The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II edited by his son Francis Darwin VOLUME II TABLE OF CONTENTS. VOLUME II. CHAPTER 2.I.--The Publication of the 'Origin of Species'--October 3, 1859, to December 31, 1859. CHAPTER 2.II.--The 'Origin of Species' (continued)--1860. CHAPTER 2.III.--The Spread of Evolution--1861-1862. CHAPTER 2.IV.--The Spread of Evolution. 'Variation of Animals and Plants' --1863-1866. CHAPTER 2.V.--The Publication of the 'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication'--January 1867-June 1868. CHAPTER 2.VI.--Work on 'Man'--1864-1870. CHAPTER 2.VII.--The Publication of the 'Descent of Man.' Work on 'Expression'--1871-1873. CHAPTER 2.VIII.--Miscellanea, including Second Editions of 'Coral Reefs,' the 'Descent of Man,' and the 'Variation of Animals and Plants'--1874 and 1875. CHAPTER 2.IX.--Miscellanea (continued). A Revival of Geological Work--The Book on Earthworms--Life of Erasmus Darwin--Miscellaneous Letters--1876- 1882. BOTANICAL LETTERS. CHAPTER 2.X.--Fertilisation of Flowers--1839-1880. CHAPTER 2.XI.--The 'Effects of Cross- and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom'--1866-1877. CHAPTER 2.XII.--'Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the same Species' --1860-1878. CHAPTER 2.XIII.--Climbing and Insectivorous Plants--1863-1875. CHAPTER 2.XIV.--The 'Power of Movement in Plants'--1878-1881. CHAPTER 2.XV.--Miscellaneous Botanical Letters--1873-1882. ... CHAPTER 2.XVI.--Conclusion. APPENDICES. I.--The Funeral in Westminster Abbey. II.--List of Works by C. Darwin. III.--Portraits. IV.--Honours, Degrees, Societies, etc. TRANSCRIPT OF A FACSIMILE OF A PAGE FROM A NOTE-BOOK OF 1837. --led to comprehend true affinities. My theory would give zest to recent & Fossil Comparative Anatomy: it would lead to study of instincts, heredity, & mind heredity, whole metaphysics, it would lead to closest examination of hybridity & generation, causes of change in order to know what we have come from & to what we tend, to what circumstances favour crossing & what prevents it, this & direct examination of direct passages of structure in species, might lead to laws of change, which would then be main object of study, to guide our speculations. LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN. VOLUME II. CHAPTER 2.I. THE PUBLICATION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' OCTOBER 3, 1859, TO DECEMBER 31, 1859. 1859. [Under the date of October 1st, 1859, in my father's Diary occurs the entry: "Finished proofs (thirteen months and ten days) of Abstract on 'Origin of Species'; 1250 copies printed. The first edition was published on November 24th, and all copies sold first day." On October 2d he started for a water-cure establishment at Ilkley, near Leeds, where he remained with his family until December, and on the 9th of that month he was again at Down. The only other entry in the Diary for this year is as follows: "During end of November and beginning of December, employed in correcting for second edition of 3000 copies; multitude of letters." The first and a few of the subsequent letters refer to proof sheets, and to early copies of the 'Origin' which were sent to friends before the book was published.] C. LYELL TO CHARLES DARWIN. (Part of this letter is given in the 'Life of Sir Charles Lyell,' volume ii. page 325.) October 3d, 1859. My dear Darwin, I have just finished your volume and right glad I am that I did my best with Hooker to persuade you to publish it without waiting for a time which probably could never have arrived, though you lived till the age of a hundred, when you had prepared all your facts on which you ground so many grand generalizations. It is a splendid case of close reasoning, and long substantial argument throughout so many pages; the condensation immense, too great perhaps for the uninitiated, but an effective and important preliminary statement, which will admit, even before your detailed proofs appear, of some occasional useful exemplification, such as your pigeons and cirripedes, of which you make such excellent use. I mean that, when, as I fully expect, a new edition is soon called for, you may here and there insert an actual case to relieve the vast number of abstract propositions. So far as I am concerned, I am so well prepared to take your statements of facts for granted, that I do not think the "pieces justificatives" when published will make much difference, and I have long seen most clearly that if any concession is made, all that you claim in your concluding pages will follow. It is this which has made me so long hesitate, always feeling that the case of Man and his races, and of other animals, and that of plants is one and the same, and that if a "vera causa" be admitted for one, instead of a purely unknown and imaginary one, such as the word "Creation," all the consequences must follow. I fear I have not time to-day, as I am just leaving this place, to indulge in a variety of comments, and to say how much I was delighted with Oceanic Islands--Rudimentary Organs--Embryology--the genealogical key to the Natural System, Geographical Distribution, and if I went on I should be copying the heads of all your chapters. But I will say a word of the Recapitulation, in case some slight alteration, or at least, omission of a word or two be still possible in that. In the first place, at page 480, it cannot surely be said that the most eminent naturalists have rejected the view of the mutability of species? You do not mean to ignore G. St. Hilaire and Lamarck. As to the latter, you may say, that in regard to animals you substitute natural selection for volition to a certain considerable extent, but in his theory of the changes of plants he could not introduce volition; he may, no doubt, have laid an undue comparative stress on changes in physical conditions, and too little on those of contending organisms. He at least was for the universal mutability of species and for a genealogical link between the first and the present. The men of his school also appealed to domesticated varieties. (Do you mean LIVING naturalists?) (In the published copies of the first edition, page 480, the words are "eminent living naturalists.") The first page of this most important summary gives the adversary an advantage, by putting forth so abruptly and crudely such a startling objection as the formation of "the eye," not by means analogous to man's reason, or rather by some power immeasurably superior to human reason, but by superinduced variation like those of which a cattle-breeder avails himself. Pages would be required thus to state an objection and remove it. It would be better, as you wish to persuade, to say nothing. Leave out several sentences, and in a future edition bring it out more fully. Between the throwing down of such a stumbling-block in the way of the reader, and the passage to the working ants, in page 460, there are pages required; and these ants are a bathos to him before he has recovered from the shock of being called upon to believe the eye to have been brought to perfection, from a state of blindness or purblindness, by such variations as we witness. I think a little omission would greatly lessen the objectionableness of these sentences if you have not time to recast and amplify. ...But these are small matters, mere spots on the sun. Your comparison of the letters retained in words, when no longer wanted for the sound, to rudimentary organs is excellent, as both are truly genealogical. The want of peculiar birds in Madeira is a greater difficulty than seemed to me allowed for. I could cite passages where you show that variations are superinduced from the new circumstances of new colonists, which would require some Madeira birds, like those of the Galapagos, to be peculiar. There has been ample time in the case of Madeira and Porto Santo... You enclose your sheets in old MS., so the Post Office very properly charge them as letters, 2 pence extra. I wish all their fines on MS. were worth as much. I paid 4 shillings 6 pence for such wash the other day from Paris, from a man who can prove 300 deluges in the valley of the Seine. With my hearty congratulations to you on your grand work, believe me, Ever very affectionately yours, CHAS. LYELL. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Ilkley, Yorkshire, October 11th [1859]. My dear Lyell, I thank you cordially for giving me so much of your valuable time in writing me the long letter of 3d, and still longer of 4th. I wrote a line with the missing proof-sheet to Scarborough. I have adopted most thankfully all your minor corrections in the last chapter, and the greater ones as far as I could with little trouble. I damped the opening passage about the eye (in my bigger work I show the gradations in structure of the eye) by putting merely "complex organs." But you are a pretty Lord Chancellor to tell the barrister on one side how best to win the cause! The omission of "living" before eminent naturalists was a dreadful blunder. MADEIRA AND BERMUDA BIRDS NOT PECULIAR. You are right, there is a screw out here; I thought no one would have detected it; I blundered in omitting a discussion, which I have written out in full. But once for all, let me say as an excuse, that it was most difficult to decide what to omit. Birds, which have struggled in their own homes, when settled in a body, nearly simultaneously in a new country, would not be subject to much modification, for their mutual relations would not be much disturbed. But I quite agree with you, that in time they ought to undergo some. In Bermuda and Madeira they have, as I believe, been kept constant by the frequent arrival, and the crossing with unaltered immigrants of the same species from the mainland. In Bermuda this can be proved, in Madeira highly probable, as shown me by letters from E.V. Harcourt. Moreover, there are ample grounds for believing that the crossed offspring of the new immigrants (fresh blood as breeders would say), and old colonists of the same species would be extra vigorous, and would be the most likely to survive; thus the effects of such crossing in keeping the old colonists unaltered would be much aided. ON GALAPAGOS PRODUCTIONS HAVING AMERICAN TYPE ON VIEW OF CREATION. I cannot agree with you, that species if created to struggle with American forms, would have to be created on the American type. Facts point diametrically the other way. Look at the unbroken and untilled ground in La Plata, COVERED with European products, which have no near affinity to the indigenous products. They are not American types which conquer the aborigines. So in every island throughout the world. Alph. De Candolle's results (though he does not see its full importance), that thoroughly well naturalised [plants] are in general very different from the aborigines (belonging in large proportion of cases to non-indigenous genera) is most important always to bear in mind. Once for all, I am sure, you will understand that I thus write dogmatically for brevity sake. ON THE CONTINUED CREATION Of MONADS. This doctrine is superfluous (and groundless) on the theory of Natural Selection, which implies no NECESSARY tendency to progression. A monad, if no deviation in its structure profitable to it under its EXCESSIVELY SIMPLE conditions of life occurred, might remain unaltered from long before the Silurian Age to the present day. I grant there will generally be a tendency to advance in complexity of organisation, though in beings fitted for very simple conditions it would be slight and slow. How could a complex organisation profit a monad? if it did not profit it there would be no advance. The Secondary Infusoria differ but little from the living. The parent monad form might perfectly well survive unaltered and fitted for its simple conditions, whilst the offspring of this very monad might become fitted for more complex conditions. The one primordial prototype of all living and extinct creatures may, it is possible, be now alive! Moreover, as you say, higher forms might be occasionally degraded, the snake Typhlops SEEMS (?!) to have the habits of earth-worms. So that fresh creatures of simple forms seem to me wholly superfluous. "MUST YOU NOT ASSUME A PRIMEVAL CREATIVE POWER WHICH DOES NOT ACT WITH UNIFORMITY, OR HOW COULD MAN SUPERVENE?" I am not sure that I understand your remarks which follow the above. We must under present knowledge assume the creation of one or of a few forms in the same manner as philosophers assume the existence of a power of attraction without any explanation. But I entirely reject, as in my judgment quite unnecessary, any subsequent addition "of new powers and attributes and forces;" or of any "principle of improvement," except in so far as every character which is naturally selected or preserved is in some way an advantage or improvement, otherwise it would not have been selected. If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish, but I have firm faith in it, as I cannot believe, that if false, it would explain so many whole classes of facts, which, if I am in my senses, it seems to explain. As far as I understand your remarks and illustrations, you doubt the possibility of gradations of intellectual powers. Now, it seems to me, looking to existing animals alone, that we have a very fine gradation in the intellectual powers of the Vertebrata, with one rather wide gap (not half so wide as in many cases of corporeal structure), between say a Hottentot and a Ourang, even if civilised as much mentally as the dog has been from the wolf. I suppose that you do not doubt that the intellectual powers are as important for the welfare of each being as corporeal structure; if so, I can see no difficulty in the most intellectual individuals of a species being continually selected; and the intellect of the new species thus improved, aided probably by effects of inherited mental exercise. I look at this process as now going on with the races of man; the less intellectual races being exterminated. But there is not space to discuss this point. If I understand you, the turning-point in our difference must be, that you think it impossible that the intellectual powers of a species should be much improved by the continued natural selection of the most intellectual individuals. To show how minds graduate, just reflect how impossible every one has yet found it, to define the difference in mind of man and the lower animals; the latter seem to have the very same attributes in a much lower stage of perfection than the lowest savage. I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent. I think Embryology, Homology, Classification, etc., etc., show us that all vertebrata have descended from one parent; how that parent appeared we know not. If you admit in ever so little a degree, the explanation which I have given of Embryology, Homology and Classification, you will find it difficult to say: thus far the explanation holds good, but no further; here we must call in "the addition of new creative forces." I think you will be driven to reject all or admit all: I fear by your letter it will be the former alternative; and in that case I shall feel sure it is my fault, and not the theory's fault, and this will certainly comfort me. With regard to the descent of the great Kingdoms (as Vertebrata, Articulata, etc.) from one parent, I have said in the conclusion, that mere analogy makes me think it probable; my arguments and facts are sound in my judgment only for each separate kingdom. THE FORMS WHICH ARE BEATEN INHERITING SOME INFERIORITY IN COMMON. I dare say I have not been guarded enough, but might not the term inferiority include less perfect adaptation to physical conditions? My remarks apply not to single species, but to groups or genera; the species of most genera are adapted at least to rather hotter, and rather less hot, to rather damper and dryer climates; and when the several species of a group are beaten and exterminated by the several species of another group, it will not, I think, generally be from EACH new species being adapted to the climate, but from all the new species having some common advantage in obtaining sustenance, or escaping enemies. As groups are concerned, a fairer illustration than negro and white in Liberia would be the almost certain future extinction of the genus ourang by the genus man, not owing to man being better fitted for the climate, but owing to the inherited intellectual inferiority of the Ourang-genus to Man-genus, by his intellect, inventing fire-arms and cutting down forests. I believe from reasons given in my discussion, that acclimatisation is readily effected under nature. It has taken me so many years to disabuse my mind of the TOO great importance of climate--its important influence being so conspicuous, whilst that of a struggle between creature and creature is so hidden--that I am inclined to swear at the North Pole, and, as Sydney Smith said, even to speak disrespectfully of the Equator. I beg you often to reflect (I have found NOTHING so instructive) on the case of thousands of plants in the middle point of their respective ranges, and which, as we positively know, can perfectly well withstand a little more heat and cold, a little more damp and dry, but which in the metropolis of their range do not exist in vast numbers, although if many of the other inhabitants were destroyed [they] would cover the ground. We thus clearly see that their numbers are kept down, in almost every case, not by climate, but by the struggle with other organisms. All this you will perhaps think very obvious; but, until I repeated it to myself thousands of times, I took, as I believe, a wholly wrong view of the whole economy of nature... HYBRIDISM. I am so much pleased that you approve of this chapter; you would be astonished at the labour this cost me; so often was I, on what I believe was, the wrong scent. RUDIMENTARY ORGANS. On the theory of Natural Selection there is a wide distinction between Rudimentary Organs and what you call germs of organs, and what I call in my bigger book "nascent" organs. An organ should not be called rudimentary unless it be useless--as teeth which never cut through the gums--the papillae, representing the pistil in male flowers, wing of Apteryx, or better, the little wings under soldered elytra. These organs are now plainly useless, and a fortiori, they would be useless in a less developed state. Natural Selection acts exclusively by preserving successive slight, USEFUL modifications. Hence Natural Selection cannot possibly make a useless or rudimentary organ. Such organs are solely due to inheritance (as explained in my discussion), and plainly bespeak an ancestor having the organ in a useful condition. They may be, and often have been, worked in for other purposes, and then they are only rudimentary for the original function, which is sometimes plainly apparent. A nascent organ, though little developed, as it has to be developed must be useful in every stage of development. As we cannot prophesy, we cannot tell what organs are now nascent; and nascent organs will rarely have been handed down by certain members of a class from a remote period to the present day, for beings with any important organ but little developed, will generally have been supplanted by their descendants with the organ well developed. The mammary glands in Ornithorhynchus may, perhaps, be considered as nascent compared with the udders of a cow--Ovigerous frena, in certain cirripedes, are nascent branchiae--in [illegible] the swim bladder is almost rudimentary for this purpose, and is nascent as a lung. The small wing of penguin, used only as a fin, might be nascent as a wing; not that I think so; for the whole structure of the bird is adapted for flight, and a penguin so closely resembles other birds, that we may infer that its wings have probably been modified, and reduced by natural selection, in accordance with its sub-aquatic habits. Analogy thus often serves as a guide in distinguishing whether an organ is rudimentary or nascent. I believe the Os coccyx gives attachment to certain muscles, but I can not doubt that it is a rudimentary tail. The bastard wing of birds is a rudimentary digit; and I believe that if fossil birds are found very low down in the series, they will be seen to have a double or bifurcated wing. Here is a bold prophecy! To admit prophetic germs, is tantamount to rejecting the theory of Natural Selection. I am very glad you think it worth while to run through my book again, as much, or more, for the subject's sake as for my own sake. But I look at your keeping the subject for some little time before your mind--raising your own difficulties and solving them--as far more important than reading my book. If you think enough, I expect you will be perverted, and if you ever are, I shall know that the theory of Natural Selection, is, in the main, safe; that it includes, as now put forth, many errors, is almost certain, though I cannot see them. Do not, of course, think of answering this; but if you have other OCCASION to write again, just say whether I have, in ever so slight a degree, shaken any of your objections. Farewell. With my cordial thanks for your long letters and valuable remarks, Believe me, yours most truly, C. DARWIN. P.S.--You often allude to Lamarck's work; I do not know what you think about it, but it appeared to me extremely poor; I got not a fact or idea from it. CHARLES DARWIN TO L. AGASSIZ. (Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, born at Mortier, on the lake of Morat in Switzerland, on May 28, 1807. He emigrated to America in 1846, where he spent the rest of his life, and died December 14, 1873. His 'Life,' written by his widow, was published in 1885. The following extract from a letter to Agassiz (1850) is worth giving, as showing how my father regarded him, and it may be added that his cordial feelings towards the great American naturalist remained strong to the end of his life:-- "I have seldom been more deeply gratified than by receiving your most kind present of 'Lake Superior.' I had heard of it, and had much wished to read it, but I confess that it was the very great honour of having in my possession a work with your autograph as a presentation copy that has given me such lively and sincere pleasure. I cordially thank you for it. I have begun to read it with uncommon interest, which I see will increase as I go on.") Down, November 11th [1859]. My dear Sir, I have ventured to send you a copy of my book (as yet only an abstract) on the 'Origin of Species.' As the conclusions at which I have arrived on several points differ so widely from yours, I have thought (should you at any time read my volume) that you might think that I had sent it to you out of a spirit of defiance or bravado; but I assure you that I act under a wholly different frame of mind. I hope that you will at least give me credit, however erroneous you may think my conclusions, for having earnestly endeavoured to arrive at the truth. With sincere respect, I beg leave to remain, Yours, very faithfully, CHARLES DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO A. DE CANDOLLE. Down, November 11th [1859]. Dear Sir, I have thought that you would permit me to send you (by Messrs. Williams and Norgate, booksellers) a copy of my work (as yet only an abstract) on the 'Origin of Species.' I wish to do this, as the only, though quite inadequate manner, by which I can testify to you the extreme interest which I have felt, and the great advantage which I have derived, from studying your grand and noble work on Geographical Distribution. Should you be induced to read my volume, I venture to remark that it will be intelligible only by reading the whole straight through, as it is very much condensed. It would be a high gratification to me if any portion interested you. But I am perfectly well aware that you will entirely disagree with the conclusion at which I have arrived. You will probably have quite forgotten me; but many years ago you did me the honour of dining at my house in London to meet M. and Madame Sismondi (Jessie Allen, sister of Mrs. Josiah Wedgwood of Maer.), the uncle and aunt of my wife. With sincere respect, I beg to remain, Yours, very faithfully, CHARLES DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO HUGH FALCONER. Down, November 11th [1859]. My dear Falconer, I have told Murray to send you a copy of my book on the 'Origin of Species,' which as yet is only an abstract. If you read it, you must read it straight through, otherwise from its extremely condensed state it will be unintelligible. Lord, how savage you will be, if you read it, and how you will long to crucify me alive! I fear it will produce no other effect on you; but if it should stagger you in ever so slight a degree, in this case, I am fully convinced that you will become, year after year, less fixed in your belief in the immutability of species. With this audacious and presumptuous conviction, I remain, my dear Falconer, Yours most truly, CHARLES DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, November 11th [1859]. My dear Gray, I have directed a copy of my book (as yet only an abstract) on the 'Origin of Species' to be sent you. I know how you are pressed for time; but if you can read it, I shall be infinitely gratified...If ever you do read it, and can screw out time to send me (as I value your opinion so highly), however short a note, telling me what you think its weakest and best parts, I should be extremely grateful. As you are not a geologist, you will excuse my conceit in telling you that Lyell highly approves of the two Geological chapters, and thinks that on the Imperfection of the Geological Record not exaggerated. He is nearly a convert to my views... Let me add I fully admit that there are very many difficulties not satisfactorily explained by my theory of descent with modification, but I cannot possibly believe that a false theory would explain so many classes of facts as I think it certainly does explain. On these grounds I drop my anchor, and believe that the difficulties will slowly disappear... CHARLES DARWIN TO J.S. HENSLOW. Down, November 11th, 1859. My dear Henslow, I have told Murray to send a copy of my book on Species to you, my dear old master in Natural History; I fear, however, that you will not approve of your pupil in this case. The book in its present state does not show the amount of labour which I have bestowed on the subject. If you have time to read it carefully, and would take the trouble to point out what parts seem weakest to you and what best, it would be a most material aid to me in writing my bigger book, which I hope to commence in a few months. You know also how highly I value your judgment. But I am not so unreasonable as to wish or expect you to write detailed and lengthy criticisms, but merely a few general remarks, pointing out the weakest parts. If you are IN EVEN SO SLIGHT A DEGREE staggered (which I hardly expect) on the immutability of species, then I am convinced with further reflection you will become more and more staggered, for this has been the process through which my mind has gone. My dear Henslow, Yours affectionately and gratefully, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. (The present Sir John Lubbock.) Ilkley, Yorkshire, Saturday [November 12th, 1859]. ...Thank you much for asking me to Brighton. I hope much that you will enjoy your holiday. I have told Murray to send a copy for you to Mansion House Street, and I am surprised that you have not received it. There are so many valid and weighty arguments against my notions, that you, or any one, if you wish on the other side, will easily persuade yourself that I am wholly in error, and no doubt I am in part in error, perhaps wholly so, though I cannot see the blindness of my ways. I dare say when thunder and lightning were first proved to be due to secondary causes, some regretted to give up the idea that each flash was caused by the direct hand of God. Farewell, I am feeling very unwell to-day, so no more. Yours very truly, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. Ilkley, Yorkshire, Tuesday [November 15th, 1859]. My dear Lubbock, I beg pardon for troubling you again. I do not know how I blundered in expressing myself in making you believe that we accepted your kind invitation to Brighton. I meant merely to thank you sincerely for wishing to see such a worn-out old dog as myself. I hardly know when we leave this place,--not under a fortnight, and then we shall wish to rest under our own roof-tree. I do not think I hardly ever admired a book more than Paley's 'Natural Theology.' I could almost formerly have said it by heart. I am glad you have got my book, but I fear that you value it far too highly. I should be grateful for any criticisms. I care not for Reviews; but for the opinion of men like you and Hooker and Huxley and Lyell, etc. Farewell, with our joint thanks to Mrs. Lubbock and yourself. Adios. C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO L. JENYNS. (Now Rev. L. Blomefield.) Ilkley, Yorkshire, November 13th, 1859. My dear Jenyns, I must thank you for your very kind note forwarded to me from Down. I have been much out of health this summer, and have been hydropathising here for the last six weeks with very little good as yet. I shall stay here for another fortnight at least. Please remember that my book is only an abstract, and very much condensed, and, to be at all intelligible, must be carefully read. I shall be very grateful for any criticisms. But I know perfectly well that you will not at all agree with the lengths which I go. It took long years to convert me. I may, of course, be egregiously wrong; but I cannot persuade myself that a theory which explains (as I think it certainly does) several large classes of facts, can be wholly wrong; notwithstanding the several difficulties which have to be surmounted somehow, and which stagger me even to this day. I wish that my health had allowed me to publish in extenso; if ever I get strong enough I will do so, as the greater part is written out, and of which MS. the present volume is an abstract. I fear this note will be almost illegible; but I am poorly, and can hardly sit up. Farewell; with thanks for your kind note and pleasant remembrance of good old days. Yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Ilkley, November 13th, 1859. My dear Sir, I have told Murray to send you by post (if possible) a copy of my book, and I hope that you will receive it at nearly the same time with this note. (N.B. I have got a bad finger, which makes me write extra badly.) If you are so inclined, I should very much like to hear your general impression of the book, as you have thought so profoundly on the subject, and in so nearly the same channel with myself. I hope there will be some little new to you, but I fear not much. Remember it is only an abstract, and very much condensed. God knows what the public will think. No one has read it, except Lyell, with whom I have had much correspondence. Hooker thinks him a complete convert, but he does not seem so in his letters to me; but is evidently deeply interested in the subject. I do not think your share in the theory will be overlooked by the real judges, as Hooker, Lyell, Asa Gray, etc. I have heard from Mr. Slater that your paper on the Malay Archipelago has been read at the Linnean Society, and that he was EXTREMELY much interested by it. I have not seen one naturalist for six or nine months, owing to the state of my health, and therefore I really have no news to tell you. I am writing this at Ilkley Wells, where I have been with my family for the last six weeks, and shall stay for some few weeks longer. As yet I have profited very little. God knows when I shall have strength for my bigger book. I sincerely hope that you keep your health; I suppose that you will be thinking of returning (Mr. Wallace was in the Malay Archipelago.) soon with your magnificent collections, and still grander mental materials. You will be puzzled how to publish. The Royal Society fund will be worth your consideration. With every good wish, pray believe me, Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN. P.S. I think that I told you before that Hooker is a complete convert. If I can convert Huxley I shall be content. CHARLES DARWIN TO W.D. FOX. Ilkley, Yorkshire, Wednesday [November 16th, 1859]. ...I like the place very much, and the children have enjoyed it much, and it has done my wife good. It did H. good at first, but she has gone back again. I have had a series of calamities; first a sprained ankle, and then a badly swollen whole leg and face, much rash, and a frightful succession of boils--four or five at once. I have felt quite ill, and have little faith in this "unique crisis," as the doctor calls it, doing me much good...You will probably have received, or will very soon receive, my weariful book on species, I naturally believe it mainly includes the truth, but you will not at all agree with me. Dr. Hooker, whom I consider one of the best judges in Europe, is a complete convert, and he thinks Lyell is likewise; certainly, judging from Lyell's letters to me on the subject, he is deeply staggered. Farewell. If the spirit moves you, let me have a line... CHARLES DARWIN TO W.B. CARPENTER. Ilkley, Yorkshire, November 18th [1859]. My dear Carpenter, I must thank you for your letter on my own account, and if I know myself, still more warmly for the subject's sake. As you seem to have understood my last chapter without reading the previous chapters, you must have maturely and most profoundly self-thought out the subject; for I have found the most extraordinary difficulty in making even able men understand at what I was driving. There will be strong opposition to my views. If I am in the main right (of course including partial errors unseen by me), the admission in my views will depend far more on men, like yourself, with well-established reputations, than on my own writings. Therefore, on the supposition that when you have read my volume you think the view in the main true, I thank and honour you for being willing to run the chance of unpopularity by advocating the view. I know not in the least whether any one will review me in any of the Reviews. I do not see how an author could enquire or interfere; but if you are willing to review me anywhere, I am sure from the admiration which I have long felt and expressed for your 'Comparative Physiology,' that your review will be excellently done, and will do good service in the cause for which I think I am not selfishly deeply interested. I am feeling very unwell to-day, and this note is badly, perhaps hardly intelligibly, expressed; but you must excuse me, for I could not let a post pass, without thanking you for your note. You will have a tough job even to shake in the slightest degree Sir H. Holland. I do not think (privately I say it) that the great man has knowledge enough to enter on the subject. Pray believe me with sincerity, Yours truly obliged, C. DARWIN. P.S.--As you are not a practical geologist, let me add that Lyell thinks the chapter on the Imperfection of the Geological Record NOT exaggerated. CHARLES DARWIN TO W.B. CARPENTER. Ilkley, Yorkshire, November 19th [1859]. My dear Carpenter, I beg pardon for troubling you again. If, after reading my book, you are able to come to a conclusion in any degree definite, will you think me very unreasonable in asking you to let me hear from you. I do not ask for a long discussion, but merely for a brief idea of your general impression. From your widely extended knowledge, habit of investigating the truth, and abilities, I should value your opinion in the very highest rank. Though I, of course, believe in the truth of my own doctrine, I suspect that no belief is vivid until shared by others. As yet I know only one believer, but I look at him as of the greatest authority, viz., Hooker. When I think of the many cases of men who have studied one subject for years, and have persuaded themselves of the truth of the foolishest doctrines, I feel sometimes a little frightened, whether I may not be one of these mono- maniacs. Again pray excuse this, I fear, unreasonable request. A short note would suffice, and I could bear a hostile verdict, and shall have to bear many a one. Yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Ilkley, Yorkshire, Sunday [November 1859]. My dear Hooker, I have just read a review on my book in the "Athenaeum" (November 19, 1859.), and it excites my curiosity much who is the author. If you should hear who writes in the "Athenaeum" I wish you would tell me. It seems to me well done, but the reviewer gives no new objections, and, being hostile, passes over every single argument in favour of the doctrine,...I fear from the tone of the review, that I have written in a conceited and cocksure style (The Reviewer speaks of the author's "evident self-satisfaction," and of his disposing of all difficulties "more or less confidently."), which shames me a little. There is another review of which I should like to know the author, viz., of H.C. Watson in the "Gardener's Chronicle". Some of the remarks are like yours, and he does deserve punishment; but surely the review is too severe. Don't you think so? I hope you got the three copies for Foreign Botanists in time for your parcel, and your own copy. I have heard from Carpenter, who, I think, is likely to be a convert. Also from Quatrefages, who is inclined to go a long way with us. He says that he exhibited in his lecture a diagram closely like mine! I shall stay here one fortnight more, and then go to Down, staying on the road at Shrewsbury a week. I have been very unfortunate: out of seven weeks I have been confined for five to the house. This has been bad for me, as I have not been able to help thinking to a foolish extent about my book. If some four or five GOOD men came round nearly to our view, I shall not fear ultimate success. I long to learn what Huxley thinks. Is your introduction (Introduction to the 'Flora of Australia.') published? I suppose that you will sell it separately. Please answer this, for I want an extra copy to send away to Wallace. I am very bothersome, farewell. Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. I was very glad to see the Royal Medal for Mr. Bentham. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, December 21st, 1859. My dear Hooker, Pray give my thanks to Mrs. Hooker for her extremely kind note, which has pleased me much. We are very sorry she cannot come here, but shall be delighted to see you and W. (our boys will be at home) here in the 2nd week of January, or any other time. I shall much enjoy discussing any points in my book with you... I hate to hear you abuse your own work. I, on the contrary, so sincerely value all that you have written. It is an old and firm conviction of mine, that the Naturalists who accumulate facts and make many partial generalisations are the REAL benefactors of science. Those who merely accumulate facts I cannot very much respect. I had hoped to have come up for the Club to-morrow, but very much doubt whether I shall be able. Ilkley seems to have done me no essential good. I attended the Bench on Monday, and was detained in adjudicating some troublesome cases 1 1/2 hours longer than usual, and came home utterly knocked up, and cannot rally. I am not worth an old button...Many thanks for your pleasant note. Ever yours, C. DARWIN. P.S.--I feel confident that for the future progress of the subject of the origin and manner of formation of species, the assent and arguments and facts of working naturalists, like yourself, are far more important than my own book; so for God's sake do not abuse your Introduction. H.C. WATSON TO CHARLES DARWIN. Thames Ditton, November 21st [1859]. My dear Sir, Once commenced to read the 'Origin,' I could not rest till I had galloped through the whole. I shall now begin to re-read it more deliberately. Meantime I am tempted to write you the first impressions, not doubting that they will, in the main, be the permanent impressions:-- 1st. Your leading idea will assuredly become recognised as an established truth in science, i.e. "Natural Selection." It has the characteristics of all great natural truths, clarifying what was obscure, simplifying what was intricate, adding greatly to previous knowledge. You are the greatest revolutionist in natural history of this century, if not of all centuries. 2nd. You will perhaps need, in some degree, to limit or modify, possibly in some degree also to extend, your present applications of the principle of natural selection. Without going to matters of more detail, it strikes me that there is one considerable primary inconsistency, by one failure in the analogy between varieties and species; another by a sort of barrier assumed for nature on insufficient grounds and arising from "divergence." These may, however, be faults in my own mind, attributable to yet incomplete perception of your views. And I had better not trouble you about them before again reading the volume. 3rd. Now these novel views are brought fairly before the scientific public, it seems truly remarkable how so many of them could have failed to see their right road sooner. How could Sir C. Lyell, for instance, for thirty years read, write, and think, on the subject of species AND THEIR SUCCESSION, and yet constantly look down the wrong road! A quarter of a century ago, you and I must have been in something like the same state of mind on the main question, but you were able to see and work out the quo modo of the succession, the all-important thing, while I failed to grasp it. I send by this post a little controversial pamphlet of old date--Combe and Scott. If you will take the trouble to glance at the passages scored on the margin, you will see that, a quarter of a century ago, I was also one of the few who then doubted the absolute distinctness of species, and special creations of them. Yet I, like the rest, failed to detect the quo modo which was reserved for your penetration to DISCOVER, and your discernment to APPLY. You answered my query about the hiatus between Satyrus and Homo as was expected. The obvious explanation really never occurred to me till some months after I had read the papers in the 'Linnean Proceedings.' The first species of Fere-homo ("Almost-man.") would soon make direct and exterminating war upon his Infra-homo cousins. The gap would thus be made, and then go on increasing, into the present enormous and still widening hiatus. But how greatly this, with your chronology of animal life, will shock the ideas of many men! Very sincerely, HEWETT C. WATSON. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. Athenaeum, Monday [November 21st, 1859]. My dear Darwin, I am a sinner not to have written you ere this, if only to thank you for your glorious book--what a mass of close reasoning on curious facts and fresh phenomena--it is capitally written, and will be very successful. I say this on the strength of two or three plunges into as many chapters, for I have not yet attempted to read it. Lyell, with whom we are staying, is perfectly enchanted, and is absolutely gloating over it. I must accept your compliment to me, and acknowledgment of supposed assistance from me, as the warm tribute of affection from an honest (though deluded) man, and furthermore accept it as very pleasing to my vanity; but, my dear fellow, neither my name nor my judgment nor my assistance deserved any such compliments, and if I am dishonest enough to be pleased with what I don't deserve, it must just pass. How different the BOOK reads from the MS. I see I shall have much to talk over with you. Those lazy printers have not finished my luckless Essay; which, beside your book, will look like a ragged handkerchief beside a Royal Standard... All well, ever yours affectionately, JOS. D. HOOKER. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Ilkley, Yorkshire [November 1859]. My dear Hooker, I cannot help it, I must thank you for your affectionate and most kind note. My head will be turned. By Jove, I must try and get a bit modest. I was a little chagrined by the review. (This refers to the review in the "Athenaeum", November 19, 1859, where the reviewer, after touching on the theological aspects of the book, leaves the author to "the mercies of the Divinity Hall, the College, the Lecture Room, and the Museum.") I hope it was NOT --. As advocate, he might think himself justified in giving the argument only on one side. But the manner in which he drags in immortality, and sets the priests at me, and leaves me to their mercies, is base. He would, on no account, burn me, but he will get the wood ready, and tell the black beasts how to catch me...It would be unspeakably grand if Huxley were to lecture on the subject, but I can see this is a mere chance; Faraday might think it too unorthodox. ...I had a letter from [Huxley] with such tremendous praise of my book, that modesty (as I am trying to cultivate that difficult herb) prevents me sending it to you, which I should have liked to have done, as he is very modest about himself. You have cockered me up to that extent, that I now feel I can face a score of savage reviewers. I suppose you are still with the Lyells. Give my kindest remembrance to them. I triumph to hear that he continues to approve. Believe me, your would-be modest friend, C.D. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Ilkley Wells, Yorkshire, November 23 [1859]. My dear Lyell, You seemed to have worked admirably on the species question; there could not have been a better plan than reading up on the opposite side. I rejoice profoundly that you intend admitting the doctrine of modification in your new edition (It appears from Sir Charles Lyell's published letters that he intended to admit the doctrine of evolution in a new edition of the 'Manual,' but this was not published till 1865. He was, however, at work on the 'Antiquity of Man' in 1860, and had already determined to discuss the 'Origin' at the end of the book.); nothing, I am convinced, could be more important for its success. I honour you most sincerely. To have maintained in the position of a master, one side of a question for thirty years, and then deliberately give it up, is a fact to which I much doubt whether the records of science offer a parallel. For myself, also, I rejoice profoundly; for, thinking of so many cases of men pursuing an illusion for years, often and often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted my life to a phantasy. Now I look at it as morally impossible that investigators of truth, like you and Hooker, can be wholly wrong, and therefore I rest in peace. Thank you for criticisms, which, if there be a second edition, I will attend to. I have been thinking that if I am much execrated as an atheist, etc., whether the admission of the doctrine of natural selection could injure your works; but I hope and think not, for as far as I can remember, the virulence of bigotry is expended on the first offender, and those who adopt his views are only pitied as deluded, by the wise and cheerful bigots. I cannot help thinking that you overrate the importance of the multiple origin of dogs. The only difference is, that in the case of single origins, all difference of the races has originated since man domesticated the species. In the case of multiple origins part of the difference was produced under natural conditions. I should INFINITELY prefer the theory of single origin in all cases, if facts would permit its reception. But there seems to me some a priori improbability (seeing how fond savages are of taming animals), that throughout all times, and throughout all the world, that man should have domesticated one single species alone, of the widely distributed genus Canis. Besides this, the close resemblance of at least three kinds of American domestic dogs to wild species still inhabiting the countries where they are now domesticated, seem to almost compel admission that more than one wild Canis has been domesticated by man. I thank you cordially for all the generous zeal and interest you have shown about my book, and I remain, my dear Lyell, Your affectionate friend and disciple, CHARLES DARWIN. Sir J. Herschel, to whom I sent a copy, is going to read my book. He says he leans to the side opposed to me. If you should meet him after he has read me, pray find out what he thinks, for, of course, he will not write; and I should excessively like to hear whether I produce any effect on such a mind. T.H. HUXLEY TO CHARLES DARWIN. Jermyn Street W., November 23rd, 1859. My dear Darwin, I finished your book yesterday, a lucky examination having furnished me with a few hours of continuous leisure. Since I read Von Baer's (Karl Ernst von Baer, born 1792, died at Dorpat 1876--one of the most distinguished biologists of the century. He practically founded the modern science of embryology.) essays, nine years ago, no work on Natural History Science I have met with has made so great an impression upon me, and I do most heartily thank you for the great store of new views you have given me. Nothing, I think, can be better than the tone of the book, it impresses those who know nothing about the subject. As for your doctrine, I am prepared to go to the stake, if requisite, in support of Chapter IX., and most parts of Chapters X., XI., XII., and Chapter XIII. contains much that is most admirable, but on one or two points I enter a caveat until I can see further into all sides of the question. As to the first four chapters, I agree thoroughly and fully with all the principles laid down in them. I think you have demonstrated a true cause for the production of species, and have thrown the onus probandi that species did not arise in the way you suppose, on your adversaries. But I feel that I have not yet by any means fully realized the bearings of those most remarkable and original Chapters III., IV. and V., and I will write no more about them just now. The only objections that have occurred to me are, 1st that you have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum so unreservedly...And 2nd, it is not clear to me why, if continual physical conditions are of so little moment as you suppose, variation should occur at all. However, I must read the book two or three times more before I presume to begin picking holes. I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse and misrepresentation which, unless I greatly mistake, is in store for you. Depend upon it you have earned the lasting gratitude of all thoughtful men. And as to the curs which will bark and yelp, you must recollect that some of your friends, at any rate, are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often and justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead. I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness. Looking back over my letter, it really expresses so feebly all I think about you and your noble book that I am half ashamed of it; but you will understand that, like the parrot in the story, "I think the more." Ever yours faithfully, T.H. HUXLEY. CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Ilkley, November 25th [1859]. My dear Huxley, Your letter has been forwarded to me from Down. Like a good Catholic who has received extreme unction, I can now sing "nunc dimittis." I should have been more than contented with one quarter of what you have said. Exactly fifteen months ago, when I put pen to paper for this volume, I had awful misgivings; and thought perhaps I had deluded myself, like so many have done, and I then fixed in my mind three judges, on whose decision I determined mentally to abide. The judges were Lyell, Hooker, and yourself. It was this which made me so excessively anxious for your verdict. I am now contented, and can sing my nunc dimittis. What a joke it would be if I pat you on the back when you attack some immovable creationist! You have most cleverly hit on one point, which has greatly troubled me; if, as I must think, external conditions produce little DIRECT effect, what the devil determines each particular variation? What makes a tuft of feathers come on a cock's head, or moss on a moss-rose? I shall much like to talk over this with you... My dear Huxley, I thank you cordially for your letter. Yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN. P.S.--Hereafter I shall be particularly curious to hear what you think of my explanation of Embryological similarity. On classification I fear we shall split. Did you perceive the argumentum ad hominem Huxley about kangaroo and bear? ERASMUS DARWIN (His brother.) TO CHARLES DARWIN. November 23rd [1859]. Dear Charles, I am so much weaker in the head, that I hardly know if I can write, but at all events I will jot down a few things that the Dr. (Dr., afterwards Sir Henry Holland.) has said. He has not read much above half, so as he says he can give no definite conclusion, and it is my private belief he wishes to remain in that state...He is evidently in a dreadful state of indecision, and keeps stating that he is not tied down to either view, and that he has always left an escape by the way he has spoken of varieties. I happened to speak of the eye before he had read that part, and it took away his breath--utterly impossible--structure, function, etc., etc., etc., but when he had read it he hummed and hawed, and perhaps it was partly conceivable, and then he fell back on the bones of the ear, which were beyond all probability or conceivability. He mentioned a slight blot, which I also observed, that in speaking of the slave-ants carrying one another, you change the species without giving notice first, and it makes one turn back... ...For myself I really think it is the most interesting book I ever read, and can only compare it to the first knowledge of chemistry, getting into a new world or rather behind the scenes. To me the geographical distribution, I mean the relation of islands to continents, is the most convincing of the proofs, and the relation of the oldest forms to the existing species. I dare say I don't feel enough the absence of varieties, but then I don't in the least know if everything now living were fossilized whether the paleontologists could distinguish them. In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling. My ague has left me in such a state of torpidity that I wish I had gone through the process of natural selection. Yours affectionately, E.A.D. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Ilkley, November [24th, 1859]. My dear Lyell, Again I have to thank you for a most valuable lot of criticisms in a letter dated 22nd. This morning I heard also from Murray that he sold the whole edition (First edition, 1250 copies.) the first day to the trade. He wants a new edition instantly, and this utterly confounds me. Now, under water-cure, with all nervous power directed to the skin, I cannot possibly do head-work, and I must make only actually necessary corrections. But I will, as far as I can without my manuscript, take advantage of your suggestions: I must not attempt much. Will you send me one line to say whether I must strike out about the secondary whale (The passage was omitted in the second edition.), it goes to my heart. About the rattle-snake, look to my Journal, under Trigonocephalus, and you will see the probable origin of the rattle, and generally in transitions it is the premier pas qui coute. Madame Belloc wants to translate my book into French; I have offered to look over proofs for SCIENTIFIC errors. Did you ever hear of her? I believe Murray has agreed at my urgent advice, but I fear I have been rash and premature. Quatrefages has written to me, saying he agrees largely with my views. He is an excellent naturalist. I am pressed for time. Will you give us one line about the whales? Again I thank you for never- tiring advice and assistance; I do in truth reverence your unselfish and pure love of truth. My dear Lyell, ever yours, C. DARWIN. [With regard to a French translation, he wrote to Mr. Murray in November 1859: "I am EXTREMELY anxious, for the subject's sake (and God knows not for mere fame), to have my book translated; and indirectly its being known abroad will do good to the English sale. If it depended on me, I should agree without payment, and instantly send a copy, and only beg that she [Mme. Belloc] would get some scientific man to look over the translation...You might say that, though I am a very poor French scholar, I could detect any scientific mistake, and would read over the French proofs." The proposed translation was not made, and a second plan fell through in the following year. He wrote to M. de Quatrefages: "The gentleman who wished to translate my 'Origin of Species' has failed in getting a publisher. Balliere, Masson, and Hachette all rejected it with contempt. It was foolish and presumptuous in me, hoping to appear in a French dress; but the idea would not have entered my head had it not been suggested to me. It is a great loss. I must console myself with the German edition which Prof. Bronn is bringing out." (See letters to Bronn, page 70.) A sentence in another letter to M. de Quatrefages shows how anxious he was to convert one of the greatest of contemporary Zoologists: "How I should like to know whether Milne Edwards had read the copy which I sent him, and whether he thinks I have made a pretty good case on our side of the question. There is no naturalist in the world for whose opinion I have so profound a respect. Of course I am not so silly as to expect to change his opinion."] CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Ilkley, [November 26th, 1859]. My dear Lyell, I have received your letter of the 24th. It is no use trying to thank you; your kindness is beyond thanks. I will certainly leave out the whale and bear... The edition was 1250 copies. When I was in spirits, I sometimes fancied that my book would be successful, but I never even built a castle in the air of such success as it has met with; I do not mean the sale, but the impression it has made on you (whom I have always looked at as chief judge) and Hooker and Huxley. The whole has infinitely exceeded my wildest hopes. Farewell, I am tired, for I have been going over the sheets. My kind friend, farewell, yours, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Ilkley, Yorkshire, December 2nd [1859]. My dear Lyell, Every note which you have sent me has interested me much. Pray thank Lady Lyell for her remark. In the chapters she refers to, I was unable to modify the passage in accordance with your suggestion; but in the final chapter I have modified three or four. Kingsley, in a note (The letter is given below) to me, had a capital paragraph on such notions as mine being NOT opposed to a high conception of the Deity. I have inserted it as an extract from a letter to me from a celebrated author and divine. I have put in about nascent organs. I had the greatest difficulty in partially making out Sedgwick's letter, and I dare say I did greatly underrate its clearness. Do what I could, I fear I shall be greatly abused. In answer to Sedgwick's remark that my book would be "mischievous," I asked him whether truth can be known except by being victorious over all attacks. But it is no use. H.C. Watson tells me that one zoologist says he will read my book, "but I will never believe it." What a spirit to read any book in! Crawford writes to me that his notice (John Crawford, orientalist, ethnologist, etc., 1783-1868. The review appeared in the "Examiner", and, though hostile, is free from bigotry, as the following citation will show: "We cannot help saying that piety must be fastidious indeed that objects to a theory the tendency of which is to show that all organic beings, man included, are in a perpetual progress of amelioration, and that is expounded in the reverential language which we have quoted.") will be hostile, but that "he will not calumniate the author." He says he has read my book, "at least such parts as he could understand." He sent me some notes and suggestions (quite unimportant), and they show me that I have unavoidably done harm to the subject, by publishing an abstract. He is a real Pallasian; nearly all our domestic races descended from a multitude of wild species now commingled. I expected Murchison to be outrageous. How little he could ever have grappled with the subject of denudation! How singular so great a geologist should have so unphilosophical a mind! I have had several notes from --, very civil and less decided. Says he shall not pronounce against me without much reflection, PERHAPS WILL SAY NOTHING on the subject. X. says -- will go to that part of hell, which Dante tells us is appointed for those who are neither on God's side nor on that of the devil. I fully believe that I owe the comfort of the next few years of my life to your generous support, and that of a very few others. I do not think I am brave enough to have stood being odious without support; now I feel as bold as a lion. But there is one thing I can see I must learn, viz., to think less of myself and my book. Farewell, with cordial thanks. Yours most truly, C. DARWIN. I return home on the 7th, and shall sleep at Erasmus's. I will call on you about ten o'clock, on Thursday, the 8th, and sit with you, as I have so often sat, during your breakfast. I wish there was any chance of Prestwich being shaken; but I fear he is too much of a catastrophist. [In December there appeared in 'Macmillan's Magazine' an article, "Time and Life," by Professor Huxley. It is mainly occupied by an analysis of the argument of the 'Origin,' but it also gives the substance of a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution before that book was published. Professor Huxley spoke strongly in favour of evolution in his Lecture, and explains that in so doing he was to a great extent resting on a knowledge of "the general tenor of the researches in which Mr. Darwin had been so long engaged," and was supported in so doing by his perfect confidence in his knowledge, perseverance, and "high-minded love of truth." My father was evidently deeply pleased by Mr. Huxley's words, and wrote: "I must thank you for your extremely kind notice of my book in 'Macmillan.' No one could receive a more delightful and honourable compliment. I had not heard of your Lecture, owing to my retired life. You attribute much too much to me from our mutual friendship. You have explained my leading idea with admirable clearness. What a gift you have of writing (or more properly) thinking clearly."] CHARLES DARWIN TO W.B. CARPENTER. Ilkley, Yorkshire, December 3rd [1859]. My dear Carpenter, I am perfectly delighted at your letter. It is a great thing to have got a great physiologist on our side. I say "our" for we are now a good and compact body of really good men, and mostly not old men. In the long run we shall conquer. I do not like being abused, but I feel that I can now bear it; and, as I told Lyell, I am well convinced that it is the first offender who reaps the rich harvest of abuse. You have done an essential kindness in checking the odium theologicum in the E.R. (This must refer to Carpenter's critique which would now have been ready to appear in the January number of the "Edinburgh Review", 1860, and in which the odium theologicum is referred to.) It much pains all one's female relations and injures the cause. I look at it as immaterial whether we go quite the same lengths; and I suspect, judging from myself, that you will go further, by thinking of a population of forms like Ornithorhyncus, and by thinking of the common homological and embryological structure of the several vertebrate orders. But this is immaterial. I quite agree that the principle is everything. In my fuller MS. I have discussed a good many instincts; but there will surely be more unfilled gaps here than with corporeal structure, for we have no fossil instincts, and know scarcely any except of European animals. When I reflect how very slowly I came round myself, I am in truth astonished at the candour shown by Lyell, Hooker, Huxley, and yourself. In my opinion it is grand. I thank you cordially for taking the trouble of writing a review for the 'National.' God knows I shall have few enough in any degree favourable. (See a letter to Dr. Carpenter below.) CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Saturday [December 5th, 1859]. ...I have had a letter from Carpenter this morning. He reviews me in the 'National.' He is a convert, but does not go quite so far as I, but quite far enough, for he admits that all birds are from one progenitor, and probably all fishes and reptiles from another parent. But the last mouthful chokes him. He can hardly admit all vertebrates from one parent. He will surely come to this from Homology and Embryology. I look at it as grand having brought round a great physiologist, for great I think he certainly is in that line. How curious I shall be to know what line Owen will take; dead against us, I fear; but he wrote me a most liberal note on the reception of my book, and said he was quite prepared to consider fairly and without prejudice my line of argument. