386 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MAY 
to edit my species volume,” and this notwithstanding that he writes 
to him as a “stern and awful judge and sceptic.” But again, ina 
letter a few months later, he says to him “I forgot at the moment 
that you are the one living soul from whom I have constantly 
received sympathy.”’ I have already said that Hooker was not 
only Darwin’s first confidant, but also the first to accept his 
theory of mutability of species. But even he did not fully assent 
to it till after its first publication. The latter point comes out 
clearly from the letters. In January 1859, six months after the 
reading of their joint communications to the Linnaean Society, 
DarRWIN writes to WALLACE ‘‘You ask about LyYELL’s frame of 
mind. I think he is somewhat staggered, but does not give 
in... . . I think he will end by being perverted. Dr. HOOKER 
has become almost as heterodox as you or I, and I look at HooKER 
as by far the most capable judge in Europe.”’ In September 1859 
DaRWIN writes to W. D. Fox ‘“‘LyYELt has read about half of the 
volume in clean sheets. : . . . He is wavering so much about the 
immutability of species that I expect he will come round. HooKER 
has come round, and will publish his belief soon.’”’ In the following 
month, writing to HooKER, DARWIN says: “I have spoken of you 
here as a convert made by me: but I know well how much larger 
the share has been of your own self-thought.” A letter to WALLACE 
of November 1859 bears this postscript: ‘‘I think that I told you 
before that Hooker is a complete convert. If I can convert 
Huxtey I shall be content.” And lastly, in a letter to W. B. 
CARPENTER, of the same month, DARWIN says: ‘“‘As yet I know 
only one believer, but I look at him as of the greatest authority, 
viz. HooKER.”’ These quotations clearly show that, while LYELL 
wavered, and HuxLey had not yet come in, HOOKER was a com- 
plete adherent in 1859 to the doctrine of the mutability of species. 
Excepting WALLACE, he was the first, in fact, of the great group 
that stood round DArwyy, as he was the last of them to survive. 
The story of the joint communication of DARWIN and of WAL- 
LACE to the Linnaean Society ‘‘On the tendency of species to 
form varieties, and on the perpetuation of varieties and species 
by natural means of selection” will be fresh in the minds of you 
all, for the fiftieth anniversary of the event was lately celebrated 
