x Obituary Notice of Fellow deceased. 



the Government of New Zealand awarded him an honorarium of £350, 

 and subsequently commissioned him to reproduce it in the more convenient 

 ' Handbook ' (1864-7). 



Huxley has stated that " the facts of variability, of the struggle for 

 existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough " anterior to 

 the publication of the ' Origin ' (L.L., vol. 2, p. 107). This is true enough as 

 to the second and third, but by no means the case as regards the first. In 

 1852 Herbert Spencer had grasped the principle of the " struggle for 

 existence," and was always surprised that he had not also deduced from it 

 the " obvious corollary " of natural selection, or, as he called it, " survival 

 of the fittest." But he found an explanation of his not having done so in 

 the fact " that I knew little or nothing about the phenomena of variation " 

 (' Autobiogr.,' vol. 1, p. 390). Nor is this to be wondered at; Linnseus had 

 ignored it, and Hooker in the Introductory Essay to the 'Flora Novse- 

 Zelandiae' (p. 8) could say, in 1883, "I am not acquainted with a British 

 or Continental Flora which attempts to give a general view of the variation 

 and distribution of the species described in it." We owe it entirely to 

 Hooker's precept and example that no work of the kind is published now 

 without it. 



Variation being the indispensable material for natural selection to work 

 upon, it is not surprising that Darwin had early suggested its study to 

 Hooker. And though Darwin could say in 1857, "What a splendid discus- 

 sion you could write on the whole subject of variation " (L.L., vol. 2, p. 90), 

 the Introductory Essay and the application of its principles in the Flora 

 itself, broke down once for all the Linnean principle of specific invariability. 

 Hooker showed that it had only been maintained at all by treating " every 

 minute character " as of specific value ; the standard of specific distinction 

 would therefore widely differ even in allied genera. Hooker's " plan," which 

 marks a turning point in descriptive botany, was to give specific characters 

 " the same relative value." The result would be that, while some species 

 would be sharply defined, others would be an assemblage of closely allied 

 forms. He saw that variation was of two kinds : one which was spontaneous 

 and not explicable ; the other, due to the direct action of external causes. 

 As regards the first, he thought " we must ultimately adopt much larger 

 views of the variation of species than heretofore," but was not prepared to 

 admit that it would " obliterate specific character." As regards the latter, he 

 thought that " climatic differences . . . often induce change " ; that " a sufficient 

 time may isolate" them; and that "such races frequently retain their 

 character even when they have been under cultivation for many years." 

 But he points out that the argument in favour of species being created from 

 the fact that they are often " nicely adapted " to climate is vitiated by the 

 evidence of geographical distribution, that they frequently exist under widely 

 dissimilar climatic conditions. There is no trace here of any recognition of 

 the part played by natural selection. Darwin pointed out that no theory as 

 as to the " origin of species " makes " any difference in descriptive work " 



