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Joseph Dalton Hooker

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Joseph Dalton Hooker OS E P H DA LTO N OO KE F R , S j H R, . P I O N E E R S O F P R O G R E SS M E N O F SC I E N C E 801 0 11 81! S . CHAP MAN M.A D . , . S C., F . R .S . JO S E P H D A L T O N H O O K E R 0 M S C B F. M D ET . R. , . , . , C. P F B W c D F R O O ER S S. ROF. , . , . RB OIUB P RO FES SO R 0? m m In THE UNIVERS ITY O F GLASGOW L O N D O N S O C I E T Y F O R P R O M O T I N G C H R I S T I A N K N O W L E D G E NEW YORK : TH E MA CMILLAN COMPANY TE N T CON S . HIS T O RICAL IN T Riov-UCTJON k‘ B IRTH AND EDUCATION FO REI G N TRA V E L A u T HOR smE ' ' H o oRl S P DSI fl’ IO N A s A MA N O R S clE Nc E DA TES RE LATI NG TO THE O FRI EIA-L A N D S CIE N TI FI C; O I! S I R JO SEP H H OOKER P ORTRAI TS BJB LlO GRAPHY CHAPTER I . H I STO R I CAL I NTRO DUCTI O N . S I R JOSEP H HOOKE R was by general c o nsent held to be ea h the l ding botanist of his age . T at age witnessed the greatest revolution of all time in biological thought . u It was the period when evol tion was born , and Hooker r h assisted at the bi th . It was t en that the belief in fixit o f y species was shaken , and finally overthrown : in o f its place came a belief in the mutability species, and o f u the genesis new forms . The change to ched religious u and philosophical tho ght profoundly, and has led to a wholly altered outlook on life . By right therefore Sir “ Joseph .Hooker takes his place among the Pioneers o f Progress He should stand in history at the right n u ha d of Darwin , as he actually did in fact througho t the period while the Or igin of Species was in prepara B u t . b ti on before the story of his life is told, a rief historical sketch may help the reader to understand the part which he played in the great drama . The ancient science of botany concerned itself in the fi rst instance with the recognition and description of u different kinds of plants . Nat rally precedence was given to those which were of use to man . Consequently from classical times up to the middle o f the seventeenth cen tu ry books on the subject were largely o f the nature of u o f herbals , or catalog es the plants described , with their uses . They were often elaborately illustrated , as is seen in the best examples of the sixteenth and seventeenth A ffi centuries. growing sense of a nity, or kinsh ip of (5) 6 JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER like forms led to a natural grouping of plants . At first it was by instinctive feeling that the affi nity was per c eiv ed tr , rather than by reference to characters s ictly analysed or defined . The methods of grou ping became o u t gradually more precise, and crystallised into the u early systems of classification . Unfort nately at first use was made of only a few easily recognised marks , in which were determined arbitrarily . This was the Linnmu s herent weakness of the system of , which was l effc rt s f the cu mination of these early . However ef ective that system might be for the recognition and naming o f f u u plants , it , with others .o like nat re, has been j stly “ ” called artificial , since plants that were not really akin u L aeu were thereby bro ght into relation . inn s himself and was aware of the imperfection of his scheme , took s ieu steps towards its improvement . But it fell to de Ju s and de Candolle so to widen the u se o f the characters selected as the basis of classification that a more real f a finity of the plants became apparent . The Natural System thus founded has been extended , with ever more searching analysis o f the marks and characters u he sed , up to t present time . Upon the recognition and definition of species there the u followed hard ass mption of their constancy. Thi s doctrine appeared in an u nobtru sive form in the writings of Linnaeus himself. It was the result of his daily experience in the a nalysis of specific differences with a s u view to clas ification . But with his s ccessors it became an article of faith , stated dogmatically . It was held that each organic form owed its existence to a separate act of creation , and was therefore distinct from all other forms . Species were thus viewed as isolated phenomena u which ill strated the ability of the Creator, rather than as having any nearer causal relation . The very likeness which members of a family show was held to exhibit o f ingenious variation upon a divine plan construction . To suggest any doubt of this became sacrilege , a wilful HI STO R IC AL I NTRODUCTION 7 a derog tion of divine power. But on the other hand there was the growing sense of kinship of living things. C lose comparison led to a convincing recognition o f ffi natural a nity. The further the o bservation of types was pursued the stronger the bonds of affinity ap eared p to be , and the greater the mystery of their resemblance . But the doctrine o f the independent creation o f constant species seems q uite incompatible with any idea o f affinity in the ordinary sense of the word . This must have made the outlook of the pre Darwinian systematist highly unsatisfactory to any intelligent man . Well might Elias Fries remark in ’ 1 8 u a cz su ernatu ra le 3 5 , that there was g da m p in the u Nat ral System . Many of the best botanists of the early nineteenth century , however, were content to expend their labou r upon the record and recognition ” o f those “ affi nities without raising the inconvenient question of causality . Meanwhile plants were being examined from other o f points of view than that external form . In the latter half of the seventeenth century the R oyal Society was f ounded , and about the same time the compound micro I t to scope was invented . was at once used illuminate the internal structure of plants , and the earliest results were published in the “ Philosophical Transactions in This opened a new chapter the science, for close upon the heels o f structural observation came enquiry ad into function . Anatomy and physiology henceforth vanc ed u o ne together like twin sisters, m tually assisting another. During the seventeenth and eighteenth cen tu ries Britain was in the forefront in the pu rsuit o f these ’ branches Of botany : b u t at the time of Hooker s birth to their cultivation had drifted away to the continent , return only towards the close of his career . Nevertheless , during his busiest years he made notable additions to knowledge in both O fthese fields of research . Increasing facilities for foreign travel led naturally as “ 8 JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER time Went on to wider opportu nities for collecting, both in the interior of continents and on distant and isolated i islands . The heroic period of travel with scient fic objects in view opened with the voyages o f Captain The o f , Cook . private enterprise Sir Joseph Banks who o f sailed with Cook , ensured the scientific success the L first visits to Australia and N ew ! ealand . ater there followed the series o f expeditions of the early nineteenth u . x cent ry, which Darwin , Hooker, Hu ley, Wallace, and No t i Spruce have rendered famous . only were a mult bu t tude of new types of life discovered , the foundations were laid for that new branch of learning, botanical o f geography, or the distribution plants in space, in which Hooker became the acknowledged master. F u inally, the st dy of vegetation in respect of time was initiated early in that outburst o f geological enquiry which marked the close of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth centuries . Fossil plants were first studied as impressions : but later the microscope was u w directed to the str cture of fossilised specimens , hich were examined in sections like any modern plant . Thus that volu me o fpositive knowledge o fthe plants of former to he epochs began grow, which tallies so ill with t doctrine of separate creation , and points more and more directly to some evolutionary view as the data ac c u mu late . Hooker himself made important contributions to this branch of botanical science . I t was into this arena of conflict between facts and dogmatic statements that Sir Joseph Hooker entered as a youth .
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