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. Kew, Monday. Dear Darwin, You have, I know, been drenched with letters since the publication of your book, and I have hence forborne to add my mite. I hope now that you are well through Edition II., and I have heard that you were flourishing in London. I have not yet got half-through the book, not from want of will, but of time--for it is the very hardest book to read, to full profits, that I ever tried--it is so cram-full of matter and reasoning. I am all the more glad that you have published in this form, for the three volumes, unprefaced by this, would have choked any Naturalist of the nineteenth century, and certainly have softened my brain in the operation of assimilating their contents. I am perfectly tired of marvelling at the wonderful amount of facts you have brought to bear, and your skill in marshalling them and throwing them on the enemy; it is also extremely clear as far as I have gone, but very hard to fully appreciate. Somehow it reads very different from the MS., and I often fancy I must have been very stupid not to have more fully followed it in MS. Lyell told me of his criticisms. I did not appreciate them all, and there are many little matters I hope one day to talk over with you. I saw a highly flattering notice in the 'English Churchman,' short and not at all entering into discussion, but praising you and your book, and talking patronizingly of the doctrine!...Bentham and Henslow will still shake their heads I fancy... Ever yours affectionately, JOS. D. HOOKER. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, Saturday [December 12th, 1859]. ...I had very long interviews with --, which perhaps you would like to hear about...I infer from several expressions that, at bottom, he goes an immense way with us... He said to the effect that my explanation was the best ever published of the manner of formation of species. I said I was very glad to hear it. He took me up short: "You must not at all suppose that I agree with you in all respects." I said I thought it no more likely that I should be right in nearly all points, than that I should toss up a penny and get heads twenty times running. I asked him what he thought the weakest part. He said he had no particular objection to any part. He added:-- "If I must criticise, I should say, 'we do not want to know what Darwin believes and is convinced of, but what he can prove.'" I agreed most fully and truly that I have probably greatly sinned in this line, and defended my general line of argument of inventing a theory and seeing how many classes of facts the theory would explain. I added that I would endeavour to modify the "believes" and "convinceds." He took me up short: "You will then spoil your book, the charm of (!) it is that it is Darwin himself." He added another objection, that the book was too teres atque rotundus--- that it explained everything, and that it was improbable in the highest degree that I should succeed in this. I quite agree with this rather queer objection, and it comes to this that my book must be very bad or very good... I have heard, by roundabout channel, that Herschel says my book "is the law of higgledy-piggledy." What this exactly means I do not know, but it is evidently very contemptuous. If true this is a great blow and discouragement. CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. December 14th [1859]. ...The latter part of my stay at Ilkley did me much good, but I suppose I never shall be strong, for the work I have had since I came back has knocked me up a little more than once. I have been busy in getting a reprint (with a very few corrections) through the press. My book has been as yet VERY MUCH more successful than I ever dreamed of: Murray is now printing 3000 copies. Have you finished it? If so, pray tell me whether you are with me on the GENERAL issue, or against me. If you are against me, I know well how honourable, fair, and candid an opponent I shall have, and which is a good deal more than I can say of all my opponents... Pray tell me what you have been doing. Have you had time for any Natural History?... P.S.--I have got--I wish and hope I might say that WE have got--a fair number of excellent men on our side of the question on the mutability of species. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, December 14th [1859]. My dear Hooker, Your approval of my book, for many reasons, gives me intense satisfaction; but I must make some allowance for your kindness and sympathy. Any one with ordinary faculties, if he had PATIENCE enough and plenty of time, could have written my book. You do not know how I admire your and Lyell's generous and unselfish sympathy, I do not believe either of you would have cared so much about your own work. My book, as yet, has been far more successful than I ever even formerly ventured in the wildest day-dreams to anticipate. We shall soon be a good body of working men, and shall have, I am convinced, all young and rising naturalists on our side. I shall be intensely interested to hear whether my book produces any effect on A. Gray; from what I heard at Lyell's, I fancy your correspondence has brought him some way already. I fear that there is no chance of Bentham being staggered. Will he read my book? Has he a copy? I would send him one of the reprints if he has not. Old J.E. Gray (John Edward Gray (1800-1875), was the son of S.F. Gray, author of the 'Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia.' In 1821 he published in his father's name 'The Natural Arrangement of British Plants,' one of the earliest works in English on the natural method. In 1824 he became connected with the Natural History Department of the British Museum, and was appointed Keeper of the Zoological collections in 1840. He was the author of 'Illustrations of Indian Zoology,' 'The Knowsley Menagerie,' etc., and of innumerable descriptive Zoological papers.), at the British Museum, attacked me in fine style: "You have just reproduced Lamarck's doctrine and nothing else, and here Lyell and others have been attacking him for twenty years, and because YOU (with a sneer and laugh) say the very same thing, they are all coming round; it is the most ridiculous inconsistency, etc., etc." You must be very glad to be settled in your house, and I hope all the improvements satisfy you. As far as my experience goes, improvements are never perfection. I am very sorry to hear that you are still so very busy, and have so much work. And now for the main purport of my note, which is to ask and beg you and Mrs. Hooker (whom it is really an age since I have seen), and all your children, if you like, to come and spend a week here. It would be a great pleasure to me and to my wife...As far as we can see, we shall be at home all the winter; and all times probably would be equally convenient; but if you can, do not put it off very late, as it may slip through. Think of this and persuade Mrs. Hooker, and be a good man and come. Farewell, my kind and dear friend, Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. P.S.--I shall be very curious to hear what you think of my discussion on Classification in Chapter XIII.; I believe Huxley demurs to the whole, and says he has nailed his colours to the mast, and I would sooner die than give up; so that we are in as fine a frame of mind to discuss the point as any two religionists. Embryology is my pet bit in my book, and, confound my friends, not one has noticed this to me. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, December 21st [1859]. My dear Gray, I have just received your most kind, long, and valuable letter. I will write again in a few days, for I am at present unwell and much pressed with business: to-day's note is merely personal. I should, for several reasons, be very glad of an American Edition. I have made up my mind to be well abused; but I think it of importance that my notions should be read by intelligent men, accustomed to scientific argument, though NOT naturalists. It may seem absurd, but I think such men will drag after them those naturalists who have too firmly fixed in their heads that a species is an entity. The first edition of 1250 copies was sold on the first day, and now my publisher is printing off, as RAPIDLY AS POSSIBLE, 3000 more copies. I mention this solely because it renders probable a remunerative sale in America. I should be infinitely obliged if you could aid an American reprint; and could make, for my sake and the publisher's, any arrangement for any profit. The new edition is only a reprint, yet I have made a FEW important corrections. I will have the clean sheets sent over in a few days of as many sheets as are printed off, and the remainder afterwards, and you can do anything you like,--if nothing, there is no harm done. I should be glad for the new edition to be reprinted and not the old.--In great haste, and with hearty thanks, Yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN. I will write soon again. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, 22nd [December, 1859]. My dear Lyell, Thanks about "Bears" (See 'Origin,' edition i., page 184.), a word of ill- omen to me. I am too unwell to leave home, so shall not see you. I am very glad of your remarks on Hooker. (Sir C. Lyell wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker, December 19, 1859 ('Life,' ii. page 327): "I have just finished the reading of your splendid Essay [the 'Flora of Australia'] on the origin of species, as illustrated by your wide botanical experience, and think it goes very far to raise the variety-making hypothesis to the rank of a theory, as accounting for the manner in which new species enter the world.") I have not yet got the essay. The parts which I read in sheets seemed to me grand, especially the generalization about the Australian flora itself. How superior to Robert Brown's celebrated essay! I have not seen Naudin's paper ('Revue Horticole,' 1852. See historical Sketch in the later editions of the 'Origin of Species.'), and shall not be able till I hunt the libraries. I am very anxious to see it. Decaisne seems to think he gives my whole theory. I do not know when I shall have time and strength to grapple with Hooker... P.S.--I have heard from Sir W. Jardine (Jardine, Sir William, Bart., 1800- 1874, was the son of Sir A. Jardine of Applegarth, Dumfriesshire. He was educated at Edinburgh, and succeeded to the title on his father's decease in 1821. He published, jointly with Mr. Prideaux, J. Selby, Sir Stamford Raffles, Dr. Horsfield, and other ornithologists, 'Illustrations of Ornithology,' and edited the 'Naturalist's Library,' in 40 volumes, which included the four branches: Mammalia, Ornithology, Ichnology, and Entomology. Of these 40 volumes 14 were written by himself. In 1836 he became editor of the 'Magazine of Zoology and Botany,' which, two years later, was transformed into 'Annals of Natural History,' but remained under his direction. For Bohn's Standard Library he edited White's 'Natural History of Selborne.' Sir W. Jardine was also joint editor of the 'Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,' and was author of 'British Salmonidae,' 'Ichthyology of Annandale,' 'Memoirs of the late Hugh Strickland,' 'Contributions to Ornithology,' 'Ornithological Synonyms,' etc.--(Taken from Ward, 'Men of the Reign,' and Cates, 'Dictionary of General Biography.'): his criticisms are quite unimportant; some of the Galapagos so-called species ought to be called varieties, which I fully expected; some of the sub-genera, thought to be wholly endemic, have been found on the Continent (not that he gives his authority), but I do not make out that the species are the same. His letter is brief and vague, but he says he will write again. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [23rd December, 1859]. My dear Hooker, I received last night your 'Introduction,' for which very many thanks; I am surprised to see how big it is: I shall not be able to read it very soon. It was very good of you to send Naudin, for I was very curious to see it. I am surprised that Decaisne should say it was the same as mine. Naudin gives artificial selection, as well as a score of English writers, and when he says species were formed in the same manner, I thought the paper would certainly prove exactly the same as mine. But I cannot find one word like the struggle for existence and natural selection. On the contrary, he brings in his principle (page 103) of finality (which I do not understand), which, he says, with some authors is fatality, with others providence, and which adapts the forms of every being, and harmonises them all throughout nature. He assumes like old geologists (who assumed that the forces of nature were formerly greater), that species were at first more plastic. His simile of tree and classification is like mine (and others), but he cannot, I think, have reflected much on the subject, otherwise he would see that genealogy by itself does not give classification; I declare I cannot see a MUCH closer approach to Wallace and me in Naudin than in Lamarck--we all agree in modification and descent. If I do not hear from you I will return the 'Revue' in a few days (with the cover). I dare say Lyell would be glad to see it. By the way, I will retain the volume till I hear whether I shall or not send it to Lyell. I should rather like Lyell to see this note, though it is foolish work sticking up for independence or priority. Ever yours, C. DARWIN. A. SEDGWICK (Rev. Adam Sedgwick, 1785-1873, Woodwardian Professor of Geology in the University of Cambridge.) TO CHARLES DARWIN. Cambridge, December 24th, [1859]. My dear Darwin, I write to thank you for your work on the 'Origin of Species.' It came, I think, in the latter part of last week; but it MAY have come a few days sooner, and been overlooked among my book-parcels, which often remain unopened when I am lazy or busy with any work before me. So soon as I opened it I began to read it, and I finished it, after many interruptions, on Tuesday. Yesterday I was employed--1st, in preparing for my lecture; 2ndly, in attending a meeting of my brother Fellows to discuss the final propositions of the Parliamentary Commissioners; 3rdly, in lecturing; 4thly, in hearing the conclusion of the discussion and the College reply, whereby, in conformity with my own wishes, we accepted the scheme of the Commissioners; 5thly, in dining with an old friend at Clare College; 6thly, in adjourning to the weekly meeting of the Ray Club, from which I returned at 10 P.M., dog-tired, and hardly able to climb my staircase. Lastly, in looking through the "Times" to see what was going on in the busy world. I do not state this to fill space (though I believe that Nature does abhor a vacuum), but to prove that my reply and my thanks are sent to you by the earliest leisure I have, though that is but a very contracted opportunity. If I did not think you a good-tempered and truth-loving man, I should not tell you that (spite of the great knowledge, store of facts, capital views of the correlation of the various parts of organic nature, admirable hints about the diffusion, through wide regions of many related organic beings, etc., etc.) I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly, parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and grievously mischievous. You have DESERTED--after a start in that tram- road of all solid physical truth--the true method of induction, and started us in machinery as wild, I think, as Bishop Wilkins's locomotive that was to sail with us to the moon. Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved, why then express them in the language and arrangement of philosophical induction? As to your grand principle--NATURAL SELECTION--what is it but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts! Development is a better word, because more close to the cause of the fact? For you do not deny causation. I call (in the abstract) causation the will of God; and I can prove that He acts for the good of His creatures. He also acts by laws which we can study and comprehend. Acting by law, and under what is called final causes, comprehends, I think, your whole principle. You write of "natural selection" as if it were done curiously by the selecting agent. 'Tis but a consequence of the presupposed development, and the subsequent battle for life. This view of nature you have stated admirably, though admitted by all naturalists and denied by no one of common sense. We all admit development as a fact of history: but how came it about? Here, in language, and still more in logic, we are point-blank at issue. There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. 'Tis the crown and glory of organic science that it DOES through FINAL CAUSE, link material and moral; and yet DOES NOT allow us to mingle them in our first conception of laws, and our classification of such laws, whether we consider one side of nature or the other. You have ignored this link; and, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which, thank God, it is not) to break it, humanity, in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it, and sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history. Take the case of the bee-cells. If your development produced the successive modification of the bee and its cells (which no mortal can prove), final cause would stand good as the directing cause under which the successive generations acted and gradually improved. Passages in your book, like that to which I have alluded (and there are others almost as bad), greatly shocked my moral taste. I think, in speculating on organic descent, you OVER-state the evidence of geology; and that you UNDER-state it while you are talking of the broken links of your natural pedigree: but my paper is nearly done, and I must go to my lecture-room. Lastly, then, I greatly dislike the concluding chapter--not as a summary, for in that light it appears good--but I dislike it from the tone of triumphant confidence in which you appeal to the rising generation (in a tone I condemned in the author of the 'Vestiges') and prophesy of things not yet in the womb of time, nor (if we are to trust the accumulated experience of human sense and the inferences of its logic) ever likely to be found anywhere but in the fertile womb of man's imagination. And now to say a word about a son of a monkey and an old friend of yours: I am better, far better, than I was last year. I have been lecturing three days a week (formerly I gave six a week) without much fatigue, but I find by the loss of activity and memory, and of all productive powers, that my bodily frame is sinking slowly towards the earth. But I have visions of the future. They are as much a part of myself as my stomach and my heart, and these visions are to have their antitype in solid fruition of what is best and greatest. But on one condition only--that I humbly accept God's revelation of Himself both in his works and in His word, and do my best to act in conformity with that knowledge which He only can give me, and He only can sustain me in doing. If you and I do all this we shall meet in heaven. I have written in a hurry, and in a spirit of brotherly love, therefore forgive any sentence you happen to dislike; and believe me, spite of any disagreement in some points of the deepest moral interest, your true- hearted old friend, A. SEDGWICK. CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 25th [1859]. My dear Huxley, One part of your note has pleased me so much that I must thank you for it. Not only Sir H.H. [Holland], but several others, have attacked me about analogy leading to belief in one primordial CREATED form. ('Origin,' edition i. page 484.--"Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.") (By which I mean only that we know nothing as yet [of] how life originates.) I thought I was universally condemned on this head. But I answered that though perhaps it would have been more prudent not to have put it in, I would not strike it out, as it seemed to me probable, and I give it on no other grounds. You will see in your mind the kind of arguments which made me think it probable, and no one fact had so great an effect on me as your most curious remarks on the apparent homologies of the head of Vertebrata and Articulata. You have done a real good turn in the Agency business ("My General Agent" was a sobriquet applied at this time by my father to Mr. Huxley.) (I never before heard of a hard-working, unpaid agent besides yourself), in talking with Sir H.H., for he will have great influence over many. He floored me from my ignorance about the bones of the ear, and I made a mental note to ask you what the facts were. With hearty thanks and real admiration for your generous zeal for the subject. Yours most truly, C. DARWIN. You may smile about the care and precautions I have taken about my ugly MS. (Manuscript left with Mr. Huxley for his perusal.); it is not so much the value I set on them, but the remembrance of the intolerable labour--for instance, in tracing the history of the breeds of pigeons. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 25th [December, 1859]. ...I shall not write to Decaisne (With regard to Naudin's paper in the 'Revue Horticole,' 1852.); I have always had a strong feeling that no one had better defend his own priority. I cannot say that I am as indifferent to the subject as I ought to be, but one can avoid doing anything in consequence. I do not believe one iota about your having assimilated any of my notions unconsciously. You have always done me more than justice. But I do think I did you a bad turn by getting you to read the old MS., as it must have checked your own original thoughts. There is one thing I am fully convinced of, that the future progress (which is the really important point) of the subject will have depended on really good and well-known workers, like yourself, Lyell, and Huxley, having taken up the subject, than on my own work. I see plainly it is this that strikes my non- scientific friends. Last night I said to myself, I would just cut your Introduction, but would not begin to read, but I broke down, and had a good hour's read. Farewell, yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. December 28th, 1859. ...Have you seen the splendid essay and notice of my book in the "Times"? (December 26th.) I cannot avoid a strong suspicion that it is by Huxley; but I never heard that he wrote in the "Times". It will do grand service,... C. DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 28th [1859]. My dear Huxley, Yesterday evening, when I read the "Times" of a previous day, I was amazed to find a splendid essay and review of me. Who can the author be? I am intensely curious. It included an eulogium of me which quite touched me, though I am not vain enough to think it all deserved. The author is a literary man, and German scholar. He has read my book very attentively; but, what is very remarkable, it seems that he is a profound naturalist. He knows my Barnacle-book, and appreciates it too highly. Lastly, he writes and thinks with quite uncommon force and clearness; and what is even still rarer, his writing is seasoned with most pleasant wit. We all laughed heartily over some of the sentences. I was charmed with those unreasonable mortals, who know anything, all thinking fit to range themselves on one side. (The reviewer proposes to pass by the orthodox view, according to which the phenomena of the organic world are "the immediate product of a creative fiat, and consequently are out of the domain of science altogether." And he does so "with less hesitation, as it so happens that those persons who are practically conversant with the facts of the case (plainly a considerable advantage) have always thought fit to range themselves" in the category of those holding "views which profess to rest on a scientific basis only, and therefore admit of being argued to their consequences.") Who can it be? Certainly I should have said that there was only one man in England who could have written this essay, and that YOU were the man. But I suppose I am wrong, and that there is some hidden genius of great calibre. For how could you influence Jupiter Olympius and make him give three and a half columns to pure science? The old fogies will think the world will come to an end. Well, whoever the man is, he has done great service to the cause, far more than by a dozen reviews in common periodicals. The grand way he soars above common religious prejudices, and the admission of such views into the "Times", I look at as of the highest importance, quite independently of the mere question of species. If you should happen to be ACQUAINTED with the author, for Heaven-sake tell me who he is? My dear Huxley, yours most sincerely, C. DARWIN. [It is impossible to give in a short space an adequate idea of Mr. Huxley's article in the "Times" of December 26. It is admirably planned, so as to claim for the 'Origin' a respectful hearing, and it abstains from anything like dogmatism in asserting the truth of the doctrines therein upheld. A few passages may be quoted:--"That this most ingenious hypothesis enables us to give a reason for many apparent anomalies in the distribution of living beings in time and space, and that it is not contradicted by the main phenomena of life and organisation, appear to us to be unquestionable." Mr. Huxley goes on to recommend to the readers of the 'Origin' a condition of "thatige Skepsis"--a state of "doubt which so loves truth that it neither dares rest in doubting, nor extinguish itself by unjustified belief." The final paragraph is in a strong contrast to Professor Sedgwick and his "ropes of bubbles" (see below). Mr. Huxley writes: "Mr. Darwin abhors mere speculation as nature abhors a vacuum. He is as greedy of cases and precedents as any constitutional lawyer, and all the principles he lays down are capable of being brought to the test of observation and experiment. The path he bids us follow professes to be not a mere airy track, fabricated of ideal cobwebs, but a solid and broad bridge of facts. If it be so, it will carry us safely over many a chasm in our knowledge, and lead us to a region free from the snares of those fascinating but barren virgins, the Final Causes, against whom a high authority has so justly warned us." There can be no doubt that this powerful essay, appearing as it did in the leading daily Journal, must have had a strong influence on the reading public. Mr. Huxley allows me to quote from a letter an account of the happy chance that threw into his hands the opportunity of writing it. "The 'Origin' was sent to Mr. Lucas, one of the staff of the "Times" writers at that day, in what I suppose was the ordinary course of business. Mr. Lucas, though an excellent journalist, and, at a later period, editor of 'Once a Week,' was as innocent of any knowledge of science as a babe, and bewailed himself to an acquaintance on having to deal with such a book. Whereupon he was recommended to ask me to get him out of his difficulty, and he applied to me accordingly, explaining, however, that it would be necessary for him formally to adopt anything I might be disposed to write, by prefacing it with two or three paragraphs of his own. "I was too anxious to seize upon the opportunity thus offered of giving the book a fair chance with the multitudinous readers of the "Times" to make any difficulty about conditions; and being then very full of the subject, I wrote the article faster, I think, than I ever wrote anything in my life, and sent it to Mr. Lucas, who duly prefixed his opening sentences. "When the article appeared, there was much speculation as to its authorship. The secret leaked out in time, as all secrets will, but not by my aid; and then I used to derive a good deal of innocent amusement from the vehement assertions of some of my more acute friends, that they knew it was mine from the first paragraph! "As the "Times" some years since, referred to my connection with the review, I suppose there will be no breach of confidence in the publication of this little history, if you think it worth the space it will occupy."] CHAPTER 2.II. THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES' (continued). 1860. [I extract a few entries from my father's Diary:-- "January 7th. The second edition, 3000 copies, of 'Origin' was published." "May 22nd. The first edition of 'Origin' in the United States was 2500 copies." My father has here noted down the sums received for the 'Origin.' First Edition......180 pounds Second Edition.....636 pounds 13 shillings 4 pence Total..............816 pounds 13 shillings 4 pence. After the publication of the second edition he began at once, on January 9th, looking over his materials for the 'Variation of Animals and Plants;' the only other work of the year was on Drosera. He was at Down during the whole of this year, except for a visit to Dr. Lane's Water-cure Establishment at Sudbrooke, and in June, and for visits to Miss Elizabeth Wedgwood's house at Hartfield, in Sussex (July), and to Eastbourne, September 22 to November 16.] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 3rd [1860]. My dear Hooker, I have finished your Essay. ('Australian Flora.') As probably you would like to hear my opinion, though a non-botanist, I will give it without any exaggeration. To my judgment it is by far the grandest and most interesting essay, on subjects of the nature discussed, I have ever read. You know how I admired your former essays, but this seems to me far grander. I like all the part after page xxvi better than the first part, probably because newer to me. I dare say you will demur to this, for I think every author likes the most speculative parts of his own productions. How superior your essay is to the famous one of Brown (here will be sneer 1st from you). You have made all your conclusions so admirably clear, that it would be no use at all to be a botanist (sneer No. 2). By Jove, it would do harm to affix any idea to the long names of outlandish orders. One can look at your conclusions with the philosophic abstraction with which a mathematician looks at his a times x + the square root of z squared, etc. etc. I hardly know which parts have interested me most; for over and over again I exclaimed, "this beats all." The general comparison of the Flora of Australia with the rest of the world, strikes me (as before) as extremely original, good, and suggestive of many reflections. ...The invading Indian Flora is very interesting, but I think the fact you mention towards the close of the essay--that the Indian vegetation, in contradistinction to the Malayan vegetation, is found in low and level parts of the Malay Islands, GREATLY lessens the difficulty which at first (page 1) seemed so great. There is nothing like one's own hobby-horse. I suspect it is the same case as of glacial migration, and of naturalised production--of production of greater area conquering those of lesser; of course the Indian forms would have a greater difficulty in seizing on the cool parts of Australia. I demur to your remarks (page 1), as not "conceiving anything in soil, climate, or vegetation of India," which could stop the introduction of Australian plants. Towards the close of the essay (page civ), you have admirable remarks on our profound ignorance of the cause of possible naturalisation or introduction; I would answer page 1, by a later page, viz. page civ. Your contrast of the south-west and south-east corners is one of the most wonderful cases I ever heard of...You show the case with wonderful force. Your discussion on mixed invaders of the south-east corner (and of New Zealand) is as curious and intricate a problem as of the races of men in Britain. Your remark on mixed invading Flora keeping down or destroying an original Flora, which was richer in number of species, strikes me as EMINENTLY NEW AND IMPORTANT. I am not sure whether to me the discussion on the New Zealand Flora is not even more instructive. I cannot too much admire both. But it will require a long time to suck in all the facts. Your case of the largest Australian orders having none, or very few, species in New Zealand, is truly marvellous. Anyhow, you have now DEMONSTRATED (together with no mammals in New Zealand) (bitter sneer No. 3), that New Zealand has never been continuously, or even nearly continuously, united by land to Australia!! At page lxxxix, is the only sentence (on this subject) in the whole essay at which I am much inclined to quarrel, viz. that no theory of trans-oceanic migration can explain, etc. etc. Now I maintain against all the world, that no man knows anything about the power of trans-oceanic migration. You do not know whether or not the absent orders have seeds which are killed by sea-water, like almost all Leguminosae, and like another order which I forget. Birds do not migrate from Australia to New Zealand, and therefore floatation SEEMS the only possible means; but yet I maintain that we do not know enough to argue on the question, especially as we do not know the main fact whether the seeds of Australian orders are killed by sea-water. The discussion on European Genera is profoundly interesting; but here alone I earnestly beg for more information, viz. to know which of these genera are absent in the Tropics of the world, i.e. confined to temperate regions. I excessively wish to know, ON THE NOTION OF GLACIAL MIGRATION, how much modification has taken place in Australia. I had better explain when we meet, and get you to go over and mark the list. ...The list of naturalised plants is extremely interesting, but why at the end, in the name of all that is good and bad, do you not sum up and comment on your facts? Come, I will have a sneer at you in return for the many which you will have launched at this letter. Should you have remarked on the number of plants naturalised in Australia and the United States UNDER EXTREMELY DIFFERENT CLIMATES, as showing that climate is so important, and [on] the considerable sprinkling of plants from India, North America, and South Africa, as showing that the frequent introduction of seeds is so important? With respect to "abundance of unoccupied ground in Australia," do you believe that European plants introduced by man now grow on spots in Australia which were absolutely bare? But I am an impudent dog, one must defend one's own fancy theories against such cruel men as you. I dare say this letter will appear very conceited, but one must form an opinion on what one reads with attention, and in simple truth, I cannot find words strong enough to express my admiration of your essay. My dear old friend, yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. P.S.--I differ about the "Saturday Review". ("Saturday Review", December 24, 1859. The hostile arguments of the reviewer are geological, and he deals especially with the denudation of the Weald. The reviewer remarks that, "if a million of centuries, more or less, is needed for any part of his argument, he feels no scruple in taking them to suit his purpose.") One cannot expect fairness in a reviewer, so I do not complain of all the other arguments besides the 'Geological Record' being omitted. Some of the remarks about the lapse of years are very good, and the reviewer gives me some good and well-deserved raps--confound it. I am sorry to confess the truth: but it does not at all concern the main argument. That was a nice notice in the "Gardeners' Chronicle". I hope and imagine that Lindley is almost a convert. Do not forget to tell me if Bentham gets all the more staggered. With respect to tropical plants during the Glacial period, I throw in your teeth your own facts, at the base of the Himalaya, on the possibility of the co-existence of at least forms of the tropical and temperate regions. I can give a parallel case for animals in Mexico. Oh! my dearly beloved puny child, how cruel men are to you! I am very glad you approve of the Geographical chapters... CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, [January 4th, 1860]. My dear L. "Gardeners' Chronicle" returned safe. Thanks for note. I am beyond measure glad that you get more and more roused on the subject of species, for, as I have always said, I am well convinced that your opinions and writings will do far more to convince the world than mine. You will make a grand discussion on man. You are very bold in this, and I honour you. I have been, like you, quite surprised at the want of originality in opposed arguments and in favour too. Gwyn Jeffreys attacks me justly in his letter about strictly littoral shells not being often embedded at least in Tertiary deposits. I was in a muddle, for I was thinking of Secondary, yet Chthamalus applied to Tertiary... Possibly you might like to see the enclosed note (Dr. Whewell wrote (January 2, 1860): "...I cannot, yet at least, become a convert. But there is so much of thought and of fact in what you have written that it is not to be contradicted without careful selection of the ground and manner of the dissent." Dr. Whewell dissented in a practical manner for some years, by refusing to allow a copy of the 'Origin of Species' to be placed in the Library of Trinity College.) from Whewell, merely as showing that he is not horrified with us. You can return it whenever you have occasion to write, so as not to waste your time. C.D. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, [January 4th? 1860]. ...I have had a brief note from Keyserling (Joint author with Murchison of the 'Geology of Russia,' 1845.), but not worth sending you. He believes in change of species, grants that natural selection explains well adaptation of form, but thinks species change too regularly, as if by some chemical law, for natural selection to be the sole cause of change. I can hardly understand his brief note, but this is I think the upshot. ...I will send A. Murray's paper whenever published. (The late Andrew Murray wrote two papers on the 'Origin' in the Proc. R. Soc. Edin. 1860. The one referred to here is dated January 16, 1860. The following is quoted from page 6 of the separate copy: "But the second, and, as it appears to me, by much the most important phase of reversion to type (and which is practically, if not altogether ignored by Mr. Darwin), is the instinctive inclination which induces individuals of the same species by preference to intercross with those possessing the qualities which they themselves want, so as to preserve the purity or equilibrium of the breed...It is trite to a proverb, that tall men marry little women...a man of genius marries a fool...and we are told that this is the result of the charm of contrast, or of qualities admired in others because we do not possess them. I do not so explain it. I imagine it is the effort of nature to preserve the typical medium of the race.") It includes speculations (which he perhaps will modify) so rash, and without a single fact in support, that had I advanced them he or other reviewers would have hit me very hard. I am sorry to say that I have no "consolatory view" on the dignity of man. I am content that man will probably advance, and care not much whether we are looked at as mere savages in a remotely distant future. Many thanks for your last note. Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. I have received, in a Manchester newspaper, rather a good squib, showing that I have proved "might is right," and therefore that Napoleon is right, and every cheating tradesman is also right. CHARLES DARWIN TO W.B. CARPENTER. Down, January 6th [1860]? My dear Carpenter, I have just read your excellent article in the 'National.' It will do great good; especially if it becomes known as your production. It seems to me to give an excellently clear account of Mr. Wallace's and my views. How capitally you turn the flanks of the theological opposers by opposing to them such men as Bentham and the more philosophical of the systematists! I thank you sincerely for the EXTREMELY honourable manner in which you mention me. I should have liked to have seen some criticisms or remarks on embryology, on which subject you are so well instructed. I do not think any candid person can read your article without being much impressed with it. The old doctrine of immutability of specific forms will surely but slowly die away. It is a shame to give you trouble, but I should be very much obliged if you could tell me where differently coloured eggs in individuals of the cuckoo have been described, and their laying in twenty- seven kinds of nests. Also do you know from your own observation that the limbs of sheep imported into the West Indies change colour? I have had detailed information about the loss of wool; but my accounts made the change slower than you describe. With most cordial thanks and respect, believe me, my dear Carpenter, yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO L. JENYNS. (Rev. L. Blomefield.) Down, January 7th, 1860. My dear Jenyns, I am very much obliged for your letter. It is of great use and interest to me to know what impression my book produces on philosophical and instructed minds. I thank you for the kind things which you say; and you go with me much further than I expected. You will think it presumptuous, but I am convinced, IF CIRCUMSTANCES LEAD YOU TO KEEP THE SUBJECT IN MIND, that you will go further. No one has yet cast doubts on my explanation of the subordination of group to group, on homologies, embryology, and rudimentary organs; and if my explanation of these classes of facts be at all right, whole classes of organic beings must be included in one line of descent. The imperfection of the Geological Record is one of the greatest difficulties...During the earliest period the record would be most imperfect, and this seems to me sufficient to account for our not finding intermediate forms between the classes in the same great kingdoms. It was certainly rash in me putting in my belief of the probability of all beings having descended from ONE primordial form; but as this seems yet to me probable, I am not willing to strike it out. Huxley alone supports me in this, and something could be said in its favour. With respect to man, I am very far from wishing to obtrude my belief; but I thought it dishonest to quite conceal my opinion. Of course it is open to every one to believe that man appeared by a separate miracle, though I do not myself see the necessity or probability. Pray accept my sincere thanks for your kind note. Your going some way with me gives me great confidence that I am not very wrong. For a very long time I halted half way; but I do not believe that any enquiring mind will rest half-way. People will have to reject all or admit all; by ALL I mean only the members of each great kingdom. My dear Jenyns, yours most sincerely, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, January 10th [1860]. ...It is perfectly true that I owe nearly all the corrections (The second edition of 3000 copies of the 'Origin' was published on January 7th.) to you, and several verbal ones to you and others; I am heartily glad you approve of them, as yet only two things have annoyed me; those confounded millions (This refers to the passage in the 'Origin of Species' (2nd edition, page 285), in which the lapse of time implied by the denudation of the Weald is discussed. The discussion closes with the sentence: "So that it is not improbable that a longer period than 300 million years has elapsed since the latter part of the Secondary period." This passage is omitted in the later editions of the 'Origin,' against the advice of some of his friends, as appears from the pencil notes in my father's copy of the second edition.) of years (not that I think it is probably wrong), and my not having (by inadvertance) mentioned Wallace towards the close of the book in the summary, not that any one has noticed this to me. I have now put in Wallace's name at page 484 in a conspicuous place. I cannot refer you to tables of mortality of children, etc. etc. I have notes somewhere, but I have not the LEAST idea where to hunt, and my notes would now be old. I shall be truly glad to read carefully any MS. on man, and give my opinion. You used to caution me to be cautious about man. I suspect I shall have to return the caution a hundred fold! Yours will, no doubt, be a grand discussion; but it will horrify the world at first more than my whole volume; although by the sentence (page 489, new edition (First edition, page 488.)) I show that I believe man is in the same predicament with other animals. It is, in fact, impossible to doubt it. I have thought (only vaguely) on man. With respect to the races, one of my best chances of truth has broken down from the impossibility of getting facts. I have one good speculative line, but a man must have entire credence in Natural Selection before he will even listen to it. Psychologically, I have done scarcely anything. Unless, indeed, expression of countenance can be included, and on that subject I have collected a good many facts, and speculated, but I do not suppose I shall ever publish, but it is an uncommonly curious subject. By the way, I sent off a lot of questions the day before yesterday to Tierra del Fuego on expression! I suspect (for I have never read it) that Spencer's 'Psychology' has a bearing on Psychology as we should look at it. By all means read the Preface, in about 20 pages, of Hensleigh Wedgwood's new Dictionary on the first origin of Language; Erasmus would lend it. I agree about Carpenter, a very good article, but with not much original...Andrew Murray has criticised, in an address to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, the notice in the 'Linnean Journal,' and "has disposed of" the whole theory by an ingenious difficulty, which I was very stupid not to have thought of; for I express surprise at more and analogous cases not being known. The difficulty is, that amongst the blind insects of the caves in distant parts of the world there are some of the same genus, and yet the genus is not found out of the caves or living in the free world. I have little doubt that, like the fish Amblyopsis, and like Proteus in Europe, these insects are "wrecks of ancient life," or "living fossils," saved from competition and extermination. But that formerly SEEING insects of the same genus roamed over the whole area in which the cases are included. Farewell, yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. P.S.--OUR ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull, and undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, January 14th [1860]. ...I shall be much interested in reading your man discussion, and will give my opinion carefully, whatever that may be worth; but I have so long looked at you as the type of cautious scientific judgment (to my mind one of the highest and most useful qualities), that I suspect my opinion will be superfluous. It makes me laugh to think what a joke it will be if I have to caution you, after your cautions on the same subject to me! I will order Owen's book ('Classification of the Mammalia,' 1859.); I am very glad to hear Huxley's opinion on his classification of man; without having due knowledge, it seemed to me from the very first absurd; all classifications founded on single characters I believe have failed. ...What a grand, immense benefit you conferred on me by getting Murray to publish my book. I never till to-day realised that it was getting widely distributed; for in a letter from a lady to-day to E., she says she heard a man enquiring for it at the RAILWAY STATION!!! at Waterloo Bridge; and the bookseller said that he had none till the new edition was out. The bookseller said he had not read it, but had heard it was a very remarkable book!!!... CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 14th [January, 1860]. ...I heard from Lyell this morning, and he tells me a piece of news. You are a good-for-nothing man; here you are slaving yourself to death with hardly a minute to spare, and you must write a review of my book! I thought it ('Gardeners' Chronicle', 1860. Referred to above. Sir J.D. Hooker took the line of complete impartiality, so as not to commit Lindley.) a very good one, and was so much struck with it that I sent it to Lyell. But I assumed, as a matter of course, that it was Lindley's. Now that I know it is yours, I have re-read it, and, my kind and good friend, it has warmed my heart with all the honourable and noble things you say of me and it. I was a good deal surprised at Lindley hitting on some of the remarks, but I never dreamed of you. I admired it chiefly as so well adapted to tell on the readers of the 'Gardeners' Chronicle'; but now I admired it in another spirit. Farewell, with hearty thanks...Lyell is going at man with an audacity that frightens me. It is a good joke; he used always to caution me to slip over man. [In the "Gardeners' Chronicle", January 21, 1860, appeared a short letter from my father which was called forth by Mr. Westwood's communication to the previous number of the journal, in which certain phenomena of cross- breeding are discussed in relation to the 'Origin of Species.' Mr. Westwood wrote in reply (February 11) and adduced further evidence against the doctrine of descent, such as the identity of the figures of ostriches on the ancient "Egyptian records," with the bird as we now know it. The correspondence is hardly worth mentioning, except as one of the very few cases in which my father was enticed into anything resembling a controversy.] ASA GRAY TO J.D. HOOKER. Cambridge, Mass., January 5th, 1860. My dear Hooker, Your last letter, which reached me just before Christmas, has got mislaid during the upturnings in my study which take place at that season, and has not yet been discovered. I should be very sorry to lose it, for there were in it some botanical mems. which I had not secured... The principal part of your letter was high laudation of Darwin's book. Well, the book has reached me, and I finished its careful perusal four days ago; and I freely say that your laudation is not out of place. It is done in a MASTERLY MANNER. It might well have taken twenty years to produce it. It is crammed full of most interesting matter--thoroughly digested--well expressed--close, cogent, and taken as a system it makes out a better case than I had supposed possible... Agassiz, when I saw him last, had read but a part of it. He says it is POOR--VERY POOR!! (entre nous). The fact [is] he is very much annoyed by it,...and I do not wonder at it. To bring all IDEAL systems within the domain of science, and give good physical or natural explanations of all his capital points, is as bad as to have Forbes take the glacier materials...and give scientific explanation of all the phenomena. Tell Darwin all this. I will write to him when I get a chance. As I have promised, he and you shall have fair-play here...I must myself write a review of Darwin's book for 'Silliman's Journal' (the more so that I suspect Agassiz means to come out upon it) for the next (March) No., and I am now setting about it (when I ought to be every moment working the Expl[oring] Expedition Compositae, which I know far more about). And really it is no easy job, as you may well imagine. I doubt if I shall please you altogether. I know I shall not please Agassiz at all. I hear another reprint is in the Press, and the book will excite much attention here, and some controversy... CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, January 28th [1860]. My dear Gray, Hooker has forwarded to me your letter to him; and I cannot express how deeply it has gratified me. To receive the approval of a man whom one has long sincerely respected. And whose judgment and knowledge are most universally admitted, is the highest reward an author can possibly wish for; and I thank you heartily for your most kind expressions. I have been absent from home for a few days, and so could not earlier answer your letter to me of the 10th of January. You have been extremely kind to take so much trouble and interest about the edition. It has been a mistake of my publisher not thinking of sending over the sheets. I had entirely and utterly forgotten your offer of receiving the sheets as printed off. But I must not blame my publisher, for had I remembered your most kind offer I feel pretty sure I should not have taken advantage of it; for I never dreamed of my book being so successful with general readers; I believe I should have laughed at the idea of sending the sheets to America. (In a letter to Mr. Murray, 1860, my father wrote:--"I am amused by Asa Gray's account of the excitement my book has made amongst naturalists in the United States. Agassiz has denounced it in a newspaper, but yet in such terms that it is in fact a fine advertisement!" This seems to refer to a lecture given before the Mercantile Library Association.) After much consideration, and on the strong advice of Lyell and others, I have resolved to leave the present book as it is (excepting correcting errors, or here and there inserting short sentences) and to use all my strength, WHICH IS BUT LITTLE, to bring out the first part (forming a separate volume with index, etc.) of the three volumes which will make my bigger work; so that I am very unwilling to take up time in making corrections for an American edition. I enclose a list of a few corrections in the second reprint, which you will have received by this time complete, and I could send four or five corrections or additions of equally small importance, or rather of equal brevity. I also intend to write a SHORT preface with a brief history of the subject. These I will set about, as they must some day be done, and I will send them to you in a short time-- the few corrections first, and the preface afterwards, unless I hear that you have given up all idea of a separate edition. You will then be able to judge whether it is worth having the new edition with YOUR REVIEW PREFIXED. Whatever be the nature of your review, I assure you I should feel it a GREAT honour to have my book thus preceded... ASA GRAY TO CHARLES DARWIN. Cambridge, January 23rd, 1860. My dear Darwin, You have my hurried letter telling you of the arrival of the remainder of the sheets of the reprint, and of the stir I had made for a reprint in Boston. Well, all looked pretty well, when, lo, we found that a second New York publishing house had announced a reprint also! I wrote then to both New York publishers, asking them to give way to the AUTHOR and his reprint of a revised edition. I got an answer from the Harpers that they withdraw --from the Appletons that they had got the book OUT (and the next day I saw a copy); but that, "if the work should have any considerable sale, we certainly shall be disposed to pay the author reasonably and liberally." The Appletons being thus out with their reprint, the Boston house declined to go on. So I wrote to the Appletons taking them at their word, offering to aid their reprint, to give them the use of the alterations in the London reprint, as soon as I find out what they are, etc. etc. And I sent them the first leaf, and asked them to insert in their future issue the additional matter from Butler (A quotation from Butler's 'Analogy,' on the use of the word natural, which in the second edition is placed with the passages from Whewell and Bacon on page ii, opposite the title-page.), which tells just right. So there the matter stands. If you furnish any matter in advance of the London third edition, I will make them pay for it. I may get something for you. All got is clear gain; but it will not be very much, I suppose. Such little notices in the papers here as have yet appeared are quite handsome and considerate. I hope next week to get printed sheets of my review from New Haven, and send [them] to you, and will ask you to pass them on to Dr. Hooker. To fulfil your request, I ought to tell you what I think the weakest, and what the best, part of your book. But this is not easy, nor to be done in a word or two. The BEST PART, I think, is the WHOLE, i.e., its PLAN and TREATMENT, the vast amount of facts and acute inferences handled as if you had a perfect mastery of them. I do not think twenty years too much time to produce such a book in. Style clear and good, but now and then wants revision for little matters (page 97, self-fertilises ITSELF, etc.). Then your candour is worth everything to your cause. It is refreshing to find a person with a new theory who frankly confesses that he finds difficulties, insurmountable, at least for the present. I know some people who never have any difficulties to speak of. The moment I understood your premisses, I felt sure you had a real foundation to hold on. Well, if one admits your premisses, I do not see how he is to stop short of your conclusions, as a probable hypothesis at least. It naturally happens that my review of your book does not exhibit anything like the full force of the impression the book has made upon me. Under the circumstances I suppose I do your theory more good here, by bespeaking for it a fair and favourable consideration, and by standing non-committed as to its full conclusions, than I should if I announced myself a convert; nor could I say the latter, with truth. Well, what seems to me the weakest point in the book is the attempt to account for the formation of organs, the making of eyes, etc., by natural selection. Some of this reads quite Lamarckian. The chapter on HYBRIDISM is not a WEAK, but a STRONG chapter. You have done wonders there. But still you have not accounted, as you may be held to account, for divergence up to a certain extent producing increased fertility of the crosses, but carried one short almost imperceptible step more, giving rise to sterility, or reversing the tendency. Very likely you are on the right track; but you have something to do yet in that department. Enough for the present. ...I am not insensible to your compliments, the very high compliment which you pay me in valuing my opinion. You evidently think more of it than I do, though from the way I write [to] you, and especially [to] Hooker, this might not be inferred from the reading of my letters. I am free to say that I never learnt so much from one book as I have from yours, there remain a thousand things I long to say about it. Ever yours, ASA GRAY. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. [February? 1860]. ...Now I will just run through some points in your letter. What you say about my book gratifies me most deeply, and I wish I could feel all was deserved by me. I quite think a review from a man, who is not an entire convert, if fair and moderately favourable, is in all respects the best kind of review. About the weak points I agree. The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations, my reason tells me I ought to conquer the cold shudder. Pray kindly remember and tell Prof. Wyman how very grateful I should be for any hints, information, or criticisms. I have the highest respect for his opinion. I am so sorry about Dana's health. I have already asked him to pay me a visit. Farewell, you have laid me under a load of obligation--not that I feel it a load. It is the highest possible gratification to me to think that you have found my book worth reading and reflection; for you and three others I put down in my own mind as the judges whose opinions I should value most of all. My dear Gray, yours most sincerely, C. DARWIN. P.S.--I feel pretty sure, from my own experience, that if you are led by your studies to keep the subject of the origin of species before your mind, you will go further and further in your belief. It took me long years, and I assure you I am astonished at the impression my book has made on many minds. I fear twenty years ago, I should not have been half as candid and open to conviction. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [January 31st, 1860]. My dear Hooker, I have resolved to publish a little sketch of the progress of opinion on the change of species. Will you or Mrs. Hooker do me the favour to copy ONE sentence out of Naudin's paper in the 'Revue Horticole,' 1852, page 103, namely, that on his principle of Finalite. Can you let me have it soon, with those confounded dashes over the vowels put in carefully? Asa Gray, I believe, is going to get a second edition of my book, and I want to send this little preface over to him soon. I did not think of the necessity of having Naudin's sentence on finality, otherwise I would have copied it. Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. P.S.--I shall end by just alluding to your Australian Flora Introduction. What was the date of publication: December 1859, or January 1860? Please answer this. My preface will also do for the French edition, which I BELIEVE, is agreed on. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. February [1860]. ...As the 'Origin' now stands, Harvey's (William Henry Harvey was descended from a Quaker family of Youghal, and was born in February, 1811, at Summerville, a country house on the banks of the Shannon. He died at Torquay in 1866. In 1835, Harvey went to Africa (Table Bay) to pursue his botanical studies, the results of which were given in his 'Genera of South African Plants.' In 1838, ill-health compelled him to obtain leave of absence, and return to England for a time; in 1840 he returned to Cape Town, to be again compelled by illness to leave. In 1843 he obtained the appointment of Botanical Professor at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1854, 1855, and 1856 he visited Australia, New Zealand, the Friendly and Fiji Islands. In 1857 Dr. Harvey reached home, and was appointed the successor of Professor Allman to the Chair of Botany in Dublin University. He was author of several botanical works, principally on Algae.