with his parents. 

 There were, in fact, only a few of the minor European languages 

 with which he had not some acquaintance. To the same circum- 

 stance he owed his remarkable knowledge of the scientific society 

 and resources of the principal Europeaii capitals in the early 

 part of the century. The influence of his uncle Jeremy had 

 early imbued him with a taste for the methodizing and logical 

 analysis of the data of any subject which occupied his attention. 

 And while still a lad he began a work on physical geography in 

 which he received the encouragement of Humboldt. 



He himself told, from the Chair of this Society, the circum- 

 stance which first attracted his attention to botanical study, and 

 Sir Joseph Hooker has narrated it with some additional parti- 

 culars. Bentham's mother was fond of plants, and a great friend 

 of Alton at Kew. When residing at Angouleme she had pur- 

 chased a copy of the elder De Candolle's ' Flore Francaise.' 



* Nature, vol. xxx. pp. 539-543. 

 I Proc. R. S. vol. xxxviii. pp. i-v. 



