Yol. 6S.'] ANNIVEESAEY ADBEESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Ivii ~ 



United States, all his old enthusiasm was aroused. Dr. D. H. Scott 

 has kindly shown me letters of this period which exhibit not only 

 the great interest that Sooker felt in these discoveries, but a 

 desire to give the fullest credit to Williamson's pioneer labours. 



But for geologists, not less than for other naturalists, Hooker's 

 greatest claim to honour will always be the support and assistance 

 which, for more than thirty years, he gave to his friend Charles 

 Darwin in his great and arduous tasks. Hooker's vast knowledge 

 of plants, and especially of their distribution, gathered in his 

 wide travels in the Southern Hemisphere and in India, with those 

 of later years in Asia Minor, Northern Africa, and the Western 

 Territories of the United States, enabled him to give Darwin 

 especial help in marshalling this important branch of the evidence 

 in favour of Evolution. No labours in tabulating materials or in 

 carrying out observations or experiments suggested by his friend 

 were ever too great for Hooker. The records of the candour, 

 critical acumen, and extreme caution with which he, no less than 

 Lyell, discussed with their author the suggestions of Darwin's ever- 

 fertile brain, are fortunately preserved in a great mass of letters, 

 which will be of incalculable value to future historians of science. 

 It was to one or other of these two friends that Darwin, in 1844, 

 proposed to entrust the draft of his great work for publication, in 

 case of his early death, which then seemed only too probable ; 

 it was they who were ready at all times to cheer and encourage 

 him in moments of doubt or despondency in his heavy task ; and 

 it was to them, also, that were due the measures (which were so 

 generously seconded by Alfred Russel Wallace) that prevented the 

 results of the labours of a quarter of a century from being fore- 

 stalled. To Huxley, Darwin wrote in 1859 : — 



' When I put pen to paper for this volume, I . . . . fixed in my mind three 

 judges, on whose decision 1 determined mentally to abide. The judges were 

 Lyell, Hooker, and yourself.' 



And when the ' Origin of Species ' on its appearance was met with 

 storms of opposition, it was in the judicious advocacy of Hooker, 

 no less than in the zealous defence of Huxley, that Darwin found 

 his chief support. 



In his old age, Hooker seems to have felt with Darwin the 

 risk of indulging in theoretical and speculative questions. He 

 had nearly reached his threescore years and ten when he resigned 

 the Directorship of Kew and retired to a quiet home and pretty 

 garden at Sunningdale, where for nearly twenty-five years he 



VOL. Lxviii. e 



