Item 128 - Letter from Joseph Dalton Hooker

5 pp

9 Montague Place, Worthing - From what JDH can remember of WW's chapter on the Language of Science in his 'Philosophy' [On the Philosophy of Discovery: Chapters Historical and Critical, 1856], he does not think it requires further illustrations from Botany. The Linnaean system and Brown's [Robert Brown] sagacious example [the discovery of gymnosperm] 'have kept the majority of good working Botanists within proper limits in the matter of nomenclature and terminology too'. The Germans that have tried to introduce a cloud of new terms have not found a single advocate: 'There is an extremely good article by G. Bentham, a very able Botanist and author of an introduction to logic as the principles of terminology, in the first or second volume of the Linnaean Society's 8 vol. Journal which is perhaps worth your reading - it is very short and well put'. Thanks WW for the invitation to stay at the Trinity Lodge.
A small piece of paper cut from another letter from JDH to an unidentified person is attached, in which JDH states that WW 'is the only man who has fairly guessed Linnaeus's mind and reform'.