From:
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
To:
Sir Henry Barkly
Date:
9 September 1872
Source of text:
JDH/2/3/1 f.196-198, The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Hooker Project
No summary available.
JDH asks William Thiselton-Dyer to consider a post as his private secretary. The letter lays out the main duties, hours and salary for the job.
Discusses the mental powers and habits of animals and considers that those of man are not separated from those of animals by any sort of fundamental barrier; the gulf seems formidable only from a self-conscious, human point of view. Man’s important distinction is his greater ability to act and respond independently of external stimuli, in consequence of his internal accumulation of personal experience.