--(From a Memoir published in 1869.)) is a good hit against my talking so much of the insensibly fine gradations; and certainly it has astonished me that I should be pelted with the fact, that I had not allowed abrupt and great enough variations under nature. It would take a good deal more evidence to make me admit that forms have often changed by saltum. Have you seen Wollaston's attack in the 'Annals'? ('Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' 1860.) The stones are beginning to fly. But Theology has more to do with these two attacks than Science... [In the above letter a paper by Harvey in the "Gardeners' Chronicle", February 18, 1860, is alluded to. He describes a case of monstrosity in Begonia frigida, in which the "sport" differed so much from a normal Begonia that it might have served as the type of a distinct natural order. Harvey goes on to argue that such a case is hostile to the theory of natural selection, according to which changes are not supposed to take place per saltum, and adds that "a few such cases would overthrow it [Mr. Darwin's hypothesis] altogether." In the following number of the "Gardeners' Chronicle" Sir J.D. Hooker showed that Dr. Harvey had misconceived the bearing of the Begonia case, which he further showed to be by no means calculated to shake the validity of the doctrine of modification by means of natural selection. My father mentions the Begonia case in a letter to Lyell (February 18, 1860):-- "I send by this post an attack in the "Gardeners' Chronicle", by Harvey (a first-rate Botanist, as you probably know). It seems to me rather strange; he assumes the permanence of monsters, whereas, monsters are generally sterile, and not often inheritable. But grant his case, it comes that I have been too cautious in not admitting great and sudden variations. Here again comes in the mischief of my ABSTRACT. In the fuller MS. I have discussed a parallel case of a normal fish like the monstrous gold-fish." With reference to Sir J.D. Hooker's reply, my father wrote:] Down, [February 26th, 1860]. My dear Hooker, Your answer to Harvey seems to me ADMIRABLY good. You would have made a gigantic fortune as a barrister. What an omission of Harvey's about the graduated state of the flowers! But what strikes me most is that surely I ought to know my own book best, yet, by Jove, you have brought forward ever so many arguments which I did not think of! Your reference to classification (viz. I presume to such cases as Aspicarpa) is EXCELLENT, for the monstrous Begonia no doubt in all details would be Begonia. I did not think of this, nor of the RETROGRADE step from separated sexes to an hermaphrodite state; nor of the lessened fertility of the monster. Proh pudor to me. The world would say what a lawyer has been lost in a MERE botanist! Farewell, my dear master in my own subject, Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. I am so heartily pleased to see that you approve of the chapter on Classification. I wonder what Harvey will say. But no one hardly, I think, is able at first to see when he is beaten in an argument. [The following letters refer to the first translation (1860) of the 'Origin of Species' into German, which was superintended by H.G. Bronn, a good zoologist and palaeontologist, who was at the time at Freiburg, but afterwards Professor at Heidelberg. I have been told that the translation was not a success, it remained an obvious translation, and was correspondingly unpleasant to read. Bronn added to the translation an appendix of the difficulties that occurred to him. For instance, how can natural selection account for differences between species, when these differences appear to be of no service to their possessors; e.g., the length of the ears and tail, or the folds in the enamel of the teeth of various species of rodents? Krause, in his book, 'Charles Darwin,' page 91, criticises Bronn's conduct in this manner, but it will be seen that my father actually suggested the addition of Bronn's remarks. A more serious charge against Bronn made by Krause (op. cit. page 87) is that he left out passages of which he did not approve, as, for instance, the passage ('Origin,' first edition, page 488) "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history." I have no evidence as to whether my father did or did not know of these alterations.] CHARLES DARWIN TO H.G. BRONN. Down, February 4 [1860]. Dear and much honoured Sir, I thank you sincerely for your most kind letter; I feared that you would much disapprove of the 'Origin,' and I sent it to you merely as a mark of my sincere respect. I shall read with much interest your work on the productions of Islands whenever I receive it. I thank you cordially for the notice in the 'Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie,' and still more for speaking to Schweitzerbart about a translation; for I am most anxious that the great and intellectual German people should know something about my book. I have told my publisher to send immediately a copy of the NEW (Second edition.) edition to Schweitzerbart, and I have written to Schweitzerbart that I gave up all right to profit for myself, so that I hope a translation will appear. I fear that the book will be difficult to translate, and if you could advise Schweitzerbart about a GOOD translator, it would be of very great service. Still more, if you would run your eye over the more difficult parts of the translation; but this is too great a favour to expect. I feel sure that it will be difficult to translate, from being so much condensed. Again I thank you for your noble and generous sympathy, and I remain, with entire respect, Yours, truly obliged, C. DARWIN. P.S.--The new edition has some few corrections, and I will send in MS. some additional corrections, and a short historical preface, to Schweitzerbart. How interesting you could make the work by EDITING (I do not mean translating) the work, and appending notes of REFUTATION or confirmation. The book has sold so very largely in England, that an editor would, I think, make profit by the translation. CHARLES DARWIN TO H.G. BRONN. Down, February 14 [1860]. My dear and much honoured Sir, I thank you cordially for your extreme kindness in superintending the translation. I have mentioned this to some eminent scientific men, and they all agree that you have done a noble and generous service. If I am proved quite wrong, yet I comfort myself in thinking that my book may do some good, as truth can only be known by rising victorious from every attack. I thank you also much for the review, and for the kind manner in which you speak of me. I send with this letter some corrections and additions to M. Schweitzerbart, and a short historical preface. I am not much acquainted with German authors, as I read German very slowly; therefore I do not know whether any Germans have advocated similar views with mine; if they have, would you do me the favour to insert a foot-note to the preface? M. Schweitzerbart has now the reprint ready for a translator to begin. Several scientific men have thought the term "Natural Selection" good, because its meaning is NOT obvious, and each man could not put on it his own interpretation, and because it at once connects variation under domestication and nature. Is there any analogous term used by German breeders of animals? "Adelung," ennobling, would, perhaps, be too metaphysical. It is folly in me, but I cannot help doubting whether "Wahl der Lebensweise" expresses my notion. It leaves the impression on my mind of the Lamarckian doctrine (which I reject) of habits of life being all- important. Man has altered, and thus improved the English race-horse by SELECTING successive fleeter individuals; and I believe, owing to the struggle for existence, that similar SLIGHT variations in a wild horse, IF ADVANTAGEOUS TO IT, would be SELECTED or PRESERVED by nature; hence Natural Selection. But I apologise for troubling you with these remarks on the importance of choosing good German terms for "Natural Selection." With my heartfelt thanks, and with sincere respect, I remain, dear Sir, yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO H.G. BRONN. Down, July 14 [1860]. Dear and honoured Sir, On my return home, after an absence of some time, I found the translation of the third part (The German translation was published in three pamphlet- like numbers.) of the 'Origin,' and I have been delighted to see a final chapter of criticisms by yourself. I have read the first few paragraphs and final paragraph, and am perfectly contented, indeed more than contented, with the generous and candid spirit with which you have considered my views. You speak with too much praise of my work. I shall, of course, carefully read the whole chapter; but though I can read descriptive books like Gaertner's pretty easily, when any reasoning comes in, I find German excessively difficult to understand. At some FUTURE time I should very much like to hear how my book has been received in Germany, and I most sincerely hope M. Schweitzerbart will not lose money by the publication. Most of the reviews have been bitterly opposed to me in England, yet I have made some converts, and SEVERAL naturalists who would not believe in a word of it, are now coming slightly round, and admit that natural selection may have done something. This gives me hope that more will ultimately come round to a certain extent to my views. I shall ever consider myself deeply indebted to you for the immense service and honour which you have conferred on me in making the excellent translation of my book. Pray believe me, with most sincere respect, Dear Sir, yours gratefully, CHARLES DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, [February 12th, 1860]. ...I think it was a great pity that Huxley wasted so much time in the lecture on the preliminary remarks;...but his lecture seemed to me very fine and very bold. I have remonstrated (and he agrees) against the impression that he would leave, that sterility was a universal and infallible criterion of species. You will, I am sure, make a grand discussion on man. I am so glad to hear that you and Lady Lyell will come here. Pray fix your own time; and if it did not suit us we would say so. We could then discuss man well... How much I owe to you and Hooker! I do not suppose I should hardly ever have published had it not been for you. [The lecture referred to in the last letter was given at the Royal Institution, February 10, 1860. The following letter was written in reply to Mr. Huxley's request for information about breeding, hybridisation, etc. It is of interest as giving a vivid retrospect of the writer's experience on the subject.] CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Ilkley, Yorks, November 27 [1859]. My dear Huxley, Gartner grand, Kolreuter grand, but papers scattered through many volumes and very lengthy. I had to make an abstract of the whole. Herbert's volume on Amaryllidaceae very good, and two excellent papers in the 'Horticultural Journal.' For animals, no resume to be trusted at all; facts are to be collected from all original sources. (This caution is exemplified in the following extract from an earlier letter to Professor Huxley:--"The inaccuracy of the blessed gang (of which I am one) of compilers passes all bounds. MONSTERS have frequently been described as hybrids without a tittle of evidence. I must give one other case to show how we jolly fellows work. A Belgian Baron (I forget his name at this moment) crossed two distinct geese and got SEVEN hybrids, which he proved subsequently to be quite sterile; well, compiler the first, Chevreul, says that the hybrids were propagated for SEVEN generations inter se. Compiler second (Morton) mistakes the French name, and gives Latin names for two more distinct geese, and says CHEVREUL himself propagated them inter se for seven generations; and the latter statement is copied from book to book.") I fear my MS. for the bigger book (twice or thrice as long as in present book), with all references, would be illegible, but it would save you infinite labour; of course I would gladly lend it, but I have no copy, so care would have to be taken of it. But my accursed handwriting would be fatal, I fear. About breeding, I know of no one book. I did not think well of Lowe, but I can name none better. Youatt I look at as a far better and MORE PRACTICAL authority; but then his views and facts are scattered through three or four thick volumes. I have picked up most by reading really numberless special treatises and ALL agricultural and horticultural journals; but it is a work of long years. THE DIFFICULTY IS TO KNOW WHAT TO TRUST. No one or two statements are worth a farthing; the facts are so complicated. I hope and think I have been really cautious in what I state on this subject, although all that I have given, as yet, is FAR too briefly. I have found it very important associating with fanciers and breeders. For instance, I sat one evening in a gin palace in the Borough amongst a set of pigeon fanciers, when it was hinted that Mr. Bull had crossed his Pouters with Runts to gain size; and if you had seen the solemn, the mysterious, and awful shakes of the head which all the fanciers gave at this scandalous proceeding, you would have recognised how little crossing has had to do with improving breeds, and how dangerous for endless generations the process was. All this was brought home far more vividly than by pages of mere statements, etc. But I am scribbling foolishly. I really do not know how to advise about getting up facts on breeding and improving breeds. Go to Shows is one way. Read ALL treatises on any ONE domestic animal, and believe nothing without largely confirmed. For your lectures I can give you a few amusing anecdotes and sentences, if you want to make the audience laugh. I thank you particularly for telling me what naturalists think. If we can once make a compact set of believers we shall in time conquer. I am EMINENTLY glad Ramsey is on our side, for he is, in my opinion, a first- rate geologist. I sent him a copy. I hope he got it. I shall be very curious to hear whether any effect has been produced on Prestwich; I sent him a copy, not as a friend, but owing to a sentence or two in some paper, which made me suspect he was doubting. Rev. C. Kingsley has a mind to come round. Quatrefages writes that he goes some long way with me; says he exhibited diagrams like mine. With most hearty thanks, Yours very tired, C. DARWIN. [I give the conclusion of Professor Huxley's lecture, as being one of the earliest, as well as one of the most eloquent of his utterances in support of the 'Origin of Species': "I have said that the man of science is the sworn interpreter of nature in the high court of reason. But of what avail is his honest speech, if ignorance is the assessor of the judge, and prejudice the foreman of the jury? I hardly know of a great physical truth, whose universal reception has not been preceded by an epoch in which most estimable persons have maintained that the phenomena investigated were directly dependent on the Divine Will, and that the attempt to investigate them was not only futile, but blasphemous. And there is a wonderful tenacity of life about this sort of opposition to physical science. Crushed and maimed in every battle, it yet seems never to be slain; and after a hundred defeats it is at this day as rampant, though happily not so mischievous, as in the time of Galileo. "But to those whose life is spent, to use Newton's noble words, in picking up here a pebble and there a pebble on the shores of the great ocean of truth--who watch, day by day, the slow but sure advance of that mighty tide, bearing on its bosom the thousand treasures wherewith man ennobles and beautifies his life--it would be laughable, if it were not so sad, to see the little Canutes of the hour enthroned in solemn state, bidding that great wave to stay, and threatening to check its beneficent progress. The wave rises and they fly; but, unlike the brave old Dane, they learn no lesson of humility: the throne is pitched at what seems a safe distance, and the folly is repeated. "Surely it is the duty of the public to discourage anything of this kind, to discredit these foolish meddlers who think they do the Almighty a service by preventing a thorough study of His works. "The Origin of Species is not the first, and it will not be the last, of the great questions born of science, which will demand settlement from this generation. The general mind is seething strangely, and to those who watch the signs of the times, it seems plain that this nineteenth century will see revolutions of thought and practice as great as those which the sixteenth witnessed. Through what trials and sore contests the civilised world will have to pass in the course of this new reformation, who can tell? "But I verily believe that come what will, the part which England may play in the battle is a grand and a noble one. She may prove to the world that, for one people, at any rate, despotism and demagogy are not the necessary alternatives of government; that freedom and order are not incompatible; that reverence is the handmaid of knowledge; that free discussion is the life of truth, and of true unity in a nation. "Will England play this part? That depends upon how you, the public, deal with science. Cherish her, venerate her, follow her methods faithfully and implicitly in their application to all branches of human thought, and the future of this people will be greater than the past. "Listen to those who would silence and crush her, and I fear our children will see the glory of England vanishing like Arthur in the mist; they will cry too late the woful cry of Guinever:-- 'It was my duty to have loved the highest; It surely was my profit had I known; It would have been my pleasure had I seen.'"] CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down [February 15th, 1860]. ...I am perfectly convinced (having read this morning) that the review in the 'Annals' (Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist. third series, vol. 5, page 132. My father has obviously taken the expression "pestilent" from the following passage (page 138): "But who is this Nature, we have a right to ask, who has such tremendous power, and to whose efficiency such marvellous performances are ascribed? What are her image and attributes, when dragged from her wordy lurking-place? Is she aught but a pestilent abstraction, like dust cast in our eyes to obscure the workings of an Intelligent First Cause of all?" The reviewer pays a tribute to my father's candour, "so manly and outspoken as almost to 'cover a multitude of sins.'" The parentheses (to which allusion is made above) are so frequent as to give a characteristic appearance to Mr. Wollaston's pages.) is by Wollaston; no one else in the world would have used so many parentheses. I have written to him, and told him that the "pestilent" fellow thanks him for his kind manner of speaking about him. I have also told him that he would be pleased to hear that the Bishop of Oxford says it is the most unphilosophical (Another version of the words is given by Lyell, to whom they were spoken, viz. "the most illogical book ever written."--'Life,' volume ii. page 358.) work he ever read. The review seems to me clever, and only misinterprets me in a few places. Like all hostile men, he passes over the explanation given of Classification, Morphology, Embryology, and Rudimentary Organs, etc. I read Wallace's paper in MS. ("On the Zoological Geography of the Malay Archipelago."--Linn. Soc. Journ. 1860.), and thought it admirably good; he does not know that he has been anticipated about the depth of intervening sea determining distribution...The most curious point in the paper seems to me that about the African character of the Celebes productions, but I should require further confirmation... Henslow is staying here; I have had some talk with him; he is in much the same state as Bunbury (The late Sir Charles Bunbury, well-known as a Palaeo-botanist.), and will go a very little way with us, but brings up no real argument against going further. He also shudders at the eye! It is really curious (and perhaps is an argument in our favour) how differently different opposers view the subject. Henslow used to rest his opposition on the imperfection of the Geological Record, but he now thinks nothing of this, and says I have got well out of it; I wish I could quite agree with him. Baden Powell says he never read anything so conclusive as my statement about the eye!! A stranger writes to me about sexual selection, and regrets that I boggle about such a trifle as the brush of hair on the male turkey, and so on. As L. Jenyns has a really philosophical mind, and as you say you like to see everything, I send an old letter of his. In a later letter to Henslow, which I have seen, he is more candid than any opposer I have heard of, for he says, though he CANNOT go so far as I do, yet he can give no good reason why he should not. It is funny how each man draws his own imaginary line at which to halt. It reminds me so vividly what I was told (By Professor Henslow.) about you when I first commenced geology--to believe a LITTLE, but on no account to believe all. Ever yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, February 18th [1860]. My dear Gray, I received about a week ago two sheets of your Review (The 'American Journal of Science and Arts,' March, 1860. Reprinted in 'Darwiniana,' 1876.); read them, and sent them to Hooker; they are now returned and re- read with care, and to-morrow I send them to Lyell. Your Review seems to me ADMIRABLE; by far the best which I have read. I thank you from my heart both for myself, but far more for the subject's sake. Your contrast between the views of Agassiz and such as mine is very curious and instructive. (The contrast is briefly summed up thus: "The theory of Agassiz regards the origin of species and their present general distribution over the world as equally primordial, equally supernatural; that of Darwin as equally derivative, equally natural."--'Darwiniana,' page 14.) By the way, if Agassiz writes anything on the subject, I hope you will tell me. I am charmed with your metaphor of the streamlet never running against the force of gravitation. Your distinction between an hypothesis and theory seems to me very ingenious; but I do not think it is ever followed. Every one now speaks of the undulatory THEORY of light; yet the ether is itself hypothetical, and the undulations are inferred only from explaining the phenomena of light. Even in the THEORY of gravitation is the attractive power in any way known, except by explaining the fall of the apple, and the movements of the Planets? It seems to me that an hypothesis is DEVELOPED into a theory solely by explaining an ample lot of facts. Again and again I thank you for your generous aid in discussing a view, about which you very properly hold yourself unbiassed. My dear Gray, yours most sincerely, C. DARWIN. P.S.--Several clergymen go far with me. Rev. L. Jenyns, a very good naturalist. Henslow will go a very little way with me, and is not shocked with me. He has just been visiting me. [With regard to the attitude of the more liberal representatives of the Church, the following letter (already referred to) from Charles Kingsley is of interest:] C. KINGSLEY TO CHARLES DARWIN. Eversley Rectory, Winchfield, November 18th, 1859. Dear Sir, I have to thank you for the unexpected honour of your book. That the Naturalist whom, of all naturalists living, I most wish to know and to learn from, should have sent a scientist like me his book, encourages me at least to observe more carefully, and perhaps more slowly. I am so poorly (in brain), that I fear I cannot read your book just now as I ought. All I have seen of it AWES me; both with the heap of facts and the prestige of your name, and also with the clear intuition, that if you be right, I must give up much that I have believed and written. In that I care little. Let God be true, and every man a liar! Let us know what IS, and, as old Socrates has it, epesthai to logo--follow up the villainous shifty fox of an argument, into whatsoever unexpected bogs and brakes he may lead us, if we do but run into him at last. From two common superstitions, at least, I shall be free while judging of your books:-- 1. I have long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species. 2. I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful pro tempore and pro loco, as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought. Be it as it may, I shall prize your book, both for itself, and as a proof that you are aware of the existence of such a person as Your faithful servant, C. KINGSLEY. [My father's old friend, the Rev. J. Brodie Innes, of Milton Brodie, who was for many years Vicar of Down, writes in the same spirit: "We never attacked each other. Before I knew Mr. Darwin I had adopted, and publicly expressed, the principle that the study of natural history, geology, and science in general, should be pursued without reference to the Bible. That the Book of Nature and Scripture came from the same Divine source, ran in parallel lines, and when properly understood would never cross... "His views on this subject were very much to the same effect from his side. Of course any conversations we may have had on purely religious subjects are as sacredly private now as in his life; but the quaint conclusion of one may be given. We had been speaking of the apparent contradiction of some supposed discoveries with the Book of Genesis; he said, 'you are (it would have been more correct to say you ought to be) a theologian, I am a naturalist, the lines are separate. I endeavour to discover facts without considering what is said in the Book of Genesis. I do not attack Moses, and I think Moses can take care of himself.' To the same effect he wrote more recently, 'I cannot remember that I ever published a word directly against religion or the clergy; but if you were to read a little pamphlet which I received a couple of days ago by a clergyman, you would laugh, and admit that I had some excuse for bitterness. After abusing me for two or three pages, in language sufficiently plain and emphatic to have satisfied any reasonable man, he sums up by saying that he has vainly searched the English language to find terms to express his contempt for me and all Darwinians.' In another letter, after I had left Down, he writes, 'We often differed, but you are one of those rare mortals from whom one can differ and yet feel no shade of animosity, and that is a thing [of] which I should feel very proud, if any one could say [it] of me.' "On my last visit to Down, Mr. Darwin said, at his dinner-table, 'Brodie Innes and I have been fast friends for thirty years, and we never thoroughly agreed on any subject but once, and then we stared hard at each other, and thought one of us must be very ill.'"] CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, February 23rd [1860]. My dear Lyell, That is a splendid answer of the father of Judge Crompton. How curious that the Judge should have hit on exactly the same points as yourself. It shows me what a capital lawyer you would have made, how many unjust acts you would have made appear just! But how much grander a field has science been than the law, though the latter might have made you Lord Kinnordy. I will, if there be another edition, enlarge on gradation in the eye, and on all forms coming from one prototype, so as to try and make both less glaringly improbable... With respect to Bronn's objection that it cannot be shown how life arises, and likewise to a certain extent Asa Gray's remark that natural selection is not a vera causa, I was much interested by finding accidentally in Brewster's 'Life of Newton,' that Leibnitz objected to the law of gravity because Newton could not show what gravity itself is. As it has chanced, I have used in letters this very same argument, little knowing that any one had really thus objected to the law of gravity. Newton answers by saying that it is philosophy to make out the movements of a clock, though you do not know why the weight descends to the ground. Leibnitz further objected that the law of gravity was opposed to Natural Religion! Is this not curious? I really think I shall use the facts for some introductory remarks for my bigger book. ...You ask (I see) why we do not have monstrosities in higher animals; but when they live they are almost always sterile (even giants and dwarfs are GENERALLY sterile), and we do not know that Harvey's monster would have bred. There is I believe only one case on record of a peloric flower being fertile, and I cannot remember whether this reproduced itself. To recur to the eye. I really think it would have been dishonest, not to have faced the difficulty; and worse (as Talleyrand would have said), it would have been impolitic I think, for it would have been thrown in my teeth, as H. Holland threw the bones of the ear, till Huxley shut him up by showing what a fine gradation occurred amongst living creatures. I thank you much for your most pleasant letter. Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. P.S.--I send a letter by Herbert Spencer, which you can read or not as you think fit. He puts, to my mind, the philosophy of the argument better than almost any one, at the close of the letter. I could make nothing of Dana's idealistic notions about species; but then, as Wollaston says, I have not a metaphysical head. By the way, I have thrown at Wollaston's head, a paper by Alexander Jordan, who demonstrates metaphysically that all our cultivated races are God- created species. Wollaston misrepresents accidentally, to a wonderful extent, some passages in my book. He reviewed, without relooking at certain passages. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, February 25th [1860]. ...I cannot help wondering at your zeal about my book. I declare to heaven you seem to care as much about my book as I do myself. You have no right to be so eminently unselfish! I have taken off my spit [i.e. file] a letter of Ramsay's, as every geologist convert I think very important. By the way, I saw some time ago a letter from H.D. Rogers (Professor of Geology in the University of Glasgow. Born in the United States 1809, died 1866.) to Huxley, in which he goes very far with us... CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, Saturday, March 3rd, [1860]. My dear Hooker, What a day's work you had on that Thursday! I was not able to go to London till Monday, and then I was a fool for going, for, on Tuesday night, I had an attack of fever (with a touch of pleurisy), which came on like a lion, but went off as a lamb, but has shattered me a good bit. I was much interested by your last note...I think you expect too much in regard to change of opinion on the subject of Species. One large class of men, more especially I suspect of naturalists, never will care about ANY general question, of which old Gray, of the British Museum, may be taken as a type; and secondly, nearly all men past a moderate age, either in actual years or in mind, are, I am fully convinced, incapable of looking at facts under a new point of view. Seriously, I am astonished and rejoiced at the progress which the subject has made; look at the enclosed memorandum. (See table of names below.) -- says my book will be forgotten in ten years, perhaps so; but, with such a list, I feel convinced the subject will not. The outsiders, as you say, are strong. You say that you think that Bentham is touched, "but, like a wise man, holds his tongue." Perhaps you only mean that he cannot decide, otherwise I should think such silence the reverse of magnanimity; for if others behaved the same way, how would opinion ever progress? It is a dereliction of actual duty. (In a subsequent letter to Sir J.D. Hooker (March 12th, 1860), my father wrote, "I now quite understand Bentham's silence.") I am so glad to hear about Thwaites. (Dr. G.J.K. Thwaites, who was born in 1811, established a reputation in this country as an expert microscopist, and an acute observer, working especially at cryptogamic botany. On his appointment as Director of the Botanic Gardens at Peradenyia, Ceylon, Dr. Thwaites devoted himself to the flora of Ceylon. As a result of this he has left numerous and valuable collections, a description of which he embodied in his 'Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniae' (1864). Dr. Thwaites was a fellow of the Linnean Society, but beyond the above facts little seems to have been recorded of his life. His death occurred in Ceylon on September 11th, 1882, in his seventy-second year. "Athenaeum", October 14th, 1882, page 500.)...I have had an astounding letter from Dr. Boott (The letter is enthusiastically laudatory, and obviously full of genuine feeling.); it might be turned into ridicule against him and me, so I will not send it to any one. He writes in a noble spirit of love of truth. I wonder what Lindley thinks; probably too busy to read or think on the question. I am vexed about Bentham's reticence, for it would have been of real value to know what parts appeared weakest to a man of his powers of observation. Farewell, my dear Hooker, yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. P.S.--Is not Harvey in the class of men who do not at all care for generalities? I remember your saying you could not get him to write on Distribution. I have found his works very unfruitful in every respect. [Here follows the memorandum referred to:] Geologists. Zoologists and Physiologists. Botanists. Palaeontologists. Lyell. Huxley. Carpenter. Hooker. Ramsay.* J. Lubbock. Sir H. Holland H.C. Watson. (to large extent). Jukes.* L. Jenyns Asa Gray (to large extent). (to some extent). H.D. Rogers. Searles Wood.* Dr. Boott (to large extent). Thwaites. (*Andrew Ramsay, late Director-General of the Geological Survey. Joseph Beete Jukes, M.A., F.R.S., 1811-1869. He was educated at Cambridge, and from 1842 to 1846 he acted as naturalist to H.M.S. "Fly", on an exploring expedition in Australia and New Guinea. He was afterwards appointed Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland. He was the author of many papers, and of more than one good hand-book of geology. Searles Valentine Wood, February 14, 1798-1880. Chiefly known for his work on the Mollusca of the 'Crag.') [The following letter is of interest in connection with the mention of Mr. Bentham in the last letter:] G. BENTHAM TO FRANCIS DARWIN. 25 Wilton Place, S.W., May 30th, 1882. My dear Sir, In compliance with your note which I received last night, I send herewith the letters I have from your father. I should have done so on seeing the general request published in the papers, but that I did not think there were any among them which could be of any use to you. Highly flattered as I was by the kind and friendly notice with which Mr. Darwin occasionally honoured me, I was never admitted into his intimacy, and he therefore never made any communications to me in relation to his views and labours. I have been throughout one of his most sincere admirers, and fully adopted his theories and conclusions, notwithstanding the severe pain and disappointment they at first occasioned me. On the day that his celebrated paper was read at the Linnean Society, July 1st, 1858, a long paper of mine had been set down for reading, in which, in commenting on the British Flora, I had collected a number of observations and facts illustrating what I then believed to be a fixity in species, however difficult it might be to assign their limits, and showing a tendency of abnormal forms produced by cultivation or otherwise, to withdraw within those original limits when left to themselves. Most fortunately my paper had to give way to Mr. Darwin's and when once that was read, I felt bound to defer mine for reconsideration; I began to entertain doubts on the subject, and on the appearance of the 'Origin of Species,' I was forced, however reluctantly, to give up my long-cherished convictions, the results of much labour and study, and I cancelled all that part of my paper which urged original fixity, and published only portions of the remainder in another form, chiefly in the 'Natural History Review.' I have since acknowledged on various occasions my full adoption of Mr. Darwin's views, and chiefly in my Presidential Address of 1863, and in my thirteenth and last address, issued in the form of a report to the British Association at its meeting at Belfast in 1874. I prize so highly the letters that I have of Mr. Darwin's, that I should feel obliged by your returning them to me when you have done with them. Unfortunately I have not kept the envelopes, and Mr. Darwin usually only dated them by the month not by the year, so that they are not in any chronological order. Yours very sincerely, GEORGE BENTHAM. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down [March] 12th [1860]. My dear Lyell, Thinking over what we talked about, the high state of intellectual development of the old Grecians with the little or no subsequent improvement, being an apparent difficulty, it has just occurred to me that in fact the case harmonises perfectly with our views. The case would be a decided difficulty on the Lamarckian or Vestigian doctrine of necessary progression, but on the view which I hold of progression depending on the conditions, it is no objection at all, and harmonises with the other facts of progression in the corporeal structure of other animals. For in a state of anarchy, or despotism, or bad government, or after irruption of barbarians, force, strength, or ferocity, and not intellect, would be apt to gain the day. We have so enjoyed your and Lady Lyell's visit. Good-night. C. DARWIN. P.S.--By an odd chance (for I had not alluded even to the subject) the ladies attacked me this evening, and threw the high state of old Grecians into my teeth, as an unanswerable difficulty, but by good chance I had my answer all pat, and silenced them. Hence I have thought it worth scribbling to you... CHARLES DARWIN TO J. PRESTWICH. (Now Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford.) Down, March 12th [1860]. ...At some future time, when you have a little leisure, and when you have read my 'Origin of Species,' I should esteem it a SINGULAR favour if you would send me any general criticisms. I do not mean of unreasonable length, but such as you could include in a letter. I have always admired your various memoirs so much that I should be eminently glad to receive your opinion, which might be of real service to me. Pray do not suppose that I expect to CONVERT or PERVERT you; if I could stagger you in ever so slight a degree I should be satisfied; nor fear to annoy me by severe criticisms, for I have had some hearty kicks from some of my best friends. If it would not be disagreeable to you to send me your opinion, I certainly should be truly obliged... CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, April 3rd [1860]. ...I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, and now small trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!... You may like to hear about reviews on my book. Sedgwick (as I and Lyell feel CERTAIN from internal evidence) has reviewed me savagely and unfairly in the "Spectator". (See the quotations which follow the present letter.) The notice includes much abuse, and is hardly fair in several respects. He would actually lead any one, who was ignorant of geology, to suppose that I had invented the great gaps between successive geological formations, instead of its being an almost universally admitted dogma. But my dear old friend Sedgwick, with his noble heart, is old, and is rabid with indignation. It is hard to please every one; you may remember that in my last letter I asked you to leave out about the Weald denudation: I told Jukes this (who is head man of the Irish geological survey), and he blamed me much, for he believed every word of it, and thought it not at all exaggerated! In fact, geologists have no means of gauging the infinitude of past time. There has been one prodigy of a review, namely, an OPPOSED one (by Pictet (Francois Jules Pictet, in the 'Archives des Sciences de la Bibliotheque Universelle,' Mars 1860. The article is written in a courteous and considerate tone, and concludes by saying that the 'Origin' will be of real value to naturalists, especially if they are not led away by its seductive arguments to believe in the dangerous doctrine of modification. A passage which seems to have struck my father as being valuable, and opposite which he has made double pencil marks and written the word "good," is worth quoting: "La theorie de M. Darwin s'accorde mal avec l'histoire des types a formes bien tranchees et definies qui paraissent n'avoir vecu que pendant un temps limite. On en pourrait citer des centaines d'exemples, tel que les reptiles volants, les ichthyosaures, les belemnites, les ammonites, etc." Pictet was born in 1809, died 1872; he was Professor of Anatomy and Zoology at Geneva.), the palaeontologist, in the Bib. Universelle of Geneva) which is PERFECTLY fair and just, and I agree to every word he says; our only difference being that he attaches less weight to arguments in favour, and more to arguments opposed, than I do. Of all the opposed reviews, I think this the only quite fair one, and I never expected to see one. Please observe that I do not class your review by any means as opposed, though you think so yourself! It has done me MUCH too good service ever to appear in that rank in my eyes. But I fear I shall weary you with so much about my book. I should rather think there was a good chance of my becoming the most egotistical man in all Europe! What a proud pre-eminence! Well, you have helped to make me so and therefore you must forgive me if you can. My dear Gray, ever yours most gratefully, C. DARWIN. [In a letter to Sir Charles Lyell reference is made to Sedgwick's review in the "Spectator", March 24: "I now feel certain that Sedgwick is the author of the article in the "Spectator". No one else could use such abusive terms. And what a misrepresentation of my notions! Any ignoramus would suppose that I had FIRST broached the doctrine, that the breaks between successive formations marked long intervals of time. It is very unfair. But poor dear old Sedgwick seems rabid on the question. "Demoralised understanding!" If ever I talk with him I will tell him that I never could believe that an inquisitor could be a good man: but now I know that a man may roast another, and yet have as kind and noble a heart as Sedgwick's." The following passages are taken from the review: "I need hardly go on any further with these objections. But I cannot conclude without expressing my detestation of the theory, because of its unflinching materialism;--because it has deserted the inductive track, the only track that leads to physical truth;--because it utterly repudiates final causes, and thereby indicates a demoralised understanding on the part of its advocates." "Not that I believe that Darwin is an atheist; though I cannot but regard his materialism as atheistical. I think it untrue, because opposed to the obvious course of nature, and the very opposite of inductive truth. And I think it intensely mischievous." "Each series of facts is laced together by a series of assumptions, and repetitions of the one false principle. You cannot make a good rope out of a string of air bubbles." "But any startling and (supposed) novel paradox, maintained very boldly and with something of imposing plausibility, produces in some minds a kind of pleasing excitement which predisposes them in its favour; and if they are unused to careful reflection, and averse to the labour of accurate investigation, they will be likely to conclude that what is (apparently) ORIGINAL, must be a production of original GENIUS, and that anything very much opposed to prevailing notions must be a grand DISCOVERY,--in short, that whatever comes from the 'bottom of a well' must be the 'truth' supposed to be hidden there." In a review in the December number of 'Macmillan's Magazine,' 1860, Fawcett vigorously defended my father from the charge of employing a false method of reasoning; a charge which occurs in Sedgwick's review, and was made at the time ad nauseam, in such phrases as: "This is not the true Baconian method." Fawcett repeated his defence at the meeting of the British Association in 1861. (See an interesting letter from my father in Mr. Stephen's 'Life of Henry Fawcett,' 1886, page 101.)] CHARLES DARWIN TO W.B CARPENTER. Down, April 6th [1860]. My dear Carpenter, I have this minute finished your review in the 'Med. Chirurg. Review.' (April 1860.) You must let me express my admiration at this most able essay, and I hope to God it will be largely read, for it must produce a great effect. I ought not, however, to express such warm admiration, for you give my book, I fear, far too much praise. But you have gratified me extremely; and though I hope I do not care very much for the approbation of the non-scientific readers, I cannot say that this is at all so with respect to such few men as yourself. I have not a criticism to make, for I object to not a word; and I admire all, so that I cannot pick out one part as better than the rest. It is all so well balanced. But it is impossible not to be struck with your extent of knowledge in geology, botany, and zoology. The extracts which you give from Hooker seem to me EXCELLENTLY chosen, and most forcible. I am so much pleased in what you say also about Lyell. In fact I am in a fit of enthusiasm, and had better write no more. With cordial thanks, Yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, April 10th [1860]. My dear Lyell, Thank you much for your note of the 4th; I am very glad to hear that you are at Torquay. I should have amused myself earlier by writing to you, but I have had Hooker and Huxley staying here, and they have fully occupied my time, as a little of anything is a full dose for me...There has been a plethora of reviews, and I am really quite sick of myself. There is a very long review by Carpenter in the 'Medical and Chirurg. Review,' very good and well balanced, but not brilliant. He discusses Hooker's books at as great length as mine, and makes excellent extracts; but I could not get Hooker to feel the least interest in being praised. Carpenter speaks of you in thoroughly proper terms. There is a BRILLIANT review by Huxley ('Westminster Review,' April 1860.), with capital hits, but I do not know that he much advances the subject. I THINK I have convinced him that he has hardly allowed weight enough to the case of varieties of plants being in some degrees sterile. To diverge from reviews: Asa Gray sends me from Wyman (who will write), a good case of all the pigs being black in the Everglades of Virginia. On asking about the cause, it seems (I have got capital analogous cases) that when the BLACK pigs eat a certain nut their bones become red, and they suffer to a certain extent, but that the WHITE pigs lose their hoofs and perish, "and we aid by SELECTION, for we kill most of the young white pigs." This was said by men who could hardly read. By the way, it is a great blow to me that you cannot admit the potency of natural selection. The more I think of it, the less I doubt its power for great and small changes. I have just read the 'Edinburgh' ('Edinburgh Review,' April 1860.), which without doubt is by --. It is extremely malignant, clever, and I fear will be very damaging. He is atrociously severe on Huxley's lecture, and very bitter against Hooker. So we three ENJOYED it together. Not that I really enjoyed it, for it made me uncomfortable for one night; but I have got quite over it to-day. It requires much study to appreciate all the bitter spite of many of the remarks against me; indeed I did not discover all myself. It scandalously misrepresents many parts. He misquotes some passages, altering words within inverted commas... It is painful to be hated in the intense degree with which -- hates me. Now for a curious thing about my book, and then I have done. In last Saturday's "Gardeners' Chronicle" (April 7th, 1860.), a Mr. Patrick Matthew publishes a long extract from his work on 'Naval Timber and Arboriculture,' published in 1831, in which he briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Natural Selection. I have ordered the book, as some few passages are rather obscure, but it is certainly, I think, a complete but not developed anticipation! Erasmus always said that surely this would be shown to be the case some day. Anyhow, one may be excused in not having discovered the fact in a work on Naval Timber. I heartily hope that your Torquay work may be successful. Give my kindest remembrances to Falconer, and I hope he is pretty well. Hooker and Huxley (with Mrs. Huxley) were extremely pleasant. But poor dear Hooker is tired to death of my book, and it is a marvel and a prodigy if you are not worse tired--if that be possible. Farewell, my dear Lyell, Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [April 13th, 1860]. My dear Hooker, Questions of priority so often lead to odious quarrels, that I should esteem it a great favour if you would read the enclosed. "I have been much interested by Mr. Patrick Matthew's communication in the number of your paper dated April 7th. I freely acknowledge that Mr. Matthew has anticipated by many years the explanation which I have offered of the origin of species, under the name of natural selection. I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist, had heard of Mr. Matthew's views, considering how briefly they are given, and that they appeared in the appendix to a work on Naval Timber and Arboriculture. I can do no more than offer my apologies to Mr. Matthew for my entire ignorance of this publication. If any other edition of my work is called for, I will insert to the foregoing effect." In spite of my father's recognition of his claims, Mr. Matthew remained unsatisfied, and complained that an article in the 'Saturday Analyst and Leader' was "scarcely fair in alluding to Mr. Darwin as the parent of the origin of species, seeing that I published the whole that Mr. Darwin attempts to prove, more than twenty-nine years ago."--"Saturday Analyst and Leader", November 24, 1860.) If you think it proper that I should send it (and of this there can hardly be any question), and if you think it full and ample enough, please alter the date to the day on which you post it, and let that be soon. The case in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" seems a LITTLE stronger than in Mr. Matthew's book, for the passages are therein scattered in three places; but it would be mere hair-splitting to notice that. If you object to my letter, please return it; but I do not expect that you will, but I thought that you would not object to run your eye over it. My dear Hooker, it is a great thing for me to have so good, true, and old a friend as you. I owe much for science to my friends. Many thanks for Huxley's lecture. The latter part seemed to be grandly eloquent. ...I have gone over [the 'Edinburgh'] review again, and compared passages, and I am astonished at the misrepresentations. But I am glad I resolved not to answer. Perhaps it is selfish, but to answer and think more on the subject is too unpleasant. I am so sorry that Huxley by my means has been thus atrociously attacked. I do not suppose you much care about the gratuitous attack on you. Lyell in his letter remarked that you seemed to him as if you were overworked. Do, pray, be cautious, and remember how many and many a man has done this--who thought it absurd till too late. I have often thought the same. You know that you were bad enough before your Indian journey. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, April [1860]. My dear Lyell, I was very glad to get your nice long letter from Torquay. A press of letters prevented me writing to Wells. I was particularly glad to hear what you thought about not noticing [the 'Edinburgh'] review. Hooker and Huxley thought it a sort of duty to point out the alteration of quoted citations, and there is truth in this remark; but I so hated the thought that I resolved not to do so. I shall come up to London on Saturday the 14th, for Sir B. Brodie's party, as I have an accumulation of things to do in London, and will (if I do not hear to the contrary) call about a quarter before ten on Sunday morning, and sit with you at breakfast, but will not sit long, and so take up much of your time. I must say one more word about our quasi-theological controversy about natural selection, and let me have your opinion when we meet in London. Do you consider that the successive variations in the size of the crop of the Pouter Pigeon, which man has accumulated to please his caprice, have been due to "the creative and sustaining powers of Brahma?" In the sense that an omnipotent and omniscient Deity must order and know everything, this must be admitted; yet, in honest truth, I can hardly admit it. It seems preposterous that a maker of a universe should care about the crop of a pigeon solely to please man's silly fancies. But if you agree with me in thinking such an interposition of the Deity uncalled for, I can see no reason whatever for believing in such interpositions in the case of natural beings, in which strange and admirable peculiarities have been naturally selected for the creature's own benefit. Imagine a Pouter in a state of nature wading into the water and then, being buoyed up by its inflated crop, sailing about in search of food. What admiration this would have excited--adaptation to the laws of hydrostatic pressure, etc. etc. For the life of me I cannot see any difficulty in natural selection producing the most exquisite structure, IF SUCH STRUCTURE CAN BE ARRIVED AT BY GRADATION, and I know from experience how hard it is to name any structure towards which at least some gradations are not known. Ever yours, C. DARWIN. P.S.--The conclusion at which I have come, as I have told Asa Gray, is that such a question, as is touched on in this note, is beyond the human intellect, like "predestination and free will," or the "origin of evil." CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [April 18th, 1860]. My dear Hooker, I return --'s letter...Some of my relations say it cannot POSSIBLY be --'s article (The 'Edinburgh Review.'), because the reviewer speaks so very highly of --. Poor dear simple folk! My clever neighbour, Mr. Norman, says the article is so badly written, with no definite object, that no one will read it. Asa Gray has sent me an article ('North American Review,' April, 1860. "By Professor Bowen," is written on my father's copy. The passage referred to occurs at page 488, where the author says that we ought to find "an infinite number of other varieties--gross, rude, and purposeless--the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause.") from the United States, clever, and dead against me. But one argument is funny. The reviewer says, that if the doctrine were true, geological strata would be full of monsters which have failed! A very clear view this writer had of the struggle for existence! ...I am glad you like Adam Bede so much. I was charmed with it... We think you must by mistake have taken with your own numbers of the 'National Review' my precious number. (This no doubt refers to the January number, containing Dr. Carpenter's review of the 'Origin.') I wish you would look. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, April 25th [1860]. My dear Gray, I have no doubt I have to thank you for the copy of a review on the 'Origin' in the 'North American Review.' It seems to me clever, and I do not doubt will damage my book. I had meant to have made some remarks on it; but Lyell wished much to keep it, and my head is quite confused between the many reviews which I have lately read. I am sure the reviewer is wrong about bees' cells, i.e. about the distance; any lesser distance would do, or even greater distance, but then some of the places would lie outside the generative spheres; but this would not add much difficulty to the work. The reviewer takes a strange view of instinct: he seems to regard intelligence as a developed instinct; which I believe to be wholly false. I suspect he has never much attended to instinct and the minds of animals, except perhaps by reading. My chief object is to ask you if you could procure for me a copy of the "New York Times" for Wednesday, March 28th. It contains A VERY STRIKING review of my book, which I should much like to keep. How curious that the two most striking reviews (i.e. yours and this) should have appeared in America. This review is not really useful, but somehow is impressive. There was a good review in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' April 1st, by M. Laugel, said to be a very clever man. Hooker, about a fortnight ago, stayed here a few days, and was very pleasant; but I think he overworks himself. What a gigantic undertaking, I imagine, his and Bentham's 'Genera Plantarum' will be! I hope he will not get too much immersed in it, so as not to spare some time for Geographical Distribution and other such questions. I have begun to work steadily, but very slowly as usual, at details on variation under domestication. My dear Gray, Yours always truly and gratefully, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, [May 8th, 1860]. ...I have sent for the 'Canadian Naturalist.' If I cannot procure a copy I will borrow yours. I had a letter from Henslow this morning, who says that Sedgwick was, on last Monday night, to open a battery on me at the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Anyhow, I am much honoured by being attacked there, and at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. I do not think it worth while to contradict single cases nor is it worth while arguing against those who do not attend to what I state. A moment's reflection will show you that there must be (on our doctrine) large genera not varying (see page 56 on the subject, in the second edition of the 'Origin'). Though I do not there discuss the case in detail. It may be sheer bigotry for my own notions, but I prefer to the Atlantis, my notion of plants and animals having migrated from the Old to the New World, or conversely, when the climate was much hotter, by approximately the line of Behring's Straits. It is most important, as you say, to see living forms of plants going back so far in time. I wonder whether we shall ever discover the flora of the dry land of the coal period, and find it not so anomalous as the swamp or coal-making flora. I am working away over the blessed Pigeon Manuscript; but, from one cause or another, I get on very slowly... This morning I got a letter from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, announcing that I am elected a correspondent...It shows that some Naturalists there do not think me such a scientific profligate as many think me here. My dear Lyell, yours gratefully, C. DARWIN. P.S.--What a grand fact about the extinct stag's horn worked by man! CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [May 13th, 1860]. My dear Hooker, I return Henslow, which I was very glad to see. How good of him to defend me. (Against Sedgwick's attack before the Cambridge Philosophical Society.) I will write and thank him. As you said you were curious to hear Thomson's (Dr. Thomas Thomson the Indian Botanist. He was a collaborateur in Hooker and Thomson's Flora Indica. 1855.) opinion, I send his kind letter. He is evidently a strong opposer to us... CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [May 15th, 1860]. ...How paltry it is in such men as X, Y and Co. not reading your essay. It is incredibly paltry. (These remarks do not apply to Dr. Harvey, who was, however, in a somewhat similar position. See below.) They may all attack me to their hearts' content. I am got case-hardened. As for the old fogies in Cambridge, it really signifies nothing. I look at their attacks as a proof that our work is worth the doing. It makes me resolve to buckle on my armour. I see plainly that it will be a long uphill fight. But think of Lyell's progress with Geology. One thing I see most plainly, that without Lyell's, yours, Huxley's and Carpenter's aid, my book would have been a mere flash in the pan. But if we all stick to it, we shall surely gain the day. And I now see that the battle is worth fighting. I deeply hope that you think so. Does Bentham progress at all? I do not know what to say about Oxford. (His health prevented him from going to Oxford for the meeting of the British Association.) I should like it much with you, but it must depend on health... Yours must affectionately, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, May 18th [1860]. My dear Lyell, I send a letter from Asa Gray to show how hotly the battle rages there. Also one from Wallace, very just in his remarks, though too laudatory and too modest, and how admirably free from envy or jealousy. He must be a good fellow. Perhaps I will enclose a letter from Thomson of Calcutta; not that it is much, but Hooker thinks so highly of him... Henslow informs me that Sedgwick (Sedgwick's address is given somewhat abbreviated in "The Cambridge Chronicle", May 19th, 1860.) and then Professor Clarke [sic] (The late William Clark, Professor of Anatomy, my father seems to have misunderstood his informant. I am assured by Mr. J.W. Clark that his father (Prof. Clark) did not support Sedgwick in the attack.) made a regular and savage onslaught on my book lately at the Cambridge Philosophical Society, but Henslow seems to have defended me well, and maintained that the subject was a legitimate one for investigation. Since then Phillips (John Phillips, M.A., F.R.S., born 1800, died 1874, from the effects of a fall. Professor of Geology at King's College, London, and afterwards at Oxford. He gave the 'Rede' lecture at Cambridge on May 15th, 1860, on 'The Succession of Life on the earth.' The Rede Lecturer is appointed annually by the Vice-Chancellor, and is paid by an endowment left in 1524 by Sir Robert Rede, Lord Chief Justice, in the reign of Henry VIII.) has given lectures at Cambridge on the same subject, but treated it very fairly. How splendidly Asa Gray is fighting the battle. The effect on me of these multiplied attacks is simply to show me that the subject is worth fighting for, and assuredly I will do my best...I hope all the attacks make you keep up your courage, and courage you assuredly will require... CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, May 18th, 1860. My dear Mr. Wallace, I received this morning your letter from Amboyna, dated February 16th, containing some remarks and your too high approval of my book. Your letter has pleased me very much, and I most completely agree with you on the parts which are strongest and which are weakest. The imperfection of the Geological Record is, as you say, the weakest of all; but yet I am pleased to find that there are almost more geological converts than of pursuers of other branches of natural science...I think geologists are more easily converted than simple naturalists, because more accustomed to reasoning. Before telling you about the progress of opinion on the subject, you must let me say how I admire the generous manner in which you speak of my book. Most persons would in your position have felt some envy or jealousy. How nobly free you seem to be of this common failing of mankind. But you speak far too modestly of yourself. You would, if you had my leisure, have done the work just as well, perhaps better, than I have done it... ...Agassiz sends me a personal civil message, but incessantly attacks me; but Asa Gray fights like a hero in defence. Lyell keeps as firm as a tower, and this Autumn will publish on the 'Geological History of Man,' and will then declare his conversion, which now is universally known. I hope that you have received Hooker's splendid essay...Yesterday I heard from Lyell that a German, Dr. Schaaffhausen (Hermann Schaaffhausen 'Ueber Bestandigkeit und Umwandlung der Arten.' Verhandl. d. Naturhist. Vereins, Bonn, 1853. See 'Origin,' Historical Sketch.), has sent him a pamphlet published some years ago, in which the same view is nearly anticipated; but I have not yet seen this pamphlet. My brother, who is a very sagacious man, always said, "you will find that some one will have been before you." I am at work at my larger work, which I shall publish in a separate volume. But from ill-health and swarms of letters, I get on very very slowly. I hope that I shall not have wearied you with these details. With sincere thanks for your letter, and with most deeply felt wishes for your success in science, and in every way, believe me, Your sincere well-wisher, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, May 22nd 1860. My dear Gray, Again I have to thank you for one of your very pleasant letters of May 7th, enclosing a very pleasant remittance of 22 pounds. I am in simple truth astonished at all the kind trouble you have taken for me. I return Appleton's account. For the chance of your wishing for a formal acknowledgment I send one. If you have any further communication to the Appletons, pray express my acknowledgment for [their] generosity; for it is generosity in my opinion. I am not at all surprised at the sale diminishing; my extreme surprise is at the greatness of the sale. No doubt the public has been SHAMEFULLY imposed on! for they bought the book thinking that it would be nice easy reading. I expect the sale to stop soon in England, yet Lyell wrote to me the other day that calling at Murray's he heard that fifty copies had gone in the previous forty-eight hours. I am extremely glad that you will notice in 'Silliman' the additions in the 'Origin.' Judging from letters (and I have just seen one from Thwaites to Hooker), and from remarks, the most serious omission in my book was not explaining how it is, as I believe, that all forms do not necessarily advance, how there can now be SIMPLE organisms still existing...I hear there is a VERY severe review on me in the 'North British,' by a Rev. Mr. Dunns (This statement as to authorship was made on the authority of Robert Chambers.), a Free Kirk minister, and dabbler in Natural History. I should be very glad to see any good American reviews, as they are all more or less useful. You say that you shall touch on other reviews. Huxley told me some time ago that after a time he would write a review on all the reviews, whether he will I know not. If you allude to the 'Edinburgh,' pray notice SOME of the points which I will point out on a separate slip. In the "Saturday Review" (one of our cleverest periodicals) of May 5th, page 573, there is a nice article on [the 'Edinburgh'] review, defending Huxley, but not Hooker; and the latter, I think, [the 'Edinburgh' reviewer] treats most ungenerously. (In a letter to Mr. Huxley my father wrote: "Have you seen the last "Saturday Review"? I am very glad of the defence of you and of myself. I wish the reviewer had noticed Hooker. The reviewer, whoever he is, is a jolly good fellow, as this review and the last on me showed. He writes capitally, and understands well his subject. I wish he had slapped [the 'Edinburgh' reviewer] a little bit harder.") But surely you will get sick unto death of me and my reviewers. With respect to the theological view of the question. This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion AT ALL satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical. The lightning kills a man, whether a good one or bad one, owing to the excessively complex action of natural laws. A child (who may turn out an idiot) is born by the action of even more complex laws, and I can see no reason why a man, or other animal, may not have been aboriginally produced by other laws, and that all these laws may have been expressly designed by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every future event and consequence. But the more I think the more bewildered I become; as indeed I probably have shown by this letter. Most deeply do I feel your generous kindness and interest. Yours sincerely and cordially, CHARLES DARWIN. Here follow my father's criticisms on the 'Edinburgh Review': "What a quibble to pretend he did not understand what I meant by INHABITANTS of South America; and any one would suppose that I had not throughout my volume touched on Geographical Distribution. He ignores also everything which I have said on Classification, Geological Succession, Homologies, Embryology, and Rudimentary Organs--page 496. He falsely applies what I said (too rudely) about "blindness of preconceived opinions" to those who believe in creation, whereas I exclusively apply the remark to those who give up multitudes of species as true species, but believe in the remainder--page 500. He slightly alters what I say,--I ASK whether creationists really believe that elemental atoms have flashed into life. He says that I describe them as so believing, and this, surely, is a difference--page 501. He speaks of my "clamouring against" all who believe in creation, and this seems to me an unjust accusation--page 501. He makes me say that the dorsal vertebrae vary; this is simply false: I nowhere say a word about dorsal vertebrae--page 522. What an illiberal sentence that is about my pretension to candour, and about my rushing through barriers which stopped Cuvier: such an argument would stop any progress in science--page 525. How disingenuous to quote from my remark to you about my BRIEF letter [published in the 'Linn. Soc. Journal'], as if it applied to the whole subject--page 530. How disingenuous to say that we are called on to accept the theory, from the imperfection of the geological record, when I over and over again [say] how grave a difficulty the imperfection offers--page 530."] