Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
July,  1909.  J 
Charles  Darwin. 
347 
of  this  same  chemical  on  the  chlorophyll  bodies.  Having  briefly 
summarized  the  books  and  papers  which  bear  strictly  upon  botany, 
it  is  important  briefly  to  describe  the  botanic  work  which  appeals  to 
the  speaker  as  being  of  the  greatest  import  to  the  science.  Darwin's 
activity  as  a  botanist  extended  over  a  period  of  about  fifty  years, 
from  1 83 1,  when  he  left  England  on  the  voyage  of  the  Beagle,  until 
late  in  1881,  when  on  a  call  upon  Mr.  Romanes  in  London,  in 
December,  he  was  seized  when  on  the  door-step  with  an  attack 
apparently  of  the  same  kind  as  those  which  afterwards  became  so 
frequent.  During  the  fifty  years  of  active  life,  he  accomplished  a 
tremendous  amount  of  scientific  work,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  great  sufferer  and  frequently  was  incapacitated 
altogether. 
It  would  be  incorrect  to  state  that  all  of  Darwin's  botanic 
work  will  be  lasting.  The  experience  of  breeders  was  inadequate  to 
the  purposes  of  Darwin's  theories.  It  was  neither  critic  nor  scien- 
tific. Laws  of  variation  were  barely  conjectured ;  the  different  types 
of  variability  were  distinguished  imperfectly.  Quetelet's  law  of 
variation  had  not  yet  been  published.  Mendel's  law  of  hybrids  was 
unknown.  Innumerable  minor  points  which  go  to  elucidate  the 
breeder's  experience  were  unknown  in  Darwin's  time.  No  wonder 
that  he  made  mistakes,  and  laid  stress  on  modes  of  descent  which 
have  been  proved  to  be  of  minor  importance  or  even  of  doubtful 
validity.  Yet  with  all  these  apparently  insurmountable  difficulties 
Darwin  discovered  the  great  principle  which  rules  the  evolution  of 
organism,  viz.,  natural  selection.  His  scientific  observations  and 
experimental  work  were  of  the  most  painstaking  and  detailed  char- 
acter. He  had  developed  a  power  of  sticking  to  a  subject  until  he 
had  mastered  it  to  his  satisfaction.  He  used  almost  to  apologize 
for  his  patience,  saying  that  he  couldn't  bear  to  be  beaten,  as  if 
this  were  rather  a  sign  of  weakness  on  his  part.  He  often  quoted 
the  saying,  "  It's  dogged  as  does  it."  He  laid  the  foundations  of 
modern  scientific  methods  of  thought  and  as  the  formulator  of  the 
principles  of  organic  evolution  his  name  will  go  down  to  posterity. 
In  the  twenty-seven  years  since  his  death,  the  problems  in  botany 
and  zoology  have  been  attacked  from  many  standpoints  until  with 
the  advances  that  have  been  made  in  paleontology,  histology,  cytol- 
ogy, physiology,  taxonomy,  and  the  breeder's  art,  the  theories  of 
organic  evolution  have  been  revolutionized  almost  entirely,  and  we 
have  sects  of  Neo-Darwinists  and  Ultra-Darwinists  and  what  not. 
