XXVI 
George Bent ham, F.R.S. 
area, and under the same physical conditions ’ ; and, ‘ we 
must now test our species as well as genera or other groups, 
by such evidence as we can collect of affinity derived from 
consanguinity.’ In short, as with Lyell in the later editions 
of his famous Principles of Geology, when dealing with the 
history of life on the globe, Bentham had to underpin his 
edifices, and replace their old foundations with new. Happily 
in the cases of both philosophers, this was effected without 
injury to the superstructures. 
This brief notice of Bentham’s final adhesion to Darwin’s 
views may be supplemented by the following interesting 
extract from a letter he wrote to Francis Darwin 1 , May 2, 
1882 (two years before his death). It says : — ‘ I have always 
been throughout one of his (Darwin’s) most sincere admirers, 
and fully adopted his theories and conclusions, notwith- 
standing the severe pain and disappointment they at first 
occasioned me. On the day that his celebrated paper was 
read at the Linnean Society, July 1, 1858, a long paper 
of mine had been chosen for reading, in which, in commenting 
on the British Flora, I had collected a number of observations 
and facts illustrating what I then believed to be a fixity of 
species, however difficult it might be to assign their limits, 
and showing a tendency of abnormal forms produced by 
cultivation or otherwise to withdraw within their original 
limits when left to themselves. Most fortunately my paper 
had to give way to Mr. Darwin’s, and when once that was 
read, I felt bound to defer mine for reconsideration ; I began 
to entertain doubts on the subject ; and on the appearance 
of the Origin of Species I was forced, however reluctantly, 
to give up my long cherished convictions, the results of much 
labour and study, and I cancelled all that part of my paper 
which urged original fixity.’ This paper of Bentham’s was 
never published. 
Of the many laborious tasks undertaken and gratuitously 
performed by Bentham, chiefly at Kew, the following deserve 
especial notice. First and greatest was the equipment of 
Life and Letters, Vol. ii, p. 293. 
