Asa Gray : His Life and Work. 353 



postponed at all ? It was evidently not in the plan of Mrs. Treat's 

 paper to raise questions or to answer them. But I have in my 

 possession an explanation of this seeming difficulty. It was given 

 by that great scientific explorer and life-long friend of Prof. Gray, 

 Sir Joseph Hooker, and it furnishes matter for serious reflection. 

 In the summer of 1871, just two years before Prof. Gray was 

 relieved from college duties, and while men of science were 

 impatient and. aggravated at his situation, Mr. E. L. Youmans, 

 who was then in London busy in establishing the "International 

 Scientific Series," received a note from Dr. Hooker asking him to 

 come over to Kew and dine with him, as he was quite alone. Mr. 

 Youmans was on the lookout for eminent scientists to write books 

 for the series, and while at dinner the talk ran upon men of this 

 class. The next day Mr. Youmans gave an account of his visit in 

 a letter to his Xew York correspondent, and the pertinence to this 

 subject of Dr. Hooker's remarks, as reported in this letter, will, 

 I think, justify the liberty I take in repeating them liere. 



Tlie allusion to Prof. Gray's situation was suggested by the talk 

 concerning Mr. Spencer. Dr. Hooker and Mr. Youmans had been 

 discussing one and another great man, when Dr. Hooker said: 

 "Spencer is the mighty thinker among them; and he is all right 

 now. The recognition of hi ; genius is complete. What a lucky 

 thing it was that he failed in getting an official appointment when 

 he began his philosophy. Had he succeeded we never should 

 have heard of the philosophy. The things are absolutely incom- 

 patible. No man can do great oriyinal work and be hampered 

 with the cares of a position. The thing is impossible. The work 

 must have the whole man. That is why I have tried to get Gray 

 free. You Americans don't know how much of a man Gray is; 

 but he is hampered with students' work and is not able to keep 

 an assistant. When you were working for Spencer on the other 

 side, I was working for Gray here. I thought I had got it 

 arranged. I obtained a promise from Peabody to give money 

 enough to relieve Gray and let him go on with original icork ; but 

 when he got over there, they worked at him and defeated all the 

 good of the plan." 



Happily, two years later, Gray was made free, and began again 

 his "North American Flora," which is at every step and in all its 

 details a work of original research. There is only now and tlien 

 a man who is capable of carrying on original investigations in any 

 branch of science. Successful research implies an accurate 

 acquaintance with pre-existing knowledge in the field to be 

 explored. It demands keen logic and cool judgment, and nut 

 these alone. People with great learning, fine reasoning powers 

 and high judicial faculty are not so very rare. But the original 

 investigator, the discoverer of principles and of laws, must have, 

 joined with these weighty elements, the gift of a lively imagina- 

 tion. Prof. Gray was such a man, and Dr. Hooker and Mr. 

 Bentham, along with him the great leaders and originators in 

 botanical science in our day are men of this order. Let me 

 give you an example of the estimate put upon this faculty by a 

 botanist who knows. 



Prof. Sachs, in his masterly sketch of the development of botany 

 from 1530 to 1860, says: "I have made it my chief object to 



