No branch of research has benefited more from the infusion of this spirit than geology. Time-honoured prejudices have been broken down, theories that seemed the most surely based have been reconsidered, and, when found untenable, have been boldly discarded. That the Present must be taken as a guide to the Past, has been more fearlessly asserted than ever. And yet it has been recognised that the present differs widely from the past, that there has been a progress everywhere, that Evolution and not Uniformitarianism has been the law by which geological history has been governed. For the impetus with which these views have been advanced in every civilised country, we look up with reverence to the loved and immortal name of Charles Darwin.

A. G.

III.

WORK IN BOTANY.

IN attempting to estimate the influence which Mr. Darwin's writings have exerted on the progress of botanical science, we must necessarily discriminate between the indirect effect which his views have had on botanical research generally, and the direct results of his own contributions. No doubt in a sense the former will seem in the retrospect to overshadow the latter. For in his later writings Mr. Darwin was content to devote himself to the consideration of problems which, in a limited field, brought his own theoretical views to a detailed test, and so may ultimately seem to be somewhat merged in them. Yet these writings can never fail to command our admiration even viewed apart from all else that Mr. Darwin did. It is wonderful enough that so great a master in biological science should, at an advanced age, have been content to work with all

the fervour and assiduity of youth at phenomena of vegetable life apparently minute and of the most special kind. To him, no doubt, they were not minute, but instinct with a significance that the professed botanical world had for the most part missed seeing in them failing the point of view which Mr. Darwin himself supplied. It is not too much to say that each of his botanical investigations, taken on its own merits, would alone have made the reputation of any ordinary botanist.

Mr. Darwin's attitude towards botany, as indeed to biological studies generally, was, it should always be remembered, in his early life essentially that of a naturalist of the school of Linnæus and Humboldt -a point of view unfortunately now perhaps a little out of fashion. Nature in all its aspects spoke to his feelings with a voice that was living and direct. The writer of these lines can well remember Mr. Darwin gently complaining that some of this warm enthusiasm for nature, as it presents itself unanalysed to ordinary healthy vision, seemed to be a little dulled in the younger naturalists of the day. The pages of the Journal of Researches show no such restraint, but abound with passages in which Mr.

Darwin's unstudied and simple language is carried by the force of warm impression and perfect joy in nature to a level of singular beauty. One passage

may be quoted as an illustration; it is from the description of Bahia in chapter xxi. :—

"When quietly walking along the shady pathways, and admiring each successive view, I wished to find language to express my ideas. Epithet after epithet was found too weak to convey to those who have not visited the intertropical regions, the sensation of delight which the mind experiences. I have said that the plants in a hothouse fail to communicate a just idea of the vegetation, yet I must recur to it. The land is one great wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse, made by Nature for herself, but taken possession of by man, who has studded it with gay houses and formal gardens. How great would be the desire in every admirer of nature to behold, if such were possible, the scenery of another planet! Yet to every person in Europe, it may be truly said, that at the distance of only a few degrees from his native soil, the glories of another world are opened to him. In my last walk I stopped again and again to gaze on these beauties, and endeavoured to fix in

my mind for ever, an impression which at the time I knew sooner or later must fail. The form of the orange-tree, the cocoa-nut, the palm, the mango, the tree-fern, the banana, will remain clear and separate ; but the thousand beauties which unite these into one perfect scene must fade away; yet they will leave, like a tale heard in childhood, a picture full of indistinct, but most beautiful figures."

A spirit such as this, penetrating an intelligence such as Mr. Darwin's, would not content itself with the superficial interest of form and colour. These, in his eyes, were the outward and visible signs of the inner secrets. The fascination of sense which the former imposed upon him but stimulated his desire to unveil the latter. In the Galapagos we are not then surprised to find him ardently absorbed in the problems which the extraordinary distribution of the plants, no less than of other organisms, presented :— "I indiscriminately collected," he says, "everything in flower on the different islands, and fortunately kept my collections separate."

After tabulating the results which they yielded after systematic determination, he proceeds :

"Hence we have the truly wonderful fact, that in