William Turner Thiselton-Dyer

“ The inevitable conclusion, whether we like it or not, is that the future evolution of humanity is as much a part of the cosmic process as its past history, and Huxley’s attempt to shut the door on it cannot be maintained scientifically. ”

“ The permanence of species was substantially the belief with which Darwin, Hooker, and Huxley started on their expeditions. Fossil remains in South America convinced Darwin that the present inhabitants of a given area though similar were not identical with their predecessors in the pant; there had been an evolution in time. The animals and plants (worked out by Hooker in 1845-6) of the Galapagos, though related, differed in each island; the inevitable conclusion was that there had been an evolution in space. Species were clearly not permanent ”

“ Huxley definitely uses the word “evolution,” and admits its existence within the great groups. He had not, however, rid himself of the notion that the archetype was a property inherent in the group. Herbert Spencer, whose acquaintance he made in 1852, was unable to convert him to evolution in its widest sense (Life, i. 168) . He could not bring himself to acceptance of the theory—owing, no doubt, to his rooted aversion from à priori reasoning—without a mechanical conception of its mode of operation. ”

“ As his friend Asa Gray wrote: “With such methodical habits, with freedom from professional or administrative functions, which consume the time of most botanists, with steady devotion to his chosen work, and with nearly all authentic material and needful appliances at hand or within reach, it is not so surprising that he should have undertaken and have so well accomplished such a vast amount of work, and he has the crowning merit and happy fortune of having completed all that he undertook.” ”

“ Hooker imbibed from his father a passion for botanical research, and from his youth was inspired with a keen desire to indulge it by foreign travel. This was first gratified when Sir James Clark Ross [q. v.] , a friend of his father, offered to take him, if he qualified in time, nominally as assistant surgeon, but actually as naturalist, on his own ship, the Erebus, on the Antarctic expedition. Thus Hooker, like Darwin and Huxley, 'began his scientific career on board one of Her Majesty's ships.' The filiation of Hooker's life-work to that of Darwin had an accidental origin. ”

“ But both Darwin and Hooker were always in agreement that species for purposes of classification must be accepted as facts, whatever view be taken as to their origin. Huxley, however, thought Hooker in the following year 'capable de tout in the way of advocating evolution' (L. L. ii. 196) .
In 1858 an event happened which Darwin's friends had long anticipated. On 15 June Darwin received from Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, who was then in the Celebes Islands, an essay which substantially embodied his own theory. The position became tragic, for on 29 June Darwin was prostrate with illness ”

“ Nor can it be assumed that the descending scale of evolution will reproduce the ascent, or that man will ever be conscious of his doom.
As has been said, Huxley never thoroughly grasped the Darwinian principle. He thought “transmutation may take place without transition” (Life, i. 173) . In other words, that evolution is accomplished by leaps and not by the accumulation of small variations. He recognized the “struggle for existence” but not the gradual adjustment of the organism to its environment which is implied in “natural selection.” ”

“ Four months earlier Hooker published his 'Introductory Essay on the Flora of Tasmania,' by far the most noteworthy of his speculative writings. In this he frankly adopts, in view of the Darwin-Wallace theory, the hypothesis 'that species are derivative and mutable.' The essay is in other respects remarkable for the first sketch of a rational theory of the geographical distribution of plants, besides giving a masterly analysis of the Australian flora. ”

“ He quotes with approval Darwin’s remark that “no one has a right to examine the question of species who has not minutely described many” (Essays, ii. 283) . The rigorous proof which Huxley demanded was the production of species sterile to one another by selective breeding (Life, i. 193) . But this was a misconception of the question. Sterility is a physiological character, and the specific differences which the theory undertook to account for are morphological; there is no necessary nexus between the two. ”

“ The doctrines of predestination, of original sin, of the innate depravity of man and the evil fate of the greater part of the race, of the primacy of Satan in this world, of the essential vileness of matter, of a malevolent Demiurgus subordinate to a benevolent Almighty, who has only lately revealed himself, faulty as they are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth than the ‘liberal’ popular illusions that babies are all born good, and that the example of a corrupt society is responsible for their failure to remain so ”

“ Hooker was the first to whom the theory was confided, and he read at the same time the first sketch of the 'Origin' (printed in 1909 by Mr. Francis Darwin) . The confidence proved afterwards of no small importance. During the next fourteen years in which Darwin was occupied in elaborating his theory, he was almost in continuous correspondence with Hooker with regard to its details. 'The intimacy,' which began in 1843, 'ripened [on Hooker's side] into feelings as near to those of reverence for [Darwin's] life, work and character as is reasonable and proper' (L. L. ii. 20) . ”

