FEIENDLY CRITICISM 393 



indispensable tools for scientific teaching, and for accuracy 

 in the use of them, and striking personal note the happy 

 freedom with which two friends could speak their minds to 

 each other. 



Many thanks for the perusal of the enclosed, which 1 

 like very much indeed I have made a few pencil suggestions. 



The term systematic Botany is a bad one, but there is 

 no better in ordinary use ; it hence wants a little amplifying 

 upon to show that that branch is more than classification. 

 Morphological is the right, in contradistinction to Physio- 

 logical, but not adapted to your purpose. Few people 

 appreciate the fact that Syst. Bot. is the exposition of the 

 laws upon which plants are formed as well as classified 

 naturally somehow they do not. 



Have you read Huxley on Methods in Nat. Hist. ? l 

 How do you like it ? I very much. 



My pencil remarks on your sheets are only suggestions. 

 I like the whole thing very much. 



December 12, 1854. 



MY DEAR HENSLOW, The enclosed seems very explicit 

 and clear ; I have no suggestions to offer but a very few verbal 

 ones. Would it not be as well to put all the technical 

 terms in italics, it seems to give them weight ? Under 

 Flowers, I have put a pencil through ' through arrest of 

 development ' as I think it is rather questionable and at 

 any rate will be canvassed. Can we say that the Papa- 

 veraceae, having 4 petals and only 2 sepals, is through an 

 arrest ? this order being formed on a binary plan quite 

 as normally as other Dicots are on a quinary. If we hold 

 this to be an arrest of development, we must also consider 

 the Monocots to be ternary through arrest or reason in 

 a circle. The fact is we call 5 the normal number, simply 

 because it is prevalent : and by the same token 5 being 

 prevalent in phaenogams as a whole, the Monocots which 

 are in the minority are as much entitled to be considered 

 arrests, as are Papaveraceae. 



Under Gymnosperms, * an unfolded scale ' is very am- 

 biguous, the said scale never was folded ; but if you say 



1 On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences. An address 

 delivered on July 12, 1854. 



