[[1]]
Royal Gardens Kew
Kew
March 12/[18]68
Dear old [Asa] Gray
It is not from want of wishing to that I have been so long without writing, but from
overwhelming work in the Garden[,] in the Garden, & out of it. & because I have
devoted every spare minute to this dreadful N.O. Rubiaceae which transcends all
others in difficulty. I look back with dismay at Hedyotis, partly because I see I must
dismember it -- & partly because I am pulling sundry things out of Gardeniae that
must find a refuge near it. & indeed some of which as your Gouldia, differ by no
[[2]] technical character from it. there being as indehiscent subbaccate fruits in it -not that I propose to sink Gouldia -- The quantity of never examined things in the
Herb[arium] -- (a whole cabinet full especially of Africans is awful to contemplate.
[William Henry] Harvey[']s Cape Genera too gives me a deal of small troubles
because of the blanks & the necessity of supplying Keys to the whole & revising his
Introduction to Botany which prefaces it, as in all Colonial Flora. [William] Munro is
doing the Grasses & sends me a few pages at a time -- a fidgety proceeding, -- he is
finding out too late -- how difficult is it to systematise on paper -- his part will be most
valuable. What should I do without him. Then I have the Ferns & Lycopods all to do
& then I shall stop, I assume that Harvey <did not> intend to go on to the lower
Cryptog[am]s -- at any rate I cannot.
Gay's Herb[ariu]m is arrived, in excellent state, a vast lot but I have not yet appraised
the contents.
I am very sorry indeed for the trouble you have had about the case with [Francis]
Boott[']s Carices, it was very careless of Gyde not to have sent you an invoice.
Bolander[']s copy is presented please.
I have y[ou]rs of Ja[nuar]y 20, Feb[ruar]y 3, 11, 18, 23 all unanswered mea maxima
culpa -- ora pro nobis -- Also two of [Charles] Wrights about Rubiaceae, these tell
him I find precious, but I cannot answer them off hand, in my present Rubiaceous
perplexity, I cannot work up & down
[[3]] in the Order I must go straight ahead.
Indeed [August Heinrich Rudolf] Grisebach's work is, as you say I advised you,
unaccountably bad. He is an inherent bungler & I am very sorry for it as I esteem
him much, -- in regard of Melastoma there is endless room for differences of opinion
without running a muck into error as he has done. With regard to Wright[']s & my
differences they are but slight, if I had any Cuban Melast[oma] to consider we should
agree -- he has not both sides of the question, & in systematic Botany it is more
emphatically true than in any other science that "de non apparentibus et non
existentibus eadem est ratio".
Schultes['] son asked first £5000
[[4]] if you choose. Would not the Smithsonian undertake the whole thing? -- I would
send to you the drawings & specimens for such a purpose without compunction.
Very many thanks for the Picea amabilis, pera[?] &c seeds; all your seeds are
growing well & will form a valuable stock in a few years.
Anent politics I have nothing to say, on both sides of the water we seem to suffer
under the inevitable evils of our respective forms of Government, & all I believe is that if
you had our form you would be 10 times worse than you are, & if we had yours Ditto
ditto.
I suppose that amongst civilized
[[5]] peoples not engaged in warfares that divert their attention from home affairs, the
Govt is pretty much what the masses like -- a part of themselves in fact. & I do not
believe in any abstract good or bad form of Government. If we like an Aristocratic
Govt it is because we like that form of the hap hazard that settles the Govt onbirth -You on the contrary like the hap hazard of public election. Which is not the same
thing as public voice still less as public opinion -- What is sauce for the goose is not
sauce for the gander. The Celt wants & should have a totally diff[eren]t form of
Government from the Saxon, & if there was any object in keeping up the Celts then
our Govt should provide a branch legislature suited to his (damnable)
idiosyncracies[sic].
I am utterly sick of the political untrueness[?] prevalent on both sides [of] the Atlantic
& the everlasting peevishness that springs out of one[?] & the others, supposing that
the evils of our respective countries are due to the form of government we severally
enjoy -- endure I mean -- Go to -- I am cynical.
Have you read Darwin's last book & what do you say to Pangenesis? I have gone
deeply into the whole philosophy of the subject -- -- there then -I must say that the Pangenesis chapters are in themselves[?] admirable, so careful &
so good, but what he gains by clothing what appears to be a simple necessary &
[[6]] inevitable belief with all who accept the derivative hypothesis, -- in a garb of
atoms, germs & gemmules, -- I do not see. When I accepted the derivative
hypothesis I accepted the fact that each individual must contribute by a cell to its
progeny more or less of any or all the properties of all its forefathers; -- & that such
properties or the potentiality to reproduce them, must be different from that cell more or
less
throughout the mass of the plant E.G. a single cell of tip of leaf of Malaxis
paludosa will reproduce a whole Malaxis paludosa, with any or all the properties of
its parents & grandparents so diffused through its mass from that parent cell, that each of
the cells of its leaf will do ditto -- this always appeared to me a fundamental doctrine
in the history of propagation of [1 word crossed out, illeg.] individual from parent to offspring.
If you accept this for the
[[7]] propagation of species individuals and extend it to that of the propagation
(derivative origin of) species reduce the propagation origin of species to the same
category as the propagation of individuals comes under, you must accept it for these
to. A better instance than Malaxis is Begonia phyllomaniaca, & a better still any
cellular alga that propagates by any constituent cell -- This power of packing into a cell
the potentiality of an indefinite number of the indefinite properties of its ancestors, is
as much beyond our comprehension as atoms, orethics, or time, or space, or gravity
or God -- and as our only any definite conceptions of God are to be had only & solely by
anthropomorphising him or his attributes so are our only ideas of the potentiality
[[8]] to propagate all qualities by a cell, only to be formulated by calling the contents
of that cell atoms, gemmules & so forth. My upshot is that it is not necessary to
formulate or postulate such subjects at all, & better not to do so.
E[ve]r y[ours] affe[ctionately] | J.D. Hooker [signature]
[[9]] I hold all copies of Bootts Carices & sell them for Mr Boott -- the whole set for if
all are taken, at 2/3 price. -- say £16.0.0. instead of £25. The new volume is 10 gs
retail -- say £8 to Botanists (if you think that fair) who take it straight from me, i.e.
from Mr Boott. Reeve & Co have copies on sale, at full price of course -- I see that
all Frank Boott's children will be thrown on his Grandmothers hands & so I should be
glad to sell a copy or two for her. By all means get the remaining plates drawings
published, I think there are more besides these or more species laid out ready for
drawing, so that 100 could be got up & this would make a
[[10]] supplemental part.
The price of putting them on stone would be about 30/ each if you could get John
Fitch (Our Walter's nephew), who did the last to execute them, but he has taken a
lithographic printing business, & I do not know how far he is preoccupied, W.F. would
charge 40/.
Castle, the engraver, charged £3..0..0 for engraving, lettering & throwing off printing
[1 word crossed out, illeg.] 100 copies paper included. Fitch[']s total charge for
lithographing, lettering & printing was considerably less about 40/ -- 45/ I think, but
Mrs Boott has all the bills & I have no memory. I can however get you estimates.