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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX. No. 1275 



of giving up botany, but I am advised to try for it 

 by Gray particularly and my fatlier proposes it. 



A few years later (1854) he said: 



I sometimes think seriously of giving up Kew 

 and living in London and writing for the press. 



But it could not be, and when his friend 

 Bentham had similar doubts, he wrote: 



If I thought you ivould be a happier man I would 

 advise you to give up botany; but you would not 

 be so, and evil as our days are, whether they 

 mended or worsed, it would be all the worse to you 

 to have given up what is at least a wholesome and 

 constant mental resource. I sometimes despond too, 

 but as I was once told, ' ' I am limed to the twig. ' ' 

 and so are you! 



The names of Bentham and Hooker, authors 

 of the " Genera Plantarum," will always re- 

 main united in scientific literature. The per- 

 sonal association of the two men was all that 

 could be desired; a residt of their common 

 interests and hi^h character. Hooker writing 

 to the botanist Harvey in 1856, takes occasion 

 to say: 



Bentham 's unselfish love of science always charms 

 me, he has never a thought of personal aggrandize- 

 ment in money or honor; but indeed we have both 

 of us lived under the highest examplea and 

 happiest influences in these respects. My father, 

 Bentham and Thomson are such a trio as we shall 

 never see again. Except Faraday and Darwin I 

 know 'of no others in the walks of science so pure 

 and disinterested, except perhaps Asa Gray in 

 America. 



In 1860 Hooker settled down to the work on 

 " Genera Plantarum," and wrote to Huxley : 



We are not likely to meet except at the Linneau, 

 for I have inaugurated a new era in my life, and 

 am going to take the world and all that is therein 

 as coolly as I can. When perfect myself I shall 

 commence operating on you. What is the use of 

 tearing your life to pieces before you are fifty? 

 which you are (and I was) doing as fast as pos- 

 sible. 



Huxley's reply is so good, and so pertinent 

 just now, that it must be cited at length : 



And finally as to your resolutions, my holy pil- 

 grim, they will be kept about as long as the reso- 

 lutions of anchorites who are thrown into the busy 

 world. Or, I won 't say that, for assuredly you will 



take the work "as coolly as you can" — and so 

 shall I. But that coolness amounts to the red heat 

 of properly constructed mortals. 



It is no use having any false modesty about the 

 matter. You and I, if we last ten years longer — 

 and you by a long while first — will be the repre- 

 sentatives of our respective lines in the country. 

 In that capacity we shall have certain duties to 

 perform, to ourselves, to the outside world, and to 

 science. We shall have to swallow praise, which is 

 no great pleasure, and to stand multitudinous 

 bastings and irritations, which will involve a good 

 deal of unquestionable pain. Don't flatter your- 

 self that there is any moral chloroform by which 

 either you or I can render ourselves insensible or 

 acquire the 'habit of doing things coolly. 



It is assuredly of no great use to tear one's life 

 to pieces before one is fifty. But the alternative 

 for men constituted on the high pressure tubular 

 boiler principle like ourselves, is to lie still and let 

 the devil have his own way. And I will be torn to 

 pieces before I am forty sooner than see that. 



Hooker's correspondence with Harvey brings 

 out some of his general ideas in an interesting 

 way. He observes how the habit of precision 

 grows imtil it becomes in a sense detrimental 

 to progress : 



The besetting sin of the botanists of the day is 

 the craving for perfect materials; forgetful that 

 these sciences are all progressive, and our efforts 

 but steps in the progression. ... I would urge you 

 to think now of putting together some of your 

 ideas and facts on wider branches than purely de- 

 scriptive. I think that this becomes a duty after 

 a certain time of life with those who keep such 

 subjects before them — too much of our dear 

 bought experience dies with us, and the pursuit of 

 careful descriptive botany rather renders us too 

 timid about striking out into generalities that are 

 the product of years of insensibly gained ideas. 



It is unnecessary to recount here Hooker's 

 part in relation to the publication of Darwin's 

 theory, or in connection with the spread of 

 evolutionary ideas, but there is a little bit of 

 personal history which is as interesting as it is 

 amusing. We have all heard of the famous 

 debate on evolution at the meeting of the 

 British Association, when the Bishop of Ox- 

 ford and Huxley crossed swords before an ex- 

 cited audience. It has not been generally 

 imderstood that Hooker had a conspicuous 