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, May 30th [1860]. My dear Hooker, I return Harvey's letter, I have been very glad to see the reason why he has not read your Essay. I feared it was bigotry, and I am glad to see that he goes a little way (VERY MUCH further than I supposed) with us... I was not sorry for a natural opportunity of writing to Harvey, just to show that I was not piqued at his turning me and my book into ridicule (A "serio-comic squib," read before the 'Dublin University Zoological and Botanical Association,' February 17, 1860, and privately printed. My father's presentation copy is inscribed "With the writer's REPENTANCE, October 1860."), not that I think it was a proceeding which I deserved, or worthy of him. It delights me that you are interested in watching the progress of opinion on the change of Species; I feared that you were weary of the subject; and therefore did not send A. Gray's letters. The battle rages furiously in the United States. Gray says he was preparing a speech, which would take 1 1/2 hours to deliver, and which he "fondly hoped would be a stunner." He is fighting splendidly, and there seems to have been many discussions with Agassiz and others at the meetings. Agassiz pities me much at being so deluded. As for the progress of opinion, I clearly see that it will be excessively slow, almost as slow as the change of species...I am getting wearied at the storm of hostile reviews and hardly any useful... CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, Friday night [June 1st, 1860]. ...Have you seen Hopkins (William Hopkins died in 1866, "in his seventy- third year." He began life with a farm in Suffolk, but ultimately entered, comparatively late in life, at Peterhouse, Cambridge; he took his degree in 1827, and afterward became an Esquire Bedell of the University. He was chiefly known as a mathematical "coach," and was eminently successful in the manufacture of Senior Wranglers. Nevertheless Mr. Stephen says ('Life of Fawcett,' page 26) that he "was conspicuous for inculcating" a "liberal view of the studies of the place. He endeavoured to stimulate a philosophical interest in the mathematical sciences, instead of simply rousing an ardour for competition." He contributed many papers on geological and mathematical subjects to the scientific journals. He had a strong influence for good over the younger men with whom he came in contact. The letter which he wrote to Henry Fawcett on the occasion of his blindness illustrates this. Mr. Stephen says ('Life of Fawcett,' page 48) that by "this timely word of good cheer," Fawcett was roused from "his temporary prostration," and enabled to take a "more cheerful and resolute tone.") in the new 'Fraser'? the public will, I should think, find it heavy. He will be dead against me, as you prophesied; but he is generally civil to me personally. ('Fraser's Magazine,' June 1860. My father, no doubt, refers to the following passage, page 752, where the Reviewer Expresses his "full participation in the high respect in which the author is universally held, both as a man and a naturalist; and the more so, because in the remarks which will follow in the second part of this Essay we shall be found to differ widely from him as regards many of his conclusions and the reasonings on which he has founded them, and shall claim the full right to express such differences of opinion with all that freedom which the interests of scientific truth demands, and which we are sure Mr. Darwin would be one of the last to refuse to any one prepared to exercise it with candour and courtesy." Speaking of this review, my father wrote to Dr. Asa Gray: "I have remonstrated with him [Hopkins] for so coolly saying that I base my views on what I reckon as great difficulties. Any one, by taking these difficulties alone, can make a most strong case against me. I could myself write a more damning review than has as yet appeared!" A second notice by Hopkins appeared in the July number of 'Fraser's Magazine.') On his standard of proof, NATURAL science would never progress, for without the making of theories I am convinced there would be no observation. ...I have begun reading the 'North British' (May 1860.), which so far strikes me as clever. Phillips's Lecture at Cambridge is to be published. All these reiterated attacks will tell heavily; there will be no more converts, and probably some will go back. I hope you do not grow disheartened, I am determined to fight to the last. I hear, however, that the great Buckle highly approves of my book. I have had a note from poor Blyth (Edward Blyth, 1810-1873. His indomitable love of natural history made him neglect the druggist's business with which he started in life, and he soon got into serious difficulties. After supporting himself for a few years as a writer on Field Natural History, he ultimately went out to India as Curator of the Museum of the R. Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, where the greater part of his working life was spent. His chief publications were the monthly reports made as part of his duty to the Society. He had stored in his remarkable memory a wonderful wealth of knowledge, especially with regard to the mammalia and birds of India--knowledge of which he freely gave to those who asked. His letters to my father give evidence of having been carefully studied, and the long list of entries after his name in the index to 'Animals and Plants,' show how much help was received from him. His life was an unprosperous and unhappy one, full of money difficulties and darkened by the death of his wife after a few years of marriage.), of Calcutta, who is much disappointed at hearing that Lord Canning will not grant any money; so I much fear that all your great pains will be thrown away. Blyth says (and he is in many respects a very good judge) that his ideas on species are quite revolutionised... CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, June 5th [1860]. My dear Hooker, It is a pleasure to me to write to you, as I have no one to talk about such matters as we write on. But I seriously beg you not to write to me unless so inclined; for busy as you are, and seeing many people, the case is very different between us... Have you seen --'s abusive article on me?...It out does even the 'North British' and 'Edinburgh' in misapprehension and misrepresentation. I never knew anything so unfair as in discussing cells of bees, his ignoring the case of Melipona, which builds combs almost exactly intermediate between hive and humble bees. What has -- done that he feels so immeasurably superior to all us wretched naturalists, and to all political economists, including that great philosopher Malthus? This review, however, and Harvey's letter have convinced me that I must be a very bad explainer. Neither really understand what I mean by Natural Selection. I am inclined to give up the attempt as hopeless. Those who do not understand, it seems, cannot be made to understand. By the way, I think, we entirely agree, except perhaps that I use too forcible language about selection. I entirely agree, indeed would almost go further than you when you say that climate (i.e. variability from all unknown causes) is "an active handmaid, influencing its mistress most materially." Indeed, I have never hinted that Natural Selection is "the efficient cause to the exclusion of the other," i.e. variability from Climate, etc. The very term SELECTION implies something, i.e. variation or difference, to be selected... How does your book progress (I mean your general sort of book on plants), I hope to God you will be more successful than I have been in making people understand your meaning. I should begin to think myself wholly in the wrong, and that I was an utter fool, but then I cannot yet persuade myself, that Lyell, and you and Huxley, Carpenter, Asa Gray, and Watson, etc., are all fools together. Well, time will show, and nothing but time. Farewell... CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, June 6th [1860]. ...It consoles me that -- sneers at Malthus, for that clearly shows, mathematician though he may be, he cannot understand common reasoning. By the way what a discouraging example Malthus is, to show during what long years the plainest case may be misrepresented and misunderstood. I have read the 'Future'; how curious it is that several of my reviewers should advance such wild arguments, as that varieties of dogs and cats do not mingle; and should bring up the old exploded doctrine of definite analogies...I am beginning to despair of ever making the majority understand my notions. Even Hopkins does not thoroughly. By the way, I have been so much pleased by the way he personally alludes to me. I must be a very bad explainer. I hope to Heaven that you will succeed better. Several reviews and several letters have shown me too clearly how little I am understood. I suppose "natural selection" was a bad term; but to change it now, I think, would make confusion worse confounded, nor can I think of a better; "Natural Preservation" would not imply a preservation of particular varieties, and would seem a truism, and would not bring man's and nature's selection under one point of view. I can only hope by reiterated explanations finally to make the matter clearer. If my MS. spreads out, I think I shall publish one volume exclusively on variation of animals and plants under domestication. I want to show that I have not been quite so rash as many suppose. Though weary of reviews, I should like to see Lowell's (The late J.A. Lowell in the 'Christian Examiner' (Boston, U.S., May, 1860.) some time...I suppose Lowell's difficulty about instinct is the same as Bowen's; but it seems to me wholly to rest on the assumption that instincts cannot graduate as finely as structures. I have stated in my volume that it is hardly possible to know which, i.e. whether instinct or structure, change first by insensible steps. Probably sometimes instinct, sometimes structure. When a British insect feeds on an exotic plant, instinct has changed by very small steps, and their structures might change so as to fully profit by the new food. Or structure might change first, as the direction of tusks in one variety of Indian elephants, which leads it to attack the tiger in a different manner from other kinds of elephants. Thanks for your letter of the 2nd, chiefly about Murray. (N.B. Harvey of Dublin gives me, in a letter, the argument of tall men marrying short women, as one of great weight!) I do not quite understand what you mean by saying, "that the more they prove that you underrate physical conditions, the better for you, as Geology comes in to your aid." ...I see in Murray and many others one incessant fallacy, when alluding to slight differences of physical conditions as being very important; namely, oblivion of the fact that all species, except very local ones, range over a considerable area, and though exposed to what the world calls considerable DIVERSITIES, yet keep constant. I have just alluded to this in the 'Origin' in comparing the productions of the Old and the New Worlds. Farewell, shall you be at Oxford? If H. gets quite well, perhaps I shall go there. Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down [June 14th, 1860]. ...Lowell's review (J.A. Lowell in the 'Christian Examiner,' May 1860.) is pleasantly written, but it is clear that he is not a naturalist. He quite overlooks the importance of the accumulation of mere individual differences, and which, I think I can show, is the great agency of change under domestication. I have not finished Schaaffhausen, as I read German so badly. I have ordered a copy for myself, and should like to keep yours till my own arrives, but will return it to you instantly if wanted. He admits statements rather rashly, as I dare say I do. I see only one sentence as yet at all approaching natural selection. There is a notice of me in the penultimate number of 'All the Year Round,' but not worth consulting; chiefly a well-done hash of my own words. Your last note was very interesting and consolatory to me. I have expressly stated that I believe physical conditions have a more direct effect on plants than on animals. But the more I study, the more I am led to think that natural selection regulates, in a state of nature, most trifling differences. As squared stone, or bricks, or timber, are the indispensable materials for a building, and influence its character, so is variability not only indispensable, but influential. Yet in the same manner as the architect is the ALL important person in a building, so is selection with organic bodies... [The meeting of the British Association at Oxford in 1860 is famous for two pitched battles over the 'Origin of Species.' Both of them originated in unimportant papers. On Thursday, June 28, Dr. Daubeny of Oxford made a communication to Section D: "On the final causes of the sexuality of plants, with particular reference to Mr. Darwin's work on the 'Origin of Species.'" Mr. Huxley was called on by the President, but tried (according to the "Athenaeum" report) to avoid a discussion, on the ground "that a general audience, in which sentiment would unduly interfere with intellect, was not the public before which such a discussion should be carried on." However, the subject was not allowed to drop. Sir R. Owen (I quote from the "Athenaeum", July 7, 1860), who "wished to approach this subject in the spirit of the philosopher," expressed his "conviction that there were facts by which the public could come to some conclusion with regard to the probabilities of the truth of Mr. Darwin's theory." He went on to say that the brain of the gorilla "presented more differences, as compared with the brain of man, than it did when compared with the brains of the very lowest and most problematical of the Quadrumana." Mr. Huxley replied, and gave these assertions a "direct and unqualified contradiction," pledging himself to "justify that unusual procedure elsewhere" ('Man's Place in Nature,' by T.H. Huxley, 1863, page 114.), a pledge which he amply fulfilled. (See the 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1861.) On Friday there was peace, but on Saturday 30th, the battle arose with redoubled fury over a paper by Dr. Draper of New York, on the 'Intellectual development of Europe considered with reference to the views of Mr. Darwin.' The following account is from an eye-witness of the scene. "The excitement was tremendous. The Lecture-room, in which it had been arranged that the discussion should be held, proved far too small for the audience, and the meeting adjourned to the Library of the Museum, which was crammed to suffocation long before the champions entered the lists. The numbers were estimated at from 700 to 1000. Had it been term-time, or had the general public been admitted, it would have been impossible to have accommodated the rush to hear the oratory of the bold Bishop. Professor Henslow, the President of Section D, occupied the chair and wisely announced in limine that none who had not valid arguments to bring forward on one side or the other, would be allowed to address the meeting: a caution that proved necessary, for no fewer than four combatants had their utterances burked by him, because of their indulgence in vague declamation. "The Bishop was up to time, and spoke for full half-an-hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness and unfairness. It was evident from his handling of the subject that he had been 'crammed' up to the throat, and that he knew nothing at first hand; in fact, he used no argument not to be found in his 'Quarterly' article. He ridiculed Darwin badly, and Huxley savagely, but all in such dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned periods, that I who had been inclined to blame the President for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific purpose now forgave him from the bottom of my heart. Unfortunately the Bishop, hurried along on the current of his own eloquence, so far forgot himself as to push his attempted advantage to the verge of personality in a telling passage in which he turned round and addressed Huxley: I forgot the precise words, and quote from Lyell. 'The Bishop asked whether Huxley was related by his grandfather's or grandmother's side to an ape.' (Lyell's 'Letters,' vol. ii. page 335.) Huxley replied to the scientific argument of his opponent with force and eloquence, and to the personal allusion with a self- restraint, that gave dignity to his crushing rejoinder." Many versions of Mr. Huxley's speech were current: the following report of his conclusion is from a letter addressed by the late John Richard Green, then an undergraduate, to a fellow-student, now Professor Boyd Dawkins. "I asserted, and I repeat, that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would be a MAN, a man of restless and versatile intellect, who, not content with an equivocal (Prof. V. Carus, who has a distinct recollection of the scene, does not remember the word equivocal. He believes too that Lyell's version of the "ape" sentence is slightly incorrect.) success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions, and skilled appeals to religious prejudice." The letter above quoted continues: "The excitement was now at its height; a lady fainted and had to be carried out, and it was some time before the discussion was resumed. Some voices called for Hooker, and his name having been handed up, the President invited him to give his view of the theory from the Botanical side. This he did, demonstrating that the Bishop, by his own showing, had never grasped the principles of the 'Origin' (With regard to the Bishop's 'Quarterly Review,' my father wrote: "These very clever men think they can write a review with a very slight knowledge of the book reviewed or subject in question."), and that he was absolutely ignorant of the elements of botanical science. The Bishop made no reply, and the meeting broke up. "There was a crowded conversazione in the evening at the rooms of the hospitable and genial Professor of Botany, Dr. Daubeny, where the almost sole topic was the battle of the 'Origin,' and I was much struck with the fair and unprejudiced way in which the black coats and white cravats of Oxford discussed the question, and the frankness with which they offered their congratulations to the winners in the combat.] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Sudbrook Park, Monday night [July 2nd, 1860]. My dear Hooker, I have just received your letter. I have been very poorly, with almost continuous bad headache for forty-eight hours, and I was low enough, and thinking what a useless burthen I was to myself and all others, when your letter came, and it has so cheered me; your kindness and affection brought tears into my eyes. Talk of fame, honour, pleasure, wealth, all are dirt compared with affection; and this is a doctrine with which, I know, from your letter, that you will agree with from the bottom of your heart...How I should have liked to have wandered about Oxford with you, if I had been well enough; and how still more I should have liked to have heard you triumphing over the Bishop. I am astonished at your success and audacity. It is something unintelligible to me how any one can argue in public like orators do. I had no idea you had this power. I have read lately so many hostile views, that I was beginning to think that perhaps I was wholly in the wrong, and that -- was right when he said the whole subject would be forgotten in ten years; but now that I hear that you and Huxley will fight publicly (which I am sure I never could do), I fully believe that our cause will, in the long-run, prevail. I am glad I was not in Oxford, for I should have been overwhelmed, with my [health] in its present state. CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Sudbrook Park, Richmond, July 3rd [1860]. ...I had a letter from Oxford, written by Hooker late on Sunday night, giving me some account of the awful battles which have raged about species at Oxford. He tells me you fought nobly with Owen (but I have heard no particulars), and that you answered the B. of O. capitally. I often think that my friends (and you far beyond others) have good cause to hate me, for having stirred up so much mud, and led them into so much odious trouble. If I had been a friend of myself, I should have hated me. (How to make that sentence good English, I know not.) But remember, if I had not stirred up the mud, some one else certainly soon would. I honour your pluck; I would as soon have died as tried to answer the Bishop in such an assembly... [On July 20th, my father wrote to Mr. Huxley: "From all that I hear from several quarters, it seems that Oxford did the subject great good. It is of enormous importance, the showing the world that a few first-rate men are not afraid of expressing their opinion."] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. [July 1860]. ...I have just read the 'Quarterly.' ('Quarterly Review,' July 1860. The article in question was by Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and was afterwards published in his "Essays Contributed to the 'Quarterly Review,' 1874." The passage from the 'Anti-Jacobin' gives the history of the evolution of space from the "primaeval point or punctum saliens of the universe," which is conceived to have moved "forward in a right line ad infinitum, till it grew tired; after which the right line, which it had generated, would begin to put itself in motion in a lateral direction, describing an area of infinite extent. This area, as soon as it became conscious of its own existence, would begin to ascend or descend according as its specific gravity would determine it, forming an immense solid space filled with vacuum, and capable of containing the present universe." The following (page 263) may serve as an example of the passages in which the reviewer refers to Sir Charles Lyell:--"That Mr. Darwin should have wandered from this broad highway of nature's works into the jungle of fanciful assumption is no small evil. We trust that he is mistaken in believing that he may count Sir C. Lyell as one of his converts. We know, indeed, that the strength of the temptations which he can bring to bear upon his geological brother...Yet no man has been more distinct and more logical in the denial of the transmutation of species than Sir C. Lyell, and that not in the infancy of his scientific life, but in its full vigour and maturity." The Bishop goes on to appeal to Lyell, in order that with his help "this flimsy speculation may be as completely put down as was what in spite of all denials we must venture to call its twin though less instructed brother, the 'Vestiges of Creation.'" With reference to this article, Mr. Brodie Innes, my father's old friend and neighbour, writes:--"Most men would have been annoyed by an article written with the Bishop's accustomed vigour, a mixture of argument and ridicule. Mr. Darwin was writing on some parish matter, and put a postscript--'If you have not seen the last 'Quarterly,' do get it; the Bishop of Oxford has made such capital fun of me and my grandfather.' By a curious coincidence, when I received the letter, I was staying in the same house with the Bishop, and showed it to him. He said, 'I am very glad he takes it in that way, he is such a capital fellow.'") It is uncommonly clever; it picks out with skill all the most conjectural parts, and brings forward well all the difficulties. It quizzes me quite splendidly by quoting the 'Anti-Jacobin' versus my Grandfather. You are not alluded to, nor, strange to say, Huxley; and I can plainly see, here and there, --'s hand. The concluding pages will make Lyell shake in his shoes. By Jove, if he sticks to us, he will be a real hero. Good-night. Your well- quizzed, but not sorrowful, and affectionate friend. C.D. I can see there has been some queer tampering with the Review, for a page has been cut out and reprinted. [Writing on July 22 to Dr. Asa Gray my father thus refers to Lyell's position:-- "Considering his age, his former views and position in society, I think his conduct has been heroic on this subject."] CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. [Hartfield, Sussex] July 22nd [1860]. My dear Gray, Owing to absence from home at water-cure and then having to move my sick girl to whence I am now writing, I have only lately read the discussion in Proc. American Acad. (April 10, 1860. Dr. Gray criticised in detail "several of the positions taken at the preceding meeting by Mr. [J.A.] Lowell, Prof. Bowen and Prof. Agassiz." It was reprinted in the "Athenaeum", August 4, 1860.), and now I cannot resist expressing my sincere admiration of your most clear powers of reasoning. As Hooker lately said in a note to me, you are more than ANY ONE else the thorough master of the subject. I declare that you know my book as well as I do myself; and bring to the question new lines of illustration and argument in a manner which excites my astonishment and almost my envy! I admire these discussions, I think, almost more than your article in Silliman's Journal. Every single word seems weighed carefully, and tells like a 32-pound shot. It makes me much wish (but I know that you have not time) that you could write more in detail, and give, for instance, the facts on the variability of the American wild fruits. The "Athenaeum" has the largest circulation, and I have sent my copy to the editor with a request that he would republish the first discussion; I much fear he will not, as he reviewed the subject in so hostile a spirit...I shall be curious [to see] and will order the August number, as soon as I know that it contains your review of Reviews. My conclusion is that you have made a mistake in being a botanist, you ought to have been a lawyer. ...Henslow (Professor Henslow was mentioned in the December number of 'Macmillan's Magazine' as being an adherent of Evolution. In consequence of this he published, in the February number of the following year, a letter defining his position. This he did by means of an extract from a letter addressed to him by the Rev. L. Jenyns (Blomefield) which "very nearly," as he says, expressed his views. Mr. Blomefield wrote, "I was not aware that you had become a convert to his (Darwin's) theory, and can hardly suppose you have accepted it as a whole, though, like myself, you may go to the length of imagining that many of the smaller groups, both of animals and plants, may at some remote period have had a common parentage. I do not with some say that the whole of his theory cannot be true--but that it is very far from proved; and I doubt its ever being possible to prove it.") and Daubeny are shaken. I hear from Hooker that he hears from Hochstetter that my views are making very considerable progress in Germany, and the good workers are discussing the question. Bronn at the end of his translation has a chapter of criticism, but it is such difficult German that I have not yet read it. Hopkins's review in 'Fraser' is thought the best which has appeared against us. I believe that Hopkins is so much opposed because his course of study has never led him to reflect much on such subjects as geographical distribution, classification, homologies, etc., so that he does not feel it a relief to have some kind of explanation. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Hartfield [Sussex], July 30th [1860]. ...I had lots of pleasant letters about the British Association, and our side seems to have got on very well. There has been as much discussion on the other side of the Atlantic as on this. No one I think understands the whole case better than Asa Gray, and he has been fighting nobly. He is a capital reasoner. I have sent one of his printed discussions to our "Athenaeum", and the editor says he will print it. The 'Quarterly' has been out some time. It contains no malice, which is wonderful...It makes me say many things which I do not say. At the end it quotes all your conclusions against Lamarck, and makes a solemn appeal to you to keep firm in the true faith. I fancy it will make you quake a little. -- has ingeniously primed the Bishop (with Murchison) against you as head of the uniformitarians. The only other review worth mentioning, which I can think of, is in the third No. of the 'London Review,' by some geologist, and favorable for a wonder. It is very ably done, and I should like much to know who is the author. I shall be very curious to hear on your return whether Bronn's German translation of the 'Origin' has drawn any attention to the subject. Huxley is eager about a 'Natural History Review,' which he and others are going to edit, and he has got so many first-rate assistants, that I really believe he will make it a first-rate production. I have been doing nothing, except a little botanical work as amusement. I shall hereafter be very anxious to hear how your tour has answered. I expect your book on the geological history of Man will, with a vengeance, be a bomb-shell. I hope it will not be very long delayed. Our kindest remembrances to Lady Lyell. This is not worth sending, but I have nothing better to say. Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO F. WATKINS. (See Volume I.) Down, July 30th, [1860?]. My dear Watkins, Your note gave me real pleasure. Leading the retired life which I do, with bad health, I oftener think of old times than most men probably do; and your face now rises before me, with the pleasant old expression, as vividly as if I saw you. My book has been well abused, praised, and splendidly quizzed by the Bishop of Oxford; but from what I see of its influence on really good workers in science, I feel confident that, IN THE MAIN, I am on the right road. With respect to your question, I think the arguments are valid, showing that all animals have descended from four or five primordial forms; and that analogy and weak reasons go to show that all have descended from some single prototype. Farewell, my old friend. I look back to old Cambridge days with unalloyed pleasure. Believe me, yours most sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN. T.H. HUXLEY TO CHARLES DARWIN. August 6th, 1860. My dear Darwin, I have to announce a new and great ally for you... Von Baer writes to me thus:--Et outre cela, je trouve que vous ecrivez encore des redactions. Vous avez ecrit sur l'ouvrage de M. Darwin une critique dont je n'ai trouve que des debris dans un journal allemand. J'ai oublie le nom terrible du journal anglais dans lequel se trouve votre recension. En tout cas aussi je ne peux pas trouver le journal ici. Comme je m'interesse beaucoup pour les idees de M. Darwin, sur lesquelles j'ai parle publiquement et sur lesquelles je ferai peut-etre imprimer quelque chose--vous m'obligeriez infiniment si vous pourriez me faire parvenir ce que vous avez ecrit sur ces idees. "J'ai enonce les memes idees sur la transformation des types ou origine d'especes que M. Darwin. (See Vol. I.) Mais c'est seulement sur la geographie zoologique que je m'appuie. Vous trouverez, dans le dernier chapitre du traite 'Ueber Papuas und Alfuren,' que j'en parle tres decidement sans savoir que M. Darwin s'occupait de cet objet." The treatise to which Von Baer refers he gave me when over here, but I have not been able to lay hands on it since this letter reached me two days ago. When I find it I will let you know what there is in it. Ever yours faithfully, T.H. HUXLEY. CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, August 8 [1860]. My dear Huxley, Your note contained magnificent news, and thank you heartily for sending it me. Von Baer weighs down with a vengeance all the virulence of [the 'Edinburgh' reviewer] and weak arguments of Agassiz. If you write to Von Baer, for heaven's sake tell him that we should think one nod of approbation on our side, of the greatest value; and if he does write anything, beg him to send us a copy, for I would try and get it translated and published in the "Athenaeum" and in 'Silliman' to touch up Agassiz...Have you seen Agassiz's weak metaphysical and theological attack on the 'Origin' in the last 'Silliman'? (The 'American Journal of Science and Arts' (commonly called 'Silliman's Journal'), July 1860. Printed from advanced sheets of vol. iii. of 'Contributions to the Nat. Hist. of the U.S.' My father's copy has a pencilled "Truly" opposite the following passage:--"Unless Darwin and his followers succeed in showing that the struggle for life tends to something beyond favouring the existence of certain individuals over that of other individuals, they will soon find that they are following a shadow.") I would send it you, but apprehend it would be less trouble for you to look at it in London than return it to me. R. Wagner has sent me a German pamphlet ('Louis Agassiz's Prinzipien der Classification, etc., mit Rucksicht auf Darwins Ansichten. Separat-Abdruck aus den Gottingischen gelehrten Anzeigen,' 1860.), giving an abstract of Agassiz's 'Essay on Classification,' "mit Rucksicht auf Darwins Ansichten," etc. etc. He won't go very "dangerous lengths," but thinks the truth lies half-way between Agassiz and the 'Origin.' As he goes thus far he will, nolens volens, have to go further. He says he is going to review me in [his] yearly Report. My good and kind agent for the propagation of the Gospel--i.e. the devil's gospel. Ever yours, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, August 11th [1860]. ...I have laughed at Woodward thinking that you were a man who could be influenced in your judgment by the voice of the public; and yet after mortally sneering at him, I was obliged to confess to myself, that I had had fears, what the effect might be of so many heavy guns fired by great men. As I have (sent by Murray) a spare 'Quarterly Review,' I send it by this post, as it may amuse you. The Anti-Jacobin part amused me. It is full of errors, and Hooker is thinking of answering it. There has been a cancelled page; I should like to know what gigantic blunder it contained. Hooker says that -- has played on the Bishop, and made him strike whatever note he liked; he has wished to make the article as disagreeable to you as possible. I will send the "Athenaeum" in a day or two. As you wish to hear what reviews have appeared, I may mention that Agassiz has fired off a shot in the last 'Silliman,' not good at all, denies variations and rests on the perfection of Geological evidence. Asa Gray tells me that a very clever friend has been almost converted to our side by this review of Agassiz's...Professor Parsons (Theophilus Parsons, Professor of Law in Harvard University.) has published in the same 'Silliman' a speculative paper correcting my notions, worth nothing. In the 'Highland Agricultural Journal' there is a review by some Entomologist, not worth much. This is all that I can remember...As Huxley says, the platoon firing must soon cease. Hooker and Huxley, and Asa Gray, I see, are determined to stick to the battle and not give in; I am fully convinced that whenever you publish, it will produce a great effect on all TRIMMERS, and on many others. By the way I forgot to mention Daubeny's pamphlet ('Remarks on the final causes of the sexuality of plants with particular reference to Mr. Darwin's work on the "Origin of Species."'--British Association Report, 1860.), very liberal and candid, but scientifically weak. I believe Hooker is going nowhere this summer; he is excessively busy...He has written me many, most nice letters. I shall be very curious to hear on your return some account of your Geological doings. Talking of Geology, you used to be interested about the "pipes" in the chalk. About three years ago a perfectly circular hole suddenly appeared in a flat grass field to everyone's astonishment, and was filled up with many waggon loads of earth; and now two or three days ago, again it has circularly subsided about two feet more. How clearly this shows what is still slowly going on. This morning I recommenced work, and am at dogs; when I have written my short discussion on them, I will have it copied, and if you like, you can then see how the argument stands, about their multiple origin. As you seemed to think this important, it might be worth your reading; though I do not feel sure that you will come to the same probable conclusion that I have done. By the way, the Bishop makes a very telling case against me, by accumulating several instances where I speak very doubtfully; but this is very unfair, as in such cases as this of the dog, the evidence is and must be very doubtful... CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, August 11 [1860]. My dear Gray, On my return home from Sussex about a week ago, I found several articles sent by you. The first article, from the 'Atlantic Monthly,' I am very glad to possess. By the way, the editor of the "Athenaeum" (August 4, 1860.) has inserted your answer to Agassiz, Bowen, and Co., and when I therein read them, I admired them even more than at first. They really seemed to be admirable in their condensation, force, clearness and novelty. I am surprised that Agassiz did not succeed in writing something better. How absurd that logical quibble--"if species do not exist, how can they vary?" As if any one doubted their temporary existence. How coolly he assumes that there is some clearly defined distinction between individual differences and varieties. It is no wonder that a man who calls identical forms, when found in two countries, distinct species, cannot find variation in nature. Again, how unreasonable to suppose that domestic varieties selected by man for his own fancy should resemble natural varieties or species. The whole article seems to me poor; it seems to me hardly worth a detailed answer (even if I could do it, and I much doubt whether I possess your skill in picking out salient points and driving a nail into them), and indeed you have already answered several points. Agassiz's name, no doubt, is a heavy weight against us... If you see Professor Parsons, will you thank him for the extremely liberal and fair spirit in which his Essay ('Silliman's Journal,' July, 1860.) is written. Please tell him that I reflected much on the chance of favourable monstrosities (i.e. great and sudden variation) arising. I have, of course, no objection to this, indeed it would be a great aid, but I do not allude to the subject, for, after much labour, I could find nothing which satisfied me of the probability of such occurrences. There seems to me in almost every case too much, too complex, and too beautiful adaptation, in every structure, to believe in its sudden production. I have alluded under the head of beautifully hooked seeds to such possibility. Monsters are apt to be sterile, or NOT to transmit monstrous peculiarities. Look at the fineness of gradation in the shells of successive SUB-STAGES of the same great formation; I could give many other considerations which made me doubt such view. It holds, to a certain extent, with domestic productions no doubt, where man preserves some abrupt change in structure. It amused me to see Sir R. Murchison quoted as a judge of affinities of animals, and it gave me a cold shudder to hear of any one speculating about a true crustacean giving birth to a true fish! (Parson's, loc. cit. page 5, speaking of Pterichthys and Cephalaspis, says:--"Now is it too much to infer from these facts that either of these animals, if a crustacean, was so nearly a fish that some of its ova may have become fish; or, if itself a fish, was so nearly a crustacean that it may have been born from the ovum of a crustacean?") Yours most truly, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, September 1st [1860]. My dear Lyell, I have been much interested by your letter of the 28th, received this morning. It has DELIGHTED me, because it demonstrates that you have thought a good deal lately on Natural Selection. Few things have surprised me more than the entire paucity of objections and difficulties new to me in the published reviews. Your remarks are of a different stamp and new to me. I will run through them, and make a few pleadings such as occur to me. I put in the possibility of the Galapagos having been CONTINUOUSLY joined to America, out of mere subservience to the many who believe in Forbes's doctrine, and did not see the danger of admission, about small mammals surviving there in such case. The case of the Galapagos, from certain facts on littoral sea-shells (viz. Pacific Ocean and South American littoral species), in fact convinced me more than in any other case of other islands, that the Galapagos had never been continuously united with the mainland; it was mere base subservience, and terror of Hooker and Co. With respect to atolls, I think mammals would hardly survive VERY LONG, even if the main islands (for as I have said in the Coral Book, the outline of groups of atolls do not look like a former CONTINENT) had been tenanted by mammals, from the extremely small area, the very peculiar conditions, and the probability that during subsidence all or nearly all atolls have been breached and flooded by the sea many times during their existence as atolls. I cannot conceive any existing reptile being converted into a mammal. From homologies I should look at it as certain that all mammals had descended from some single progenitor. What its nature was, it is impossible to speculate. More like, probably, the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna than any known form; as these animals combine reptilian characters (and in a less degree bird character) with mammalian. We must imagine some form as intermediate, as is Lepidosiren now, between reptiles and fish, between mammals and birds on the one hand (for they retain longer the same embryological character) and reptiles on the other hand. With respect to a mammal not being developed on any island, besides want of time for so prodigious a development, there must have arrived on the island the necessary and peculiar progenitor, having a character like the embryo of a mammal; and not an ALREADY DEVELOPED reptile, bird or fish. We might give to a bird the habits of a mammal, but inheritance would retain almost for eternity some of the bird-like structure, and prevent a new creature ranking as a true mammal. I have often speculated on antiquity of islands, but not with your precision, or at all under the point of view of Natural Selection NOT having done what might have been anticipated. The argument of littoral Miocene shells at the Canary Islands is new to me. I was deeply impressed (from the amount of the denudation) [with the] antiquity of St. Helena, and its age agrees with the peculiarity of the flora. With respect to bats at New Zealand (N.B. There are two or three European bats in Madeira, and I think in the Canary Islands) not having given rise to a group of non-volant bats, it is, now you put the case, surprising; more especially as the genus of bats in New Zealand is very peculiar, and therefore has probably been long introduced, and they now speak of Cretacean fossils there. But the first necessary step has to be shown, namely, of a bat taking to feed on the ground, or anyhow, and anywhere, except in the air. I am bound to confess I do know one single such fact, viz. of an Indian species killing frogs. Observe, that in my wretched Polar Bear case, I do show the first step by which conversion into a whale "would be easy," "would offer no difficulty"!! So with seals, I know of no fact showing any the least incipient variation of seals feeding on the shore. Moreover, seals wander much; I searched in vain, and could not find ONE case of any species of seal confined to any islands. And hence wanderers would be apt to cross with individuals undergoing any change on an island, as in the case of land birds of Madeira and Bermuda. The same remark applies even to bats, as they frequently come to Bermuda from the mainland, though about 600 miles distant. With respect to the Amblyrhynchus of the Galapagos, one may infer as probable, from marine habits being so rare with Saurians, and from the terrestrial species being confined to a few central islets, that its progenitor first arrived at the Galapagos; from what country it is impossible to say, as its affinity I believe is not very clear to any known species. The offspring of the terrestrial species was probably rendered marine. Now in this case I do not pretend I can show variation in habits; but we have in the terrestrial species a vegetable feeder (in itself a rather unusual circumstance), largely on LICHENS, and it would not be a great change for its offspring to feed first on littoral algae and then on submarine algae. I have said what I can in defence, but yours is a good line of attack. We should, however, always remember that no change will ever be effected till a variation in the habits or structure or of both CHANCE to occur in the right direction, so as to give the organism in question an advantage over other already established occupants of land or water, and this may be in any particular case indefinitely long. I am very glad you will read my dogs MS., for it will be important to me to see what you think of the balance of evidence. After long pondering on a subject it is often hard to judge. With hearty thanks for your most interesting letter. Farewell. My dear old master, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, September 2nd [1860]. My dear Hooker, I am astounded at your news received this morning. I am become such an old fogy that I am amazed at your spirit. For God's sake do not go and get your throat cut. Bless my soul, I think you must be a little insane. I must confess it will be a most interesting tour; and, if you get to the top of Lebanon, I suppose extremely interesting--you ought to collect any beetles under stones there; but the Entomologists are such slow coaches. I dare say no result could be made out of them. [They] have never worked the Alpines of Britain. If you come across any Brine lakes, do attend to their minute flora and fauna; I have often been surprised how little this has been attended to. I have had a long letter from Lyell, who starts ingenious difficulties opposed to Natural Selection, because it has not done more than it has. This is very good, as it shows that he has thoroughly mastered the subject; and shows he is in earnest. Very striking letter altogether and it rejoices the cockles of my heart. ...How I shall miss you, my best and kindest of friends. God bless you. Yours ever affectionately, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, September 10 [1860]. ...You will be weary of my praise, but it (Dr. Gray in the 'Atlantic Monthly' for July, 1860.) does strike me as quite admirably argued, and so well and pleasantly written. Your many metaphors are inimitably good. I said in a former letter that you were a lawyer, but I made a gross mistake, I am sure that you are a poet. No, by Jove, I will tell you what you are, a hybrid, a complex cross of lawyer, poet, naturalist and theologian! Was there ever such a monster seen before? I have just looked through the passages which I have marked as appearing to me extra good, but I see that they are too numerous to specify, and this is no exaggeration. My eye just alights on the happy comparison of the colours of the prism and our artificial groups. I see one little error of fossil CATTLE in South America. It is curious how each one, I suppose, weighs arguments in a different balance: embryology is to me by far the strongest single class of facts in favour of change of forms, and not one, I think, of my reviewers has alluded to this. Variation not coming on at a very early age, and being inherited at not a very early corresponding period, explains, as it seems to me, the grandest of all facts in natural history, or rather in zoology, viz. the resemblance of embryos. [Dr. Gray wrote three articles in the 'Atlantic Monthly' for July, August, and October, which were reprinted as a pamphlet in 1861, and now form chapter iii. in 'Darwiniana' (1876), with the heading 'Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology.'] CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL Down, September 12th [1860]. My dear Lyell, I never thought of showing your letter to any one. I mentioned in a letter to Hooker that I had been much interested by a letter of yours with original objections, founded chiefly on Natural Selection not having done so much as might have been expected...In your letter just received, you have improved your case versus Natural Selection; and it would tell with the public (do not be tempted by its novelty to make it too strong); yet is seems to me, not REALLY very killing, though I cannot answer your case, especially, why Rodents have not become highly developed in Australia. You must assume that they have inhabited Australia for a very long period, and this may or may not be the case. But I feel that our ignorance is so profound, why one form is preserved with nearly the same structure, or advances in organisation or even retrogrades, or becomes extinct, that I cannot put very great weight on the difficulty. Then, as you say often in your letter, we know not how many geological ages it may have taken to make any great advance in organisation. Remember monkeys in the Eocene formations: but I admit that you have made out an excellent objection and difficulty, and I can give only unsatisfactory and quite vague answers, such as you have yourself put; however, you hardly put weight enough on the absolute necessity of variations first arising in the right direction, videlicet, of seals beginning to feed on the shore. I entirely agree with what you say about only one species of many becoming modified. I remember this struck me much when tabulating the varieties of plants, and I have a discussion somewhere on this point. It is absolutely implied in my ideas of classification and divergence that only one or two species, of even large genera, give birth to new species; and many whole genera become WHOLLY extinct...Please see page 341 of the 'Origin.' But I cannot remember that I have stated in the 'Origin' the fact of only very few species in each genus varying. You have put the view much better in your letter. Instead of saying, as I often have, that very few species vary at the same time, I ought to have said, that very few species of a genus EVER vary so as to become modified; for this is the fundamental explanation of classification, and is shown in my engraved diagram... I quite agree with you on the strange and inexplicable fact of Ornithorhynchus having been preserved, and Australian Trigonia, or the Silurian Lingula. I always repeat to myself that we hardly know why any one single species is rare or common in the best-known countries. I have got a set of notes somewhere on the inhabitants of fresh water; and it is singular how many of these are ancient, or intermediate forms; which I think is explained by the competition having been less severe, and the rate of change of organic forms having been slower in small confined areas, such as all the fresh waters make compared with sea or land. I see that you do allude in the last page, as a difficulty, to Marsupials not having become Placentals in Australia; but this I think you have no right at all to expect; for we ought to look at Marsupials and Placentals as having descended from some intermediate and lower form. The argument of Rodents not having become highly developed in Australia (supposing that they have long existed there) is much stronger. I grieve to see you hint at the creation "of distinct successive types, as well as of a certain number of distinct aboriginal types." Remember, if you admit this, you give up the embryological argument (THE WEIGHTIEST OF ALL TO ME), and the morphological or homological argument. You cut my throat, and your own throat; and I believe will live to be sorry for it. So much for species. The striking extract which E. copied was your own writing!! in a note to me, many long years ago--which she copied and sent to Mme. Sismondi; and lately my aunt, in sorting her letters, found E.'s and returned them to her...I have been of late shamefully idle, i.e. observing (Drosera) instead of writing, and how much better fun observing is than writing. Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. 15 Marine Parade, Eastbourne, Sunday [September 23rd, 1860]. My dear Lyell, I got your letter of the 18th just before starting here. You speak of saving me trouble in answering. Never think of this, for I look at every letter of yours as an honour and pleasure, which is a pretty deal more than I can say of some of the letters which I receive. I have now one of 13 CLOSELY WRITTEN FOLIO PAGES to answer on species!... I have a very decided opinion that all mammals must have descended from a SINGLE parent. Reflect on the multitude of details, very many of them of extremely little importance to their habits (as the number of bones of the head, etc., covering of hair, identical embryological development, etc. etc.). Now this large amount of similarity I must look at as certainly due to inheritance from a common stock. I am aware that some cases occur in which a similar or nearly similar organ has been acquired by independent acts of natural selection. But in most of such cases of these apparently so closely similar organs, some important homological difference may be detected. Please read page 193, beginning, "The electric organs," and trust me that the sentence, "In all these cases of two very distinct species," etc. etc., was not put in rashly, for I went carefully into every case. Apply this argument to the whole frame, internal and external, of mammifers, and you will see why I think so strongly that all have descended from one progenitor. I have just re-read your letter, and I am not perfectly sure that I understand your point. I enclose two diagrams showing the sort of manner I CONJECTURE that mammals have been developed. I thought a little on this when writing page 429, beginning, "Mr. Waterhouse." (Please read the paragraph.) I have not knowledge enough to choose between these two diagrams. If the brain of Marsupials in embryo closely resembles that of Placentals, I should strongly prefer No.2, and this agrees with the antiquity of Microlestes. As a general rule I should prefer No.1 diagram; whether or not Marsupials have gone on being developed, or rising in rank, from a very early period would depend on circumstances too complex for even a conjecture. Lingula has not risen since the Silurian epoch, whereas other molluscs may have risen. Here appear two diagrams. Diagram I. A - Mammals, not true Marsupials nor true Placentals. - 2 branches - Branch I, True Placental, from which branch off Rodents, Insectivora, a branch terminating in Ruminants and Pachyderms, Canidae and terminates in Quadrumana. - Branch II, True Marsupial, from which branches off Kangaroo family an unnamed branch terminating in 2 unnamed branches and terminates in Didelphys Family. Diagram II. A - True Marsupials, lowly developed. - True Marsupials, highly developed. - 2 branches - Branch I, Placentals, from which branch off Rodents, Insectivora, a branch terminating in Ruminants and Pachyderms, Canidae and terminates in Quadrumana. - Branch II, Present Marsupials, splitting into two branches terminating in Kangaroo family (with 2 unnamed branches) and Didelphys family. A, in the two diagrams, represents an unknown form, probably intermediate between Mammals, Reptiles, and Birds, as intermediate as Lepidosiren now is between Fish and Batrachians. This unknown form is probably more closely related to Ornithorhynchus than to any other known form. I do not think that the multiple origin of dogs goes against the single origin of man...All the races of man are so infinitely closer together than to any ape, that (as in the case of descent of all mammals from one progenitor), I should look at all races of men as having certainly descended from one parent. I should look at it as probable that the races of men were less numerous and less divergent formerly than now, unless, indeed, some lower and more aberrant race even than the Hottentot has become extinct. Supposing, as I do for one believe, that our dogs have descended from two or three wolves, jackals, etc., yet these have, on OUR VIEW, descended from a single remote unknown progenitor. With domestic dogs the question is simply whether the whole amount of difference has been produced since man domesticated a single species; or whether part of the difference arises in the state of nature. Agassiz and Co. think the negro and Caucasian are now distinct species, and it is a mere vain discussion whether, when they were rather less distinct, they would, on this standard of specific value, deserve to be called species. I agree with your answer which you give to yourself on this point; and the simile of man now keeping down any new man which might be developed, strikes me as good and new. The white man is "improving off the face of the earth" even races nearly his equals. With respect to islands, I think I would trust to want of time alone, and not to bats and Rodents. N.B.--I know of no rodents on oceanic islands (except my Galapagos mouse, which MAY have been introduced by man) keeping down the development of other classes. Still MUCH more weight I should attribute to there being now, neither in islands nor elsewhere, [any] known animals of a grade of organisation intermediate between mammals, fish, reptiles, etc., whence a new mammal could be developed. If every vertebrate were destroyed throughout the world, except our NOW WELL-ESTABLISHED reptiles, millions of ages might elapse before reptiles could become highly developed on a scale equal to mammals; and, on the principle of inheritance, they would make some quite NEW CLASS, and not mammals; though POSSIBLY more intellectual! I have not an idea that you will care for this letter, so speculative. Most truly yours, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, September 26 [1860]. ...I have had a letter of fourteen folio pages from Harvey against my book, with some ingenious and new remarks; but it is an extraordinary fact that he does not understand at all what I mean by Natural Selection. I have begged him to read the Dialogue in next 'Silliman,' as you never touch the subject without making it clearer. I look at it as even more extraordinary that you never say a word or use an epithet which does not express fully my meaning. Now Lyell, Hooker, and others, who perfectly understand my book, yet sometimes use expressions to which I demur. Well, your extraordinary labour is over; if there is any fair amount of truth in my view, I am well assured that your great labour has not been thrown away... I yet hope and almost believe, that the time will come when you will go further, in believing a very large amount of modification of species, than you did at first or do now. Can you tell me whether you believe further or more firmly than you did at first? I should really like to know this. I can perceive in my immense correspondence with Lyell, who objected to much at first, that he has, perhaps unconsciousnessly to himself, converted himself very much during the last six months, and I think this is the case even with Hooker. This fact gives me far more confidence than any other fact. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. 