124 STEPHEN HALES 



Hales' work may be divided into three heads : 

 I Physiological, animal and vegetable ; 

 II Chemical ; 



III Inventions and miscellaneous essays. 



Under No. I I shall deal only with his work on 

 plants. The last heading (No. Ill) I shall only 

 refer to slightly, but the variety and ingenuity of 

 his miscellaneous pubhcations is perhaps worth 

 mention here as an indication of the quality of his 

 mind. It seems to me to have had something in 

 common with the versatile ingenuity of Erasmus 

 Darwin and of his grandson Francis Gal ton. The 

 miscellaneous work also exhibits Hales as a philan- 

 thropist, who cared passionately for bettering the 

 health and comfort of his fellow creatures by 

 improving their conditions of life. 



His chief book from the physiological and 

 chemical point of view is his Vegetable Staticks. It 

 will be convenient to begin with the physiological 

 part of this book, and refer to the chemistry later. 

 Vegetable Staticks is a small 8vo of 376 pages, dated 

 on the title-page 1727. The "Imprimatur Isaac 

 Newton Pr. Reg. Soc." is dated February 16, 1720, 

 and this date is of some slight interest, for Newton 

 died on March 20, and Vegetable Staticks must have 

 been one of the last books he signed. 



The dedication is to George Prince of Wales, 

 afterwards George III. The author cannot quite 

 avoid the style of his day, for instance : "And as 

 Solomon the greatest and wisest of men, disdeigned^ 

 not to inquire into the nature of Plants, from the 



» The original reads "deigned not," an ob^aous slip. 



