history, as in everything else, when the English mind fully determines
to work a thing out, it will do it better than any other.

I firmly believe in the advent of an English epoch in science and art,
which will lick the Augustan (which, by the bye, had neither science nor
art in our sense, but you know what I mean) into fits. So hooray, in the
first place, for the Genera plantarum. I can quite understand the need
of a new one, and I am right glad you have undertaken it. It seems to me
to be in all respects the sort of work for you, and exactly adapted to
your environment at Kew. I remember you mentioned to me some time ago
that you were thinking of it.

I wish I could even hope that such a thing would be even attempted in
the course of this generation for animals.

But with animal morphology in the state in which it is now, we have no
terminology that will stand, and consequently concise and comparable
definitions are in many cases impossible.

If old Dom. Gray [John Edward Gray (1800-1875) appointed Keeper of the
Zoological Collections in the British Museum in 1840.) were but an
intelligent activity instead of being a sort of zoological whirlwind,
what a deal he might do. And I am hopeless of Owen's comprehending what
classification means since the publication of the wonderful scheme which
adorns the last edition of his lectures.

As you say, I have found this a great place for "work of price." I have
finished the "Oceanic Hydrozoa" all but the bookwork, for which I must
have access to the B. M. Library--but another week will do him. My notes
are from eight to twelve years old, and really I often have felt like