15 Marine Parade, Eastbourne, Friday evening [September 28th, 1860]. ...I am very glad to hear about the Germans reading my book. No one will be converted who has not independently begun to doubt about species. Is not Krohn (There are two papers by Aug. Krohn, one on the Cement Glands, and the other on the development of Cirripedes, 'Wiegmann's Archiv,' xxv. and xxvi. My father has remarked that he "blundered dreadfully about the cement glands," 'Autobiography.') a good fellow? I have long meant to write to him. He has been working at Cirripedes, and has detected two or three gigantic blunders,...about which, I thank Heaven, I spoke rather doubtfully. Such difficult dissection that even Huxley failed. It is chiefly the interpretation which I put on parts that is so wrong, and not the parts which I describe. But they were gigantic blunders, and why I say all this is because Krohn, instead of crowing at all, pointed out my errors with the utmost gentleness and pleasantness. I have always meant to write to him and thank him. I suppose Dr. Krohn, Bonn, would reach him. I cannot see yet how the multiple origin of dog can be properly brought as argument for the multiple origin of man. Is not your feeling a remnant of the deeply impressed one on all our minds, that a species is an entity, something quite distinct from a variety? Is it not that the dog case injures the argument from fertility, so that one main argument that the races of man are varieties and not species--i.e., because they are fertile inter se, is much weakened? I quite agree with what Hooker says, that whatever variation is possible under culture, is POSSIBLE under nature; not that the same form would ever be accumulated and arrived at by selection for man's pleasure, and by natural selection for the organism's own good. Talking of "natural selection;" if I had to commence de novo, I would have used "natural preservation." For I find men like Harvey of Dublin cannot understand me, though he has read the book twice. Dr. Gray of the British Museum remarked to me that, "SELECTION was obviously impossible with plants! No one could tell him how it could be possible!" And he may now add that the author did not attempt it to him! Yours ever affectionately, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. 15 Marine Parade, Eastbourne, October 8th [1860]. My dear Lyell, I send the [English] translation of Bronn (A MS. translation of Bronn's chapter of objections at the end of his German translation of the 'Origin of Species.'), the first part of the chapter with generalities and praise is not translated. There are some good hits. He makes an apparently, and in part truly, telling case against me, says that I cannot explain why one rat has a longer tail and another longer ears, etc. But he seems to muddle in assuming that these parts did not all vary together, or one part so insensibly before the other, as to be in fact contemporaneous. I might ask the creationist whether he thinks these differences in the two rats of any use, or as standing in some relation from laws of growth; and if he admits this, selection might come into play. He who thinks that God created animals unlike for mere sport or variety, as man fashions his clothes, will not admit any force in my argumentum ad hominem. Bronn blunders about my supposing several Glacial periods, whether or no such ever did occur. He blunders about my supposing that development goes on at the same rate in all parts of the world. I presume that he has misunderstood this from the supposed migration into all regions of the more dominant forms. I have ordered Dr. Bree ('Species not Transmutable,' by C.R. Bree, 1860.), and will lend it to you, if you like, and if it turns out good. ...I am very glad that I misunderstood you about species not having the capacity to vary, though in fact few do give birth to new species. It seems that I am very apt to misunderstand you; I suppose I am always fancying objections. Your case of the Red Indian shows me that we agree entirely... I had a letter yesterday from Thwaites of Ceylon, who was much opposed to me. He now says, "I find that the more familiar I become with your views in connection with the various phenomena of nature, the more they commend themselves to my mind." CHARLES DARWIN TO J.M. RODWELL. (Rev. J.M. Rodwell, who was at Cambridge with my father, remembers him saying:--"It strikes me that all our knowledge about the structure of our earth is very much like what an old hen would know of a hundred acre field, in a corner of which she is scratching.") 15 Marine Parade, Eastbourne. November 5th [1860]. My dear Sir, I am extremely much obliged for your letter, which I can compare only to a plum-pudding, so full it is of good things. I have been rash about the cats ("Cats with blue eyes are invariably deaf," 'Origin of Species,' edition i. page 12.): yet I spoke on what seemed to me, good authority. The Rev. W.D. Fox gave me a list of cases of various foreign breeds in which he had observed the correlation, and for years he had vainly sought an exception. A French paper also gives numerous cases, and one very curious case of a kitten which GRADUALLY lost the blue colour in its eyes and as gradually acquired its power of hearing. I had not heard of your uncle, Mr. Kirby's case (William Kirby, joint author with Spence, of the well-known 'Introduction to Entomology,' 1818.) (whom I, for as long as I can remember, have venerated) of care in breeding cats. I do not know whether Mr. Kirby was your uncle by marriage, but your letters show me that you ought to have Kirby blood in your veins, and that if you had not taken to languages you would have been a first-rate naturalist. I sincerely hope that you will be able to carry out your intention of writing on the "Birth, Life, and Death of Words." Anyhow, you have a capital title, and some think this the most difficult part of a book. I remember years ago at the Cape of Good Hope, Sir J. Herschel saying to me, I wish some one would treat language as Lyell has treated geology. What a linguist you must be to translate the Koran! Having a vilely bad head for languages, I feel an awful respect for linguists. I do not know whether my brother-in-law, Hensleigh Wedgwood's 'Etymological Dictionary' would be at all in your line; but he treats briefly on the genesis of words; and, as it seems to me, very ingeniously. You kindly say that you would communicate any facts which might occur to you, and I am sure that I should be most grateful. Of the multitude of letters which I receive, not one in a thousand is like yours in value. With my cordial thanks, and apologies for this untidy letter written in haste, pray believe me, my dear Sir, Yours sincerely obliged, CH. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. November 20th [1860]. ...I have not had heart to read Phillips ('Life on the Earth.') yet, or a tremendous long hostile review by Professor Bowen in the 4to Mem. of the American Academy of Sciences. ("Remarks on the latest form of the Development Theory." By Francis Bowen, Professor of Natural Religion and Moral Philosophy, at Harvard University. 'American Academy of Arts and Sciences,' vol. viii.) (By the way, I hear Agassiz is going to thunder against me in the next part of the 'Contributions.') Thank you for telling me of the sale of the 'Origin,' of which I had not heard. There will be some time, I presume, a new edition, and I especially want your advice on one point, and you know I think you the wisest of men, and I shall be ABSOLUTELY GUIDED BY YOUR ADVICE. It has occurred to me, that it would PERHAPS be a good plan to put a set of notes (some twenty to forty or fifty) to the 'Origin,' which now has none, exclusively devoted to errors of my reviewers. It has occurred to me that where a reviewer has erred, a common reader might err. Secondly, it will show the reader that he must not trust implicitly to reviewers. Thirdly, when any special fact has been attacked, I should like to defend it. I would show no sort of anger. I enclose a mere rough specimen, done without any care or accuracy--done from memory alone--to be torn up, just to show the sort of thing that has occurred to me. WILL YOU DO ME THE GREAT KINDNESS TO CONSIDER THIS WELL? It seems to me it would have a good effect, and give some confidence to the reader. It would [be] a horrid bore going through all the reviews. Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. [Here follow samples of foot-notes, the references to volume and page being left blank. It will be seen that in some cases he seems to have forgotten that he was writing foot-notes, and to have continued as if writing to Lyell:-- *Dr. Bree asserts that I explain the structure of the cells of the Hive Bee by "the exploded doctrine of pressure." But I do not say one word which directly or indirectly can be interpreted into any reference to pressure. *The 'Edinburgh' Reviewer quotes my work as saying that the "dorsal vertebrae of pigeons vary in number, and disputes the fact." I nowhere even allude to the dorsal vertebrae, only to the sacral and caudal vertebrae. *The 'Edinburgh' Reviewer throws a doubt on these organs being the Branchiae of Cirripedes. But Professor Owen in 1854 admits, without hesitation, that they are Branchiae, as did John Hunter long ago. *The confounded Wealden Calculation to be struck out, and a note to be inserted to the effect that I am convinced of its inaccuracy from a review in the "Saturday Review", and from Phillips, as I see in his Table of Contents that he alludes to it. *Mr. Hopkins ('Fraser') states--I am quoting only from vague memory--that, "I argue in favour of my views from the extreme imperfection of the Geological Record," and says this is the first time in the history of Science he has ever heard of ignorance being adduced as an argument. But I repeatedly admit, in the most emphatic language which I can use, that the imperfect evidence which Geology offers in regard to transitorial forms is most strongly opposed to my views. Surely there is a wide difference in fully admitting an objection, and then in endeavouring to show that it is not so strong as it at first appears, and in Mr. Hopkins's assertion that I found my argument on the Objection. *I would also put a note to "Natural Selection," and show how variously it has been misunderstood. *A writer in the 'Edinburgh Philosophical Journal' denies my statement that the Woodpecker of La Plata never frequents trees. I observed its habits during two years, but, what is more to the purpose, Azara, whose accuracy all admit, is more emphatic than I am in regard to its never frequenting trees. Mr. A. Murray denies that it ought to be called a woodpecker; it has two toes in front and two behind, pointed tail feathers, a long pointed tongue, and the same general form of body, the same manner of flight, colouring and voice. It was classed, until recently, in the same genus-- Picus--with all other woodpeckers, but now has been ranked as a distinct genus amongst the Picidae. It differs from the typical Picus only in the beak, not being quite so strong, and in the upper mandible being slightly arched. I think these facts fully justify my statement that it is "in all essential parts of its organisation" a Woodpecker.] CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, November 22 [1860]. My dear Huxley, For heaven's sake don't write an anti-Darwinian article; you would do it so confoundedly well. I have sometimes amused myself with thinking how I could best pitch into myself, and I believe I could give two or three good digs; but I will see you -- first before I will try. I shall be very impatient to see the Review. (The first number of the new series of the 'Nat. Hist. Review' appeared in 1861.) If it succeeds it may really do much, very much good... I heard to-day from Murray that I must set to work at once on a new edition (The 3rd edition.) of the 'Origin.' [Murray] says the Reviews have not improved the sale. I shall always think those early reviews, almost entirely yours, did the subject an ENORMOUS service. If you have any important suggestions or criticisms to make on any part of the 'Origin,' I should, of course, be very grateful for [them]. For I mean to correct as far as I can, but not enlarge. How you must be wearied with and hate the subject, and it is God's blessing if you do not get to hate me. Adios. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, November 24th [1860]. My dear Lyell, I thank you much for your letter. I had got to take pleasure in thinking how I could best snub my reviewers; but I was determined, in any case, to follow your advice, and, before I had got to the end of your letter, I was convinced of the wisdom of your advice. ("I get on slowly with my new edition. I find that your advice was EXCELLENT. I can answer all reviews, without any direct notice of them, by a little enlargement here and there, with here and there a new paragraph. Bronn alone I shall treat with the respect of giving his objections with his name. I think I shall improve my book a good deal, and add only some twenty pages."--From a letter to Lyell, December 4th, 1860.) What an advantage it is to me to have such friends as you. I shall follow every hint in your letter exactly. I have just heard from Murray; he says he sold 700 copies at his sale, and that he has not half the number to supply; so that I must begin at once (On the third edition of the 'Origin of Species,' published in April 1861.)... P.S.--I must tell you one little fact which has pleased me. You may remember that I adduce electrical organs of fish as one of the greatest difficulties which have occurred to me, and -- notices the passage in a singularly disingenuous spirit. Well, McDonnell, of Dublin (a first-rate man), writes to me that he felt the difficulty of the whole case as overwhelming against me. Not only are the fishes which have electric organs very remote in scale, but the organ is near the head in some, and near the tail in others, and supplied by wholly different nerves. It seems impossible that there could be any transition. Some friend, who is much opposed to me, seems to have crowed over McDonnell, who reports that he said to himself, that if Darwin is right, there must be homologous organs both near the head and tail in other non-electric fish. He set to work, and, by Jove, he has found them! ('On an organ in the Skate, which appears to be the homologue of the electrical organ of the Torpedo,' by R. McDonnell, 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1861, page 57.) so that some of the difficulty is removed; and is it not satisfactory that my hypothetical notions should have led to pretty discoveries? McDonnell seems very cautious; he says, years must pass before he will venture to call himself a believer in my doctrine, but that on the subjects which he knows well, viz., Morphology and Embryology, my views accord well, and throw light on the whole subject. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, November 26th, 1860. My dear Gray, I have to thank you for two letters. The latter with corrections, written before you received my letter asking for an American reprint, and saying that it was hopeless to print your reviews as a pamphlet, owing to the impossibility of getting pamphlets known. I am very glad to say that the August or second 'Atlantic' article has been reprinted in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History'; but I have not seen it there. Yesterday I read over with care the third article; and it seems to me, as before, ADMIRABLE. But I grieve to say that I cannot honestly go as far as you do about Design. I am conscious that I am in an utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; and yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of Design. To take a crucial example, you lead me to infer (page 414) that you believe "that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines." I cannot believe this; and I think you would have to believe, that the tail of the Fantail was led to vary in the number and direction of its feathers in order to gratify the caprice of a few men. Yet if the Fantail had been a wild bird, and had used its abnormal tail for some special end, as to sail before the wind, unlike other birds, every one would have said, "What a beautiful and designed adaptation." Again, I say I am, and shall ever remain, in a hopeless muddle. Thank you much for Bowen's 4to. review. ('Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,' vol. viii.) The coolness with which he makes all animals to be destitute of reason is simply absurd. It is monstrous at page 103, that he should argue against the possibility of accumulative variation, and actually leave out, entirely, selection! The chance that an improved Short-horn, or improved Pouter-pigeon, should be produced by accumulative variation without man's selection is as almost infinity to nothing; so with natural species without natural selection. How capitally in the 'Atlantic' you show that Geology and Astronomy are, according to Bowen, Metaphysics; but he leaves out this in the 4to. Memoir. I have not much to tell you about my Book. I have just heard that Du Bois- Reymond agrees with me. The sale of my book goes on well, and the multitude of reviews has not stopped the sale...; so I must begin at once on a new corrected edition. I will send you a copy for the chance of your ever re-reading; but, good Heavens, how sick you must be of it! CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 2nd [1860]. ...I have got fairly sick of hostile reviews. Nevertheless, they have been of use in showing me when to expatiate a little and to introduce a few new discussions. OF COURSE I will send you a copy of the new edition. I entirely agree with you, that the difficulties on my notions are terrific, yet having seen what all the Reviews have said against me, I have far more confidence in the GENERAL truth of the doctrine than I formerly had. Another thing gives me confidence, viz. that some who went half an inch with me now go further, and some who were bitterly opposed are now less bitterly opposed. And this makes me feel a little disappointed that you are not inclined to think the general view in some slight degree more probable than you did at first. This I consider rather ominous. Otherwise I should be more contented with your degree of belief. I can pretty plainly see that, if my view is ever to be generally adopted, it will be by young men growing up and replacing the old workers, and then young ones finding that they can group facts and search out new lines of investigation better on the notion of descent, than on that of creation. But forgive me for running on so egotistically. Living so solitary as I do, one gets to think in a silly manner of one's own work. Ever yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, December 11th [1860]. ...I heard from A. Gray this morning; at my suggestion he is going to reprint the three 'Atlantic' articles as a pamphlet, and send 250 copies to England, for which I intend to pay half the cost of the whole edition, and shall give away, and try to sell by getting a few advertisements put in, and if possible notices in Periodicals. ...David Forbes has been carefully working the Geology of Chile, and as I value praise for accurate observation far higher than for any other quality, forgive (if you can) the INSUFFERABLE vanity of my copying the last sentence in his note: "I regard your Monograph on Chile as, without exception, one of the finest specimens of Geological enquiry." I feel inclined to strut like a Turkey-cock! CHAPTER 2.III. SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. 1861-1862. [The beginning of the year 1861 saw my father with the third chapter of 'The Variation of Animals and Plants' still on his hands. It had been begun in the previous August, and was not finished until March 1861. He was, however, for part of this time (I believe during December 1860 and January 1861) engaged in a new edition (2000 copies) of the 'Origin,' which was largely corrected and added to, and was published in April 1861. With regard to this, the third edition, he wrote to Mr. Murray in December 1860:-- "I shall be glad to hear when you have decided how many copies you will print off--the more the better for me in all ways, as far as compatible with safety; for I hope never again to make so many corrections, or rather additions, which I have made in hopes of making my many rather stupid reviewers at least understand what is meant. I hope and think I shall improve the book considerably." An interesting feature in the new edition was the "Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species" (The Historical Sketch had already appeared in the first German edition (1860) and the American edition. Bronn states in the German edition (footnote, page 1) that it was his critique in the 'N. Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie' that suggested the idea of such a sketch to my father.) which now appeared for the first time, and was continued in the later editions of the work. It bears a strong impress of the author's personal character in the obvious wish to do full justice to all his predecessors,--though even in this respect it has not escaped some adverse criticism. Towards the end of the present year (1861), the final arrangements for the first French edition of the 'Origin' were completed, and in September a copy of the third English edition was despatched to Mdlle. Clemence Royer, who undertook the work of translation. The book was now spreading on the Continent, a Dutch edition had appeared, and, as we have seen, a German translation had been published in 1860. In a letter to Mr. Murray (September 10, 1861), he wrote, "My book seems exciting much attention in Germany, judging from the number of discussions sent me." The silence had been broken, and in a few years the voice of German science was to become one of the strongest of the advocates of evolution. During all the early part of the year (1861) he was working at the mass of details which are marshalled in order in the early chapter of 'Animals and Plants.' Thus in his Diary occur the laconic entries, "May 16, Finished Fowls (eight weeks); May 31, Ducks." On July 1, he started, with his family, for Torquay, where he remained until August 27--a holiday which he characteristically enters in his diary as "eight weeks and a day." The house he occupied was in Hesketh Crescent, a pleasantly placed row of houses close above the sea, somewhat removed from what was then the main body of the town, and not far from the beautiful cliffed coast-line in the neighbourhood of Anstey's Cove. During the Torquay holiday, and for the remainder of the year, he worked at the fertilisation of orchids. This part of the year 1861 is not dealt with in the present chapter, because (as explained in the preface) the record of his life, as told in his letters, seems to become clearer when the whole of his botanical work is placed together and treated separately. The present series of chapters will, therefore, include only the progress of his works in the direction of a general amplification of the 'Origin of Species'-- e.g., the publication of 'Animals and Plants,' 'Descent of Man,' etc.] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 15 [1861]. My dear Hooker, The sight of your handwriting always rejoices the very cockles of my heart... I most fully agree to what you say about Huxley's Article ('Natural History Review,' 1861, page 67, "On the Zoological Relations of Man with the Lower Animals." This memoir had its origin in a discussion at the previous meeting of the British Association, when Professor Huxley felt himself "compelled to give a diametrical contradiction to certain assertions respecting the differences which obtain between the brains of the higher apes and of man, which fell from Professor Owen." But in order that his criticisms might refer to deliberately recorded words, he bases them on Professor Owen's paper, "On the Characters, etc., of the Class Mammalia," read before the Linnean Society in February and April, 1857, in which he proposed to place man not only in a distinct order, but in "a distinct sub- class of the Mammalia"--the Archencephala.), and the power of writing...The whole review seems to me excellent. How capitally Oliver has done the resume of botanical books. Good Heavens, how he must have read!... I quite agree that Phillips ('Life on the Earth' (1860), by Prof. Phillips, containing the substance of the Rede Lecture (May 1860).) is unreadably dull. You need not attempt Bree. (The following sentence (page 16) from 'Species not Transmutable,' by Dr. Bree, illustrates the degree in which he understood the 'Origin of Species': "The only real difference between Mr. Darwin and his two predecessors" [Lamarck and the 'Vestiges'] "is this:-- that while the latter have each given a mode by which they conceive the great changes they believe in have been brought about, Mr. Darwin does no such thing." After this we need not be surprised at a passage in the preface: "No one has derived greater pleasure than I have in past days from the study of Mr. Darwin's other works, and no one has felt a greater degree of regret that he should have imperilled his fame by the publication of his treatise upon the 'Origin of Species.'")... If you come across Dr. Freke on 'Origin of Species by means of Organic Affinity,' read a page here and there...He tells the reader to observe [that his result] has been arrived at by "induction," whereas all my results are arrived at only by "analogy." I see a Mr. Neale has read a paper before the Zoological Society on 'Typical Selection;' what it means I know not. I have not read H. Spencer, for I find that I must more and more husband the very little strength which I have. I sometimes suspect I shall soon entirely fail...As soon as this dreadful weather gets a little milder, I must try a little water cure. Have you read the 'Woman in White'? the plot is wonderfully interesting. I can recommend a book which has interested me greatly, viz. Olmsted's 'Journey in the Back Country.' It is an admirably lively picture of man and slavery in the Southern States... CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. February 2, 1861. My dear Lyell, I have thought you would like to read the enclosed passage in a letter from A. Gray (who is printing his reviews as a pamphlet ("Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology," from the 'Atlantic Monthly' for July, August, and October, 1860; published by Trubner.), and will send copies to England), as I think his account is really favourable in high degree to us:-- "I wish I had time to write you an account of the lengths to which Bowen and Agassiz, each in their own way, are going. The first denying all heredity (all transmission except specific) whatever. The second coming near to deny that we are genetically descended from our great-great- grandfathers; and insisting that evidently affiliated languages, e.g. Latin, Greek, Sanscrit, owe none of their similarities to a community of origin, are all autochthonal; Agassiz admits that the derivation of languages, and that of species or forms, stand on the same foundation, and that he must allow the latter if he allows the former, which I tell him is perfectly logical." Is not this marvellous? Ever yours, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 4 [1861]. My dear Hooker, I was delighted to get your long chatty letter, and to hear that you are thawing towards science. I almost wish you had remained frozen rather longer; but do not thaw too quickly and strongly. No one can work long as you used to do. Be idle; but I am a pretty man to preach, for I cannot be idle, much as I wish it, and am never comfortable except when at work. The word holiday is written in a dead language for me, and much I grieve at it. We thank you sincerely for your kind sympathy about poor H. [his daughter]...She has now come up to her old point, and can sometimes get up for an hour or two twice a day...Never to look to the future or as little as possible is becoming our rule of life. What a different thing life was in youth with no dread in the future; all golden, if baseless, hopes. ...With respect to the 'Natural History Review' I can hardly think that ladies would be so very sensitive about "lizards' guts;" but the publication is at present certainly a sort of hybrid, and original illustrated papers ought hardly to appear in a review. I doubt its ever paying; but I shall much regret if it dies. All that you say seems very sensible, but could a review in the strict sense of the word be filled with readable matter? I have been doing little, except finishing the new edition of the 'Origin,' and crawling on most slowly with my volume of 'Variation under Domestication'... [The following letter refers to Mr. Bates's paper, "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley," in the 'Transactions of the Entomological Society,' vol.5, N.S. (The paper was read November 24, 1860.) Mr. Bates points out that with the return, after the glacial period, of a warmer climate in the equatorial regions, the "species then living near the equator would retreat north and south to their former homes, leaving some of their congeners, slowly modified subsequently...to re-people the zone they had forsaken." In this case the species now living at the equator ought to show clear relationship to the species inhabiting the regions about the 25th parallel, whose distant relatives they would of course be. But this is not the case, and this is the difficulty my father refers to. Mr. Belt has offered an explanation in his 'Naturalist in Nicaragua' (1874), page 266. "I believe the answer is that there was much extermination during the glacial period, that many species (and some genera, etc., as, for instance, the American horse), did not survive it...but that a refuge was found for many species on lands now below the ocean, that were uncovered by the lowering of the sea, caused by the immense quantity of water that was locked up in frozen masses on the land."] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 27th [March 1861]. My dear Hooker, I had intended to have sent you Bates's article this very day. I am so glad you like it. I have been extremely much struck with it. How well he argues, and with what crushing force against the glacial doctrine. I cannot wriggle out of it: I am dumbfounded; yet I do believe that some explanation some day will appear, and I cannot give up equatorial cooling. It explains so much and harmonises with so much. When you write (and much interested I shall be in your letter) please say how far floras are generally uniform in generic character from 0 to 25 degrees N. and S. Before reading Bates, I had become thoroughly dissatisfied with what I wrote to you. I hope you may get Bates to write in the 'Linnean.' Here is a good joke: H.C. Watson (who, I fancy and hope, is going to review the new edition (third edition of 2000 copies, published in April, 1861.) of the 'Origin') says that in the first four paragraphs of the introduction, the words "I," "me," "my," occur forty-three times! I was dimly conscious of the accursed fact. He says it can be explained phrenologically, which I suppose civilly means, that I am the most egotistically self-sufficient man alive; perhaps so. I wonder whether he will print this pleasing fact; it beats hollow the parentheses in Wollaston's writing. _I_ am, MY dear Hooker, ever yours, C. DARWIN. P.S.--Do not spread this pleasing joke; it is rather too biting. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [April] 23? [1861]. ...I quite agree with what you say on Lieutenant Hutton's Review (In the 'Geologist,' 1861, page 132, by Lieutenant Frederick Wollaston Hutton, now Professor of Biology and Geology at Canterbury College, New Zealand.) (who he is I know not); it struck me as very original. He is one of the very few who see that the change of species cannot be directly proved, and that the doctrine must sink or swim according as it groups and explains phenomena. It is really curious how few judge it in this way, which is clearly the right way. I have been much interested by Bentham's paper ("On the Species and Genera of Plants, etc.," 'Natural History Review,' 1861, page 133.) in the N.H.R., but it would not, of course, from familiarity strike you as it did me. I liked the whole; all the facts on the nature of close and varying species. Good Heavens! to think of the British botanists turning up their noses, and saying that he knows nothing of British plants! I was also pleased at his remarks on classification, because it showed me that I wrote truly on this subject in the 'Origin.' I saw Bentham at the Linnean Society, and had some talk with him and Lubbock, and Edgeworth, Wallich, and several others. I asked Bentham to give us his ideas of species; whether partially with us or dead against us, he would write EXCELLENT matter. He made no answer, but his manner made me think he might do so if urged; so do you attack him. Every one was speaking with affection and anxiety of Henslow. (Prof. Henslow was in his last illness.) I dined with Bell at the Linnean Club, and liked my dinner...Dining out is such a novelty to me that I enjoyed it. Bell has a real good heart. I liked Rolleston's paper, but I never read anything so obscure and not self- evident as his 'Canons.' (George Rolleston, M.D., F.R.S., 1829-1881. Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Oxford. A man of much learning, who left but few published works, among which may be mentioned his handbook 'Forms of Animal Life.' For the 'Canons,' see 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1861, page 206.)...I called on R. Chambers, at his very nice house in St. John's Wood, and had a very pleasant half-hour's talk; he is really a capital fellow. He made one good remark and chuckled over it, that the laymen universally had treated the controversy on the 'Essays and Reviews' as a merely professional subject, and had not joined in it, but had left it to the clergy. I shall be anxious for your next letter about Henslow. (Sir Joseph Hooker was Prof. Henslow's son-in-law.) Farewell, with sincere sympathy, my old friend, C. DARWIN. P.S.--We are very much obliged for the 'London Review.' We like reading much of it, and the science is incomparably better than in the "Athenaeum". You shall not go on very long sending it, as you will be ruined by pennies and trouble, but I am under a horrid spell to the "Athenaeum" and the "Gardener's Chronicle", but I have taken them in for so many years, that I CANNOT give them up. [The next letter refers to Lyell's visit to the Biddenham gravel-pits near Bedford in April 1861. The visit was made at the invitation of Mr. James Wyatt, who had recently discovered two stone implements "at the depth of thirteen feet from the surface of the soil," resting "immediately on solid beds of oolitic-limestone." ('Antiquity of Man,' fourth edition, page 214.) Here, says Sir C. Lyell, "I...for the first time, saw evidence which satisfied me of the chronological relations of those three phenomena--the antique tools, the extinct mammalia, and the glacial formation."] CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, April 12 [1861]. My dear Lyell, I have been most deeply interested by your letter. You seem to have done the grandest work, and made the greatest step, of any one with respect to man. It is an especial relief to hear that you think the French superficial deposits are deltoid and semi-marine; but two days ago I was saying to a friend, that the unknown manner of the accumulation of these deposits, seemed the great blot in all the work done. I could not stomach debacles or lacustrine beds. It is grand. I remember Falconer told me that he thought some of the remains in the Devonshire caverns were pre-glacial, and this, I presume, is now your conclusion for the older celts with hyena and hippopotamus. It is grand. What a fine long pedigree you have given the human race! I am sure I never thought of parallel roads having been accumulated during subsidence. I think I see some difficulties on this view, though, at first reading your note, I jumped at the idea. But I will think over all I saw there. I am (stomacho volente) coming up to London on Tuesday to work on cocks and hens, and on Wednesday morning, about a quarter before ten, I will call on you (unless I hear to the contrary), for I long to see you. I congratulate you on your grand work. Ever yours, C. DARWIN. P.S.--Tell Lady Lyell that I was unable to digest the funereal ceremonies of the ants, notwithstanding that Erasmus has often told me that I should find some day that they have their bishops. After a battle I have always seen the ants carry away the dead for food. Ants display the utmost economy, and always carry away a dead fellow-creature as food. But I have just forwarded two most extraordinary letters to Busk, from a backwoodsman in Texas, who has evidently watched ants carefully, and declares most positively that they plant and cultivate a kind of grass for store food, and plant other bushes for shelter! I do not know what to think, except that the old gentleman is not fibbing intentionally. I have left the responsibility with Busk whether or no to read the letters. (I.e. to read them before the Linnean Society.) CHARLES DARWIN TO THOMAS DAVIDSON. (Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., born in Edinburgh, May 17, 1817; died 1885. His researches were chiefly connected with the sciences of geology and palaeontology, and were directed especially to the elucidation of the characters, classification, history, geological and geographical distribution of recent and fossil Brachiopoda. On this subject he brought out an important work, 'British Fossil Brachiopoda,' 5 vols. 4to. (Cooper, 'Men of the Time,' 1884.)) Down, April 26, 1861. My dear Sir, I hope that you will excuse me for venturing to make a suggestion to you which I am perfectly well aware it is a very remote chance that you would adopt. I do not know whether you have read my 'Origin of Species'; in that book I have made the remark, which I apprehend will be universally admitted, that AS A WHOLE, the fauna of any formation is intermediate in character between that of the formations above and below. But several really good judges have remarked to me how desirable it would be that this should be exemplified and worked out in some detail and with some single group of beings. Now every one will admit that no one in the world could do this better than you with Brachiopods. The result might turn out very unfavourable to the views which I hold; if so, so much the better for those who are opposed to me. ("Mr. Davidson is not at all a full believer in great changes of species, which will make his work all the more valuable.-- C. Darwin to R. Chambers (April 30, 1861).) But I am inclined to suspect that on the whole it would be favourable to the notion of descent with modification; for about a year ago, Mr. Salter (John William Salter; 1820- 1869. He entered the service of the Geological Survey in 1846, and ultimately became its Palaeontologist, on the retirement of Edward Forbes, and gave up the office in 1863. He was associated with several well-known naturalists in their work--with Sedgwick, Murchison, Lyell, Ramsay, and Huxley. There are sixty entries under his name in the Royal Society Catalogue. The above facts are taken from an obituary notice of Mr. Salter in the 'Geological Magazine,' 1869.) in the Museum in Jermyn Street, glued on a board some Spirifers, etc., from three palaeozoic stages, and arranged them in single and branching lines, with horizontal lines marking the formations (like the diagram in my book, if you know it), and the result seemed to me very striking, though I was too ignorant fully to appreciate the lines of affinities. I longed to have had these shells engraved, as arranged by Mr. Salter, and connected by dotted lines, and would have gladly paid the expense: but I could not persuade Mr. Salter to publish a little paper on the subject. I can hardly doubt that many curious points would occur to any one thoroughly instructed in the subject, who would consider a group of beings under this point of view of descent with modification. All those forms which have come down from an ancient period very slightly modified ought, I think, to be omitted, and those forms alone considered which have undergone considerable change at each successive epoch. My fear is whether brachiopods have changed enough. The absolute amount of difference of the forms in such groups at the opposite extremes of time ought to be considered, and how far the early forms are intermediate in character between those which appeared much later in time. The antiquity of a group is not really diminished, as some seem vaguely to think, because it has transmitted to the present day closely allied forms. Another point is how far the succession of each genus is unbroken, from the first time it appeared to its extinction, with due allowance made for formations poor in fossils. I cannot but think that an important essay (far more important than a hundred literary reviews) might be written by one like yourself, and without very great labour. I know it is highly probable that you may not have leisure, or not care for, or dislike the subject, but I trust to your kindness to forgive me for making this suggestion. If by any extraordinary good fortune you were inclined to take up this notion, I would ask you to read my Chapter X. on Geological Succession. And I should like in this case to be permitted to send you a copy of the new edition, just published, in which I have added and corrected somewhat in Chapters IX. and X. Pray excuse this long letter, and believe me, My dear Sir, yours very faithfully, C. DARWIN. P.S.--I write so bad a hand that I have had this note copied. CHARLES DARWIN TO THOMAS DAVIDSON. Down, April 30, 1861. My dear Sir, I thank you warmly for your letter; I did not in the least know that you had attended to my work. I assure you that the attention which you have paid to it, considering your knowledge and the philosophical tone of your mind (for I well remember one remarkable letter you wrote to me, and have looked through your various publications), I consider one of the highest, perhaps the very highest, compliments which I have received. I live so solitary a life that I do not often hear what goes on, and I should much like to know in what work you have published some remarks on my book. I take a deep interest in the subject, and I hope not simply an egotistical interest; therefore you may believe how much your letter has gratified me; I am perfectly contented if any one will fairly consider the subject, whether or not he fully or only very slightly agrees with me. Pray do not think that I feel the least surprise at your demurring to a ready acceptance; in fact, I should not much respect anyone's judgment who did so: that is, if I may judge others from the long time which it has taken me to go round. Each stage of belief cost me years. The difficulties are, as you say, many and very great; but the more I reflect, the more they seem to me to be due to our underestimating our ignorance. I belong so much to old times that I find that I weigh the difficulties from the imperfection of the geological record, heavier than some of the younger men. I find, to my astonishment and joy, that such good men as Ramsay, Jukes, Geikie, and one old worker, Lyell, do not think that I have in the least exaggerated the imperfection of the record. (Professor Sedgwick treated this part of the 'Origin of Species' very differently, as might have been expected from his vehement objection to Evolution in general. In the article in the "Spectator" of March 24, 1860, already noticed, Sedgwick wrote: "We know the complicated organic phenomena of the Mesozoic (or Oolitic) period. It defies the transmutationist at every step. Oh! but the document, says Darwin, is a fragment; I will interpolate long periods to account for all the changes. I say, in reply, if you deny my conclusion, grounded on positive evidence, I toss back your conclusion, derived from negative evidence,--the inflated cushion on which you try to bolster up the defects of your hypothesis." [The punctuation of the imaginary dialogue is slightly altered from the original, which is obscure in one place.]) If my views ever are proved true, our current geological views will have to be considerably modified. My greatest trouble is, not being able to weigh the direct effects of the long-continued action of changed conditions of life without any selection, with the action of selection on mere accidental (so to speak) variability. I oscillate much on this head, but generally return to my belief that the direct action of the conditions of life has not been great. At least this direct action can have played an extremely small part in producing all the numberless and beautiful adaptations in every living creature. With respect to a person's belief, what does rather surprise me is that any one (like Carpenter) should be willing TO GO SO VERY FAR as to believe that all birds may have descended from one parent, and not go a little farther and include all the members of the same great division; for on such a scale of belief, all the facts in Morphology and in Embryology (the most important in my opinion of all subjects) become mere Divine mockeries...I cannot express how profoundly glad I am that some day you will publish your theoretical view on the modification and endurance of Brachiopodous species; I am sure it will be a most valuable contribution to knowledge. Pray forgive this very egotistical letter, but you yourself are partly to blame for having pleased me so much. I have told Murray to send a copy of my new edition to you, and have written your name. With cordial thanks, pray believe me, my dear Sir, Yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN. [In Mr. Davidson's Monograph on British Brachiopoda, published shortly afterwards by the Palaeontographical Society, results such as my father anticipated were to some extent obtained. "No less than fifteen commonly received species are demonstrated by Mr. Davidson by the aid of a long series of transitional forms to appertain to...one type." "Lyell, 'Antiquity of Man,' first edition, page 428.) In the autumn of 1860, and the early part of 1861, my father had a good deal of correspondence with Professor Asa Gray on a subject to which reference has already been made--the publication in the form of a pamphlet, of Professor Gray's three articles in the July, August, and October numbers of the 'Atlantic Monthly,' 1860. The pamphlet was published by Messrs. Trubner, with reference to whom my father wrote, "Messrs. Trubner have been most liberal and kind, and say they shall make no charge for all their trouble. I have settled about a few advertisements, and they will gratuitously insert one in their own periodicals." The reader will find these articles republished in Dr. Gray's 'Darwiniana,' page 87, under the title "Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology." The pamphlet found many admirers among those most capable of judging of its merits, and my father believed that it was of much value in lessening opposition, and making converts to Evolution. His high opinion of it is shown not only in his letters, but by the fact that he inserted a special notice of it in a most prominent place in the third edition of the 'Origin.' Lyell, among others, recognised its value as an antidote to the kind of criticism from which the cause of Evolution suffered. Thus my father wrote to Dr. Gray:--"Just to exemplify the use of your pamphlet, the Bishop of London was asking Lyell what he thought of the review in the 'Quarterly,' and Lyell answered, 'Read Asa Gray in the 'Atlantic.'". It comes out very clearly that in the case of such publications as Dr. Gray's, my father did not rejoice over the success of his special view of Evolution, viz. that modification is mainly due to Natural Selection; on the contrary, he felt strongly that the really important point was that the doctrine of Descent should be accepted. Thus he wrote to Professor Gray (May 11, 1863), with reference to Lyell's 'Antiquity of Man':-- "You speak of Lyell as a judge; now what I complain of is that he declines to be a judge...I have sometimes almost wished that Lyell had pronounced against me. When I say 'me,' I only mean CHANGE OF SPECIES BY DESCENT. That seems to me the turning-point. Personally, of course, I care much about Natural Selection; but that seems to me utterly unimportant, compared to the question of Creation OR Modification."] CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, April 11 [1861]. My dear Gray, I was very glad to get your photograph: I am expecting mine, which I will send off as soon as it comes. It is an ugly affair, and I fear the fault does not lie with the photographer...Since writing last, I have had several letters full of the highest commendation of your Essay; all agree that it is by far the best thing written, and I do not doubt it has done the 'Origin' much good. I have not yet heard how it has sold. You will have seen a review in the "Gardeners' Chronicle". Poor dear Henslow, to whom I owe much, is dying, and Hooker is with him. Many thanks for two sets of sheets of your Proceedings. I cannot understand what Agassiz is driving at. You once spoke, I think, of Professor Bowen as a very clever man. I should have thought him a singularly unobservant man from his writings. He never can have seen much of animals, or he would have seen the difference of old and wise dogs and young ones. His paper about hereditariness beats everything. Tell a breeder that he might pick out his worst INDIVIDUAL animals and breed from them, and hope to win a prize, and he would think you...insane. [Professor Henslow died on May 16, 1861, from a complication of bronchitis, congestion of the lungs, and enlargement of the heart. His strong constitution was slow in giving way, and he lingered for weeks in a painful condition of weakness, knowing that his end was near, and looking at death with fearless eyes. In Mr. Blomefield's (Jenyns) 'Memoir of Henslow' (1862) is a dignified and touching description of Prof. Sedgwick's farewell visit to his old friend. Sedgwick said afterwards that he had never seen "a human being whose soul was nearer heaven." My father wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker on hearing of Henslow's death, "I fully believe a better man never walked this earth." He gave his impressions of Henslow's character in Mr. Blomefield's 'Memoir.' In reference to these recollections he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker (May 30, 1861):-- "This morning I wrote my recollections and impressions of character of poor dear Henslow about the year 1830. I liked the job, and so have written four or five pages, now being copied. I do not suppose you will use all, of course you can chop and change as much as you like. If more than a sentence is used, I should like to see a proof-page, as I never can write decently till I see it in print. Very likely some of my remarks may appear too trifling, but I thought it best to give my thoughts as they arose, for you or Jenyns to use as you think fit. "You will see that I have exceeded your request, but, as I said when I began, I took pleasure in writing my impression of his admirable character."] CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, June 5 [1861]. My dear Gray, I have been rather extra busy, so have been slack in answering your note of May 6th. I hope you have received long ago the third edition of the 'Origin.'...I have heard nothing from Trubner of the sale of your Essay, hence fear it has not been great; I wrote to say you could supply more. I send a copy to Sir J. Herschel, and in his new edition of his 'Physical Geography' he has a note on the 'Origin of Species,' and agrees, to a certain limited extent, but puts in a caution on design--much like yours...I have been led to think more on this subject of late, and grieve to say that I come to differ more from you. It is not that designed variation makes, as it seems to me, my deity "Natural Selection" superfluous, but rather from studying, lately, domestic variation, and seeing what an enormous field of undesigned variability there is ready for natural selection to appropriate for any purpose useful to each creature. I thank you much for sending me your review of Phillips. ('Life on the Earth,' 1860.) I remember once telling you a lot of trades which you ought to have followed, but now I am convinced that you are a born reviewer. By Jove, how well and often you hit the nail on the head! You rank Phillips's book higher than I do, or than Lyell does, who thinks it fearfully retrograde. I amused myself by parodying Phillips's argument as applied to domestic variation; and you might thus prove that the duck or pigeon has not varied because the goose has not, though more anciently domesticated, and no good reason can be assigned why it has not produced many varieties ... I never knew the newspapers so profoundly interesting. North America does not do England justice; I have not seen or heard of a soul who is not with the North. Some few, and I am one of them, even wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against slavery. In the long-run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity. What wonderful times we live in! Massachusetts seems to show noble enthusiasm. Great God! How I should like to see the greatest curse on earth--slavery--abolished! Farewell. Hooker has been absorbed with poor dear revered Henslow's affairs. Farewell. Ever yours, C. DARWIN. HUGH FALCONER TO CHARLES DARWIN. 31 Sackville St., W., June 23, 1861. My dear Darwin, I have been to Adelsberg cave and brought back with me a live Proteus anguinus, designed for you from the moment I got it; i.e. if you have got an aquarium and would care to have it. I only returned last night from the continent, and hearing from your brother that you are about to go to Torquay, I lose no time in making you the offer. The poor dear animal is still alive--although it has had no appreciable means of sustenance for a month--and I am most anxious to get rid of the responsibility of starving it longer. In your hands it will thrive and have a fair chance of being developed without delay into some type of the Columbidae--say a Pouter or a Tumbler. My dear Darwin, I have been rambling through the north of Italy, and Germany lately. Everywhere have I heard your views and your admirable essay canvassed--the views of course often dissented from, according to the special bias of the speaker--but the work, its honesty of purpose, grandeur of conception, felicity of illustration, and courageous exposition, always referred to in terms of the highest admiration. And among your warmest friends no one rejoiced more heartily in the just appreciation of Charles Darwin than did Yours very truly, H. FALCONER. CHARLES DARWIN TO HUGH FALCONER. Down [June 24, 1861]. My dear Falconer, I have just received your note, and by good luck a day earlier than properly, and I lose not a moment in answering you, and thanking you heartily for your offer of the valuable specimen; but I have no aquarium and shall soon start for Torquay, so that it would be a thousand pities that I should have it. Yet I should certainly much like to see it, but I fear it is impossible. Would not the Zoological Society be the best place? and then the interest which many would take in this extraordinary animal would repay you for your trouble. Kind as you have been in taking this trouble and offering me this specimen, to tell the truth I value your note more than the specimen. I shall keep your note amongst a very few precious letters. Your kindness has quite touched me. Yours affectionately and gratefully, CH. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. 2 Hesketh Crescent, Torquay, July 13 [1861]. ...I hope Harvey is better; I got his review (The 'Dublin Hospital Gazette,' May 15, 1861. The passage referred to is at page 150.) of me a day or two ago, from which I infer he must be convalescent; it's very good and fair; but it is funny to see a man argue on the succession of animals from Noah's Deluge; as God did not then wholly destroy man, probably he did not wholly destroy the races of other animals at each geological period! I never expected to have a helping hand from the Old Testament... CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. 2, Hesketh Crescent, Torquay, July 20 [1861]. My dear Lyell, I sent you two or three days ago a duplicate of a good review of the 'Origin' by a Mr. Maw (Mr. George Maw, of Benthall Hall. The review was published in the 'Zoologist,' July, 1861. On the back of my father's copy is written, "Must be consulted before new edit. of 'Origin'"--words which are wanting on many more pretentious notices, on which frequently occur my father's brief o/-, or "nothing new."), evidently a thoughtful man, as I thought you might like to have it, as you have so many... This is quite a charming place, and I have actually walked, I believe, good two miles out and back, which is a grand feat. I saw Mr. Pengelly (William Pengelly, the geologist, and well-known explorer of the Devonshire caves.) the other day, and was pleased at his enthusiasm. I do not in the least know whether you are in London. Your illness must have lost you much time, but I hope you have nearly got your great job of the new edition finished. You must be very busy, if in London, so I will be generous, and on honour bright do not expect any answer to this dull little note... CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, September 17 [1861?]. My dear Gray, I thank you sincerely for your very long and interesting letter, political and scientific, of August 27th and 29th, and September 2nd received this morning. I agree with much of what you say, and I hope to God we English are utterly wrong in doubting (1) whether the N. can conquer the S.; (2) whether the N. has many friends in the South, and (3) whether you noble men of Massachusetts are right in transferring your own good feelings to the men of Washington. Again I say I hope to God we are wrong in doubting on these points. It is number (3) which alone causes England not to be enthusiastic with you. What it may be in Lancashire I know not, but in S. England cotton has nothing whatever to do with our doubts. If abolition does follow with your victory, the whole world will look brighter in my eyes, and in many eyes. It would be a great gain even to stop the spread of slavery into the Territories; if that be possible without abolition, which I should have doubted. You ought not to wonder so much at England's coldness, when you recollect at the commencement of the war how many propositions were made to get things back to the old state with the old line of latitude, but enough of this, all I can say is that Massachusetts and the adjoining States have the full sympathy of every good man whom I see; and this sympathy would be extended to the whole Federal States, if we could be persuaded that your feelings were at all common to them. But enough of this. It is out of my line, though I read every word of news, and formerly well studied Olmsted... Your question what would convince me of Design is a poser. If I saw an angel come down to teach us good, and I was convinced from others seeing him that I was not mad, I should believe in design. If I could be convinced thoroughly that life and mind was in an unknown way a function of other imponderable force, I should be convinced. If man was made of brass or iron and no way connected with any other organism which had ever lived, I should perhaps be convinced. But this is childish writing. I have lately been corresponding with Lyell, who, I think, adopts your idea of the stream of variation having been led or designed. I have asked him (and he says he will hereafter reflect and answer me) whether he believes that the shape of my nose was designed. If he does I have nothing more to say. If not, seeing what Fanciers have done by selecting individual differences in the nasal bones of pigeons, I must think that it is illogical to suppose that the variations, which natural selection preserves for the good of any being have been designed. But I know that I am in the same sort of muddle (as I have said before) as all the world seems to be in with respect to free will, yet with everything supposed to have been foreseen or pre-ordained. Farewell, my dear Gray, with many thanks for your interesting letter. Your unmerciful correspondent. C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO H.W. BATES. Down, December 3 [1861]. My dear Sir, I thank you for your extremely interesting letter, and valuable references, though God knows when I shall come again to this part of my subject. One cannot of course judge of style when one merely hears a paper (On Mimetic Butterflies, read before the Linnean Soc., November 21, 1861. For my father's opinion of it when published, see below.), but yours seemed to me very clear and good. Believe me that I estimate its value most highly. Under a general point of view, I am quite convinced (Hooker and Huxley took the same view some months ago) that a philosophic view of nature can solely be driven into naturalists by treating special subjects as you have done. Under a special point of view, I think you have solved one of the most perplexing problems which could be given to solve. I am glad to hear from Hooker that the Linnean Society will give plates if you can get drawings... Do not complain of want of advice during your travels; I dare say part of your great originality of views may be due to the necessity of self- exertion of thought. I can understand that your reception at the British Museum would damp you; they are a very good set of men, but not the sort to appreciate your work. In fact I have long thought that TOO MUCH systematic work [and] description somehow blunts the faculties. The general public appreciates a good dose of reasoning, or generalisation, with new and curious remarks on habits, final causes, etc. etc., far more than do the regular naturalists. I am extremely glad to hear that you have begun your travels...I am very busy, but I shall be TRULY glad to render any aid which I can by reading your first chapter or two. I do not think I shall be able to correct style, for this reason, that after repeated trials I find I cannot correct my own style till I see the MS. in type. Some are born with a power of good writing, like Wallace; others like myself and Lyell have to labour very hard and slowly at every sentence. I find it a very good plan, when I cannot get a difficult discussion to please me, to fancy that some one comes into the room and asks me what I am doing; and then try at once and explain to the imaginary person what it is all about. I have done this for one paragraph to myself several times, and sometimes to Mrs. Darwin, till I see how the subject ought to go. It is, I think, good to read one's MS. aloud. But style to me is a great difficulty; yet some good judges think I have succeeded, and I say this to encourage you. What I THINK I can do will be to tell you whether parts had better be shortened. It is good, I think, to dash "in media res," and work in later any descriptions of country or any historical details which may be necessary. Murray likes lots of wood-cuts--give some by all means of ants. The public appreciate monkeys--our poor cousins. What sexual differences are there in monkeys? Have you kept them tame? if so, about their expression. I fear that you will hardly read my vile hand-writing, but I cannot without killing trouble write better. You shall have my candid opinion on your MS., but remember it is hard to judge from MS., one reads slowly, and heavy parts seem much heavier. A first-rate judge thought my Journal very poor; now that it is in print, I happen to know, he likes it. I am sure you will understand why I am so egotistical. I was a LITTLE disappointed in Wallace's book ('Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro,' 1853.) on the Amazon; hardly facts enough. On the other hand, in Gosse's book (Probably the 'Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica,' 1851.) there is not reasoning enough to my taste. Heaven knows whether you will care to read all this scribbling... I am glad you had a pleasant day with Hooker (In a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker (December 1861), my father wrote: "I am very glad to hear that you like Bates. I have seldom in my life been more struck with a man's power of mind."), he is an admirably good man in every sense. [The following extract from a letter to Mr. Bates on the same subject is interesting as giving an idea of the plan followed by my father in writing his 'Naturalist's Voyage:' "As an old hackneyed author, let me give you a bit of advice, viz. to strike out every word which is not quite necessary to the current subject, and which could not interest a stranger. I constantly asked myself, would a stranger care for this? and struck out or left in accordingly. I think too much pains cannot be taken in making the style transparently clear and throwing eloquence to the dogs." Mr. Bates's book, 'The Naturalist on the Amazons,' was published in 1865, but the following letter may be given here rather than in its due chronological position:] CHARLES DARWIN TO H.W. BATES. Down, April 18, 1863. Dear Bates, I have finished volume i. My criticisms may be condensed into a single sentence, namely, that it is the best work of Natural History Travels ever published in England. Your style seems to me admirable. Nothing can be better than the discussion on the struggle for existence, and nothing better than the description of the Forest scenery. (In a letter to Lyell my father wrote: "He [i.e. Mr. Bates] is second only to Humboldt in describing a tropical forest.") It is a grand book, and whether or not it sells quickly, it will last. You have spoken out boldly on Species; and boldness on the subject seems to get rarer and rarer. How beautifully illustrated it is. The cut on the back is most tasteful. I heartily congratulate you on its publication. The "Athenaeum" ("I have read the first volume of Bates's Book; it is capital, and I think the best Natural History Travels ever published in England. He is bold about Species, etc., and the "Athenaeum" coolly says 'he bends his facts' for this purpose."