278 HARRY MARSHALL WARD 



complied with the demands which the scientific world makes on 

 its members; he served on the Councils of the Royal (1895) 

 and Linnean (1887) Societies ; he was President of the Botanical 

 Section of the British Association at Toronto in 1897, and of 

 the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1904. Beyond all this 

 he found time to give addresses with unfailing freshness of in- 

 sight ; a lecture at the Royal Institution on April 27, 1894, on 

 the " Action of Light on Bacteria and Fungi " was a notable 

 performance ; he wrote numerous articles of a more popular 

 kind, and he produced a number of excellent manuals for 

 students on subjects connected with forest, agricultural and 

 pathological botany. Activity so strenuous almost exceeds the 

 limits of human possibility. 



Under the influence of Sachs, Ward might have become a 

 distinguished morphologist. But his work in Ceylon led him 

 into a field of research from which he never deviated. A survey 

 of his performance as a whole, such as I have attempted, has a 

 scientific interest of its own. His research was not haphazard. 

 A continuous and developing thread of thought runs through it 

 all. The fundamental problem was the transference of the 

 nutrition of one organism to the service of another. Of this, in 

 Ceylon, Ward found himself confronted with two extreme types, 

 and of both he made an exhaustive study. In Hemileia it was 

 ruthless parasitism ; in Strigula advantageous commensalism. 

 Bornet put Schwendener's theory on a firm foundation when he 

 effected the synthesis of a lichen ; Ward, in another group, did 

 the same thing for the ginger-beer plant. In such cases the 

 partnership is beneficial. The problem is to trace the process 

 by which one partner gets the upper hand and becomes merely 

 predatory. Ward inherited a strong taste for music, though 

 I believe he never cultivated it. A musical simile may not in- 

 appropriately be applied to his work. In its whole it presents 

 itself to me as a symphony in which the education of protoplasm 

 is a recurring leit-motiv. 



A few words must be said as to his personal characteristics. 

 He had all the qualifications for the kind of research to which 

 he devoted himself He was singularly dexterous and skilful in 

 manipulation. He was a refined and accomplished draughtsman, 