“ Baron Cuvier (1769–1832) , whose classification still held its ground, had divided the animal kingdom into four great embranchements. Each of these corresponded to an independent archetype, of which the “idea” had existed in the mind of the Creator. There was no other connexion between these classes, and the “ideas” which animated them were, as far as one can see, arbitrary. Cuvier’s groups, without their theoretical basis, were accepted by K. E. von Baer (1792–1876) . The “idea” of the group, or archetype, admitted of endless variation within it ”

“ The scientific world saw clearly that the underlying question was the degradation of Kew to a mere pleasure garden. The differences were not settled without debates in both houses of parliament. Public opinion declared itself on Hooker's side. Gladstone transferred Ayrton in August 1873 to another office, and the electorate dismissed him in 1874 from political life.
In 1873 the Royal Society elected Hooker president, with Huxley as joint secretary. Hooker's policy was to bring the society more into touch with the social life of the community. ”

“ But the solution of the problem of organic evolution must work upwards from the initial stages, and it is precisely for the study of these that “species-work” is necessary. Darwin, by observing the peculiarities in the distribution of the plants which he had collected in the Galapagos, was started on the path that led to his theory. Anatomical research had only so far led to transcendental hypothesis, though in Huxley’s hands it had cleared the decks of that lumber. ”

“ It is the secret of the superiority of the best theological teachers to the majority of their opponents that they substantially recognize these realities of things, however strange the forms in which they clothe their conceptions. ”

“ The Royal Society has little endowment, and the fees 'occasionally prevented men of great merit from having their names brought forward as candidates.' To allow of their reduction Hooker almost single-handed raised amongst his personal friends a sum of 10,000l. ”

“ George Bentham had neither a school nor a college education, but early acquired the power of giving sustained and concentrated attention to any subject that occupied him—one essential condition of the success he attained as perhaps the greatest systematic botanist of the 19th century. ”

“ In 1874 Hooker presided over the department of zoology and botany of the British Association at Belfast. He chose as the subject of his address 'The carnivorous habits of some of our brother organisms — plants.' In such cases he showed that vegetable protoplasm is capable of availing itself of food such as that by which the protoplasm of animals is nourished. In 1877, at the close of the session of the Royal Society, Hooker obtained an extended leave of absence to accept an invitation from Dr. ”

“ The credibility of miracles with Huxley is a question of evidence. It may be remarked that a scientific explanation is destructive of the supernatural character of a miracle, and that the demand for evidence may be so framed as to preclude the credibility of any historical event. Throughout his life theology had a strong attraction, not without elements of repulsion, for Huxley. ”

“ It is written in Latin; it aims at establishing a standard of uniformity in classification; it is based throughout on first-hand study of material; and it is a mine of information for the study of distribution. ”

“ The mode in which George Bentham was attracted to the botanical studies which became the occupation of his life is noteworthy; it was through the applicability to them of the logical methods which he had imbibed from his uncle’s writings, and not from any special attraction to natural history pursuits. While studying at Angoulême a copy of A. P. de Candolle’s Flore française fell into his hands and he was struck with the analytical tables for identifying plants. ”

“ Huxley would have none of either. Imbued with the methods of von Baer and Johannes Müller, his methods were purely inductive. He would not hazard any statement beyond what the facts revealed. He retained, however, as has been done by his successors, the use of archetypes, though they no longer represented fundamental “ideas” but generalizations of the essential points of structure common to the individuals of each class. He had not wholly freed himself, however, from archetypal trammels. “The doctrine,” he says, “that every natural group is organized after a definite archetype . ”

“ In 1855 he published 'Illustrations of Sikkim-Himalayan Plants,' including Hodgsonia, the gigantic cucurbit dedicated to his friend Hodgson.
In 1855 Hooker was appointed assistant director at Kew, and with Thomson published his first volume of a 'Flora Indica,' which, planned on too large a scale, did not proceed further. It was prefaced by an introductory essay on the geographical relations of the flora which has never been superseded. The authors regard species as 'definite creations' (p. 20) . ”

“ That it is, as has been said, immoral is really meaningless. Pain and suffering are affections which imply a complex nervous organization, and we are not justified in projecting them into nature external to ourselves. Darwin and A. R. Wallace disagreed with Huxley in seeing rather the joyous than the suffering side of nature. ”

“ For consistent uniformitarianism postulates evolution as much in the organic as in the inorganic world” (l.c.) ; and Huxley found in Darwin what he had failed to find in Lamarck, an intelligible hypothesis good enough as a working basis. Yet with the transparent candour which was characteristic of him, he never to the end of his life concealed the fact that he thought it wanting in rigorous proof. Darwin, however, was a naturalist; Huxley was not. He says: “I am afraid there is very little of the genuine naturalist in me. I never collected anything, and species-work was always a burden to me ”