--(From a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker.)) was rather cold, as it always is, and insolent in the highest degree about your leading facts. Have you seen the "Reader"? I can send it to you if you have not seen it... CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, December 11 [1861]. My dear Gray, Many and cordial thanks for your two last most valuable notes. What a thing it is that when you receive this we may be at war, and we two be bound, as good patriots, to hate each other, though I shall find this hating you very hard work. How curious it is to see two countries, just like two angry and silly men, taking so opposite a view of the same transaction! I fear there is no shadow of doubt we shall fight if the two Southern rogues are not given up. (The Confederate Commissioners Slidell and Mason were forcibly removed from the "Trent", a West India mail steamer on November 8, 1861. The news that the U.S. agreed to release them reached England on January 8, 1862.) And what a wretched thing it will be if we fight on the side of slavery. No doubt it will be said that we fight to get cotton; but I fully believe that this has not entered into the motive in the least. Well, thank Heaven, we private individuals have nothing to do with so awful a responsibility. Again, how curious it is that you seem to think that you can conquer the South; and I never meet a soul, even those who would most wish it, who thinks it possible--that is, to conquer and retain it. I do not suppose the mass of people in your country will believe it, but I feel sure if we do go to war it will be with the utmost reluctance by all classes, Ministers of Government and all. Time will show, and it is no use writing or thinking about it. I called the other day on Dr. Boott, and was pleased to find him pretty well and cheerful. I see, by the way, he takes quite an English opinion of American affairs, though an American in heart. (Dr. Boott was born in the U.S.) Buckle might write a chapter on opinion being entirely dependent on longitude! ...With respect to Design, I feel more inclined to show a white flag than to fire my usual long-range shot. I like to try and ask you a puzzling question, but when you return the compliment I have great doubts whether it is a fair way of arguing. If anything is designed, certainly man must be: one's "inner consciousness" (though a false guide) tells one so; yet I cannot admit that man's rudimentary mammae...were designed. If I was to say I believed this, I should believe it in the same incredible manner as the orthodox believe the Trinity in Unity. You say that you are in a haze; I am in thick mud; the orthodox would say in fetid, abominable mud; yet I cannot keep out of the question. My dear Gray, I have written a deal of nonsense. Yours most cordially, C. DARWIN. 1862. [Owing to the illness from scarlet fever of one of his boys, he took a house at Bournemouth in the autumn. He wrote to Dr. Gray from Southampton (August 21, 1862):-- "We are a wretched family, and ought to be exterminated. We slept here to rest our poor boy on his journey to Bournemouth, and my poor dear wife sickened with scarlet fever, and has had it pretty sharply, but is recovering well. There is no end of trouble in this weary world. I shall not feel safe till we are all at home together, and when that will be I know not. But it is foolish complaining." Dr. Gray used to send postage stamps to the scarlet fever patient; with regard to this good-natured deed my father wrote-- "I must just recur to stamps; my little man has calculated that he will now have 6 stamps which no other boy in the school has. Here is a triumph. Your last letter was plaistered with many coloured stamps, and he long surveyed the envelope in bed with much quiet satisfaction." The greater number of the letters of 1862 deal with the Orchid work, but the wave of conversion to Evolution was still spreading, and reviews and letters bearing on the subject still came in numbers. As an example of the odd letters he received may be mentioned one which arrived in January of this year "from a German homoeopathic doctor, an ardent admirer of the 'Origin.' Had himself published nearly the same sort of book, but goes much deeper. Explains the origin of plants and animals on the principles of homoeopathy or by the law of spirality. Book fell dead in Germany. Therefore would I translate it and publish it in England."] CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, [January?] 14 [1862]. My dear Huxley, I am heartily glad of your success in the North (This refers to two of Mr. Huxley's lectures, given before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh in 1862. The substance of them is given in 'Man's Place in Nature.'), and thank you for your note and slip. By Jove you have attacked Bigotry in its stronghold. I thought you would have been mobbed. I am so glad that you will publish your Lectures. You seem to have kept a due medium between extreme boldness and caution. I am heartily glad that all went off so well. I hope Mrs. Huxley is pretty well...I must say one word on the Hybrid question. No doubt you are right that here is a great hiatus in the argument; yet I think you overrate it--you never allude to the excellent evidence of VARIETIES of Verbascum and Nicotiana being partially sterile together. It is curious to me to read (as I have to-day) the greatest crossing GARDENER utterly pooh-poohing the distinction which BOTANISTS make on this head, and insisting how frequently crossed VARIETIES produce sterile offspring. Do oblige me by reading the latter half of my Primula paper in the 'Linn. Journal,' for it leads me to suspect that sterility will hereafter have to be largely viewed as an acquired or SELECTED character--a view which I wish I had had facts to maintain in the 'Origin.' (The view here given will be discussed in the chapter on hetero-styled plants.) CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 25 [1862]. My dear Hooker, Many thanks for your last Sunday's letter, which was one of the pleasantest I ever received in my life. We are all pretty well redivivus, and I am at work again. I thought it best to make a clean breast to Asa Gray; and told him that the Boston dinner, etc. etc., had quite turned my stomach, and that I almost thought it would be good for the peace of the world if the United States were split up; on the other hand, I said that I groaned to think of the slave-holders being triumphant, and that the difficulties of making a line of separation were fearful. I wonder what he will say...Your notion of the Aristocrat being kenspeckle, and the best men of a good lot being thus easily selected is new to me, and striking. The 'Origin' having made you in fact a jolly old Tory, made us all laugh heartily. I have sometimes speculated on this subject; primogeniture (My father had a strong feeling as to the injustice of primogeniture, and in a similar spirit was often indignant over the unfair wills that appear from time to time. He would declare energetically that if he were law-giver no will should be valid that was not published in the testator's lifetime; and this he maintained would prevent much of the monstrous injustice and meanness apparent in so many wills.) is dreadfully opposed to selection; suppose the first-born bull was necessarily made by each farmer the begetter of his stock! On the other hand, as you say, ablest men are continually raised to the peerage, and get crossed with the older Lord-breeds, and the Lords continually select the most beautiful and charming women out of the lower ranks; so that a good deal of indirect selection improves the Lords. Certainly I agree with you the present American row has a very Torifying influence on us all. I am very glad to hear you are beginning to print the 'Genera;' it is a wonderful satisfaction to be thus brought to bed, indeed it is one's chief satisfaction, I think, though one knows that another bantling will soon be developing... CHARLES DARWIN TO MAXWELL MASTERS. (Dr. Masters is a well-known vegetable teratologist, and has been for many years the editor of the "Gardeners' Chronicle".) Down, February 26 [1862]. My dear Sir, I am much obliged to you for sending me your article (Refers to a paper on "Vegetable Morphology," by Dr. Masters, in the 'British and Foreign Medico- Chirurgical Review' for 1862), which I have just read with much interest. The history, and a good deal besides, was quite new to me. It seems to me capitally done, and so clearly written. You really ought to write your larger work. You speak too generously of my book; but I must confess that you have pleased me not a little; for no one, as far as I know, has ever remarked on what I say on classification--a part, which when I wrote it, pleased me. With many thanks to you for sending me your article, pray believe me, My dear Sir, yours sincerely, C. DARWIN. [In the spring of this year (1862) my father read the second volume of Buckle's 'History of Civilisation." The following strongly expressed opinion about it may be worth quoting:-- "Have you read Buckle's second volume? It has interested me greatly; I do not care whether his views are right or wrong, but I should think they contained much truth. There is a noble love of advancement and truth throughout; and to my taste he is the very best writer of the English language that ever lived, let the other be who he may."] CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, March 15 [1862]. My dear Gray, Thanks for the newspapers (though they did contain digs at England), and for your note of February 18th. It is really almost a pleasure to receive stabs from so smooth, polished, and sharp a dagger as your pen. I heartily wish I could sympathise more fully with you, instead of merely hating the South. We cannot enter into your feelings; if Scotland were to rebel, I presume we should be very wrath, but I do not think we should care a penny what other nations thought. The millennium must come before nations love each other; but try and do not hate me. Think of me, if you will as a poor blinded fool. I fear the dreadful state of affairs must dull your interest in Science... I believe that your pamphlet has done my book GREAT good; and I thank you from my heart for myself; and believing that the views are in large part true, I must think that you have done natural science a good turn. Natural Selection seems to be making a little progress in England and on the Continent; a new German edition is called for, and a French (In June, 1862, my father wrote to Dr. Gray: "I received, 2 or 3 days ago, a French translation of the 'Origin,' by a Madlle. Royer, who must be one of the cleverest and oddest women in Europe: is an ardent Deist, and hates Christianity, and declares that natural selection and the struggle for life will explain all morality, nature of man, politics, etc. etc.! She makes some very curious and good hits, and says she shall publish a book on these subjects." Madlle. Royer added foot-notes to her translation, and in many places where the author expresses great doubt, she explains the difficulty, or points out that no real difficulty exists.) one has just appeared. One of the best men, though at present unknown, who has taken up these views, is Mr. Bates; pray read his 'Travels in Amazonia,' when they appear; they will be very good, judging from MS. of the first two chapters. ...Again I say, do not hate me. Ever yours most truly, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. 1 Carlton Terrace, Southampton (The house of his son William.), August 22, [1862]. ...I heartily hope that you (I.e. 'The Antiquity of Man.') will be out in October...you say that the Bishop and Owen will be down on you; the latter hardly can, for I was assured that Owen in his Lectures this spring advanced as a new idea that wingless birds had lost their wings by disuse, also that magpies stole spoons, etc., from a REMNANT of some instinct like that of the Bower-Bird, which ornaments its playing-passage with pretty feathers. Indeed, I am told that he hinted plainly that all birds are descended from one... Your P.S. touches on, as it seems to me, very difficult points. I am glad to see [that] in the 'Origin,' I only say that the naturalists generally consider that low organisms vary more than high; and this I think certainly is the general opinion. I put the statement this way to show that I considered it only an opinion probably true. I must own that I do not at all trust even Hooker's contrary opinion, as I feel pretty sure that he has not tabulated any result. I have some materials at home, I think I attempted to make this point out, but cannot remember the result. Mere variability, though the necessary foundation of all modifications, I believe to be almost always present, enough to allow of any amount of selected change; so that it does not seem to me at all incompatible that a group which at any one period (or during all successive periods) varies less, should in the long course of time have undergone more modification than a group which is generally more variable. Placental animals, e.g. might be at each period less variable than Marsupials, and nevertheless have undergone more DIFFERENTIATION and development than marsupials, owing to some advantage, probably brain development. I am surprised, but do not pretend to form an opinion at Hooker's statement that higher species, genera, etc., are best limited. It seems to me a bold statement. Looking to the 'Origin,' I see that I state that the productions of the land seem to change quicker than those of the sea (Chapter X., page 339, 3d edition), and I add there is some reason to believe that organisms considered high in the scale change quicker than those that are low. I remember writing these sentences after much deliberation...I remember well feeling much hesitation about putting in even the guarded sentences which I did. My doubts, I remember, related to the rate of change of the Radiata in the Secondary formation, and of the Foraminifera in the oldest Tertiary beds... Good night, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, October 1 [1862]. ...I found here (On his return from Bournemouth.) a short and very kind note of Falconer, with some pages of his 'Elephant Memoir,' which will be published, in which he treats admirably on long persistence of type. I thought he was going to make a good and crushing attack on me, but to my great satisfaction, he ends by pointing out a loophole, and adds (Falconer, "On the American Fossil Elephant," in the 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1863, page 81. The words preceding those cited by my father make the meaning of his quotation clearer. The passage begins as follows: "The inferences which I draw from these facts are not opposed to one of the leading propositions of Darwin's theory. With him," etc. etc.) "with him I have no faith that the mammoth and other extinct elephants made their appearance suddenly...The most rational view seems to be that they are the modified descendants of earlier progenitors, etc." This is capital. There will not be soon one good palaeontologist who believes in immutability. Falconer does not allow for the Proboscidean group being a failing one, and therefore not likely to be giving off new races. He adds that he does not think Natural Selection suffices. I do not quite see the force of his argument, and he apparently overlooks that I say over and over again that Natural Selection can do nothing without variability, and that variability is subject to the most complex fixed laws... [In his letters to Sir J.D. Hooker, about the end of this year, are occasional notes on the progress of the 'Variation of Animals and Plants.' Thus on November 24th he wrote: "I hardly know why I am a little sorry, but my present work is leading me to believe rather more in the direct action of physical conditions. I presume I regret it, because it lessens the glory of natural selection, and is so confoundedly doubtful. Perhaps I shall change again when I get all my facts under one point of view, and a pretty hard job this will be." Again, on December 22nd, "To-day I have begun to think of arranging my concluding chapters on Inheritance, Reversion, Selection, and such things, and am fairly paralyzed how to begin and how to end, and what to do, with my huge piles of materials."] CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, November 6 [1862]. My dear Gray, When your note of October 4th and 13th (chiefly about Max Muller) arrived, I was nearly at the end of the same book ('Lectures on the Science of Language,' 1st edition 1861.), and had intended recommending you to read it. I quite agree that it is extremely interesting, but the latter part about the FIRST origin of language much the least satisfactory. It is a marvellous problem...[There are] covert sneers at me, which he seems to get the better of towards the close of the book. I cannot quite see how it will forward "my cause," as you call it; but I can see how any one with literary talent (I do not feel up to it) could make great use of the subject in illustration. (Language was treated in the manner here indicated by Sir C. Lyell in the 'Antiquity of Man.' Also by Prof. Schleicher, whose pamphlet was fully noticed in the "Reader", February 27, 1864 (as I learn from one of Prof. Huxley's 'Lay Sermons').) What pretty metaphors you would make from it! I wish some one would keep a lot of the most noisy monkeys, half free, and study their means of communication! A book has just appeared here which will, I suppose, make a noise, by Bishop Colenso ('The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined,' six parts, 1862-71.), who, judging from extracts, smashes most of the Old testament. Talking of books, I am in the middle of one which pleases me, though it is very innocent food, viz., Miss Coopers 'Journal of a Naturalist.' Who is she? She seems a very clever woman, and gives a capital account of the battle between OUR and YOUR weeds. Does it not hurt your Yankee pride that we thrash you so confoundedly? I am sure Mrs. Gray will stick up for your own weeds. Ask her whether they are not more honest, downright good sort of weeds. The book gives an extremely pretty picture of one of your villages; but I see your autumn, though so much more gorgeous than ours, comes on sooner, and that is one comfort... CHARLES DARWIN TO H.W. BATES. Down, November 20 [1862]. Dear Bates, I have just finished, after several reads, your paper. (This refers to Mr. Bates's paper, "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazons Valley" ('Linn. Soc. Trans.' xxiii., 1862), in which the now familiar subject of mimicry was founded. My father wrote a short review of it in the 'Natural History Review,' 1863, page 219, parts of which occur in this review almost verbatim in the later editions of the 'Origin of Species.' A striking passage occurs showing the difficulties of the case from a creationist's point of view:-- "By what means, it may be asked, have so many butterflies of the Amazonian region acquired their deceptive dress? Most naturalists will answer that they were thus clothed from the hour of their creation--an answer which will generally be so far triumphant that it can be met only by long-drawn arguments; but it is made at the expense of putting an effectual bar to all further enquiry. In this particular case, moreover, the creationist will meet with special difficulties; for many of the mimicking forms of Leptalis can be shown by a graduated series to be merely varieties of one species; other mimickers are undoubtedly distinct species, or even distinct genera. So again, some of the mimicked forms can be shown to be merely varieties; but the greater number must be ranked as distinct species. Hence the creationist will have to admit that some of these forms have become imitators, by means of the laws of variation, whilst others he must look at as separately created under their present guise; he will further have to admit that some have been created in imitation of forms not themselves created as we now see them, but due to the laws of variation? Prof. Agassiz, indeed, would think nothing of this difficulty; for he believes that not only each species and each variety, but that groups of individuals, though identically the same, when inhabiting distinct countries, have been all separately created in due proportional numbers to the wants of each land. Not many naturalists will be content thus to believe that varieties and individuals have been turned out all ready made, almost as a manufacturer turns out toys according to the temporary demand of the market.") In my opinion it is one of the most remarkable and admirable papers I ever read in my life. The mimetic cases are truly marvellous, and you connect excellently a host of analogous facts. The illustrations are beautiful, and seem very well chosen; but it would have saved the reader not a little trouble, if the name of each had been engraved below each separate figure. No doubt this would have put the engraver into fits, as it would have destroyed the beauty of the plate. I am not at all surprised at such a paper having consumed much time. I am rejoiced that I passed over the whole subject in the 'Origin,' for I should have made a precious mess of it. You have most clearly stated and solved a wonderful problem. No doubt with most people this will be the cream of the paper; but I am not sure that all your facts and reasonings on variation, and on the segregation of complete and semi-complete species, is not really more, or at least as valuable, a part. I never conceived the process nearly so clearly before; one feels present at the creation of new forms. I wish, however, you had enlarged a little more on the pairing of similar varieties; a rather more numerous body of facts seems here wanted. Then, again, what a host of curious miscellaneous observations there are--as on related sexual and individual variability: these will some day, if I live, be a treasure to me. With respect to mimetic resemblance being so common with insects, do you not think it may be connected with their small size; they cannot defend themselves; they cannot escape by flight, at least, from birds, therefore they escape by trickery and deception? I have one serious criticism to make, and that is about the title of the paper; I cannot but think that you ought to have called prominent attention in it to the mimetic resemblances. Your paper is too good to be largely appreciated by the mob of naturalists without souls; but, rely on it, that it will have LASTING value, and I cordially congratulate you on your first great work. You will find, I should think, that Wallace will fully appreciate it. How gets on your book? Keep your spirits up. A book is no light labour. I have been better lately, and working hard, but my health is very indifferent. How is your health? Believe me, dear Bates, Yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN. CHAPTER 2.IV. THE SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. 'VARIATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS' 1863-1866. [His book on animals and plants under domestication was my father's chief employment in the year 1863. His diary records the length of time spent over the composition of its chapters, and shows the rate at which he arranged and wrote out for printing the observations and deductions of several years. The three chapters in volume ii. on inheritance, which occupy 84 pages of print, were begun in January and finished on April 1st; the five on crossing, making 106 pages, were written in eight weeks, while the two chapters on selection, covering 57 pages, were begun on June 16th and finished on July 20th. The work was more than once interrupted by ill health, and in September, what proved to be the beginning of a six month's illness, forced him to leave home for the water-cure at Malvern. He returned in October and remained ill and depressed, in spite of the hopeful opinion of one of the most cheery and skilful physicians of the day. Thus he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker in November:-- "Dr. Brinton has been here (recommended by Busk); he does not believe my brain or heart are primarily affected, but I have been so steadily going down hill, I cannot help doubting whether I can ever crawl a little uphill again. Unless I can, enough to work a little, I hope my life may be very short, for to lie on a sofa all day and do nothing but give trouble to the best and kindest of wives and good dear children is dreadful." The minor works in this year were a short paper in the 'Natural History Review' (N.S. vol. iii. page 115), entitled "On the so-called 'Auditory- Sac' of Cirripedes," and one in the 'Geological Society's Journal' (vol. xix), on the "Thickness of the Pampaean Formation near Buenos Ayres." The paper on Cirripedes was called forth by the criticisms of a German naturalist Krohn (Krohn stated that the structures described by my father as ovaries were in reality salivary glands, also that the oviduct runs down to the orifice described in the 'Monograph of the Cirripedia' as the auditory meatus.), and is of some interest in illustration of my father's readiness to admit an error. With regard to the spread of a belief in Evolution, it could not yet be said that the battle was won, but the growth of belief was undoubtedly rapid. So that, for instance, Charles Kingsley could write to F.D. Maurice (Kingsley's 'Life,' ii, page 171.): "The state of the scientific mind is most curious; Darwin is conquering everywhere, and rushing in like a flood, by the mere force of truth and fact." Mr. Huxley was as usual active in guiding and stimulating the growing tendency to tolerate or accept the views set forth in the 'Origin of Species.' He gave a series of lectures to working men at the School of Mines in November, 1862. These were printed in 1863 from the shorthand notes of Mr. May, as six little blue books, price 4 pence each, under the title, 'Our Knowledge of the Causes of Organic Nature.' When published they were read with interest by my father, who thus refers to them in a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker:-- "I am very glad you like Huxley's lectures. I have been very much struck with them, especially with the 'Philosophy of Induction.' I have quarrelled with him for overdoing sterility and ignoring cases from Gartner and Kolreuter about sterile varieties. His Geology is obscure; and I rather doubt about man's mind and language. But it seems to me ADMIRABLY done, and, as you say, "Oh my," about the praise of the 'Origin.' I can't help liking it, which makes me rather ashamed of myself." My father admired the clearness of exposition shown in the lectures, and in the following letter urges their author to make use of his powers for the advantage of students:] CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. November 5 [1864]. I want to make a suggestion to you, but which may probably have occurred to you. -- was reading your Lectures and ended by saying, "I wish he would write a book." I answered, "he has just written a great book on the skull." "I don't call that a book," she replied, and added, "I want something that people can read; he does write so well." Now, with your ease in writing, and with knowledge at your fingers' ends, do you not think you could write a popular Treatise on Zoology? Of course it would be some waste of time, but I have been asked more than a dozen times to recommend something for a beginner and could only think of Carpenter's Zoology. I am sure that a striking Treatise would do real service to science by educating naturalists. If you were to keep a portfolio open for a couple of years, and throw in slips of paper as subjects crossed your mind, you would soon have a skeleton (and that seems to me the difficulty) on which to put the flesh and colours in your inimitable manner. I believe such a book might have a brilliant success, but I did not intend to scribble so much about it. Give my kindest remembrance to Mrs. Huxley, and tell her I was looking at 'Enoch Arden,' and as I know how she admires Tennyson, I must call her attention to two sweetly pretty lines (page 105)... ...and he meant, he said he meant, Perhaps he meant, or partly meant, you well. Such a gem as this is enough to make me young again, and like poetry with pristine fervour. My dear Huxley, Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN. [In another letter (January 1865) he returns to the above suggestion, though he was in general strongly opposed to men of science giving up to the writing of text-books, or to teaching, the time that might otherwise have been given to original research. "I knew there was very little chance of your having time to write a popular Treatise on Zoology, but you are about the one man who could do it. At the time I felt it would be almost a sin for you to do it, as it would of course destroy some original work. On the other hand I sometimes think that general and popular treatises are almost as important for the progress of science as original work." The series of letters will continue the history of the year 1863.] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 3 [1863]. My dear Hooker, I am burning with indignation and must exhale...I could not get to sleep till past 3 last night for indignation (It would serve no useful purpose if I were to go into the matter which so strongly roused my father's anger. It was a question of literary dishonesty, in which a friend was the sufferer, but which in no way affected himself.)... Now for pleasanter subjects; we were all amused at your defence of stamp collecting and collecting generally...But, by Jove, I can hardly stomach a grown man collecting stamps. Who would ever have thought of your collecting Wedgwoodware! but that is wholly different, like engravings or pictures. We are degenerate descendants of old Josiah W., for we have not a bit of pretty ware in the house. ...Notwithstanding the very pleasant reason you give for our not enjoying a holiday, namely, that we have no vices, it is a horrid bore. I have been trying for health's sake to be idle, with no success. What I shall now have to do, will be to erect a tablet in Down Church, "Sacred to the Memory, etc.," and officially die, and then publish books, "by the late Charles Darwin," for I cannot think what has come over me of late; I always suffered from the excitement of talking, but now it has become ludicrous. I talked lately 1 1/2 hours (broken by tea by myself) with my nephew, and I was [ill] half the night. It is a fearful evil for self and family. Good-night. Ever yours. C. DARWIN. [The following letter to Sir Julius von Haast (Sir Julius von Haast was a German by birth, but had long been resident in New Zealand. He was, in 1862, Government Geologist to the Province of Canterbury.), is an example of the sympathy which he felt with the spread and growth of science in the colonies. It was a feeling not expressed once only, but was frequently present in his mind, and often found utterance. When we, at Cambridge, had the satisfaction of receiving Sir J. von Haast into our body as a Doctor of Science (July 1886), I had the opportunity of hearing from him of the vivid pleasure which this, and other letters from my father, gave him. It was pleasant to see how strong had been the impression made by my father's warm-hearted sympathy--an impression which seemed, after more than twenty years, to be as fresh as when it was first received:] CHARLES DARWIN TO JULIUS VON HAAST. Down, January 22 [1863]. Dear Sir, I thank you most sincerely for sending me your Address and the Geological Report. (Address to the 'Philosophical Institute of Canterbury (N.Z.).' The "Report" is given in "The New Zealand Government Gazette, Province of Canterbury", October 1862.) I have seldom in my life read anything more spirited and interesting than your address. The progress of your colony makes one proud, and it is really admirable to see a scientific institution founded in so young a nation. I thank you for the very honourable notice of my 'Origin of Species.' You will easily believe how much I have been interested by your striking facts on the old glacial period, and I suppose the world might be searched in vain for so grand a display of terraces. You have, indeed, a noble field for scientific research and discovery. I have been extremely much interested by what you say about the tracks of supposed [living] mammalia. Might I ask, if you succeed in discovering what the creatures are, you would have the great kindness to inform me? Perhaps they may turn out something like the Solenhofen bird creature, with its long tail and fingers, with claws to its wings! I may mention that in South America, in completely uninhabited regions, I found spring rat-traps, baited with CHEESE, were very successful in catching the smaller mammals. I would venture to suggest to you to urge on some of the capable members of your institution to observe annually the rate and manner of spreading of European weeds and insects, and especially to observe WHAT NATIVE PLANTS MOST FAIL; this latter point has never been attended to. Do the introduced hive-bees replace any other insect? etc. All such points are, in my opinion, great desiderata in science. What an interesting discovery that of the remains of prehistoric man! Believe me, dear Sir, With the most cordial respect and thanks, Yours very faithfully, CHARLES DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO CAMILLE DARESTE. (Professor Dareste is a well-known worker in Animal Teratology. He was in 1863 living at Lille, but has since then been called to Paris. My father took a special interest in Dareste's work on the production of monsters, as bearing on the causes of variation.) Down, February 16 [1863]. Dear and respected Sir, I thank you sincerely for your letter and your pamphlet. I had heard (I think in one of M. Quatrefages' books) of your work, and was most anxious to read it, but did not know where to find it. You could not have made me a more valuable present. I have only just returned home, and have not yet read your work; when I do if I wish to ask any questions I will venture to trouble you. Your approbation of my book on Species has gratified me extremely. Several naturalists in England, North America, and Germany, have declared that their opinions on the subject have in some degree been modified, but as far as I know, my book has produced no effect whatever in France, and this makes me the more gratified by your very kind expression of approbation. Pray believe me, dear Sir, with much respect, Yours faithfully and obliged, CH. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 24 [1863]. My dear Hooker, I am astonished at your note, I have not seen the "Athenaeum" (In the 'Antiquity of Man,' first edition, page 480, Lyell criticised somewhat severely Owen's account of the difference between the Human and Simian brains. The number of the "Athenaeum" here referred to (1863, page 262) contains a reply by Professor Owen to Lyell's strictures. The surprise expressed by my father was at the revival of a controversy which every one believed to be closed. Prof. Huxley ("Medical Times", October 25, 1862, quoted in 'Man's Place in Nature,' page 117) spoke of the "two years during which this preposterous controversy has dragged its weary length." And this no doubt expressed a very general feeling.) but I have sent for it, and may get it to-morrow; and will then say what I think. I have read Lyell's book. ['The Antiquity of Man.'] the whole certainty struck me as a compilation, but of the highest class, for when possible the facts have been verified on the spot, making it almost an original work. The Glacial chapters seem to me best, and in parts magnificent. I could hardly judge about Man, as all the gloss of novelty was completely worn off. But certainly the aggregation of the evidence produced a very striking effect on my mind. The chapter comparing language and changes of species, seems most ingenious and interesting. He has shown great skill in picking out salient points in the argument for change of species; but I am deeply disappointed (I do not mean personally) to find that his timidity prevents him giving any judgment...From all my communications with him I must ever think that he has really entirely lost faith in the immutability of species; and yet one of his strongest sentences is nearly as follows: "If it should EVER (The italics are not Lyell's.) be rendered highly probable that species change by variation and natural selection," etc., etc. I had hoped he would have guided the public as far as his own belief went...One thing does please me on this subject, that he seems to appreciate your work. No doubt the public or a part may be induced to think that as he gives to us a larger space than to Lamarck, he must think there is something in our views. When reading the brain chapter, it struck me forcibly that if he had said openly that he believed in change of species, and as a consequence that man was derived from some Quadrumanous animal, it would have been very proper to have discussed by compilation the differences in the most important organ, viz. the brain. As it is, the chapter seems to me to come in rather by the head and shoulders. I do not think (but then I am as prejudiced as Falconer and Huxley, or more so) that it is too severe; it struck me as given with judicial force. It might perhaps be said with truth that he had no business to judge on a subject on which he knows nothing; but compilers must do this to a certain extent. (You know I value and rank high compilers, being one myself!) I have taken you at your word, and scribbled at great length. If I get the "Athenaeum" to-morrow, I will add my impression of Owen's letter. ...The Lyells are coming here on Sunday evening to stay till Wednesday. I dread it, but I must say how much disappointed I am that he has not spoken out on species, still less on man. And the best of the joke is that he thinks he has acted with the courage of a martyr of old. I hope I may have taken an exaggerated view of his timidity, and shall PARTICULARLY be glad of your opinion on this head. (On this subject my father wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker: "Cordial thanks for your deeply interesting letters about Lyell, Owen, and Co. I cannot say how glad I am to hear that I have not been unjust about the species-question towards Lyell. I feared I had been unreasonable.") When I got his book I turned over the pages, and saw he had discussed the subject of species, and said that I thought he would do more to convert the public than all of us, and now (which makes the case worse for me) I must, in common honesty, retract. I wish to Heaven he had said not a word on the subject. WEDNESDAY MORNING: I have read the "Athenaeum". I do not think Lyell will be nearly so much annoyed as you expect. The concluding sentence is no doubt very stinging. No one but a good anatomist could unravel Owen's letter; at least it is quite beyond me. ...Lyell's memory plays him false when he says all anatomists were astonished at Owen's paper ("On the Characters, etc., of the Class Mammalia." 'Linn. Soc. Journal,' ii, 1858.); it was often quoted with approbation. I WELL remember Lyell's admiration at this new classification! (Do not repeat this.) I remember it, because, though I knew nothing whatever about the brain, I felt a conviction that a classification thus founded on a single character would break down, and it seemed to me a great error not to separate more completely the Marsupialia... What an accursed evil it is that there should be all this quarrelling within, what ought to be, the peaceful realms of science. I will go to my own present subject of inheritance and forget it all for a time. Farewell, my dear old friend, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, February 23 [1863]. ...If you have time to read you will be interested by parts of Lyell's book on man; but I fear that the best part, about the Glacial period, may be too geological for any one except a regular geologist. He quotes you at the end with gusto. By the way, he told me the other day how pleased some had been by hearing that they could purchase your pamphlet. The "Parthenon" also speaks of it as the ablest contribution to the literature of the subject. It delights me when I see your work appreciated. The Lyells come here this day week, and I shall grumble at his excessive caution...The public may well say, if such a man dare not or will not speak out his mind, how can we who are ignorant form even a guess on the subject? Lyell was pleased when I told him lately that you thought that language might be used as an excellent illustration of derivation of species; you will see that he has an ADMIRABLE chapter on this... I read Cairns's excellent Lecture (Prof. J.E. Cairns, 'The Slave Power, etc.: an attempt to explain the real issues involved in the American contest.' 1862.), which shows so well how your quarrel arose from Slavery. It made me for a time wish honestly for the North; but I could never help, though I tried, all the time thinking how we should be bullied and forced into a war by you, when you were triumphant. But I do most truly think it dreadful that the South, with its accursed slavery, should triumph, and spread the evil. I think if I had power, which thank God, I have not, I would let you conquer the border States, and all west of the Mississippi, and then force you to acknowledge the cotton States. For do you not now begin to doubt whether you can conquer and hold them? I have inflicted a long tirade on you. "The Times" is getting more detestable (but that is too weak a word) than ever. My good wife wishes to give it up, but I tell her that is a pitch of heroism to which only a woman is equal. To give up the "Bloody Old 'Times'," as Cobbett used to call it, would be to give up meat, drink and air. Farewell, my dear Gray, Yours most truly, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, March 6, [1863]. ...I have been of course deeply interested by your book. ('Antiquity of Man.') I have hardly any remarks worth sending, but will scribble a little on what most interested me. But I will first get out what I hate saying, viz., that I have been greatly disappointed that you have not given judgment and spoken fairly out what you think about the derivation of species. I should have been contented if you had boldly said that species have not been separately created, and had thrown as much doubt as you like on how far variation and natural selection suffices. I hope to Heaven I am wrong (and from what you say about Whewell it seems so), but I cannot see how your chapters can do more good than an extraordinary able review. I think the "Parthenon" is right, that you will leave the public in a fog. No doubt they may infer that as you give more space to myself, Wallace, and Hooker, than to Lamarck, you think more of us. But I had always thought that your judgment would have been an epoch in the subject. All that is over with me, and I will only think on the admirable skill with which you have selected the striking points, and explained them. No praise can be too strong, in my opinion, for the inimitable chapter on language in comparison with species. (After speculating on the sudden appearance of individuals far above the average of the human race, Lyell asks if such leaps upwards in the scale of intellect may not "have cleared at one bound the space which separated the higher stage of the unprogressive intelligence of the inferior animals from the first and lowest form of improvable reason manifested by man.") page 505--A sentence at the top of the page makes me groan... I know you will forgive me for writing with perfect freedom, for you must know how deeply I respect you as my old honoured guide and master. I heartily hope and expect that your book will have gigantic circulation and may do in many ways as much good as it ought to do. I am tired, so no more. I have written so briefly that you will have to guess my meaning. I fear my remarks are hardly worth sending. Farewell, with kindest remembrance to Lady Lyell. Ever yours, C. DARWIN. [Mr. Huxley has quoted (vol. i. page 546) some passages from Lyell's letters which show his state of mind at this time. The following passage, from a letter of March 11th to my father, is also of much interest:-- "My feelings, however, more than any thought about policy or expediency, prevent me from dogmatising as to the descent of man from the brutes, which, though I am prepared to accept it, takes away much of the charm from my speculations on the past relating to such matters...But you ought to be satisfied, as I shall bring hundreds towards you who, if I treated the matter more dogmatically, would have rebelled."] CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, 12 [March, 1863]. My dear Lyell, I thank you for your very interesting and kind, I may say, charming letter. I feared you might be huffed for a little time with me. I know some men would have been so. I have hardly any more criticisms, anyhow, worth writing. But I may mention that I felt a little surprise that old B. de Perthes (1788-1868. See footnote below.) was not rather more honourably mentioned. I would suggest whether you could not leave out some references to the 'Principles;' one for the real student is as good as a hundred, and it is rather irritating, and gives a feeling of incompleteness to the general reader to be often referred to other books. As you say that you have gone as far as you believe on the species question, I have not a word to say; but I must feel convinced that at times, judging from conversation, expressions, letters, etc., you have as completely given up belief in immutability of specific forms as I have done. I must still think a clear expression from you, IF YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN IT, would have been potent with the public, and all the more so, as you formerly held opposite opinions. The more I work the more satisfied I become with variation and natural selection, but that part of the case I look at as less important, though more interesting to me personally. As you ask for criticisms on this head (and believe me that I should not have made them unasked), I may specify (pages 412, 413) that such words as "Mr. D. labours to show," "is believed by the author to throw light," would lead a common reader to think that you yourself do NOT at all agree, but merely think it fair to give my opinion. Lastly, you refer repeatedly to my view as a modification of Lamarck's doctrine of development and progression. If this is your deliberate opinion there is nothing to be said, but it does not seem so to me. Plato, Buffon, my grandfather before Lamarck, and others, propounded the OBVIOUS views that if species were not created separately they must have descended from other species, and I can see nothing else in common between the 'Origin' and Lamarck. I believe this way of putting the case is very injurious to its acceptance, as it implies necessary progression, and closely connects Wallace's and my views with what I consider, after two deliberate readings, as a wretched book, and one from which (I well remember my surprise) I gained nothing. But I know you rank it higher, which is curious, as it did not in the least shake your belief. But enough, and more than enough. Please remember you have brought it all down on yourself!!! I am very sorry to hear about Falconer's "reclamation." ("Falconer, whom I referred to oftener than to any other author, says I have not done justice to the part he took in resuscitating the cave question, and says he shall come out with a separate paper to prove it. I offered to alter anything in the new edition, but this he declined.--C. Lyell to C. Darwin, March 11, 1863; Lyell's 'Life,' vol. ii. page 364.) I hate the very word, and have a sincere affection for him. Did you ever read anything so wretched as the "Athenaeum" reviews of you, and of Huxley ('Man's Place in Nature,' 1863.) especially. Your OBJECT to make man old, and Huxley's OBJECT to degrade him. The wretched writer has not a glimpse what the discovery of scientific truth means. How splendid some pages are in Huxley, but I fear the book will not be popular... CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [March 13, 1863]. I should have thanked you sooner for the "Athenaeum" and very pleasant previous note, but I have been busy, and not a little uncomfortable from frequent uneasy feeling of fullness, slight pain and tickling about the heart. But as I have no other symptoms of heart complaint I do not suppose it is affected...I have had a most kind and delightfully candid letter from Lyell, who says he spoke out as far as he believes. I have no doubt his belief failed him as he wrote, for I feel sure that at times he no more believed in Creation than you or I. I have grumbled a bit in my answer to him at his ALWAYS classing my work as a modification of Lamarck's, which it is no more than any author who did not believe in immutability of species, and did believe in descent. I am very sorry to hear from Lyell that Falconer is going to publish a formal reclamation of his own claims... It is cruel to think of it, but we must go to Malvern in the middle of April; it is ruin to me. (He went to Hartfield in Sussex, on April 27, and to Malvern in the autumn.)... CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, March 17 [1863]. My dear Lyell, I have been much interested by your letters and enclosure, and thank you sincerely for giving me so much time when you must be so busy. What a curious letter from B. de P. [Boucher de Perthes]. He seems perfectly satisfied, and must be a very amiable man. I know something about his errors, and looked at his book many years ago, and am ashamed to think that I concluded the whole was rubbish! Yet he has done for man something like what Agassiz did for glaciers. (In his 'Antiquites Celtiques' (1847), Boucher de Perthes described the flint tools found at Abbeville with bones of rhinoceros, hyaena, etc. "But the scientific world had no faith in the statement that works of art, however rude, had been met with in undisturbed beds of such antiquity." ('Antiquity of Man,' first edition, page 95).) I cannot say that I agree with Hooker about the public not liking to be told what to conclude, IF COMING FROM ONE IN YOUR POSITION. But I am heartily sorry that I was led to make complaints, or something very like complaints, on the manner in which you have treated the subject, and still more so anything about myself. I steadily ENDEAVOUR never to forget my firm belief that no one can at all judge about his own work. As for Lamarck, as you have such a man as Grove with you, you are triumphant; not that I can alter my opinion that to me it was an absolutely useless book. Perhaps this was owing to my always searching books for facts, perhaps from knowing my grandfather's earlier and identically the same speculation. I will only further say that if I can analyse my own feelings (a very doubtful process), it is nearly as much for your sake as for my own, that I so much wish that your state of belief could have permitted you to say boldly and distinctly out that species were not separately created. I have generally told you the progress of opinion, as I have heard it, on the species question. A first-rate German naturalist (No doubt Haeckel, whose monograph on the Radiolaria was published in 1862. In the same year Professor W. Preyer of Jena published a dissertation on Alca impennis, which was one of the earliest pieces of special work on the basis of the 'Origin of Species.') (I now forget the name!), who has lately published a grand folio, has spoken out to the utmost extent on the 'Origin.' De Candolle, in a very good paper on "Oaks," goes, in Asa Gray's opinion, as far as he himself does; but De Candolle, in writing to me, says WE, "we think this and that;" so that I infer he really goes to the full extent with me, and tells me of a French good botanical palaeontologist (name forgotten) (The Marquis de Saporta.), who writes to De Candolle that he is sure that my views will ultimately prevail. But I did not intend to have written all this. It satisfies me with the final results, but this result, I begin to see, will take two or three lifetimes. The entomologists are enough to keep the subject back for half a century. I really pity your having to balance the claims of so many eager aspirants for notice; it is clearly impossible to satisfy all...Certainly I was struck with the full and due honour you conferred on Falconer. I have just had a note from Hooker...I am heartily glad that you have made him so conspicuous; he is so honest, so candid, and so modest... I have read --. I could find nothing to lay hold of, which in one sense I am very glad of, as I should hate a controversy; but in another sense I am very sorry for, as I long to be in the same boat with all my friends...I am heartily glad the book is going off so well. Ever yours, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [March 29, 1863]. ...Many thanks for "Athenaeum", received this morning, and to be returned to-morrow morning. Who would have ever thought of the old stupid "Athenaeum" taking to Oken-like transcendental philosophy written in Owenian style! (This refers to a review of Dr. Carpenter's 'Introduction to the study of Foraminifera,' that appeared in the "Athenaeum" of March 28, 1863 (page 417). The reviewer attacks Dr. Carpenter's views in as much as they support the doctrine of Descent; and he upholds spontaneous generation (Heterogeny) in place of what Dr. Carpenter, naturally enough, believed in, viz. the genetic connection of living and extinct Foraminifera. In the next number is a letter by Dr. Carpenter, which chiefly consists of a protest against the reviewer's somewhat contemptuous classification of Dr. Carpenter and my father as disciple and master. In the course of the letter Dr. Carpenter says--page 461:-- "Under the influence of his foregone conclusion that I have accepted Mr. Darwin as my master, and his hypothesis as my guide, your reviewer represents me as blind to the significance of the general fact stated by me, that 'there has been no advance in the foraminiferous type from the palaeozoic period to the present time.' But for such a foregone conclusion he would have recognised in this statement the expression of my conviction that the present state of scientific evidence, instead of sanctioning the idea that the descendants of the primitive type or types of Foraminifera can ever rise to any higher grade, justifies the ANTI-DARWINIAN influence, that however widely they diverge from each other and from their originals, THEY STILL REMAIN FORAMINIFERA.")...It will be some time before we see "slime, protoplasm, etc.," generating a new animal. (On the same subject my father wrote in 1871: "It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.") But I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation (This refers to a passage in which the reviewer of Dr. Carpenter's books speaks of "an operation of force," or "a concurrence of forces which have now no place in nature," as being, "a creative force, in fact, which Darwin could only express in Pentateuchal terms as the primordial form 'into which life was first breathed.'" The conception of expressing a creative force as a primordial form is the Reviewer's.), by which I really meant "appeared" by some wholly unknown process. It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, Friday night [April 17, 1863]. My dear Hooker, I have heard from Oliver that you will be now at Kew, and so I am going to amuse myself by scribbling a bit. I hope you have thoroughly enjoyed your tour. I never in my life saw anything like the spring flowers this year. What a lot of interesting things have been lately published. I liked extremely your review of De Candolle. What an awfully severe article that by Falconer on Lyell ("Athenaeum", April 4, 1863, page 459. The writer asserts that justice has not been done either to himself or Mr. Prestwich-- that Lyell has not made it clear that it was their original work which supplied certain material for the 'Antiquity of Man.' Falconer attempts to draw an unjust distinction between a "philosopher" (here used as a polite word for compiler) like Sir Charles Lyell, and original observers, presumably such as himself, and Mr. Prestwich. Lyell's reply was published in the "Athenaeum", April 18, 1863. It ought to be mentioned that a letter from Mr. Prestwich ("Athenaeum", page 555), which formed part of the controversy, though of the nature of a reclamation, was written in a very different spirit and tone from Dr. Falconer's.); I am very sorry for it; I think Falconer on his side does not do justice to old Perthes and Schmerling...I shall be very curious to see how he [Lyell] answers it to- morrow. (I have been compelled to take in the "Athenaeum" for a while.) I am very sorry that Falconer should have written so spitefully, even if there is some truth in his accusations; I was rather disappointed in Carpenter's letter, no one could have given a better answer, but the chief object of his letter seems to me to be to show that though he has touched pitch he is not defiled. No one would suppose he went so far as to believe all birds came from one progenitor. I have written a letter to the "Athenaeum" ("Athenaeum", 1863, page 554: "The view given by me on the origin or derivation of species, whatever its weaknesses may be, connects (as has been candidly admitted by some of its opponents, such as Pictet, Bronn, etc.), by an intelligible thread of reasoning, a multitude of facts: such as the formation of domestic races by man's selection,--the classification and affinities of all organic beings,--the innumerable gradations in structure and instincts,--the similarity of pattern in the hand, wing, or paddle of animals of the same great class,--the existence of organs become rudimentary by disuse,--the similarity of an embryonic reptile, bird, and mammal, with the retention of traces of an apparatus fitted for aquatic respiration; the retention in the young calf of incisor teeth in the upper jaw, etc.