“The great question in agitation”: George Bentham and the origin of species

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bellon
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
World View ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Ideal Model ◽  
Systematic Botany ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Linnean Society

George Bentham initially expressed reservations about Darwin's Origin of species (1859). What most troubled Bentham was the potentially disruptive nature of Darwin's ideas for natural history. Bentham, renowned even among other naturalists for always proceeding with the utmost intellectual caution, decided to ignore Darwin's theory. This reticence disappointed Darwin, who pressured Bentham unsuccessfully to give an assessment of the Origin. Bentham did, however, publicly praise Darwin's work on the fertilisation of orchids as an ideal model for natural history research. Finally, in his 1863 presidential address to the Linnean Society, Bentham directly addressed “the great question in agitation”, evolution. His judicious praise of the Origin would, Darwin was convinced, “do more to shake the unshaken & bring on those leaning to our side, than anything written directly in favour of transmutation.” Bentham's tentative conversion to evolution came only after Darwin's work, particularly on orchids, convinced him that evolution would add “stability” to systematic work. As a result, evolution's influence on systematic botany was largely conservative. It validated, rather than challenged, the method, systems, world view and intellectual authority of established experts like Bentham.

A Tale of Two Hands' (Presidential Address)

1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-245
Author(s):  
Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi
Keyword(s):  
Development Economics ◽  
World View ◽  
Presidential Address

This may not be the "worst of times" for the discipline of development economics, but this is also not the "best of times" for it. The discipline, rocked by a kind of schizophrenia that its votaries appear to be suffering from, is undergoing a painful, though not necessarily a Kafkaesque, metamorphosis. The consensus of the decades of the Fifties and Sixties about the nature and legitimacy of the discipline and about its 'world-view' has been seriously strained - indeed, according to some 'observers', already broken down. While the defenders of the faith [27; 36; 48] refuse to surrender, some of its erstwhile votaries [11] wish to force on the discipline a Carthaginian peace. And the dissenters [3; 24] have subjected its predictions and prescriptions to the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

Changing Methods and Aims in Prehistory: Presidential Address for 1935

1935 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Gordon Childe
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dual Function ◽  
Prehistoric Archaeology ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
General Topic

This is the first Presidential Address to be delivered before our Society since it has become the Prehistoric Society without qualification. It seems therefore appropriate to choose in preference to any particular problem the general topic of the aims and methods of our science. The last ten years have witnessed an extraordinary increase in the data available to the prehistorian and a remarkable expansion in the field he must survey. For this very reason we have been led to a revaluation of the methods and concepts to be employed in the interpretation of our material. To arrange and classify data pouring in from every corner of the world parochial categories that worked well enough for local collections can no longer serve.Prehistoric archaeology has twin roots and a dual function; it tries on the one hand to prolong written history backward beyond the oldest literary records, on the other to carry natural history forward from the point where geology and palaeontology would leave it. In practice prehistoric remains were first systematically studied with a view to supplementing the information about Celts, Druids, Britons, Picts and Germans provided by ancient authors. But it was the union with geology after the acceptance of Boucher de Perthe's discoveries that made prehistory a science.

John Adams FLS of Pembroke (1769–1798): a forgotten Welsh naturalist and conchologist

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-202
Author(s):  
P. Graham Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
John Adams ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Untimely Death ◽  
Linnean Society ◽  
Invertebrate Species ◽  
Long Line ◽  
Landed Gentry ◽  
Death By Drowning

John Adams was a member of a long line of landed gentry from Pembrokeshire, Wales. At a young age, he became a Fellow of the Linnean Society and read four papers before his untimely death by drowning at the age of 29. He described 53 invertebrate species as new to science, mostly from small molluscan shells, but he should be regarded as a naturalist, not a shell collector. He read mathematics at Cambridge University and seems to have relied heavily on his library and social connections to develop his expertise in natural history. Although never publishing on botany, the annotations in his botanical books and his connections with John Symmons and James Edward Smith show him to be competent with the British flora.

John Hunter's Directions for preserving animals

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanislav Strekopytov
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Royal College ◽  
Unpublished Manuscript ◽  
Bibliographic Analysis ◽  
Linnean Society ◽  
John Hunter ◽  
Richard Owen

Directions for preserving animals, an undated anonymous pamphlet, privately published by the famous anatomist John Hunter (1728–1793), has not been a subject of a dedicated study so far in spite of its importance as a set of instructions influencing zoological collecting throughout the nineteenth century. A donation entry in the 1788 edition of Regulations and laws of the Lyceum Medicum Londinense allowed assigning 1788 as the most probable publication year of Hunter's pamphlet. The bibliographic analysis of Hunter's private press publications shows that the pamphlet was likely to have been produced by the same press. The pamphlet was reprinted in an amended form in 1809, and further amendments were done for the 1826 and 1835 editions published by the Royal College of Surgeons in London. In spite of Richard Owen (1804–1892) claiming a (co-)authorship of the 1835 edition, there is no evidence that his role exceeded minor editorial corrections. Since Owen made a reference in his correspondence to Hunter's manuscript instructions that he supposedly used in the preparation of the 1835 edition, an attempt was made to trace published and unpublished manuscript instructions for zoological collecting that could be attributed to Hunter. Manuscripts of the Society for Promoting Natural History preserved at the Linnean Society of London showed involvement of John Hunter and Everard Home (1756–1832) in the preparation of a hitherto undescribed comprehensive set of instructions for natural history collectors that was planned to be published by the Society.

Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828) MD FRS, botanist, co-founder of the Linnean Society of London

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara J Hawgood
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Medical Studies ◽  
Linnean Society ◽  
Carl Linnaeus

James Edward Smith's interest in botany led him to enter medicine at Edinburgh in 1781. Smith was continuing his medical studies in London when Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) suggested to him that he should purchase the collection of the famous Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus that had just been offered to Banks. Smith bought the Linnean Collection and Library in 1784. In 1786 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine from Leiden. In 1788 Smith, with two associates, founded the Linnean Society of London and became President for life. Smith turned from medicine to natural history as a lecturer and writer. During his lifetime he produced numerous botanical works of high value, including The English Flora (1824-28), and he did much to popularize botany.

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