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A. C. Seward. 
founder, and Forbes its reformer, so we must regard Darwin as its 
latest and greatest lawgiver.” Three years after the publication of 
the Essay (in 1856), Hooker wrote, “ 1 have finished the reading of 
your MS., and have been very much delighted and instructed. Your 
case is a most strong one, and gives me a much higher idea of 
change than I had previously entertained ; and though, as you know, 
never very stubborn about unalterability of specific type, I never 
felt so shaky about species before.” 1 As Professor Judd pertinently 
remarks in a recent article in “ Nature,” the letters to Hooker show 
“ how great and numerous were the ‘doubts and difficulties ’ through 
which the veteran botanist battled his way towards final acceptance 
of his friend’s views.” 2 
After reading Hooker’s Essay, Darwin wrote, “ I have read 
your paper with great interest. .. . Many of your arguments appear 
to me very well put, and, as far as my experience goes, the candid way 
in which you discuss the subject is unique. The whole will he very 
useful to me whenever I undertake my volume, though parts take 
the wind very completely out of my sails; it will be all nuts to me . .. 
for I have for some time determined to give the arguments on both 
sides (as far as I could), instead of arguing on the mutability side 
alone.” 3 Reverting to the Essay in another letter, Darwin wrote 
“In a year or two’s time, when I shall be at my species book (if I 
do not break down), I shall gnash my teeth and abuse you for 
having put so many hostile facts so confoundedly well.” 4 In 1854 
Hooker was awarded a Royal Medal: Darwin in his congratulatory 
letter writes “ Without you have a very much greater soul than I 
have (and I believe that you have), you will find the medal a pleasant 
stimulus; when work goes badly, and one ruminates that all is 
vanity, it is pleasant to have some tangible proof that others have 
thought something of one’s labours.” 5 
Experiments on the vitality of seeds in connexion with dispersal 
by water or animal agency occupied much of Darwin’s time. Hooker 
in his New Zealand Flora wrote, “ I cannot think that those who, 
arguing for unlimited powers of migration in plants, think existing 
means ample for ubiquitous dispersion, sufficiently appreciate the 
difficulties in the way of necessary transports.” 6 
Hooker preferred to regard the plants of the southern ocean 
as the remains of a flora which “ had once spread over a large and 
more continuous tract of land than now exists in the ocean.” 
1 M. L., Vol. I, p. 437. 2 Nature, November 2nd, 1911. 
3 L. and L., Vol. II, p. 39. 4 L. and L., Vol. II, p. 42. 
6 Ibid, p. 44. 6 Introductory Essay, p. xx. 
