168 : ERYTHEA. 
ing. But the example of Darwin, and I might add of 
Wallace, of Huxley and of Moseley, show that that result is 
the fault of the man and not of the method. The right 
moment comes when the fruitful opportunity arrives to him 
who can seize it. The first strain of the prelude with which 
the ‘Origin’ commences are these words: ‘ When on board 
H. M. S. “Beagle” as naturalist, I was much struck with 
certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings 
inhabiting South America.’ But this sort of vein is not 
struck at hazard or by him who has not served a tolerably 
long apprenticeship to the work. 
When one reads and re-reads the ‘ Voyage,’ it is simply 
amazing to see how much could be achieved with a previous 
training which we now should think ludicrously inadequate. 
Before Henslow’s time the state of the natural sciences at 
Cambridge was incredible. In fact, Leonard Jenyns,' his 
biographer, speaks of the ‘utter disregard paid to Natural 
History in the University previous to his taking up his resi- 
dence there.’ The Professor of Botany had delivered no 
lectures for thirty years, and though Sir James Smith, the 
founder of the Linnean Society, had offered his services, 
they were declined on the ground of his being a Noncon- 
formist." 
As to Henslow’s own scientific work, I can but rely on the 
judgment of those who could appreciate it in relation to its 
time. According to Berkeley, he was certainly one of the 
first, if not the very first, to see that two forms of fruit might 
exist in the same fungus.’ And this, as we now know, was a 
fundamental advance in this branch of morphology. Sir 
Joseph Hooker tells me that his papers were all distinctly 
in advance of his day. Before occupying the chair of botany, 
he held for some years that of mineralogy. Probably he 
owed this to his paper on the Isle of Anglesey, published 
10 Memoir, 175, 11 [bid., 37. 12 Tbid., 56, 
