XIV PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



that the proffered friendship of the two men who were already 

 turning the study of botany in this country into its proper chan- 

 nel should have induced me to devote my future life to the same , 

 science. They both of them evinced a liberality, then rare, in the 

 exchange not only of specimens but of ideas, and in their com- 

 munications and assistance to young aspirants, no fear of rivalry 

 ever entering into their minds. Without a taint of selfishness, 

 they both had the progress of science thoroughly at heart ; both 

 of them saw that the general adoption of a natural classification 

 was one great means of carrying it out, and applied themselves to 

 that purpose, each in his own way. Hooker's was chiefly by the 

 force of example and the general influence he had acquired. Ever 

 courteous with those whose views were different from his own, he 

 gave way for a time in those elementary and local publications in 

 which his position in the Scotch Universities did not leave him 

 independent action ; but in his teachings he strove to famiUarize 

 his pupils with the leading features of the natural orders ; he 

 adopted them exclusively in the arrangement of his collections, 

 in his extensive distributions, in his wide-spread correspondence, 

 and in those numerous works on exotic plants which were so 

 rapidly diffused over the botanical world. Lindley's advocacy 

 was more uncompromising and controversial, but it was accom- 

 panied by the same active liberality ; and his teachings were backed 

 by such powerful arguments and by works of such high scientific 

 value, that the part he took in effecting the reform was as great 

 as that of Hooker ; and both lived to see the final abandonment 

 of the Linnsean classes in this country, even for the most trifling 

 local catalogue. 



In zoology it appears to me that a similar change has been 

 effected, not by the nominal substitution of one specific system for 

 another, but by a gradual recognition of the principle which I be- 

 lieve now governs the study of all branches of natural science, but 

 which was laid down by Linnaeus for genera only. This is, that 

 groups of beings of every degree, from the primary class to the 

 lowest race, are not to be limited by some one character in out- 

 ward form taken a priori as essential, but by the comparative 

 study of every peculiarity in outward form, internal structure, con- 

 stitution, and habit of life. One consequence has been the great 

 development given in recent years to the study of animal and 

 vegetable anatomy and physiology, and to the biological history of 

 the individual, the species, the genus, or the class ; whilst syste- 

 matic zoology and botany, once supposed to make up almost the 



