142 MEMORIAL SKETCH. 



Bloomsbury) of a Pole who had come to London, and who had 

 made a remarkable discovery about the reproduction of ferns. 

 This was Suminski, whose research holds an ever-memorable 

 place in the history of botanical discovery. The elementary 

 facts of biology seem a somewhat hackneyed drama to us now. 

 But Dr. Carpenter had, as it were, seen the whole mise en scene. 

 The entire story was fresher to him than it could be to us, 

 paradox as this may seem. But the new knowledge of his later 

 days was equally absorbing to him. It often seemed to me 

 amazing to reflect that here was a man who had practically seen 

 the whole thing grow up, and yet was as enthusiastic about the 

 future development of biological science as its youngest votary. 

 Certainly, as I have said, the progress of discovery which 

 Dr. Carpenter saw, was an exciting one, and it was a fortunate 

 thing that the task fell to him to be in some sort its historian, 

 or, at any rate, expositor. For, as he in effect tells us, he at least 

 never lost his head about it. The great work of his life was, 

 after all, that he gathered up the new knowledge, digested it and 

 put it before the world in a coherent and logical form. Stated 

 in this way, the task accomplished may not seem much. In 

 effect it was of the deepest importance. In my judgment he laid 

 the foundations of that breadth and comprehensiveness of the 

 English biological school, which will, I hope, be its lasting heri 

 tage. In some ways his method of orderly exposition reminds 

 me of the logical lucidity of the best French work of the same 

 kind. But in grip, depth, and even a sort of fervour, I venture 

 to think that its good qualities were peculiarly English. 



In full accord with the single-mindedness of Dr. 

 Carpenter s scientific character was the simplicity of his 

 personal and home life. A certain frugality of habit, 

 the fruit of Puritan ancestry and early struggle, marked 

 him almost to the last ; but it imposed no restraints on 

 his domestic intercourse. There all the wealth of his 

 affection manifested itself in his never-ceasing solicitude 

 for the welfare of his sons, and the strength of his prin 

 ciples in the patience with which he took up the family 

 burdens that sometimes fell upon him. In his later years 



