4 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



The Introductory Essays to the Floras of Neiv Zealand and 

 Tasmania, if indebted for a fundamental notion to Forbes's work, 

 are immeasurably superior to that pioneering tour de force, in so 

 far as they contain a vast body of sound reasoning, both on 

 distribution and on the origin of species, securely based on a 

 wide accumulation of facts that, unlike Forbes's, were largely the 

 first-hand accumulations of the author. At the same time, it is 

 to do a disservice to Hooker's reputation to speak, as some have 

 done, of these two essays as anticipating the Origin of Species. 

 Although Darwin had communicated the central theory of that 

 work, that of Natural Selection, to his friend before its publication. 

 Hooker had not then accepted that theory. If he " had taken, 

 consciously or unconsciously, the first step away from the dogma 

 of the constancy of species " " in the Flora Antarctica, and 

 treated, as he certainly does, the mutability of species as an open 

 question in the Introductory Essay to the Flora of Neio Zealand, 

 in the Flora Indica (1855), the joint work of Dr. Thomas Thom- 

 son and himself, agreement is expressed with Lyell's opinion " of 

 species being definite creations " as " opposed to the theory of 

 universal mutability." Hooker was certainly then far removed 

 from the outspoken Darwinism of his presidential address to the 

 British Association at Norwich in 1868, or of his Primer of 1876, 

 in which he styles the theory of independent creation " purely 

 speculative, incapable from its very nature of proof ; teaching 

 nothing and suggesting nothing, . . . the despair of investigators 

 and inquiring minds." 



Whilst to Forbes the geographical distribution of plants 

 was mainly interesting as throwing light on past geographical 

 changes, to Hooker and Darwin it is conversely most interesting 

 as elucidating the phylogeny of species. 



On one occasion Darwin wrote to Hooker f : "I know that I 

 shall live to see you the first authority in Europe on that grand 

 subject, that almost keystone of the laws of creation. Geographical 

 Distribution." If it can hardly be maintained that this prophecy 

 was fulfilled,! this was probably because Hooker was so engrossed 



* Gardeners^ Chronicle, vol. ii. (1911), p. 436. 



t Life and Letters, i. p. 336. 



+ Some would, perhaps, say that Darwin's prophecy was fulfilled. Sir 

 W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, for instance, writes {Daricin and Modern Science, -p. 307) : 

 "If Darwin laid the foundation, the present fabric of Botanical Geography 

 must be credited to Hooker. It was a happy partnership. The far-seeing, 

 generahsing power of the one was supplied with da„. ..nd checked in conclusion'? 

 by the vast detailed knowledge of the other . . . Bentx_..i <-ells us : ' after "• -e 

 Candolle, independently of the great works of Darwin . . . the first imrortant 

 addition to the science of geographical botany was that made by TIo^' er in his 

 Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania ' ... It cannot be doubted tha<- 

 this and the great memoir on the Distribution of Arctic Plants were only le^d 

 epoch-making than the Origin itself." In writing as we have done above, we 

 meant only to suggest that, at least in general public opinion, the authors of 

 comprehensive treatises, the Drudes and Schimpers, &c., to say nothing of pre- 

 Darwinian De Candolle and belated Grisebach, will rank before the writer of the 

 most original and most suggestive of essays on detnched portions of the science. 



