Ch. VIIIJ 1842—1854. 157 



depreciatory remark to pass unchallenged on the poorest class 

 of scientific workers, provided that their work was honest, and 

 good of its kind. I have always regarded it as one of the 

 finest traits of his character, — this generous appreciation of 

 the hod-men of science, and of their labours . . . and it was 

 monographing the Barnacles that brought it about." 



Mr. Huxley allows me to quote his opinion as to tho value 

 of tho eight years given to the Cirripedes : — 



" In my opinion your sagacious father never did a wiser 

 thing than when he devoted himself to the years of patient 

 toil which the Cirripede-book cost him. 



* Like the rest of us, he had no proper training in biological 

 science, and it has always struck me as a remarkable instance 

 of his scientific insight, that ho saw the necessity of giving 

 himself such training, and of his courage, that ho did not shirk 

 the labour of obtaining it. 



" The great danger which besets all men of large specula- 

 tive faculty, is the temptation to deal with the accepted state- 

 ments of fact in natural science, as if they were not only 

 corroct, but exhaustive; as if they might be dealt with 

 deductively, in the same way as propositions in Euclid may 

 be dealt with. In reality, every such statement, however truo 

 it may be, is true only relatively to the means of observation 

 and the point of view of those who have enunciated it. So far 

 it may be depended upon. But whether it will bear every 

 speculative conclusion that may be logically deduced from it, 

 is quite another question. 



" Your father was building a vast superstructure upon the 

 foundations furnished by the recognised facts of geological 

 and biological science. In Physical Geography, in Geology 

 proper, in Geographical Distribution, and in Palaeontology, he 

 had acquired an extensive practical training during the voyage 

 of the Beagle, He knew of his own knowledge the way in 

 which the raw materials of these branches of science are 

 acquired, and was therefore a most competent judge of the 

 speculative strain they would bear. That which he needed, 

 after his return to England, was a corresponding acquaintance 

 with Anatomy and Development, and their relation to Taxo- 

 nomy — and he acquired this by his Cirripede work." 



Though he became excessively weary of the work before the 

 end of the eight years, he had much keen enjoyment in the 

 course of it. Thus he wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker (1847 ?) : — 

 " As you say, there is an extraordinary pleasure in pure 

 observation ; not but what I suspect the pleasure in this case 

 is rather derived from comparisons forming in one's mind with 



