496 THE MAKING OF THE ' OKIGIN ' 
I feel brutified, if not brutalised [he confides in Huxley 
that evening], for poor D. is so bad that he could hardly 
get steam up to finish what he did. How I wish he could 
stamp and fume at me — instead of taking it so good- 
humouredly as he will. 
Nor did Hooker merely leave to his friend the tabulation 
of these important statistics of variation and distribution from 
the som'ces thus supplied. He often undertook it himself as a 
side -work in the flora on which he was at work, whether of New 
Zealand or India or Austraha or the Arctic regions, for no 
other worker and no published book could provide the answer. 
By a happy compensation these free gifts of time and labour 
for friendship's sake brought their own reward. With Hooker, 
as with others, such as Asa Gray, whose opinion Darwin had 
asked on similar points, the consequent research independently 
enriched his own books, widened the scope of his results, and 
pointed the way to a revivifying theory. Writing to Hooker 
in January 1857, Darwin says : 
You know how I work subjects, namely if I stumble on 
any general remark, and if I find it confirmed in any other 
very distinct class, then I try to find out whether it is true, 
if it has any bearing on my work. 
From this sprang many of his special researches. It was 
an additional merit in his procedure that he not only saw the 
crucial points that needed investigation, but inspired his most 
open-minded friends to independent research on the same 
lines, leading them to generalise on their results, instead of 
resting content with mere statements of fact. Thus, when 
Hooker writes (in December 1857) : 
I have begun my Intro d. Essay to Tasmanian Flora. 
I think I shall confine it to a clear exposition of all the 
main featm'es of the Flora of Austraha and leave all con- 
clusion drawing to others : 
I am very sorry [he rephes] to hear you do not intend 
to give generahsations in your Tasmanian Introduction 
but I do not beheve you will be able to resist ; what is in 
the spirit must come out. ^. . 
