Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker. 



xix 



this memorable achievement. Bentham, trained in the French school, 

 brought to the work those elements of form, precision, and logical method 

 which have never been surpassed. To this he added, in the words of 

 Prof. Oliver, "an insight of so special a character as to deserve the name 

 of genius, into the relative value of characters for practical systematic 

 work, and, as a consequence of this, a sure sifting of essentials in each 

 respective grade." Hooker's strong point, on the other hand, was a keen 

 appreciation of the value of morphological characters as a guide to affinity. 

 Eeichenbach found in his work " that touch of genius which resolves difficult 

 questions of affinity where laborious research has often yielded but an 

 uncertain result " (Copley Award). Hooker's share, therefore, exhibits more 

 originality, and he felt some disappointment that this had not received the 

 recognition it undoubtedly deserved. 



Darwin at first could not " help being rather sorry at the length of time 

 it must take " (M.L., vol. 2, p. 281), but twenty years later thought it " a 

 great misfortune for science " that Hooker could not devote more to it 

 (M.L., vol. 2, p. 433). Its merits found universal recognition. It was 

 described abroad as a work worthy of German laboriousness and of more 

 than German accuracy. Perhaps the most signal estimate of its value is 

 that it has been freely drawn upon by every succeeding writer in the same 

 line. Incidentally, it is a mine of information on Geographical Distribution 

 which has never yet been utilised. The area occupied by each genus is 

 carefully worked out. Casimir de Candolle has made some attempt to 

 tabulate the data, but merely states verbally the conclusion that the origin 

 of existing phanerogamic vegetation was intertropical. It appears from a 

 letter of Darwin's in 1870 (M.L., vol. 1, p. 32H) that at that time Hooker 

 contemplated " some general work on Geographical Distribution," and it is 

 an irreparable loss to science that he was never able to give effect to his 

 intention. 



In 1873 he edited ' A General System of Botany,' a translation by his 

 first wife from the ' Traite General ' of Le Maout and Decaisne, in which he 

 rearranged the Dicotyledonous orders according to the sequence adopted by 

 Bentham and himself. For the Monocotyledons he devised a new classifi- 

 cation of his own. 



In 1861 Henslow, Hooker's father-in-law, and Darwin's "dear old master 

 in Natural History" (L.L., vol. 2, p. 217), died. The reverence that is 

 compatible with the keenest scientific criticism of belief may be measured 

 by the noble letter which Huxley wrote to Hooker. A sentence may be 

 quoted : " I can faintly picture to myself the great and irreparable vacuity 

 in a family circle caused by the vanishing out of it of such a man as 

 Henslow, with great acquirements, and that great catholic judgment and 

 sense which always seemed to me more prominent in him than any man I 

 knew" (H.L.L., vol. 1, p. 226). 



On November 3, 1864, the x Club was started. It consisted of nine 

 scientific men, all intimate friends, but whose occupations gave them otherwise 



c 2 