--the distribution of animals and plants, and their mutual affinities within the same region,--their general geological succession, and the close relationship of the fossils in closely consecutive formations and within the same country; extinct marsupials having preceded living marsupials in Australia, and armadillo-like animals having preceded and generated armadilloes in South America,--and many other phenomena, such as the gradual extinction of old forms and their gradual replacement by new forms better fitted for their new conditions in the struggle for life. When the advocate of Heterogeny can thus connect large classes of facts, and not until then, he will have respectful and patient listeners.") (the first and last time I shall take such a step) to say, under the cloak of attacking Heterogeny, a word in my own defence. My letter is to appear next week, so the Editor says; and I mean to quote Lyell's sentence (See the next letter.) in his second edition, on the principle if one puffs oneself, one had better puff handsomely... CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, April 18 [1863]. My dear Lyell, I was really quite sorry that you had sent me a second copy (The second edition of the 'Antiquity of Man' was published a few months after the first had appeared.) of your valuable book. But after a few hours my sorrow vanished for this reason: I have written a letter to the "Athenaeum", in order, under the cloak of attacking the monstrous article on Heterogeny, to say a word for myself in answer to Carpenter, and now I have inserted a few sentences in allusion to your analogous objection (Lyell objected that the mammalia (e.g. bats and seals) which alone have been able to reach oceanic islands ought to have become modified into various terrestrial forms fitted to fill various places in their new home. My father pointed out in the "Athenaeum" that Sir Charles has in some measure answered his own objection, and went on to quote the "amended sentence" ('Antiquity of Man,' 2nd Edition page 469) as showing how far Lyell agreed with the general doctrines of the "Origin of Species': "Yet we ought by no means to undervalue the importance of the step which will have been made, should it hereafter become the generally received opinion of men of science (as I fully expect it will) that the past changes of the organic world have been brought about by the subordinate agency of such causes as Variation and Natural Selection." In the first edition the words (as I fully expect it will," do not occur.) about bats on islands, and then with infinite slyness have quoted your amended sentence, with your parenthesis ("as I fully believe") (My father here quotes Lyell incorrectly; see the previous foot-note.); I do not think you can be annoyed at my doing this, and you see, that I am determined as far as I can, that the public shall see how far you go. This is the first time I have ever said a word for myself in any journal, and it shall, I think, be the last. My letter is short, and no great things. I was extremely concerned to see Falconer's disrespectful and virulent letter. I like extremely your answer just read; you take a lofty and dignified position, to which you are so well entitled. (In a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker he wrote: "I much like Lyell's letter. But all this squabbling will greatly sink scientific men. I have seen sneers already in the 'Times'.") I suspect that if you had inserted a few more superlatives in speaking of the several authors there would have been none of this horrid noise. No one, I am sure, who knows you could doubt about your hearty sympathy with every one who makes any little advance in science. I still well remember my surprise at the manner in which you listened to me in Hart Street on my return from the "Beagle's" voyage. You did me a world of good. It is horridly vexatious that so frank and apparently amiable a man as Falconer should have behaved so. (It is to this affair that the extract from a letter to Falconer, given in volume i., refers.) Well it will all soon be forgotten... [In reply to the above-mentioned letter of my father's to the "Athenaeum", an article appeared in that Journal (May 2nd, 1863, page 586), accusing my father of claiming for his views the exclusive merit of "connecting by an intelligible thread of reasoning" a number of facts in morphology, etc. The writer remarks that, "The different generalizations cited by Mr. Darwin as being connected by an intelligible thread of reasoning exclusively through his attempt to explain specific transmutation are in fact related to it in this wise, that they have prepared the minds of naturalists for a better reception of such attempts to explain the way of the origin of species from species." To this my father replied in the "Athenaeum" of May 9th, 1863:] Down, May 5 [1863]. I hope that you will grant me space to own that your reviewer is quite correct when he states that any theory of descent will connect, "by an intelligible thread of reasoning," the several generalizations before specified. I ought to have made this admission expressly; with the reservation, however, that, as far as I can judge, no theory so well explains or connects these several generalizations (more especially the formation of domestic races in comparison with natural species, the principles of classification, embryonic resemblance, etc.) as the theory, or hypothesis, or guess, if the reviewer so likes to call it, of Natural Selection. Nor has any other satisfactory explanation been ever offered of the almost perfect adaptation of all organic beings to each other, and to their physical conditions of life. Whether the naturalist believes in the views given by Lamarck, by Geoffrey St. Hilaire, by the author of the 'Vestiges,' by Mr. Wallace and myself, or in any other such view, signifies extremely little in comparison with the admission that species have descended from other species, and have not been created immutable; for he who admits this as a great truth has a wide field opened to him for further inquiry. I believe, however, from what I see of the progress of opinion on the Continent, and in this country, that the theory of Natural Selection will ultimately be adopted, with, no doubt, many subordinate modifications and improvements. CHARLES DARWIN. [In the following, he refers to the above letter to the "Athenaeum:] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Leith Hill Place, Saturday [May 11, 1863]. My dear Hooker, You give good advice about not writing in newspapers; I have been gnashing my teeth at my own folly; and this not caused by --'s sneers, which were so good that I almost enjoyed them. I have written once again to own to a certain extent of truth in what he says, and then if I am ever such a fool again, have no mercy on me. I have read the squib in "Public Opinion" ("Public Opinion", April 23, 1863. A lively account of a police case, in which the quarrels of scientific men are satirised. Mr. John Bull gives evidence that-- "The whole neighbourhood was unsettled by their disputes; Huxley quarrelled with Owen, Owen with Darwin, Lyell with Owen, Falconer and Prestwich with Lyell, and Gray the menagerie man with everybody. He had pleasure, however, in stating that Darwin was the quietest of the set. They were always picking bones with each other and fighting over their gains. If either of the gravel sifters or stone breakers found anything, he was obliged to conceal it immediately, or one of the old bone collectors would be sure to appropriate it first and deny the theft afterwards, and the consequent wrangling and disputes were as endless as they were wearisome. "Lord Mayor.--Probably the clergyman of the parish might exert some influence over them? "The gentleman smiled, shook his head, and stated that he regretted to say that no class of men paid so little attention to the opinions of the clergy as that to which these unhappy men belonged."); it is capital; if there is more, and you have a copy, do lend it. It shows well that a scientific man had better be trampled in dirt than squabble. I have been drawing diagrams, dissecting shoots, and muddling my brains to a hopeless degree about the divergence of leaves, and have of course utterly failed. But I can see that the subject is most curious, and indeed astonishing... [The next letter refers to Mr. Bentham's presidential address to the Linnean Society (May 25, 1863). Mr. Bentham does not yield to the new theory of Evolution, "cannot surrender at discretion as long as many important outworks remain contestable." But he shows that the great body of scientific opinion is flowing in the direction of belief. The mention of Pasteur by Mr. Bentham is in reference to the promulgation "as it were ex cathedra," of a theory of spontaneous generation by the reviewer of Dr. Carpenter in the "Athenaeum" (March 28, 1863). Mr. Bentham points out that in ignoring Pasteur's refutation of the supposed facts of spontaneous generation, the writer fails to act with "that impartiality which every reviewer is supposed to possess."] CHARLES DARWIN TO G. BENTHAM. Down, May 22 [1863]. My dear Bentham, I am much obliged for your kind and interesting letter. I have no fear of anything that a man like you will say annoying me in the very least degree. On the other hand, any approval from one whose judgment and knowledge I have for many years so sincerely respected, will gratify me much. The objection which you well put, of certain forms remaining unaltered through long time and space, is no doubt formidable in appearance, and to a certain extent in reality according to my judgment. But does not the difficulty rest much on our silently assuming that we know more than we do? I have literally found nothing so difficult as to try and always remember our ignorance. I am never weary, when walking in any new adjoining district or country, of reflecting how absolutely ignorant we are why certain old plants are not there present, and other new ones are, and others in different proportions. If we once fully feel this, then in judging the theory of Natural Selection, which implies that a form will remain unaltered unless some alteration be to its benefit, is it so very wonderful that some forms should change much slower and much less, and some few should have changed not at all under conditions which to us (who really know nothing what are the important conditions) seem very different. Certainly a priori we might have anticipated that all the plants anciently introduced into Australia would have undergone some modification; but the fact that they have not been modified does not seem to me a difficulty of weight enough to shake a belief grounded on other arguments. I have expressed myself miserably, but I am far from well to-day. I am very glad that you are going to allude to Pasteur; I was struck with infinite admiration at his work. With cordial thanks, believe me, dear Bentham, Yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN. P.S.--In fact, the belief in Natural Selection must at present be grounded entirely on general considerations. (1) On its being a vera causa, from the struggle for existence; and the certain geological fact that species do somehow change. (2) From the analogy of change under domestication by man's selection. (3) And chiefly from this view connecting under an intelligible point of view a host of facts. When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed [i.e. we cannot prove that a single species has changed]; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory. Nor can we explain why some species have changed and others have not. The latter case seems to me hardly more difficult to understand precisely and in detail than the former case of supposed change. Bronn may ask in vain, the old creationist school and the new school, why one mouse has longer ears than another mouse, and one plant more pointed leaves than another plant. CHARLES DARWIN TO G. BENTHAM. Down, June 19 [1863]. My dear Bentham, I have been extremely much pleased and interested by your address, which you kindly sent me. It seems to be excellently done, with as much judicial calmness and impartiality as the Lord Chancellor could have shown. But whether the "immutable" gentlemen would agree with the impartiality may be doubted, there is too much kindness shown towards me, Hooker, and others, they might say. Moreover I verily believe that your address, written as it is, will do more to shake the unshaken and bring on those leaning to our side, than anything written directly in favour of transmutation. I can hardly tell why it is, but your address has pleased me as much as Lyell's book disappointed me, that is, the part on species, though so cleverly written. I agree with all your remarks on the reviewers. By the way, Lecoq (Author of 'Geographie Botanique.' 9 vols. 1854-58.) is a believer in the change of species. I, for one, can conscientiously declare that I never feel surprised at any one sticking to the belief of immutability; though I am often not a little surprised at the arguments advanced on this side. I remember too well my endless oscillations of doubt and difficulty. It is to me really laughable when I think of the years which elapsed before I saw what I believe to be the explanation of some parts of the case; I believe it was fifteen years after I began before I saw the meaning and cause of the divergence of the descendants of any one pair. You pay me some most elegant and pleasing compliments. There is much in your address which has pleased me much, especially your remarks on various naturalists. I am so glad that you have alluded so honourably to Pasteur. I have just read over this note; it does not express strongly enough the interest which I have felt in reading your address. You have done, I believe, a real good turn to the RIGHT SIDE. Believe me, dear Bentham, Yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN. 1864. [In my father's diary for 1864 is the entry, "Ill all January, February, March." About the middle of April (seven months after the beginning of the illness in the previous autumn) his health took a turn for the better. As soon as he was able to do any work, he began to write his papers on Lythrum, and on Climbing Plants, so that the work which now concerns us did not begin until September, when he again set to work on 'Animals and Plants.' A letter to Sir J.D. Hooker gives some account of the re- commencement of the work: "I have begun looking over my old MS., and it is as fresh as if I had never written it; parts are astonishingly dull, but yet worth printing, I think; and other parts strike me as very good. I am a complete millionaire in odd and curious little facts, and I have been really astounded at my own industry whilst reading my chapters on Inheritance and Selection. God knows when the book will ever be completed, for I find that I am very weak and on my best days cannot do more than one or one and a half hours' work. It is a good deal harder than writing about my dear climbing plants." In this year he received the greatest honour which a scientific man can receive in this country--the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. It is presented at the Anniversary Meeting on St. Andrew's Day (November 30), the medalist being usually present to receive it, but this the state of my father's health prevented. He wrote to Mr. Fox on this subject:-- "I was glad to see your hand-writing. The Copley, being open to all sciences and all the world, is reckoned a great honour; but excepting from several kind letters, such things make little difference to me. It shows, however, that Natural Selection is making some progress in this country, and that pleases me. The subject, however, is safe in foreign lands." To Sir J.D. Hooker, also, he wrote:-- "How kind you have been about this medal; indeed, I am blessed with many good friends, and I have received four or five notes which have warmed my heart. I often wonder that so old a worn-out dog as I am is not quite forgotten. Talking of medals, has Falconer had the Royal? he surely ought to have it, as ought John Lubbock. By the way, the latter tells me that some old members of the Royal are quite shocked at my having the Copley. Do you know who?" He wrote to Mr. Huxley:-- "I must and will answer you, for it is a real pleasure for me to thank you cordially for your note. Such notes as this of yours, and a few others, are the real medal to me, and not the round bit of gold. These have given me a pleasure which will long endure; so believe in my cordial thanks for your note." Sir Charles Lyell, writing to my father in November 1864 ('Life,' vol. ii. page 384), speaks of the supposed malcontents as being afraid to crown anything so unorthodox as the 'Origin.' But he adds that if such were their feelings "they had the good sense to draw in their horns." It appears, however, from the same letter, that the proposal to give the Copley Medal to my father in the previous year failed owing to a similar want of courage--to Lyell's great indignation. In the "Reader", December 3, 1864, General Sabine's presidential address at the Anniversary Meeting is reported at some length. Special weight was laid on my father's work in Geology, Zoology, and Botany, but the 'Origin of Species' is praised chiefly as containing "a mass of observations," etc. It is curious that as in the case of his election to the French Institution, so in this case, he was honoured not for the great work of his life, but for his less important work in special lines. The paragraph in General Sabine's address which refers to the 'Origin of Species,' is as follows:-- "In his most recent work 'On the Origin of Species,' although opinions may be divided or undecided with respect to its merits in some respects, all will allow that it contains a mass of observations bearing upon the habits, structure, affinities, and distribution of animals, perhaps unrivalled for interest, minuteness, and patience of observation. Some amongst us may perhaps incline to accept the theory indicated by the title of this work, while others may perhaps incline to refuse, or at least to remit it to a future time, when increased knowledge shall afford stronger grounds for its ultimate acceptance or rejection. Speaking generally and collectively, we have expressly omitted it from the grounds of our award." I believe I am right in saying that no little dissatisfaction at the President's manner of allusion to the 'Origin' was felt by some Fellows of the Society. The presentation of the Copley Medal is of interest in another way, inasmuch as it led to Sir C. Lyell making, in his after-dinner speech, a "confession of faith as to the 'Origin.'" He wrote to my father ('Life,' vol. ii. page 384), "I said I had been forced to give up my old faith without thoroughly seeing my way to a new one. But I think you would have been satisfied with the length I went."] CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, October 3 [1864]. My dear Huxley, If I do not pour out my admiration of your article ("Criticisms on the Origin of Species," 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1864. Republished in 'Lay Sermons,' 1870, page 328. The work of Professor Kolliker referred to is 'Ueber die Darwin'sche Schopfungstheorie' (Leipzig, 1864). Toward Professor Kolliker my father felt not only the respect due to so distinguished a naturalist (a sentiment well expressed in Professor Huxley's review), but he had also a personal regard for him, and often alluded with satisfaction to the visit which Professor Kolliker paid at Down.) on Kolliker, I shall explode. I never read anything better done. I had much wished his article answered, and indeed thought of doing so myself, so that I considered several points. You have hit on all, and on some in addition, and oh! by Jove, how well you have done it. As I read on and came to point after point on which I had thought, I could not help jeering and scoffing at myself, to see how infinitely better you had done it than I could have done. Well, if any one, who does not understand Natural Selection, will read this, he will be a blockhead if it is not as clear as daylight. Old Flourens ('Examen du livre de M. Darwin sur l'origine des especes.' Par P. Flourens. 8vo. Paris, 1864.) was hardly worth the powder and shot; but how capitally you bring in about the Academician, and your metaphor of the sea-sand is INIMITABLE. It is a marvel to me how you can resist becoming a regular reviewer. Well, I have exploded now, and it has done me a deal of good... [In the same article in the 'Natural History Review,' Mr. Huxley speaks of the book above alluded to by Flourens, the Secretaire Perpetuel of the Academie des Sciences, as one of the two "most elaborate criticisms" of the 'Origin of Species' of the year. He quotes the following passage:-- "M. Darwin continue: 'Aucune distinction absolue n'a ete et ne peut etre entre les especes et les varietes!' Je vous ai deja dit que vous vous trompiez; une distinction absolue separe les varietes d'avec les especes." Mr. Huxley remarks on this, "Being devoid of the blessings of an Academy in England, we are unaccustomed to see our ablest men treated in this way even by a Perpetual Secretary." After demonstrating M. Flourens' misapprehension of Natural Selection, Mr. Huxley says, "How one knows it all by heart, and with what relief one reads at page 65 'Je laisse M. Darwin.'" On the same subject my father wrote to Mr. Wallace:-- "A great gun, Flourens, has written a little dull book against me which pleases me much, for it is plain that our good work is spreading in France. He speaks of the "engouement" about this book [the 'Origin'] "so full of empty and presumptuous thoughts." The passage here alluded to is as follows:-- "Enfin l'ouvrage de M. Darwin a paru. On ne peut qu'etre frappe du talent de l'auteur. Mais que d'idees obscures, que d'idees fausses! Quel jargon metaphysique jete mal a propos dans l'histoire naturelle, qui tombe dans le galimatias des qu'elle sort des idees claires, des idees justes. Quel langage pretentieux et vide! Quelles personifications pueriles et surannees! O lucidite! O solidite de l'esprit francais, que devenez- vous?"] 1865. [This was again a time of much ill-health, but towards the close of the year he began to recover under the care of the late Dr. Bence-Jones, who dieted him severely, and as he expressed it, "half-starved him to death." He was able to work at 'Animals and Plants' until nearly the end of April, and from that time until December he did practically no work, with the exception of looking over the 'Origin of Species' for a second French edition. He wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker:--"I am, as it were, reading the 'Origin' for the first time, for I am correcting for a second French edition: and upon my life, my dear fellow, it is a very good book, but oh! my gracious, it is tough reading, and I wish it were done." (Towards the end of the year my father received the news of a new convert to his views, in the person of the distinguished American naturalist Lesquereux. He wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker: "I have had an enormous letter from Leo Lesquereux (after doubts, I did not think it worth sending you) on Coal Flora. He wrote some excellent articles in 'Silliman' against 'Origin' views; but he says now, after repeated reading of the book, he is a convert!") The following letter refers to the Duke of Argyll's address to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, December 5th, 1864, in which he criticises the 'Origin of Species.' My father seems to have read the Duke's address as reported in the "Scotsman" of December 6th, 1865. In a letter to my father (January 16, 1865, 'Life,' vol. ii. page 385), Lyell wrote, "The address is a great step towards your views--far greater, I believe, than it seems when read merely with reference to criticisms and objections."] CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, January 22, [1865]. My dear Lyell, I thank you for your very interesting letter. I have the true English instinctive reverence for rank, and therefore liked to hear about the Princess Royal. ("I had...an animated conversation on Darwinism with the Princess Royal, who is a worthy daughter of her father, in the reading of good books, and thinking of what she reads. She was very much au fait at the 'Origin,' and Huxley's book, the 'Antiquity,' etc."--(Lyell's 'Life,' vol. ii. page 385.) You ask what I think of the Duke's address, and I shall be glad to tell you. It seems to me EXTREMELY clever, like everything I have read of his; but I am not shaken--perhaps you will say that neither gods nor men could shake me. I demur to the Duke reiterating his objection that the brilliant plumage of the male humming-bird could not have been acquired through selection, at the same time entirely ignoring my discussion (page 93, 3rd edition) on beautiful plumage being acquired through SEXUAL selection. The duke may think this insufficient, but that is another question. All analogy makes me quite disagree with the Duke that the difference in the beak, wing and tail, are not of importance to the several species. In the only two species which I have watched, the difference in flight and in the use of the tail was conspicuously great. The Duke, who knows my Orchid book so well, might have learnt a lesson of caution from it, with respect to his doctrine of differences for mere variety or beauty. It may be confidently said that no tribe of plants presents such grotesque and beautiful differences, which no one until lately, conjectured were of any use; but now in almost every case I have been able to show their important service. It should be remembered that with humming birds or orchids, a modification in one part will cause correlated changes in other parts. I agree with what you say about beauty. I formerly thought a good deal on the subject, and was led quite to repudiate the doctrine of beauty being created for beauty's sake. I demur also to the Duke's expression of "new births." That may be a very good theory, but it is not mine, unless indeed he calls a bird born with a beak 1/100th of an inch longer than usual "a new birth;" but this is not the sense in which the term would usually be understood. The more I work the more I feel convinced that it is by the accumulation of such extremely slight variations that new species arise. I do not plead guilty to the Duke's charge that I forget that natural selection means only the preservation of variations which independently arise. ("Strictly speaking, therefore, Mr. Darwin's theory is not a theory on the Origin of Species at all, but only a theory on the causes which lead to the relative success and failure of such new forms as may be born into the world."--"Scotsman", December 6, 1864.) I have expressed this in as strong language as I could use, but it would have been infinitely tedious had I on every occasion thus guarded myself. I will cry "peccavi" when I hear of the Duke or you attacking breeders for saying that man has made his improved shorthorns, or pouter pigeons, or bantams. And I could quote still stronger expressions used by agriculturists. Man does make his artificial breeds, for his selective power is of such importance relatively to that of the slight spontaneous variations. But no one will attack breeders for using such expressions, and the rising generation will not blame me. Many thanks for your offer of sending me the 'Elements.' (Sixth edition in one volume.) I hope to read it all, but unfortunately reading makes my head whiz more than anything else. I am able most days to work for two or three hours, and this makes all the difference in my happiness. I have resolved not to be tempted astray, and to publish nothing till my volume on Variation is completed. You gave me excellent advice about the footnotes in my Dog chapter, but their alteration gave me infinite trouble, and I often wished all the dogs, and I fear sometimes you yourself, in the nether regions. We (dictator and writer) send our best love to Lady Lyell. Yours affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN. P.S.--If ever you should speak with the Duke on the subject, please say how much interested I was with his address. [In his autobiographical sketch my father has remarked that owing to certain early memories he felt the honour of being elected to the Royal and Royal Medical Societies of Edinburgh "more than any similar honour." The following extract from a letter to Sir Joseph Hooker refers to his election to the former of these societies. The latter part of the extract refers to the Berlin Academy, to which he was elected in 1878:-- "Here is a really curious thing, considering that Brewster is President and Balfour Secretary. I have been elected Honorary Member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. And this leads me to a third question. Does the Berlin Academy of Sciences send their Proceedings to Honorary Members? I want to know, to ascertain whether I am a member; I suppose not, for I think it would have made some impression on me; yet I distinctly remember receiving some diploma signed by Ehrenberg. I have been so careless; I have lost several diplomas, and now I want to know what Societies I belong to, as I observe every [one] tacks their titles to their names in the catalogue of the Royal Soc."] CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, February 21 [1865]. My dear Lyell, I have taken a long time to thank you very much for your present of the 'Elements.' I am going through it all, reading what is new, and what I have forgotten, and this is a good deal. I am simply astonished at the amount of labour, knowledge, and clear thought condensed in this work. The whole strikes me as something quite grand. I have been particularly interested by your account of Heer's work and your discussion on the Atlantic Continent. I am particularly delighted at the view which you take on this subject; for I have long thought Forbes did an ill service in so freely making continents. I have also been very glad to read your argument on the denudation of the Weald, and your excellent resume on the Purbeck Beds; and this is the point at which I have at present arrived in your book. I cannot say that I am quite convinced that there is no connection beyond that pointed out by you, between glacial action and the formation of lake basins; but you will not much value my opinion on this head, as I have already changed my mind some half-dozen times. I want to make a suggestion to you. I found the weight of your volume intolerable, especially when lying down, so with great boldness cut it into two pieces, and took it out of its cover; now could not Murray without any other change add to his advertisement a line saying, "if bound in two volumes, one shilling or one shilling and sixpence extra." You thus might originate a change which would be a blessing to all weak-handed readers. Believe me, my dear Lyell, Yours most sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN. Originate a second REAL BLESSING and have the edges of the sheets cut like a bound book. (This was a favourite reform of my father's. He wrote to the "Athenaeum" on the subject, February 5, 1867, pointing out how that a book cut, even carefully, with a paper knife collects dust on its edges far more than a machine-cut book. He goes on to quote the case of a lady of his acquaintance who was in the habit of cutting books with her thumb, and finally appeals to the "Athenaeum" to earn the gratitude of children "who have to cut through dry and pictureless books for the benefit of their elders." He tried to introduce the reform in the case of his own books, but found the conservatism of booksellers too strong for him. The presentation copies, however, of all his later books were sent out with the edges cut.) CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. Down, June 11 [1865]. My dear Lubbock, The latter half of your book ('Prehistoric Times,' 1865.) has been read aloud to me, and the style is so clear and easy (we both think it perfection) that I am now beginning at the beginning. I cannot resist telling you how excellently well, in my opinion, you have done the very interesting chapter on savage life. Though you have necessarily only compiled the materials the general result is most original. But I ought to keep the term original for your last chapter, which has struck me as an admirable and profound discussion. It has quite delighted me, for now the public will see what kind of man you are, which I am proud to think I discovered a dozen years ago. I do sincerely wish you all success in your election and in politics; but after reading this last chapter, you must let me say: oh, dear! oh, dear! oh dear! Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN. P.S.--You pay me a superb compliment ('Prehistoric Times,' page 487, where the words, "the discoveries of a Newton or a Darwin," occur.), but I fear you will be quizzed for it by some of your friends as too exaggerated. [The following letter refers to Fritz Muller's book, 'Fur Darwin,' which was afterwards translated, at my father's suggestion, by Mr. Dallas. It is of interest as being the first of the long series of letters which my father wrote to this distinguished naturalist. They never met, but the correspondence with Muller, which continued to the close of my father's life, was a source of very great pleasure to him. My impression is that of all his unseen friends Fritz Muller was the one for whom he had the strongest regard. Fritz Muller is the brother of another distinguished man, the late Hermann Muller, the author of 'Die Befruchtung der Blumen,' and of much other valuable work:] CHARLES DARWIN TO F. MULLER. Down, August 10 [1865]. My dear Sir, I have been for a long time so ill that I have only just finished hearing read aloud your work on species. And now you must permit me to thank you cordially for the great interest with which I have read it. You have done admirable service in the cause in which we both believe. Many of your arguments seem to me excellent, and many of your facts wonderful. Of the latter, nothing has surprised me so much as the two forms of males. I have lately investigated the cases of dimorphic plants, and I should much like to send you one or two of my papers if I knew how. I did send lately by post a paper on climbing plants, as an experiment to see whether it would reach you. One of the points which has struck me most in your paper is that on the differences in the air-breathing apparatus of the several forms. This subject appeared to me very important when I formerly considered the electric apparatus of fishes. Your observations on Classification and Embryology seem to me very good and original. They show what a wonderful field there is for enquiry on the development of crustacea, and nothing has convinced me so plainly what admirable results we shall arrive at in Natural History in the course of a few years. What a marvellous range of structure the crustacea present, and how well adapted they are for your enquiry! Until reading your book I knew nothing of the Rhizocephala; pray look at my account and figures of Anelasma, for it seems to me that this latter cirripede is a beautiful connecting link with the Rhizocephala. If ever you have any opportunity, as you are so skilful a dissector, I much wish that you would look to the orifice at the base of the first pair of cirrhi in cirripedes, and at the curious organ in it, and discover what its nature is; I suppose I was quite in error, yet I cannot feel fully satisfied at Krohn's (See vol. ii., pages 138, 187.) observations. Also if you ever find any species of Scalpellum, pray look for complemental males; a German author has recently doubted my observations for no reason except that the facts appeared to him so strange. Permit me again to thank you cordially for the pleasure which I have derived from your work and to express my sincere admiration for your valuable researches. Believe me, dear Sir, with sincere respect, Yours very faithfully, CH. DARWIN. P.S.--I do not know whether you care at all about plants, but if so, I should much like to send you my little work on the 'Fertilization of Orchids,' and I think I have a German copy. Could you spare me a photograph of yourself? I should much like to possess one. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, Thursday, 27th [September, 1865]. My dear Hooker, I had intended writing this morning to thank Mrs. Hooker most sincerely for her last and several notes about you, and now your own note in your hand has rejoiced me. To walk between five and six miles is splendid, with a little patience you must soon be well. I knew you had been very ill, but I hardly knew how ill, until yesterday, when Bentham (from the Cranworths (Robert Rolfe, Lord Cranworth, and Lord Chancellor of England, lived at Holwood, near Down.)) called here, and I was able to see him for ten minutes. He told me also a little about the last days of your father (Sir William Hooker; 1785-1865. He took charge of the Royal Gardens at Kew, in 1840, when they ceased to be the private gardens of the Royal Family. In doing so, he gave up his professorship at Glasgow--and with it half of his income. He founded the herbarium and library, and within ten years he succeeded in making the gardens the first in the world. It is, thus, not too much to say that the creation of the establishment at Kew is due to the abilities and self-devotion of Sir William Hooker. While, for the subsequent development of the gardens up to their present magnificent condition, the nation must thank Sir Joseph Hooker, in whom the same qualities are so conspicuous.); I wish I had known your father better, my impression is confined to his remarkably cordial, courteous, and frank bearing. I fully concur and understand what you say about the difference of feeling in the loss of a father and child. I do not think any one could love a father much more than I did mine, and I do not believe three or four days ever pass without my still thinking of him, but his death at eighty- four caused me nothing of that insufferable grief (I may quote here a passage from a letter of November, 1863. It was written to a friend who had lost his child: "How well I remember your feeling, when we lost Annie. It was my greatest comfort that I had never spoken a harsh word to her. Your grief has made me shed a few tears over our poor darling; but believe me that these tears have lost that unutterable bitterness of former days.") which the loss of our poor dear Annie caused. And this seems to me perfectly natural, for one knows for years previously that one's father's death is drawing slowly nearer and nearer, while the death of one's child is a sudden and dreadful wrench. What a wonderful deal you read; it is a horrid evil for me that I can read hardly anything, for it makes my head almost immediately begin to sing violently. My good womenkind read to me a great deal, but I dare not ask for much science, and am not sure that I could stand it. I enjoyed Tylor ('Researches into the Early History of Mankind,' by E.B. Tylor. 1865.) EXTREMELY, and the first part of Lecky 'The Rise of Rationalism in Europe,' by W.E.H. Lecky. 1865.); but I think the latter is often vague, and gives a false appearance of throwing light on his subject by such phrases as "spirit of the age," "spread of civilization," etc. I confine my reading to a quarter or half hour per day in skimming through the back volumes of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, and find much that interests me. I miss my climbing plants very much, as I could observe them when very poorly. I did not enjoy the 'Mill on the Floss' so much as you, but from what you say we will read it again. Do you know 'Silas Marner'? it is a charming little story; if you run short, and like to have it, we could send it by post...We have almost finished the first volume of Palgrave (William Gifford Palgrave's 'Travels in Arabia,' published in 1865.), and I like it much; but did you ever see a book so badly arranged? The frequency of the allusions to what will be told in the future are quite laughable...By the way, I was very much pleased with the foot-note (The passage which seems to be referred to occurs in the text (page 479) of 'Prehistoric Times.' It expresses admiration of Mr. Wallace's paper in the 'Anthropological Review' (May, 1864), and speaks of the author's "characteristic unselfishness" in ascribing the theory of Natural Selection "unreservedly to Mr. Darwin." about Wallace in Lubbock's last chapter. I had not heard that Huxley had backed up Lubbock about Parliament...Did you see a sneer some time ago in the "Times" about how incomparably more interesting politics were compared with science even to scientific men? Remember what Trollope says, in 'Can you Forgive her,' about getting into Parliament, as the highest earthly ambition. Jeffrey, in one of his letters, I remember, says that making an effective speech in Parliament is a far grander thing than writing the grandest history. All this seems to me a poor short-sighted view. I cannot tell you how it has rejoiced me once again seeing your handwriting-- my best of old friends. Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN. [In October he wrote Sir J.D. Hooker:-- "Talking of the 'Origin,' a Yankee has called my attention to a paper attached to Dr. Wells's famous 'Essay on Dew,' which was read in 1813 to the Royal Society, but not [then] printed, in which he applies most distinctly the principle of Natural Selection to the Races of Man. So poor old Patrick Matthew is not the first, and he cannot, or ought not, any longer to put on his title-pages, 'Discoverer of the principle of Natural Selection'!"] CHARLES DARWIN TO F.W. FARRAR. (Canon of Westminster.) Down, November 2 [1865?]. Dear Sir, As I have never studied the science of language, it may perhaps seem presumptuous, but I cannot resist the pleasure of telling you what interest and pleasure I have derived from hearing read aloud your volume ('Chapters on Language,' 1865.) I formerly read Max Muller, and thought his theory (if it deserves to be called so) both obscure and weak; and now, after hearing what you say, I feel sure that this is the case, and that your cause will ultimately triumph. My indirect interest in your book has been increased from Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, whom you often quote, being my brother-in-law. No one could dissent from my views on the modification of species with more courtesy than you do. But from the tenor of your mind I feel an entire and comfortable conviction (and which cannot possibly be disturbed) that if your studies led you to attend much to general questions in natural history you would come to the same conclusion that I have done. Have you ever read Huxley's little book of Lectures? I would gladly send a copy if you think you would read it. Considering what Geology teaches us, the argument from the supposed immutability of specific types seems to me much the same as if, in a nation which had no old writings, some wise old savage was to say that his language had never changed; but my metaphor is too long to fill up. Pray believe me, dear Sir, yours very sincerely obliged, C. DARWIN. 1866. [The year 1866 is given in my father's Diary in the following words:-- "Continued correcting chapters of 'Domestic Animals.' March 1st.--Began on 4th edition of 'Origin' of 1250 copies (received for it 238 pounds), making 7500 copies altogether. May 10th.--Finished 'Origin,' except revises, and began going over Chapter XIII. of 'Domestic Animals.' November 21st.--Finished 'Pangenesis.' December 21st.--Finished re-going over all chapters, and sent them to printers. December 22nd.--Began concluding chapter of book." He was in London on two occasions for a week at a time, staying with his brother, and for a few days (May 29th-June 2nd) in Surrey; for the rest of the year he was at Down. There seems to have been a gradual mending in his health; thus he wrote to Mr. Wallace (January 1866):--"My health is so far improved that I am able to work one or two hours a day." With respect to the 4th edition he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker:-- "The new edition of the 'Origin' has caused me two great vexations. I forgot Bates's paper on variation (This appears to refer to "Notes on South American Butterflies," Trans. Entomolog. Soc., vol. v. (N.S.).), but I remembered in time his mimetic work, and now, strange to say, I find I have forgotten your Arctic paper! I know how it arose; I indexed for my bigger work, and never expected that a new edition of the 'Origin' would be wanted. "I cannot say how all this has vexed me. Everything which I have read during the last four years I find is quite washy in my mind." As far as I know, Mr. Bates's paper was not mentioned in the later editions of the 'Origin,' for what reason I cannot say. In connection with his work on 'The Variation of Animals and Plants,' I give here extracts from three letters addressed to Mr. Huxley, which are of interest as giving some idea of the development of the theory of 'Pangenesis,' ultimately published in 1868 in the book in question:] CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, May 27, [1865?]. ...I write now to ask a favour of you, a very great favour from one so hard worked as you are. It is to read thirty pages of MS., excellently copied out and give me, not lengthened criticism, but your opinion whether I may venture to publish it. You may keep the MS. for a month or two. I would not ask this favour, but I REALLY know no one else whose judgment on the subject would be final with me. The case stands thus: in my next book I shall publish long chapters on bud- and seminal-variation, on inheritance, reversion, effects of use and disuse, etc. I have also for many years speculated on the different forms of reproduction. Hence it has come to be a passion with me to try to connect all such facts by some sort of hypothesis. The MS. which I wish to send you gives such a hypothesis; it is a very rash and crude hypothesis, yet it has been a considerable relief to my mind, and I can hang on it a good many groups of facts. I well know that a mere hypothesis, and this is nothing more, is of little value; but it is very useful to me as serving as a kind of summary for certain chapters. Now I earnestly wish for your verdict given briefly as, "Burn it"--or, which is the most favourable verdict I can hope for, "It does rudely connect together certain facts, and I do not think it will immediately pass out of my mind." If you can say this much, and you do not think it absolutely ridiculous, I shall publish it in my concluding chapter. Now will you grant me this favour? You must refuse if you are too much overworked. I must say for myself that I am a hero to expose my hypothesis to the fiery ordeal of your criticism. July 12, [1865?]. My dear Huxley, I thank you most sincerely for having so carefully considered my MS. It has been a real act of kindness. It would have annoyed me extremely to have re-published Buffon's views, which I did not know of, but I will get the book; and if I have strength I will also read Bonnet. I do not doubt your judgment is perfectly just, and I will try to persuade myself not to publish. The whole affair is much too speculative; yet I think some such view will have to be adopted, when I call to mind such facts as the inherited effects of use and disuse, etc. But I will try to be cautious... [1865?]. My dear Huxley, Forgive my writing in pencil, as I can do so lying down. I have read Buffon: whole pages are laughably like mine. It is surprising how candid it makes one to see one's views in another man's words. I am rather ashamed of the whole affair, but not converted to a no-belief. What a kindness you have done me with your "vulpine sharpness." Nevertheless, there is a fundamental distinction between Buffon's views and mine. He does not suppose that each cell or atom of tissue throws off a little bud; but he supposes that the sap or blood includes his "organic molecules," WHICH ARE READY FORMED, fit to nourish each organ, and when this is fully formed, they collect to form buds and the sexual elements. It is all rubbish to speculate as I have done; yet, if I ever have strength to publish my next book, I fear I shall not resist "Pangenesis," but I assure you I will put it humbly enough. The ordinary course of development of beings, such as the Echinodermata, in which new organs are formed at quite remote spots from the analogous previous parts, seem to me extremely difficult to reconcile on any view except the free diffusion in the parent of the germs or gemmules of each separate new organ; and so in cases of alternate generation. But I will not scribble any more. Hearty thanks to you, you best of critics and most learned man... [The letters now take up the history of the year 1866.] CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, July 5 [1866]. My dear Wallace, I have been much interested by your letter, which is as clear as daylight. I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of "the survival of the fittest." (Extract from a letter of Mr. Wallace's, July 2, 1866: "The term 'survival of the fittest' is the plain expression of the fact; 'natural selection' is a metaphorical expression of it, and to a certain degree indirect and incorrect, since...Nature...does not so much select special varieties as exterminate the most unfavourable ones.") This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words, natural selection. I formerly thought, probably in an exaggerated degree, that it was a great advantage to bring into connection natural and artificial selection; this indeed led me to use a term in common, and I still think it some advantage. I wish I had received your letter two months ago, for I would have worked in "the survival, etc.," often in the new edition of the 'Origin,' which is now almost printed off, and of which I will of course send you a copy. I will use the term in my next book on Domestic Animals, etc., from which, by the way, I plainly see that you expect MUCH, too much. The term Natural Selection has now been so largely used abroad and at home, that I doubt whether it could be given up, and with all its faults I should be sorry to see the attempt made. Whether it will be rejected must now depend "on the survival of the fittest." As in time the term must grow intelligible the objections to its use will grow weaker and weaker. I doubt whether the use of any term would have made the subject intelligible to some minds, clear as it is to others; for do we not see even to the present day Malthus on Population absurdly misunderstood? This reflection about Malthus has often comforted me when I have been vexed at the misstatement of my views. As for M. Janet (This no doubt refers to Janet's 'Materialisme Contemporain.'), he is a metaphysician, and such gentlemen are so acute that I think they often misunderstand common folk. Your criticism on the double sense ("I find you use 'Natural Selection' in two senses. 1st, for the simple preservation of favourable and rejection of unfavourable variations, in which case it is equivalent to the 'survival of the fittest,'--and 2ndly, for the effect or CHANGE produced by this preservation." Extract from Mr. Wallace's letter above quoted.) in which I have used Natural Selection is new to me and unanswerable; but my blunder has done no harm, for I do not believe that any one, excepting you, has ever observed it. Again, I agree that I have said too much about "favourable variations;" but I am inclined to think that you put the opposite side too strongly; if every part of every being varied, I do not think we should see the same end, or object, gained by such wonderfully diversified means. I hope you are enjoying the country, and are in good health, and are working hard at your Malay Archipelago book, for I will always put this wish in every note I write to you, like some good people always put in a text. My health keeps much the same, or rather improves, and I am able to work some hours daily. With many thanks for your interesting letter. Believe me, my dear Wallace, yours sincerely, CH. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, August 30 [1866]. My dear Hooker, I was very glad to get your note and the Notts. Newspaper. I have seldom been more pleased in my life than at hearing how successfully your lecture (At the Nottingham meeting of the British Association, August 27, 1866. The subject of the lecture was 'Insular Floras.' See "Gardeners' Chronicle", 1866.) went off. Mrs. H. Wedgwood sent us an account, saying that you read capitally, and were listened to with profound attention and great applause. She says, when your final allegory (Sir Joseph Hooker allegorized the Oxford meeting of the British Association as the gathering of a tribe of savages who believed that the new moon was created afresh each month. The anger of the priests and medicine man at a certain heresy, according to which the new moon is but the offspring of the old one, is excellently given.) began, "for a minute or two we were all mystified, and then came such bursts of applause from the audience. It was thoroughly enjoyed amid roars of laughter and noise, making a most brilliant conclusion." I am rejoiced that you will publish your lecture, and felt sure that sooner or later it would come to this, indeed it would have been a sin if you had not done so. I am especially rejoiced as you give the arguments for occasional transport, with such perfect fairness; these will now receive a fair share of attention, as coming from you a professed botanist. Thanks also for Grove's address; as a whole it strikes me as very good and original, but I was disappointed in the part about Species; it dealt in such generalities that it would apply to any view or no view in particular... And now farewell. I do most heartily rejoice at your success, and for Grove's sake at the brilliant success of the whole meeting. Yours affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN. [The next letter is of interest, as giving the beginning of the connection which arose between my father and Professor Victor Carus. The translation referred to is the third German edition made from the fourth English one. From this time forward Professor Carus continued to translate my father's books into German. The conscientious care with which this work was done was of material service, and I well remember the admiration (mingled with a tinge of vexation at his own short-comings) with which my father used to receive the lists of oversights, etc., which Professor Carus discovered in the course of translation. The connection was not a mere business one, but was cemented by warm feelings of regard on both sides.] CHARLES DARWIN TO VICTOR CARUS. Down, November 10, 1866. My dear Sir, I thank you for your extremely kind letter. I cannot express too strongly my satisfaction that you have undertaken the revision of the new edition, and I feel the honour which you have conferred on me. I fear that you will find the labour considerable, not only on account of the additions, but I suspect that Bronn's translation is very defective, at least I have heard complaints on this head from quite a large number of persons. It would be a great gratification to me to know that the translation was a really good one, such as I have no doubt you will produce. According to our English practice, you will be fully justified in entirely omitting Bronn's Appendix, and I shall be very glad of its omission. A new edition may be looked at as a new work...You could add anything of your own that you liked, and I should be much pleased. Should you make any additions or append notes, it appears to me that Nageli "Entstehung und Begriff," etc. ('Entstehung und Begriff der Naturhistorischen Art.' An address given at a public meeting of the 'R. Academy of Sciences' at Munich, March 28, 1865.), would be worth noticing, as one of the most able pamphlets on the subject. I am, however, far from agreeing with him that the acquisition of certain characters which appear to be of no service to plants, offers any great difficulty, or affords a proof of some innate tendency in plants towards perfection. If you intend to notice this pamphlet, I should like to write hereafter a little more in detail on the subject. ...I wish I had known when writing my Historical Sketch that you had in 1853 published your views on the genealogical connection of past and present forms. I suppose you have the sheets of the last English edition on which I marked with pencil all the chief additions, but many little corrections of style were not marked. Pray believe that I feel sincerely grateful for the great service and honour which you do me by the present translation. I remain, my dear Sir, yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN. P.S.--I should be VERY MUCH pleased to possess your photograph, and I send mine in case you should like to have a copy. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. NAGELI. (Professor of Botany at Munich.) Down, June 12 [1866]. Dear Sir, I hope you will excuse the liberty which I take in writing to you. I have just read, though imperfectly, your 'Entstehung und Begriff,' and have been so greatly interested by it, that I have sent it to be translated, as I am a poor German scholar. I have just finished a new [4th] edition of my 'Origin,' which will be translated into German, and my object in writing to you is to say that if you should see this edition you would think that I had borrowed from you, without acknowledgment, two discussions on the beauty of flowers and fruit; but I assure you every word was printed off before I had opened your pamphlet. Should you like to possess a copy of either the German or English new edition, I should be proud to send one. I may add, with respect to the beauty of flowers, that I have already hinted the same views as you hold in my paper on Lythrum. Many of your criticisms on my views are the best which I have met with, but I could answer some, at least to my own satisfaction; and I regret extremely that I had not read your pamphlet before printing my new edition. On one or two points, I think, you have a little misunderstood me, though I dare say I have not been cautious in expressing myself. The remark which has struck me most, is that on the position of the leaves not having been acquired through natural selection, from not being of any special importance to the plant. I well remember being formerly troubled by an analogous difficulty, namely, the position of the ovules, their anatropous condition, etc. It was owing to forgetfulness that I did not notice this difficulty in the 'Origin.' (Nageli's Essay is noticed in the 5th edition.) Although I can offer no explanation of such facts, and only hope to see that they may be explained, yet I hardly see how they support the doctrine of some law of necessary development, for it is not clear to me that a plant, with its leaves placed at some particular angle, or with its ovules in some particular position, thus stands higher than another plant. But I must apologise for troubling you with these remarks. As I much wish to possess your photograph, I take the liberty of enclosing my own, and with sincere respect I remain, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, CH. DARWIN. [I give a few extracts from letters of various dates showing my father's interest, alluded to in the last letter, in the problem of the arrangement of the leaves on the stems of plants. It may be added that Professor Schwendener of Berlin has successfully attacked the question in his 'Mechanische Theorie der Blattstellungen,' 1878. TO DR. FALCONER. August 26 [1863]. "Do you remember telling me that I ought to study Phyllotaxy? Well I have often wished you at the bottom of the sea; for I could not resist, and I muddled my brains with diagrams, etc., and specimens, and made out, as might have been expected, nothing. Those angles are a most wonderful problem and I wish I could see some one give a rational explanation of them." TO DR. ASA GRAY. May 11 [1861]. "If you wish to save me from a miserable death, do tell me why the angles 1/2, 1/3, 2/5, 3/8, etc, series occur, and no other angles. It is enough to drive the quietest man mad. Did you and some mathematician (Probably my father was thinking of Chauncey Wright's work on Phyllotaxy, in Gould's 'Astronomical Journal,' No.99, 1856, and in the 'Mathematical Monthly,' 1859. These papers are mentioned in the "Letters of Chauncey Wright.' Mr. Wright corresponded with my father on the subject.) publish some paper on the subject? Hooker says you did; where is it? TO DR. ASA GRAY. [May 31, 1863?]. "I have been looking at Nageli's work on this subject, and am astonished to see that the angle is not always the same in young shoots when the leaf- buds are first distinguishable, as in full-grown branches. This shows, I think, that there must be some potent cause for those angles which do occur: I dare say there is some explanation as simple as that for the angles of the Bees-cells." My father also corresponded with Dr. Hubert Airy and was interested in his views on the subject, published in the Royal Soc. Proceedings, 1873, page 176. We now return to the year 1866. In November, when the prosecution of Governor Eyre was dividing England into two bitterly opposed parties, he wrote to Sir J. Hooker:-- "You will shriek at me when you hear that I have just subscribed to the Jamaica Committee." (He subscribed 10 pounds.) On this subject I quote from a letter of my brother's:-- "With respect to Governor Eyre's conduct in Jamaica, he felt strongly that J.S. Mill was right in prosecuting him. I remember one evening, at my Uncle's, we were talking on the subject, and as I happened to think it was too strong a measure to prosecute Governor Eyre for murder, I made some foolish remark about the prosecutors spending the surplus of the fund in a dinner. My father turned on me almost with fury, and told me, if those were my feelings, I had better go back to Southampton; the inhabitants having given a dinner to Governor Eyre on his landing, but with which I had had nothing to do." The end of the incident, as told by my brother, is so characteristic of my father that I cannot resist giving it, though it has no bearing on the point at issue. "Next morning at 7 o'clock, or so, he came into my bedroom and sat on my bed, and said that he had not been able to sleep from the thought that he had been so angry with me, and after a few more kind words he left me." The same restless desire to correct a disagreeable or incorrect impression is well illustrated in an extract which I quote from some notes by Rev. J. Brodie Innes:-- "Allied to the extreme carefulness of observation was his most remarkable truthfulness in all matters. On one occasion, when a parish meeting had been held on some disputed point of no great importance, I was surprised by a visit from Mr. Darwin at night. He came to say that, thinking over the debate, though what he had said was quite accurate, he thought I might have drawn an erroneous conclusion, and he would not sleep till he had explained it. I believe that if on any day some certain fact had come to his knowledge which contradicted his most cherished theories, he would have placed the fact on record for publication before he slept." This tallies with my father's habits, as described by himself. When a difficulty or an objection occurred to him, he thought it of paramount importance to make a note of it instantly because he found hostile facts to be especially evanescent. The same point is illustrated by the following incident, for which I am indebted to Mr. Romanes:-- "I have always remembered the following little incident as a good example of Mr. Darwin's extreme solicitude on the score of accuracy. One evening at Down there was a general conversation upon the difficulty of explaining the evolution of some of the distinctively human emotions, especially those appertaining to the recognition of beauty in natural scenery. I suggested a view of my own upon the subject, which, depending upon the principle of association, required the supposition that a long line of ancestors should have inhabited regions, the scenery of which is now regarded as beautiful. Just as I was about to observe that the chief difficulty attaching to my hypothesis arose from feelings of the sublime (seeing that these are associated with awe, and might therefore be expected not to be agreeable), Mr. Darwin anticipated the remark, by asking how the hypothesis was to meet the case of these feelings. In the conversation which followed, he said the occasion in his own life, when he was most affected by the emotions of the sublime was when he stood upon one of the summits of the Cordillera, and surveyed the magnificent prospect all around. It seemed, as he quaintly observed, as if his nerves had become fiddle strings, and had all taken to rapidly vibrating. This remark was only made incidentally, and the conversation passed into some other branch. About an hour afterwards Mr. Darwin retired to rest, while I sat up in the smoking-room with one of his sons. We continued smoking and talking for several hours, when at about one o'clock in the morning the door gently opened and Mr. Darwin appeared, in his slippers and dressing-gown. As nearly as I can remember, the following are the words he used:-- "'Since I went to bed I have been thinking over our conversation in the drawing-room, and it has just occurred to me that I was wrong in telling you I felt most of the sublime when on the top of the Cordillera; I am quite sure that I felt it even more when in the forests of Brazil. I thought it best to come and tell you this at once in case I should be putting you wrong. I am sure now that I felt most sublime in the forests.' "This was all he had come to say, and it was evident that he had come to do so, because he thought that the fact of his feeling 'most sublime in forests' was more in accordance with the hypothesis which we had been discussing, than the fact which he had previously stated. Now, as no one knew better than Mr. Darwin the difference between a speculation and a fact, I thought this little exhibition of scientific conscientiousness very noteworthy, where the only question concerned was of so highly speculative a character. I should not have been so much impressed if he had thought that by his temporary failure of memory he had put me on a wrong scent in any matter of fact, although even in such a case he is the only man I ever knew who would care to get out of bed at such a time at night in order to make the correction immediately, instead of waiting till next morning. But as the correction only had reference to a flimsy hypothesis, I certainly was very much impressed by this display of character."] