THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



283 



Society called after him: in more recent times Hutton 

 formed a school in geology which was opposed to that of 

 Werner, emanating from Germany. 1 Hunter, the anato- 



lected a vast amount of information, 

 beginning with the neighbourhood 

 of Cambridge and extending it in 

 travels over Great Britain and the 

 Continent with Willoughby. The 

 ' Historia Plantarum ' describing 

 18,625 species of plants appeared 

 from 1685 to 1704 in 3 vols. The 

 first volume contains a chapter on 

 the anatomy and physiology of 

 plants, which was much extolled 

 by Cuvier and recommended for 

 republication. The " Ray Society," 

 started in 1844 " for the pub- 

 lication of works on Natural 

 History," brought out among 

 many other excellent and celebrated 

 works (such as Darwin's ' Mono- 

 graph of the Family Cirripedia '), 

 Memorials (1844) and Correspond- 

 ence (1848) of John Ray : it also 

 translated that eccentric specimen 

 of the " Naturphilosophie " Oken's 

 ' Elements of Physio - philosophy,' 

 1847. A contemporary of John Ray 

 was Nehemiah Grew (1628-1711), 

 one of the first to make extensive 

 use of the microscope (invented in 

 Holland between 1590 and 1600) 

 for the examination of the anatomy 

 and physiology of plants. After 

 Oldenburg he was Secretary of the 

 Royal Society together with Hooke. 

 The Society printed his ' Anatomy 

 of Plants.' About the same time 

 it seems to have exhausted its 

 funds in printing Willoughby's 

 ' Historia Piscium,' so that it was 

 unable to carry out its design of 

 defraying the cost of printing the 

 ' Principia. ' This was generously 

 done by Halley. See Weld, ' His- 

 tory of the Royal Society,' vol. i. 

 p. 309, &c. 



1 Beneath the strife of the Wer- 

 nerians and Huttonians, or the 

 Neptunists and Plutonists as they 



were termed, the real merits of 

 Robert Jameson (1774-1854) and 

 James Hutton (1726 - 97) have 

 sometimes been overlooked. Both 

 were ardent naturalists who spent 

 their lives in observation and study 

 of nature. They made Edinburgh 

 for some time the centre of geology 

 in this country. Jameson was fifty 

 years Professor of Natural History, 

 founded the first school of Natural 

 History in this country (see Cossar 

 E wart's address, quoted by Sir A. 

 Grant, ' Story of the University of 

 Edinburgh,' vol. ii. p. 444), trained 

 a number of eminent naturalists, 

 among whom are Edward Forbes and 

 Grant (N.B, The name of Darwin 

 must be added with caution, see his 

 'Autobiography,' vol. i. p. 44, &c. ), 

 founded the Edinburgh Museum of 

 Natural History, which includes the 

 Huttonian collections, and founded 

 the Wernerian and Plinian Societies 

 of Natural History. James Hutton, 

 though not a teacher like Jameson, 

 exerted a great influence through 

 John Playfair, who popularised his 

 views in his ' Illustrations of the 

 Huttonian Theory of the Earth ' 

 (1802). It is termed by Geikie a 

 " classical contribution to geological 

 literature. " Though the opposition 

 of Button's theoretical views to 

 those of Werner gave him a great 

 reputation as a theorist, it is claimed 

 for him that he first among geolo- 

 gists disclaimed the intention of 

 investigating the origin of things, 

 and thus put an end to the cosmo- 

 gonies of the eighteenth century. 

 Such had been promulgated in all 

 the three countries by the most 

 illustrious philosophers and natural- 

 ists, by Burnet, Buffon, and Leibniz. 

 On Button's great merits see es- 

 pecially Huxley, " Essay on Geolo- 



