XIV 



Obituary Notice of Fellow deceased. 



remarkable of all Hooker's speculative writings. Published in June, it 

 anticipated by four months the appearance of the 'Origin of Species,' to 

 which it served as a most efficient advanced guard. 



He avoids any precipitate advocacy, and takes a purely judicial view — 

 " matured conclusions on these subjects are very slowly developed." " I have 

 hitherto," he says, " endeavoured to keep my ideas upon variation in 

 subjection to the hypothesis of species being immutable," as a check "to 

 careless observation of minute facts." He finds " the aspect of the question 

 materially changed," and proceeds " to review, without reference to my 

 previous conclusions, the impression which I have derived from the retrospect 

 of twenty years' study of plants." He points out that he had long insisted 

 on the importance and prevalence of variability, and "how deep it lies 

 beneath the foundation of all our facts and reasonings concerning classifi- 

 cation and distribution." He now saw that the " mutual relations " between 

 species were " analogous to those between the lineally descended members 

 of a family," and that " this indeed is the leading idea in all natural systems." 

 Both distribution and classification had unconsciously led botanists towards 

 evolution. When it was once grasped that similarity in species implied a 

 common ancestor, it became possible to form some theory to explain the 

 presence in any one country of elements characteristic of others though not 

 identical. 



The essay contains a masterly analysis of the Australian flora. Seven- 

 eighths of its species were found to be entirely confined to it. Bentham 

 four years afterwards described it as " the best exposition I am acquainted 

 with of the geographical relations of the flora of any country." When he had 

 completed in 1878 his own ' Flora Australiensis,' in which he described the 

 species in detail, he found no ground for modifying Hooker's conclusions. On 

 the completion of the work Hooker received an honorarium of £350 from 

 the Tasmanian Government. 



The ' Origin of Species ' soon removed from Hooker's mind any doubt as 

 to the efficiency of natural selection. Darwin wrote to Hooker in 1862 to 

 say that " my present work is leading me to believe rather more in the direct 

 action of physical conditions. I presume I regret it, because it lessens 

 the glory of natural selection " (M.L., vol. 1, p. 214). Hooker, however, 

 was now eager to exalt it. Writing to Bates (' Kiver Amazons,' p. 43) he 

 said, " I am sure, with you as with me, the more you think the less 

 occasion you will see for anything but time and natural selection to effect 

 change ; and that this view is the simplest and clearest in the present state 

 of science." Darwin remarked on the correspondence, " It is really satis- 

 factory to me to see so able a man as Bates (and yourself) believing more 

 fully in natural selection than I think I even do myself " (M.L., vol. 1, p. 199). 

 Hooker, however, thought that variation was paramount and, in writing to 

 Bates, " enough with time to beget any amount of change," and he adds : 

 " Variation I hold to be centrifugal ; if it were not so, how could it go on 

 making species, which are only the preserved forms of each brood which 



