CEITICISM BETWEEN FEIENDS 479 



being clearly an objective genus, as is Salix and a heap 

 of others, whereas almost every genus of Umbellifers is a 

 subjective idea, and a confoundedly bad one too. 



Mutual criticism took the liveliest form between these 

 best of friends. The allurement of paradox has already been 

 referred to, p. 450 sq. 



To Asa Gray 



1857. 



Many thanks for your letter and the swishing review of 

 Berkeley. It serves him right, but he certainly will not 

 like it. He has made no remarks on my review in the 

 Journal of Botany ; I suppose that Hke another friend of 

 mine (the last letters of whose name are Asa Gray) he thinks 

 I am wrong when I find faults ! 



I am charmed with your criticisms on my ideas of 

 Physiology, &c., &c. Your ideas remind me of a firework 

 called the serpent which makes fiery circles, — ascends, makes 

 more circles, — descends, then flares up and goes out. Mine 

 you may compare to a similar work called a whirligig cracker, 

 which does the same in a less methodical form. They both 

 end as your ideas may end — in a blaze, a bang and a stink. 

 We neither understand one another nor our subject in one 

 another's eyes, and the stink of each alone remains to each. 

 I shall be very glad to take any amount of vital force when 

 I find any one else doing so. With me it stands in the 

 same relation to other forces that magnetism does to heat, 

 electricity, sound, sight ; each of which is a tertium quid 

 investigated by the following up the laws of the others. 

 With you Physiology = Biology, with us they have a 

 totally different meaning. I mention this to show you how 

 far we are at cross purposes in diction. Development = 

 growth, I agree and generally use the latter term, but it 

 is raw and undignified. 



Heaven defend me from my friends ! I put Bentham 

 up to Eanunculanths ! I who cannot tolerate English 

 names in any shape ! They are Henslow's children, and 

 bad, though the best ; being infinitely better than adSy 

 worts, and aceae. I think Bentham right to adopt them, 

 because they are now solemnly sanctioned by her Majesty's 

 Government, no less, for the delectation of National Schools ; 



