CIRRIPEDES. 



315 



he wrote in his Autobiography — " My work was of consider- 

 able use to me, when I had to discuss in the ' Origin of Spe- 

 cies,' the principles of a natural classification. Nevertheless 

 I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so 

 much time." Yet I learn from Sir J. D. Hooker that he cer- 

 tainly recognised at the time its value to himself as system- 

 atic training. Sir Joseph writes to me : " Your father recog- 

 nised three stages in his career as a biologist : the mere 

 collector at Cambridge ; the collector and observer in the 

 Beagle, and for some years afterwards ; and the trained natu- 

 ralist after, and only after the Cirripede work. That he was 

 a thinker all along is true enough, and there is a vast deal 

 in his writings previous to the Cirripedes that a trained natu- 

 ralist could but emulate. . . . He often alluded to it as a 

 valued discipline, and added that even the ' hateful' work of 

 digging out synonyms, and of describing, not only improved 

 his methods but opened his eyes to the difficulties and mer- 

 its of the works of the dullest of cataloguers. One result 

 was that he would never allow a depreciatory remark to pass 

 unchallenged on the poorest class of scientific workers, pro- 

 vided that their work was honest, and good of its kind. I 

 have always regarded it as one of the finest traits of his 

 character, — this generous appreciation of the hod-men of 

 science, and of their labours . . . and it was monographing 

 the Barnacles that brought it about." 



Professor Huxley allows me to quote his opinion as to the 

 value of the eight years given to the Cirripedes : — 



" In my opinion your sagacious father never did a wiser 

 thing than when he devoted himself to the years of patient 

 toil which the Cirripede-book cost him. 



" Like the rest of us, he had no proper training in biologi- 

 cal science, and it has always struck me as a remarkable in- 

 stance of his scientific insight, that he saw the necessity of 

 giving himself such training, and of his courage, that he did 

 not shirk the labour of obtaining it. 



" The great danger which besets all men of large specula- 

 tive faculty, is the temptation to deal with the accepted state- 



