LIFE OF 

 SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER 



CHAPTEE I 



^- EARLY DAYS 



A LIFE whose span is almost a century may well be witness 

 of great changes : the ninety-four years of Sir Joseph Dalton 

 Hooker's life are the more intensely interesting because he 

 himself was one of the chief workers in bringing about such 

 changes. Indeed, the century almost covered by his life saw 

 a greater revolution than any of our era except, perhaps, that 

 of the Eenaissance. Once more the civilised world was born 

 anew : it was the century of the New Eenaissance. The 

 revolution in thought was paralleled by a revolution in the 

 means of civilised hfe. The two influences united in effecting 

 the most profound readjustments ahke in social values and 

 in the outlook of the human mind. Power over nature 

 transformed the way of life : the insight into nature which 

 secured that power, equally freed inquiring minds from the 

 barriers imposed by the estabhshed guides of thought, who 

 only permitted nature to be interpreted through the perspective 

 of creed. 



Against those barriers the flood of natural knowledge had 

 been slowly piling itself up, only awaiting the hand that should 

 open a channel and a fresh impulse and a common direction 

 to these chained-up currents. Mechanical aids, such as the 

 magnifying lens, had opened the way to new investigations 

 of Ufe since the seventeenth century. From the needs of 



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