SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER 



fathers having been intimate friends before them, and he himself 

 testifies that, without Sir Charles's work, " the science of geo- 

 graphical distribution would have been to me little beyond a 

 tabulation of important facts."''' How much the science, even 

 from its botanical side, is indebted to Lyell's Principles, long 

 ante-dating as they do both Hooker's Essays and Darwin's Origin 

 of Species, has not, perhaps been sufficiently recognized. 



To us, to whom the enthusiastic versatility and winsome 

 personality of Edward Forbes is only a tradition, it is difficult to 

 realize the instantaneous acceptance which the views, put forward 

 in his paper on Endemic Plants read to the Cambridge meeting of 

 the British Association in 1845 and elaborated in his celebrated 

 Geological Survey Memoir a year later, met with at the hands of 

 his fellows. Hooker writes! of the latter as " the most original 

 and able essay that has ever appeared on this subject, and, though 

 I cannot subscribe to all its botanical details, I consider that the 

 mode of reasoning adopted is sound and of universal application." 

 He reiterates this opinion in the Flora Inclica, acts upon it 

 alike in his treatment of the Fuegian flora and of that of 

 India, and, nearly thirty years later, writes, J "After many years' 

 interval I have re-read this Memoir with increased pleasure 

 and profit." 



The mutual influence of Hooker and Darwin is more difficult 

 to disentangle. An interesting account of their friendship, w^hich 

 began in 1839, appears in Dr. Francis Darwin's Life and Letters 

 of his father, § from Hooker's pen; and in the Introductory Essay 

 to the Flora of Neio Zealand Hooker writes: || " The fact of this 

 accomplished Naturalist and Geologist having preceded me in 

 the investigation of the Natural History of the Southern Ocean 

 has materially influenced and greatly furthered my progress . . . 

 Mr. Darwin not only directed my earliest studies in the subjects 

 of the distribution and variation of species, but has discussed with 

 me all the arguments and drawn my attention to many of the 

 facts which I have endeavoured to illustrate in this Essay." 



Per contra, after Hooker^s return from the Antarctic he was a 

 frequent visitor at Down, where, as he says : ^i It was an es- 

 tablished rule that he [Darwin] every day pumped me, as he 

 called it, for half-an-hour or so after breakfast in his study, ^vhen 

 he first brought out a heap of slips with questions botanical, 

 geographical, &c., for me to answer" ; whilst Darwin himself, in 

 sending Hooker the manuscript of the chapter on Distribution for 

 the Origin of Species, writes : "" " I never did pick anyone's pocket, 

 but whilst writing my present chapter I keep on feeling (even 

 when differing most from you) just as if I were stealing from 

 you, so much do I owe to your writings and conversation, so 

 much more than mere acknowledgements show." 



* Introductory Essay to Flora of New Zealand (1853), p. 22. f Ibid. 



I Address to the Geographical Section, Brit. Assoc, 1881. 



§ Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. ii. pp. 19 et seq. || Ibid. p. 22. 



1i Life and Letters, ii. p. 27. ** Ibid. ii. p. 148. 



B 2 