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, December 10 [1866]. ...I have now read the last No. of H. Spencer. ('Principles of Biology.') I do not know whether to think it better than the previous number, but it is wonderfully clever, and I dare say mostly true. I feel rather mean when I read him: I could bear, and rather enjoy feeling that he was twice as ingenious and clever as myself, but when I feel that he is about a dozen times my superior, even in the master art of wriggling, I feel aggrieved. If he had trained himself to observe more, even if at the expense, by the law of balancement, of some loss of thinking power, he would have been a wonderful man. ...I am HEARTILY glad you are taking up the Distribution of Plants in New Zealand, and suppose it will make part of your new book. Your view, as I understand it, that New Zealand subsided and formed two or more small islands, and then rose again, seems to me extremely probable...When I puzzled my brains about New Zealand, I remember I came to the conclusion, as indeed I state in the 'Origin,' that its flora, as well as that of other southern lands, had been tinctured by an Antarctic flora, which must have existed before the Glacial period. I concluded that New Zealand never could have been closely connected with Australia, though I supposed it had received some few Australian forms by occasional means of transport. Is there any reason to suppose that New Zealand could have been more closely connected with South Australia during the glacial period, when the Eucalypti, etc., might have been driven further North? Apparently there remains only the line, which I think you suggested, of sunken islands from New Caledonia. Please remember that the Edwardsia was certainly drifted there by the sea. I remember in old days speculating on the amount of life, i.e. of organic chemical change, at different periods. There seems to me one very difficult element in the problem, namely, the state of development of the organic beings at each period, for I presume that a Flora and Fauna of cellular cryptogamic plants, of Protozoa and Radiata would lead to much less chemical change than is now going on. But I have scribbled enough. Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN. [The following letter is in acknowledgment of Mr. Rivers' reply to an earlier letter in which my father had asked for information on bud- variation: It may find a place here in illustration of the manner of my father's intercourse with those "whose avocations in life had to do with the rearing or use of living things" ("Mr. Dyer in 'Charles Darwin,'" "Nature Series", 1882, page 39.)--an intercourse which bore such good fruit in the 'Variation of Animals and Plants.' Mr. Dyer has some excellent remarks on the unexpected value thus placed on apparently trivial facts disinterred from weekly journals, or amassed by correspondence. He adds: "Horticulturists who had...moulded plants almost at their will at the impulse of taste or profit were at once amazed and charmed to find that they had been doing scientific work and helping to establish a great theory."] CHARLES DARWIN TO T. RIVERS. (The late Mr. Rivers was an eminent horticulturist and writer on horticulture.) Down, December 28 [1866?]. My dear Sir, Permit me to thank you cordially for your most kind letter. For years I have read with interest every scrap which you have written in periodicals, and abstracted in MS. your book on Roses, and several times I thought I would write to you, but did not know whether you would think me too intrusive. I shall, indeed, be truly obliged for any information you can supply me on bud-variation or sports. When any extra difficult points occur to me in my present subject (which is a mass of difficulties), I will apply to you, but I will not be unreasonable. It is most true what you say that any one to study well the physiology of the life of plants, ought to have under his eye a multitude of plants. I have endeavoured to do what I can by comparing statements by many writers and observing what I could myself. Unfortunately few have observed like you have done. As you are so kind, I will mention one other point on which I am collecting facts; namely, the effect produced on the stock by the graft; thus, it is SAID, that the purple-leaved filbert affects the leaves of the common hazel on which it is grafted (I have just procured a plant to try), so variegated jessamine is SAID to affect its stock. I want these facts partly to throw light on the marvellous laburnum Adami, trifacial oranges, etc. That laburnum case seems one of the strangest in physiology. I have now growing splendid, FERTILE, yellow laburnums (with a long raceme like the so-called Waterer's laburnum) from seed of yellow flowers on the C. Adami. To a man like myself, who is compelled to live a solitary life, and sees few persons, it is no slight satisfaction to hear that I have been able at all [to] interest by my books observers like yourself. As I shall publish on my present subject, I presume, within a year, it will be of no use your sending me the shoots of peaches and nectarines which you so kindly offer; I have recorded your facts. Permit me again to thank you cordially; I have not often in my life received a kinder letter. My dear Sir, yours sincerely, CH. DARWIN. CHAPTER 2.V. THE PUBLICATION OF THE 'VARIATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS UNDER DOMESTICATION.' JANUARY 1867, TO JUNE 1868. [At the beginning of the year 1867 he was at work on the final chapter-- "Concluding Remarks" of the 'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,' which was begun after the rest of the MS. had been sent to the printers in the preceding December. With regard to the publication of the book he wrote to Mr. Murray, on January 3:-- "I cannot tell you how sorry I am to hear of the enormous size of my book. (On January 9 he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker: "I have been these last few days vexed and annoyed to a foolish degree by hearing that my MS. on Dom. An. and Cult. Plants will make 2 volumes, both bigger than the 'Origin.' The volumes will have to be full-sized octavo, so I have written to Murray to suggest details to be printed in small type. But I feel that the size is quite ludicrous in relation to the subject. I am ready to swear at myself and at every fool who writes a book.") I fear it can never pay. But I cannot shorten it now; nor, indeed, if I had foreseen its length, do I see which parts ought to have been omitted. "If you are afraid to publish it, say so at once, I beg you, and I will consider your note as cancelled. If you think fit, get any one whose judgment you rely on, to look over some of the more legible chapters, namely, the Introduction, and on dogs and plants, the latter chapters being in my opinion, the dullest in the book...The list of chapters, and the inspection of a few here and there, would give a good judge a fair idea of the whole book. Pray do not publish blindly, as it would vex me all my life if I led you to heavy loss." Mr. Murray referred the MS. to a literary friend, and, in spite of a somewhat adverse opinion, willingly agreed to publish the book. My father wrote:-- "Your note has been a great relief to me. I am rather alarmed about the verdict of your friend, as he is not a man of science. I think if you had sent the 'Origin' to an unscientific man, he would have utterly condemned it. I am, however, VERY GLAD that you have consulted any one on whom you can rely. "I must add, that my 'Journal of Researches' was seen in MS. by an eminent semi-scientific man, and was pronounced unfit for publication." The proofs were begun in March, and the last revise was finished on November 15th, and during this period the only intervals of rest were two visits of a week each at his brother Erasmus's house in Queen Anne Street. He notes in his Diary:-- "I began this book [in the] beginning of 1860 (and then had some MS.), but owing to interruptions from my illness, and illness of children; from various editions of the 'Origin,' and Papers, especially Orchis book and Tendrils, I have spent four years and two months over it." The edition of 'Animals and Plants' was of 1500 copies, and of these 1260 were sold at Mr. Murray's autumnal sale, but it was not published until January 30, 1868. A new edition of 1250 copies was printed in February of the same year. In 1867 he received the distinction of being made a knight of the Prussian Order "Pour le Merite." (The Order "Pour le Merite" was founded in 1740 by Frederick II. by the re-christening of an "Order of Generosity," founded in 1665. It was at one time strictly military, having been previously both civil and military, and in 1840 the Order was again opened to civilians. The order consists of thirty members of German extraction, but distinguished foreigners are admitted to a kind of extraordinary membership. Faraday, Herschel, and Thomas Moore, have belonged to it in this way. From the thirty members a chancellor is elected by the king (the first officer of this kind was Alexander v. Humboldt); and it is the duty of the chancellor to notify a vacancy in the Order to the remainder of the thirty, who then elect by vote the new member--but the king has technically the appointment in his own hands.) He seems not to have known how great the distinction was, for in June 1868 he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker:-- "What a man you are for sympathy. I was made "Eques" some months ago, but did not think much about it. Now, by Jove, we all do; but you, in fact, have knighted me." The letters may now take up the story.] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 8 [1867]. My dear Hooker, I am heartily glad that you have been offered the Presidentship of the British Association, for it is a great honour, and as you have so much work to do, I am equally glad that you have declined it. I feel, however, convinced that you would have succeeded very well; but if I fancy myself in such a position, it actually makes my blood run cold. I look back with amazement at the skill and taste with which the Duke of Argyll made a multitude of little speeches at Glasgow. By the way, I have not seen the Duke's book ('The Reign of Law,' 1867.), but I formerly thought that some of the articles which appeared in periodicals were very clever, but not very profound. One of these was reviewed in the "Saturday Review" ("Saturday Review", November 15, 1862, 'The "Edinburgh Review" on the Supernatural.' Written by my cousin, Mr. Henry Parker.) some years ago, and the fallacy of some main argument was admirably exposed, and I sent the article to you, and you agreed strongly with it...There was the other day a rather good review of the Duke's book in the "Spectator", and with a new explanation, either by the Duke or the reviewer (I could not make out which), of rudimentary organs, namely, that economy of labour and material was a great guiding principle with God (ignoring waste of seed and of young monsters, etc.), and that making a new plan for the structure of animals was thought, and thought was labour, and therefore God kept to a uniform plan, and left rudiments. This is no exaggeration. In short, God is a man, rather cleverer than us...I am very much obliged for the "Nation" (returned by this post); it is ADMIRABLY good. You say I always guess wrong, but I do not believe any one, except Asa Gray, could have done the thing so well. I would bet even, or three to two, that it is Asa Gray, though one or two passages staggered me. I finish my book on 'Domestic Animals,' etc., by a single paragraph, answering, or rather throwing doubt, in so far as so little space permits, on Asa Gray's doctrine that each variation has been specially ordered or led along a beneficial line. It is foolish to touch such subjects, but there have been so many allusions to what I think about the part which God has played in the formation of organic beings (Prof. Judd allows me to quote from some notes which he has kindly given me:--"Lyell once told me that he had frequently been asked if Darwin was not one of the most unhappy of men, it being suggested that his outrage upon public opinion should have filled him with remorse." Sir Charles Lyell must have been able, I think, to give a satisfactory answer on this point. Professor Judd continues:-- "I made a note of this and other conversations of Lyell's at the time. At the present time such statements must appear strange to any one who does not recollect the revolution in opinion which has taken place during the last 23 years [1882]."), that I thought it shabby to evade the question...I have even received several letters on the subject...I overlooked your sentence about Providence, and suppose I treated it as Buckland did his own theology, when his Bridgewater Treatise was read aloud to him for correction... [The following letter, from Mrs. Boole, is one of those referred to in the last letter to Sir J.D. Hooker:] Dear Sir, Will you excuse my venturing to ask you a question, to which no one's answer but your own would be quite satisfactory? Do you consider the holding of your theory of Natural Selection, in its fullest and most unreserved sense, to be inconsistent--I do not say with any particular scheme of theological doctrine--but with the following belief, namely:-- That knowledge is given to man by the direct inspiration of the Spirit of God. That God is a personal and Infinitely good Being. That the effect of the action of the Spirit of God on the brain of man is especially a moral effect. And that each individual man has within certain limits a power of choice as to how far he will yield to his hereditary animal impulses, and how far he will rather follow the guidance of the Spirit, who is educating him into a power of resisting those impulses in obedience to moral motives? The reason why I ask you is this: my own impression has always been, not only that your theory was perfectly COMPATIBLE with the faith to which I have just tried to give expression, but that your books afforded me a clue which would guide me in applying that faith to the solution of certain complicated psychological problems which it was of practical importance to me as a mother to solve. I felt that you had supplied one of the missing links--not to say THE missing link--between the facts of science and the promises of religion. Every year's experience tends to deepen in me that impression. But I have lately read remarks on the probable bearing of your theory on religious and moral questions which have perplexed and pained me sorely. I know that the persons who make such remarks must be cleverer and wiser than myself. I cannot feel sure that they are mistaken, unless you will tell me so. And I think--I cannot know for certain--but I THINK--that if I were an author, I would rather that the humblest student of my works should apply to me directly in a difficulty, than that she should puzzle too long over adverse and probably mistaken or thoughtless criticisms. At the same time I feel that you have a perfect right to refuse to answer such questions as I have asked you. Science must take her path, and Theology hers, and they will meet when and where and how God pleases, and you are in no sense responsible for it if the meeting-point should still be very far off. If I receive no answer to this letter I shall infer nothing from your silence, except that you felt I had no right to make such enquiries of a stranger. [My father replied as follows:] Down, December 14, [1866]. Dear Madam, It would have gratified me much if I could have sent satisfactory answers to your questions, or, indeed, answers of any kind. But I cannot see how the belief that all organic beings, including man, have been genetically derived from some simple being, instead of having been separately created, bears on your difficulties. These, as it seems to me, can be answered only by widely different evidence from science, or by the so-called "inner consciousness." My opinion is not worth more than that of any other man who has thought on such subjects, and it would be folly in me to give it. I may, however, remark that it has always appeared to me more satisfactory to look at the immense amount of pain and suffering in this world as the inevitable result of the natural sequence of events, i.e. general laws, rather than from the direct intervention of God, though I am aware this is not logical with reference to an omniscient Deity. Your last question seems to resolve itself into the problem of free will and necessity, which has been found by most persons insoluble. I sincerely wish that this note had not been as utterly valueless as it is. I would have sent full answers, though I have little time or strength to spare, had it been in my power. I have the honour to remain, dear Madam, Yours very faithfully, CHARLES DARWIN. P.S.--I am grieved that my views should incidentally have caused trouble to your mind, but I thank you for your judgment, and honour you for it, that theology and science should each run its own course, and that in the present case I am not responsible if their meeting-point should still be far off. [The next letter discusses the 'Reign of Law,' referred to a few pages back:] CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, June 1 [1867]. ...I am at present reading the Duke, and am VERY MUCH interested by him; yet I cannot but think, clever as the whole is, that parts are weak, as when he doubts whether each curvature of the beak of humming-birds is of service to each species. He admits, perhaps too fully, that I have shown the use of each little ridge and shape of each petal in orchids, and how strange he does not extend the view to humming-birds. Still odder, it seems to me, all that he says on beauty, which I should have thought a nonentity, except in the mind of some sentient being. He might have as well said that love existed during the secondary or Palaeozoic periods. I hope you are getting on with your book better than I am with mine, which kills me with the labour of correcting, and is intolerably dull, though I did not think so when I was writing it. A naturalist's life would be a happy one if he had only to observe, and never to write. We shall be in London for a week in about a fortnight's time, and I shall enjoy having a breakfast talk with you. Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN. [The following letter refers to the new and improved translation of the 'Origin,' undertaken by Professor Carus:] CHARLES DARWIN TO J. VICTOR CARUS. Down, February 17 [1867]. My dear Sir, I have read your preface with care. It seems to me that you have treated Bronn with complete respect and great delicacy, and that you have alluded to your own labour with much modesty. I do not think that any of Bronn's friends can complain of what you say and what you have done. For my own sake, I grieve that you have not added notes, as I am sure that I should have profited much by them; but as you have omitted Bronn's objections, I believe that you have acted with excellent judgment and fairness in leaving the text without comment to the independent verdict of the reader. I heartily congratulate you that the main part of your labour is over; it would have been to most men a very troublesome task, but you seem to have indomitable powers of work, judging from those two wonderful and most useful volumes on zoological literature ('Bibliotheca Zoologica,' 1861.) edited by you, and which I never open without surprise at their accuracy, and gratitude for their usefulness. I cannot sufficiently tell you how much I rejoice that you were persuaded to superintend the translation of the present edition of my book, for I have now the great satisfaction of knowing that the German public can judge fairly of its merits and demerits... With my cordial and sincere thanks, believe me, My dear Sir, yours very faithfully, CH. DARWIN. [The earliest letter which I have seen from my father to Professor Haeckel, was written in 1865, and from that time forward they corresponded (though not, I think, with any regularity) up to the end of my father's life. His friendship with Haeckel was not nearly growth of correspondence, as was the case with some others, for instance, Fritz Muller. Haeckel paid more than one visit to Down, and these were thoroughly enjoyed by my father. The following letter will serve to show the strong feeling of regard which he entertained for his correspondent--a feeling which I have often heard him emphatically express, and which was warmly returned. The book referred to is Haeckel's 'Generelle Morphologie,' published in 1866, a copy of which my father received from the author in January 1867. Dr. E. Krause ('Charles Darwin und sein Verhaltniss zu Deutschland,' 1885.) has given a good account of Professor Haeckel's services to the cause of Evolution. After speaking of the lukewarm reception which the 'Origin' met with in Germany on its first publication, he goes on to describe the first adherents of the new faith as more or less popular writers, not especially likely to advance its acceptance with the professorial or purely scientific world. And he claims for Haeckel that it was his advocacy of Evolution in his 'Radiolaria' (1862), and at the "Versammlung" of Naturalists at Stettin in 1863, that placed the Darwinian question for the first time publicly before the forum of German science, and his enthusiastic propagandism that chiefly contributed to its success. Mr. Huxley, writing in 1869, paid a high tribute to Professor Haeckel as the Coryphaeus of the Darwinian movement in Germany. Of his 'Generelle Morphologie,' "an attempt to work out the practical application" of the doctrine of Evolution to their final results, he says that it has the "force and suggestiveness, and...systematising power of Oken without his extravagance." Professor Huxley also testifies to the value of Haeckel's 'Schopfungs-Geschichte' as an exposition of the 'Generelle Morphologie' "for an educated public." Again, in his 'Evolution in Biology' (An article in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' 9th edition, reprinted in 'Science and Culture,' 1881, page 298.), Mr. Huxley wrote: "Whatever hesitation may, not unfrequently, be felt by less daring minds, in following Haeckel in many of his speculations, his attempt to systematise the doctrine of Evolution, and to exhibit its influence as the central thought of modern biology, cannot fail to have a far-reaching influence on the progress of science." In the following letter my father alludes to the somewhat fierce manner in which Professor Haeckel fought the battle of 'Darwinismus,' and on this subject Dr. Krause has some good remarks (page 162). He asks whether much that happened in the heat of the conflict might not well have been otherwise, and adds that Haeckel himself is the last man to deny this. Nevertheless he thinks that even these things may have worked well for the cause of Evolution, inasmuch as Haeckel "concentrated on himself by his 'Ursprung des Menschen-Geschlechts,' his 'Generelle Morphologie,' and 'Schopfungs-Geschichte,' all the hatred and bitterness which Evolution excited in certain quarters," so that, "in a surprisingly short time it became the fashion in Germany that Haeckel alone should be abused, while Darwin was held up as the ideal of forethought and moderation."] CHARLES DARWIN TO E. HAECKEL. Down, May 21, 1867. Dear Haeckel, Your letter of the 18th has given me great pleasure, for you have received what I said in the most kind and cordial manner. You have in part taken what I said much stronger than I had intended. It never occurred to me for a moment to doubt that your work, with the whole subject so admirably and clearly arranged, as well as fortified by so many new facts and arguments, would not advance our common object in the highest degree. All that I think is that you will excite anger, and that anger so completely blinds every one, that your arguments would have no chance of influencing those who are already opposed to our views. Moreover, I do not at all like that you, towards whom I feel so much friendship, should unnecessarily make enemies, and there is pain and vexation enough in the world without more being caused. But I repeat that I can feel no doubt that your work will greatly advance our subject, and I heartily wish it could be translated into English, for my own sake and that of others. With respect to what you say about my advancing too strongly objections against my own views, some of my English friends think that I have erred on this side; but truth compelled me to write what I did, and I am inclined to think it was good policy. The belief in the descent theory is slowly spreading in England (In October 1867 he wrote to Mr. Wallace:--"Mr. Warrington has lately read an excellent and spirited abstract of the 'Origin' before the Victoria Institute, and as this is a most orthodox body, he has gained the name of the Devil's Advocate. The discussion which followed during three consecutive meetings is very rich from the nonsense talked. If you would care to see the number I could send it you."), even amongst those who can give no reason for their belief. No body of men were at first so much opposed to my views as the members of the London Entomological Society, but now I am assured that, with the exception of two or three old men, all the members concur with me to a certain extent. It has been a great disappointment to me that I have never received your long letter written to me from the Canary Islands. I am rejoiced to hear that your tour, which seems to have been a most interesting one, has done your health much good. I am working away at my new book, but make very slow progress, and the work tries my health, which is much the same as when you were here. Victor Carus is going to translate it, but whether it is worth translation, I am rather doubtful. I am very glad to hear that there is some chance of your visiting England this autumn, and all in this house will be delighted to see you here. Believe me, my dear Haeckel, Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO F. MULLER. Down, July 31 [1867]. My dear Sir, I received a week ago your letter of June 2, full as usual of valuable matter and specimens. It arrived at exactly the right time, for I was enabled to give a pretty full abstract of your observations on the plant's own pollen being poisonous. I have inserted this abstract in the proof- sheets in my chapter on sterility, and it forms the most striking part of my whole chapter. (In 'The Variation of Animals and Plants.') I thank you very sincerely for the most interesting observations, which, however, I regret that you did not publish independently. I have been forced to abbreviate one or two parts more than I wished...Your letters always surprise me, from the number of points to which you attend. I wish I could make my letters of any interest to you, for I hardly ever see a naturalist, and live as retired a life as you in Brazil. With respect to mimetic plants, I remember Hooker many years ago saying he believed that there were many, but I agree with you that it would be most difficult to distinguish between mimetic resemblance and the effects of peculiar conditions. Who can say to which of these causes to attribute the several plants with heath-like foliage at the Cape of Good Hope? Is it not also a difficulty that quadrupeds appear to recognise plants more by their [scent] than their appearance? What I have just said reminds me to ask you a question. Sir J. Lubbock brought me the other day what appears to be a terrestrial Planaria (the first ever found in the northern hemisphere) and which was coloured exactly like our dark-coloured slugs. Now slugs are not devoured by birds, like the shell-bearing species, and this made me remember that I found the Brazilian Planariae actually together with striped Vaginuli which I believe were similarly coloured. Can you throw any light on this? I wish to know, because I was puzzled some months ago how it would be possible to account for the bright colours of the Planariae in reference to sexual selection. By the way, I suppose they are hermaphrodites. Do not forget to aid me, if in your power, with answers to ANY of my questions on expression, for the subject interests me greatly. With cordial thanks for your never-failing kindness, believe me, Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, July 18 [1867]. My dear Lyell, Many thanks for your long letter. I am sorry to hear that you are in despair about your book (The 2nd volume of the 10th Edition of the 'Principles.'); I well know that feeling, but am now getting out of the lower depths. I shall be very much pleased, if you can make the least use of my present book, and do not care at all whether it is published before yours. Mine will appear towards the end of November of this year; you speak of yours as not coming out till November, 1868, which I hope may be an error. There is nothing about Man in my book which can interfere with you, so I will order all the completed clean sheets to be sent (and others as soon as ready) to you, but please observe you will not care for the first volume, which is a mere record of the amount of variation; but I hope the second will be somewhat more interesting. Though I fear the whole must be dull. I rejoice from my heart that you are going to speak out plainly about species. My book about Man, if published, will be short, and a large portion will be devoted to sexual selection, to which subject I alluded in the 'Origin' as bearing on Man... CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, August 22 [1867]. My dear Lyell, I thank you cordially for your last two letters. The former one did me REAL good, for I had got so wearied with the subject that I could hardly bear to correct the proofs (The proofs of 'Animals and Plants,' which Lyell was then reading.), and you gave me fresh heart. I remember thinking that when you came to the Pigeon chapter you would pass it over as quite unreadable. Your last letter has interested me in very many ways, and I have been glad to hear about those horrid unbelieving Frenchmen. I have been particularly pleased that you have noticed Pangenesis. I do not know whether you ever had the feeling of having thought so much over a subject that you had lost all power of judging it. This is my case with Pangenesis (which is 26 or 27 years old), but I am inclined to think that if it be admitted as a probable hypothesis it will be a somewhat important step in Biology. I cannot help still regretting that you have ever looked at the slips, for I hope to improve the whole a good deal. It is surprising to me, and delightful, that you should care in the least about the plants. Altogether you have given me one of the best cordials I ever had in my life, and I heartily thank you. I despatched this morning the French edition. (Of the 'Origin.' It appears that my father was sending a copy of the French edition to Sir Charles. The introduction was by Mdlle. Royer, who translated the book.) The introduction was a complete surprise to me, and I dare say has injured the book in France; nevertheless...it shows, I think, that the woman is uncommonly clever. Once again many thanks for the renewed courage with which I shall attack the horrid proof-sheets. Yours affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN. P.S.--A Russian who is translating my new book into Russian has been here, and says you are immensely read in Russia, and many editions--how many I forget. Six editions of Buckle and four editions of the 'Origin.' CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, October 16 [1867]. My dear Gray, I send by this post clean sheets of Volume I. up to page 336, and there are only 411 pages in this volume. I am VERY glad to hear that you are going to review my book; but if the "Nation" (The book was reviewed by Dr. Gray in the "Nation", March 19, 1868.) is a newspaper I wish it were at the bottom of the sea, for I fear that you will thus be stopped reviewing me in a scientific journal. The first volume is all details, and you will not be able to read it; and you must remember that the chapters on plants are written for naturalists who are not botanists. The last chapter in Volume I. is, however, I think, a curious compilation of facts; it is on bud- variation. In Volume II. some of the chapters are more interesting; and I shall be very curious to hear your verdict on the chapter on close inter- breeding. The chapter on what I call Pangenesis will be called a mad dream, and I shall be pretty well satisfied if you think it a dream worth publishing; but at the bottom of my own mind I think it contains a great truth. I finish my book with a semi-theological paragraph, in which I quote and differ from you; what you will think of it, I know not... CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, November 17 [1867]. My dear Hooker, Congratulate me, for I have finished the last revise of the last sheet of my book. It has been an awful job: seven and a half months correcting the press: the book, from much small type, does not look big, but is really very big. I have had hard work to keep up to the mark, but during the last week only few revises came, so that I have rested and feel more myself. Hence, after our long mutual silence, I enjoy myself by writing a note to you, for the sake of exhaling, and hearing from you. On account of the index (The index was made by Mr. W.S. Dallas; I have often heard my father express his admiration of this excellent piece of work.), I do not suppose that you will receive your copy till the middle of next month. I shall be intensely anxious to hear what you think about Pangenesis; though I can see how fearfully imperfect, even in mere conjectural conclusions, it is; yet it has been an infinite satisfaction to me somehow to connect the various large groups of facts, which I have long considered, by an intelligible thread. I shall not be at all surprised if you attack it and me with unparalleled ferocity. It will be my endeavour to do as little as possible for some time, but [I] shall soon prepare a paper or two for the Linnean Society. In a short time we shall go to London for ten days, but the time is not yet fixed. Now I have told you a deal about myself, and do let me hear a good deal about your own past and future doings. Can you pay us a visit, early in December?...I have seen no one for an age, and heard no news. ...About my book I will give you a bit of advice. Skip the WHOLE of Volume I., except the last chapter (and that need only be skimmed) and skip largely in the 2nd volume; and then you will say it is a very good book. 1868. ['The Variation of Animals and Plants' was, as already mentioned, published on January 30, 1868, and on that day he sent a copy to Fritz Muller, and wrote to him:-- "I send by this post, by French packet, my new book, the publication of which has been much delayed. The greater part, as you will see, is not meant to be read; but I should very much like to hear what you think of 'Pangenesis,' though I fear it will appear to EVERY ONE far too speculative."] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. February 3 [1868]. ...I am very much pleased at what you say about my Introduction; after it was in type I was as near as possible cancelling the whole. I have been for some time in despair about my book, and if I try to read a few pages I feel fairly nauseated, but do not let this make you praise it; for I have made up my mind that it is not worth a fifth part of the enormous labour it has cost me. I assure you that all that is worth your doing (if you have time for so much) is glancing at Chapter VI., and reading parts of the later chapters. The facts on self-impotent plants seem to me curious, and I have worked out to my own satisfaction the good from crossing and evil from interbreeding. I did read Pangenesis the other evening, but even this, my beloved child, as I had fancied, quite disgusted me. The devil take the whole book; and yet now I am at work again as hard as I am able. It is really a great evil that from habit I have pleasure in hardly anything except Natural History, for nothing else makes me forget my ever- recurrent uncomfortable sensations. But I must not howl any more, and the critics may say what they like; I did my best, and man can do no more. What a splendid pursuit Natural History would be if it was all observing and no writing!... CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 10 [1868]. My dear Hooker, What is the good of having a friend, if one may not boast to him? I heard yesterday that Murray has sold in a week the whole edition of 1500 copies of my book, and the sale so pressing that he has agreed with Clowes to get another edition in fourteen days! This has done me a world of good, for I had got into a sort of dogged hatred of my book. And now there has appeared a review in the "Pall Mall" which has pleased me excessively, more perhaps than is reasonable. I am quite content, and do not care how much I may be pitched into. If by any chance you should hear who wrote the article in the "Pall Mall", do please tell me; it is some one who writes capitally, and who knows the subject. I went to luncheon on Sunday, to Lubbock's, partly in hopes of seeing you, and, be hanged to you, you were not there. Your cock-a-hoop friend, C.D. [Independently of the favourable tone of the able series of notices in the "Pall Mall Gazette" (February 10, 15, 17, 1868), my father may well have been gratified by the following passages:-- "We must call attention to the rare and noble calmness with which he expounds his own views, undisturbed by the heats of polemical agitation which those views have excited, and persistently refusing to retort on his antagonists by ridicule, by indignation, or by contempt. Considering the amount of vituperation and insinuation which has come from the other side, this forbearance is supremely dignified." And again in the third notice, February 17:-- "Nowhere has the author a word that could wound the most sensitive self- love of an antagonist; nowhere does he, in text or note, expose the fallacies and mistakes of brother investigators...but while abstaining from impertinent censure, he is lavish in acknowledging the smallest debts he may owe; and his book will make many men happy." I am indebted to Messrs. Smith & Elder for the information that these articles were written by Mr. G.H. Lewes.] CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 23 [1868]. My dear Hooker, I have had almost as many letters to write of late as you can have, viz. from 8 to 10 per diem, chiefly getting up facts on sexual selection, therefore I have felt no inclination to write to you, and now I mean to write solely about my book for my own satisfaction, and not at all for yours. The first edition was 1500 copies, and now the second is printed off; sharp work. Did you look at the review in the "Athenaeum" ("Athenaeum", February 15, 1868. My father quoted Pouchet's assertion that "variation under domestication throws no light on the natural modification of species." The reviewer quotes the end of a passage in which my father declares that he can see no force in Pouchet's arguments, or rather assertions, and then goes on: "We are sadly mistaken if there are not clear proofs in the pages of the book before us that, on the contrary, Mr. Darwin has perceived, felt, and yielded to the force of the arguments or assertions of his French antagonist." The following may serve as samples of the rest of the review:-- "Henceforth the rhetoricians will have a better illustration of anti-climax than the mountain which brought forth a mouse,...in the discoverer of the origin of species, who tried to explain the variation of pigeons! "A few summary words. On the 'Origin of Species' Mr. Darwin has nothing, and is never likely to have anything, to say; but on the vastly important subject of inheritance, the transmission of peculiarities once acquired through successive generations, this work is a valuable store-house of facts for curious students and practical breeders."), showing profound contempt of me?...It is a shame that he should have said that I have taken much from Pouchet, without acknowledgment; for I took literally nothing, there being nothing to take. There is a capital review in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" which will sell the book if anything will. I don't quite see whether I or the writer is in a muddle about man CAUSING variability. If a man drops a bit of iron into sulphuric acid he does not cause the affinities to come into play, yet he may be said to make sulphate of iron. I do not know how to avoid ambiguity. After what the "Pall Mall Gazette" and the "Chronicle" have said I do not care a d--. I fear Pangenesis is stillborn; Bates says he has read it twice, and is not sure that he understands it. H. Spencer says the view is quite different from his (and this is a great relief to me, as I feared to be accused of plagiarism, but utterly failed to be sure what he meant, so thought it safest to give my view as almost the same as his), and he says he is not sure he understands it...Am I not a poor devil? yet I took such pains, I must think that I expressed myself clearly. Old Sir H. Holland says he has read it twice, and thinks it very tough; but believes that sooner or later "some view akin to it" will be accepted. You will think me very self-sufficient, when I declare that I feel SURE if Pangenesis is now stillborn it will, thank God, at some future time reappear, begotten by some other father, and christened by some other name. Have you ever met with any tangible and clear view of what takes place in generation, whether by seeds or buds, or how a long-lost character can possibly reappear; or how the male element can possibly affect the mother plant, or the mother animal, so that her future progeny are affected? Now all these points and many others are connected together, whether truly or falsely is another question, by Pangenesis. You see I die hard, and stick up for my poor child. This letter is written for my own satisfaction, and not for yours. So bear it. Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO A. NEWTON. (Prof. of Zoology at Cambridge.) Down, February 9 [1870]. Dear Newton, I suppose it would be universally held extremely wrong for a defendant to write to a Judge to express his satisfaction at a judgment in his favour; and yet I am going thus to act. I have just read what you have said in the 'Record' ('Zoological Record.' The volume for 1868, published December 1869.) about my pigeon chapters, and it has gratified me beyond measure. I have sometimes felt a little disappointed that the labour of so many years seemed to be almost thrown away, for you are the first man capable of forming a judgment (excepting partly Quatrefages), who seems to have thought anything of this part of my work. The amount of labour, correspondence, and care, which the subject cost me, is more than you could well suppose. I thought the article in the "Athenaeum" was very unjust; but now I feel amply repaid, and I cordially thank you for your sympathy and too warm praise. What labour you have bestowed on your part of the 'Record'! I ought to be ashamed to speak of my amount of work. I thoroughly enjoyed the Sunday, which you and the others spent here, and I remain, dear Newton, yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, February 27 [1868]. My dear Wallace, You cannot well imagine how much I have been pleased by what you say about 'Pangenesis.' None of my friends will speak out...Hooker, as far as I understand him, which I hardly do at present, seems to think that the hypothesis is little more than saying that organisms have such and such potentialities. What you say exactly and fully expresses my feeling, viz. that it is a relief to have some feasible explanation of the various facts, which can be given up as soon as any better hypothesis is found. It has certainly been an immense relief to my mind; for I have been stumbling over the subject for years, dimly seeing that some relation existed between the various classes of facts. I now hear from H. Spencer that his views quoted in my foot-note refer to something quite distinct, as you seem to have perceived. I shall be very glad to hear at some future day your criticisms on the "causes of variability." Indeed I feel sure that I am right about sterility and natural selection...I do not quite understand your case, and we think that a word or two is misplaced. I wish sometime you would consider the case under the following point of view:--If sterility is caused or accumulated through natural selection, than as every degree exists up to absolute barrenness, natural selection must have the power of increasing it. Now take two species, A and B, and assume that they are (by any means) half-sterile, i.e. produce half the full number of offspring. Now try and make (by natural selection) A and B absolutely sterile when crossed, and you will find how difficult it is. I grant indeed, it is certain, that the degree of sterility of the individuals A and B will vary, but any such extra-sterile individuals of, we will say A, if they should hereafter breed with other individuals of A, will bequeath no advantage to their progeny, by which these families will tend to increase in number over other families of A, which are not more sterile when crossed with B. But I do not know that I have made this any clearer than in the chapter in my book. It is a most difficult bit of reasoning, which I have gone over and over again on paper with diagrams. ...Hearty thanks for your letter. You have indeed pleased me, for I had given up the great god Pan as a stillborn deity. I wish you could be induced to make it clear with your admirable powers of elucidation in one of the scientific journals... CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 28 [1868]. My dear Hooker, I have been deeply interested by your letter, and we had a good laugh over Huxley's remark, which was so deuced clever that you could not recollect it. I cannot quite follow your train of thought, for in the last page you admit all that I wish, having apparently denied all, or thought all mere words in the previous pages of your note; but it may be my muddle. I see clearly that any satisfaction which Pan may give will depend on the constitution of each man's mind. If you have arrived already at any similar conclusion, the whole will of course appear stale to you. I heard yesterday from Wallace, who says (excuse horrid vanity), "I can hardly tell you how much I admire the chapter on 'Pangenesis.' It is a POSITIVE COMFORT to me to have any feasible explanation of a difficulty that has always been haunting me, and I shall never be able to give it up till a better one supplies its place, and that I think hardly possible, etc." Now his foregoing [italicised] words express my sentiments exactly and fully: though perhaps I feel the relief extra strongly from having during many years vainly attempted to form some hypothesis. When you or Huxley say that a single cell of a plant, or the stump of an amputated limb, have the "potentiality" of reproducing the whole--or "diffuse an influence," these words give me no positive idea;--but when it is said that the cells of a plant, or stump, include atoms derived from every other cell of the whole organism and capable of development, I gain a distinct idea. But this idea would not be worth a rush, if it applied to one case alone; but it seems to me to apply to all the forms of reproduction--inheritance--metamorphosis-- to the abnormal transposition of organs--to the direct action of the male element on the mother plant, etc. Therefore I fully believe that each cell does ACTUALLY throw off an atom or gemmule of its contents;--but whether or not, this hypothesis serves as a useful connecting link for various grand classes of physiological facts, which at present stand absolutely isolated. I have touched on the doubtful point (alluded to by Huxley) how far atoms derived from the same cell may become developed into different structure accordingly as they are differently nourished; I advanced as illustrations galls and polypoid excrescences... It is a real pleasure to me to write to you on this subject, and I should be delighted if we can understand each other; but you must not let your good nature lead you on. Remember, we always fight tooth and nail. We go to London on Tuesday, first for a week to Queen Anne Street, and afterwards to Miss Wedgwood's, in Regent's Park, and stay the whole month, which, as my gardener truly says, is a "terrible thing" for my experiments. CHARLES DARWIN TO W. OGLE. (Dr. William Ogle, now the Superintendent of Statistics to the Registrar-General.) Down, March 6 [1868]. Dear Sir, I thank you most sincerely for your letter, which is very interesting to me. I wish I had known of these views of Hippocrates before I had published, for they seem almost identical with mine--merely a change of terms--and an application of them to classes of facts necessarily unknown to the old philosopher. The whole case is a good illustration of how rarely anything is new. Hippocrates has taken the wind out of my sails, but I care very little about being forestalled. I advance the views merely as a provisional hypothesis, but with the secret expectation that sooner or later some such view will have to be admitted. ...I do not expect the reviewers will be so learned as you: otherwise, no doubt, I shall be accused of wilfully stealing Pangenesis from Hippocrates,--for this is the spirit some reviewers delight to show. CHARLES DARWIN TO VICTOR CARUS. Down, March 21 [1868]. ...I am very much obliged to you for sending me so frankly your opinion on Pangenesis, and I am sorry it is unfavourable, but I cannot quite understand your remark on pangenesis, selection, and the struggle for life not being more methodical. I am not at all surprised at your unfavourable verdict; I know many, probably most, will come to the same conclusion. One English Review says it is much too complicated...Some of my friends are enthusiastic on the hypothesis...Sir C. Lyell says to every one, "you may not believe in 'Pangenesis,' but if you once understand it, you will never get it out of your mind." And with this criticism I am perfectly content. All cases of inheritance and reversion and development now appear to me under a new light... [An extract from a letter to Fritz Muller, though of later date (June), may be given here:-- "Your letter of April 22 has much interested me. I am delighted that you approve of my book, for I value your opinion more than that of almost any one. I have yet hopes that you will think well of Pangenesis. I feel sure that our minds are somewhat alike, and I find it a great relief to have some definite, though hypothetical view, when I reflect on the wonderful transformations of animals,--the re-growth of parts,--and especially the direct action of pollen on the mother-form, etc. It often appears to me almost certain that the characters of the parents are "photographed" on the child, only by means of material atoms derived from each cell in both parents, and developed in the child."] CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, May 8 [1868]. My dear Gray, I have been a most ungrateful and ungracious man not to have written to you an immense time ago to thank you heartily for the "Nation", and for all your most kind aid in regard to the American edition [of 'Animals and Plants']. But I have been of late overwhelmed with letters, which I was forced to answer, and so put off writing to you. This morning I received the American edition (which looks capital), with your nice preface, for which hearty thanks. I hope to heaven that the book will succeed well enough to prevent you repenting of your aid. This arrival has put the finishing stroke to my conscience, which will endure its wrongs no longer. ...Your article in the "Nation" [March 19] seems to me very good, and you give an excellent idea of Pangenesis--an infant cherished by few as yet, except his tender parent, but which will live a long life. There is parental presumption for you! You give a good slap at my concluding metaphor (A short abstract of the precipice metaphor is given in Volume I. Dr. Gray's criticism on this point is as follows: "But in Mr. Darwin's parallel, to meet the case of nature according to his own view of it, not only the fragments of rock (answering to variation) should fall, but the edifice (answering to natural selection) should rise, irrespective of will or choice!" But my father's parallel demands that natural selection shall be the architect, not the edifice--the question of design only comes in with regard to the form of the building materials.): undoubtedly I ought to have brought in and contrasted natural and artificial selection; but it seems so obvious to me that natural selection depended on contingencies even more complex than those which must have determined the shape of each fragment at the base of my precipice. What I wanted to show was that in reference to pre-ordainment whatever holds good in the formation of a pouter pigeon holds good in the formation of a natural species of pigeon. I cannot see that this is false. If the right variations occurred, and no others, natural selection would be superfluous. A reviewer in an Edinburgh paper, who treats me with profound contempt, says on this subject that Professor Asa Gray could with the greatest ease smash me into little pieces. (The "Daily Review", April 27, 1868. My father has given rather a highly coloured version of the reviewer's remarks: "We doubt not that Professor Asa Gray...could show that natural selection...is simply an instrument in the hands of an omnipotent and omniscient creator." The reviewer goes on to say that the passage in question is a "very melancholy one," and that the theory is the "apotheosis of materialism.") Believe me, my dear Gray, Your ungrateful but sincere friend, CHARLES DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO G. BENTHAM. Down, June 23, 1868. My dear Mr. Bentham, As your address (Presidential Address to the Linnean Society.) is somewhat of the nature of a verdict from a judge, I do not know whether it is proper for me to do so, but I must and will thank you for the pleasure which you have given me. I am delighted at what you say about my book. I got so tired of it, that for months together I thought myself a perfect fool for having given up so much time in collecting and observing little facts, but now I do not care if a score of common critics speak as contemptuously of the book as did the "Athenaeum". I feel justified in this, for I have so complete a reliance on your judgment that I feel certain that I should have bowed to your judgment had it been as unfavourable as it is the contrary. What you say about Pangenesis quite satisfies me, and is as much perhaps as any one is justified in saying. I have read your whole Address with the greatest interest. It must have cost you a vast amount of trouble. With cordial thanks, pray believe me, Yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN. P.S.--I fear that it is not likely that you have a superfluous copy of your Address; if you have, I should much like to send one to Fritz Muller in the interior of Brazil. By the way let me add that I discussed bud-variation chiefly from a belief which is common to several persons, that all variability is related to sexual generation; I wished to show clearly that this was an error. [The above series of letters may serve to show to some extent the reception which the new book received. Before passing on (in the next chapter) to the 'Descent of Man,' I give a letter referring to the translation of Fritz Muller's book, 'Fur Darwin,' it was originally published in 1864, but the English translation, by Mr. Dallas, which bore the title suggested by Sir C. Lyell, of 'Facts and Arguments for Darwin,' did not appear until 1869:] CHARLES DARWIN TO F. MULLER. Down, March 16 [1868]. My dear Sir, Your brother, as you will have heard from him, felt so convinced that you would not object to a translation of 'Fur Darwin' (In a letter to Fritz Muller, my father wrote:--"I am vexed to see that on the title my name is more conspicuous than yours, which I especially objected to, and I cautioned the printers after seeing one proof."), that I have ventured to arrange for a translation. Engelmann has very liberally offered me cliches of the woodcuts for 22 thalers; Mr. Murray has agreed to bring out a translation (and he is our best publisher) on commission, for he would not undertake the work on his own risk; and I have agreed with Mr. W.S. Dallas (who has translated Von Siebold on Parthenogenesis, and many German works, and who writes very good English) to translate the book. He thinks (and he is a good judge) that it is important to have some few corrections or additions, in order to account for a translation appearing so lately [i.e. at such a long interval of time] after the original; so that I hope you will be able to send some... [Two letters may be placed here as bearing on the spread of Evolutionary ideas in France and Germany:] CHARLES DARWIN TO A. GAUDRY. Down, January 21 [1868]. Dear Sir, I thank you for your interesting essay on the influence of the Geological features of the country on the mind and habits of the Ancient Athenians (This appears to refer to M. Gaudry's paper translated in the 'Geol. Mag.,' 1868, page 372.), and for your very obliging letter. I am delighted to hear that you intend to consider the relations of fossil animals in connection with their genealogy; it will afford you a fine field for the exercise of your extensive knowledge and powers of reasoning. Your belief will I suppose, at present, lower you in the estimation of your countrymen; but judging from the rapid spread in all parts of Europe, excepting France, of the belief in the common descent of allied species, I must think that this belief will before long become universal. How strange it is that the country which gave birth to Buffon, the elder Geoffroy, and especially to Lamarck, should now cling so pertinaciously to the belief that species are immutable creations. My work on Variation, etc., under domestication, will appear in a French translation in a few months' time, and I will do myself the pleasure and honour of directing the publisher to send a copy to you to the same address as this letter. With sincere respect, I remain, dear sir, Yours very faithfully, CHARLES DARWIN. [The next letter is of especial interest, as showing how high a value my father placed on the support of the younger German naturalists:] CHARLES DARWIN TO W. PREYER. (Now Professor of Physiology at Jena.) March 31, 1868. ...I am delighted to hear that you uphold the doctrine of the Modification of Species, and defend my views. The support which I receive from Germany is my chief ground for hoping that our views will ultimately prevail. To the present day I am continually abused or treated with contempt by writers of my own country; but the younger naturalists are almost all on my side, and sooner or later the public must follow those who make the subject their special study. The abuse and contempt of ignorant writers hurts me very little... CHAPTER 2.VI. WORK ON 'MAN.' 1864-1870. [In the autobiographical chapter in Volume I., my father gives the circumstances which led to his writing the 'Descent of Man.' He states that his collection of facts, begun in 1837 or 1838, was continued for many years without any definite idea of publishing on the subject. The following letter to Mr. Wallace shows that in the period of ill-health and depression about 1864 he despaired of ever being able to do so:] CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, [May?] 28 [1864]. Dear Wallace, I am so much better that I have just finished a paper for Linnean Society (On the three forms, etc., of Lythrum.); but I am not yet at all strong, I felt much disinclination to write, and therefore you must forgive me for not having sooner thanked you for your paper on 'Man' ('Anthropological Review,' March 1864.), received on the 11th. But first let me say that I have hardly ever in my life been more struck by any paper than that on 'Variation,' etc. etc., in the "Reader". ('"Reader", April 16, 1864. "On the Phenomena of Variation," etc. Abstract of a paper read before the Linnean Society, March 17, 1864.) I feel sure that such papers will do more for the spreading of our views on the modification of species than any separate Treatises on the simple subject itself. It is really admirable; but you ought not in the Man paper to speak of the theory as mine; it is just as much yours as mine. One correspondent has already noticed to me your "high-minded" conduct on this head. But now for your Man paper, about which I should like to write more than I can. The great leading idea is quite new to me, viz. that during late ages, the mind will have been modified more than the body; yet I had got as far as to see with you that the struggle between the races of man depended entirely on intellectual and MORAL qualities. The latter part of the paper I can designate only as grand and most eloquently done. I have shown your paper to two or three persons who have been here, and they have been equally struck with it. I am not sure that I go with you on all minor points: when reading Sir G. Grey's account of the constant battles of Australian savages, I remember thinking that natural selection would come in, and likewise with the Esquimaux, with whom the art of fishing and managing canoes is said to be hereditary. I rather differ on the rank, under a classificatory point of view, which you assign to man; I do not think any character simply in excess ought ever to be used for the higher divisions. Ants would not be separated from other hymenopterous insects, however high the instinct of the one, and however low the instincts of the other. With respect to the differences of race, a conjecture has occurred to me that much may be due to the correlation of complexion (and consequently hair) with constitution. Assume that a dusky individual best escaped miasma, and you will readily see what I mean. I persuaded the Director-General of the Medical Department of the Army to send printed forms to the surgeons of all regiments in tropical countries to ascertain this point, but I dare say I shall never get any returns. Secondly, I suspect that a sort of sexual selection has been the most powerful means of changing the races of man. I can show that the different races have a widely different standard of beauty. Among savages the most powerful men will have the pick of the women, and they will generally leave the most descendants. I have collected a few notes on man, but I do not suppose that I shall ever use them. Do you intend to follow out your views, and if so, would you like at some future time to have my few references and notes? I am sure I hardly know whether they are of any value, and they are at present in a state of chaos. There is much more that I should like to write, but I have not strength. Believe me, dear Wallace, yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN. P.S.--Our aristocracy is handsomer (more hideous according to a Chinese or Negro) than the middle classes, from (having the) pick of the women; but oh, what a scheme is primogeniture for destroying natural selection! I fear my letter will be barely intelligible to you. [In February 1867, when the manuscript of 'Animals and Plants' had been sent to Messrs. Clowes to be printed, and before the proofs began to come in, he had an interval of spare time, and began a "chapter on Man," but he soon found it growing under his hands, and determined to publish it separately as a "very small volume." The work was interrupted by the necessity of correcting the proofs of 'Animals and Plants,' and by some botanical work, but was resumed in the following year, 1868, the moment he could give himself up to it. He recognized with regret the gradual change in his mind that rendered continuous work more and more necessary to him as he grew older. This is expressed in a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker, June 17, 1868, which repeats to some extent what is expressed in the Autobiography:-- "I am glad you were at the 'Messiah,' it is the one thing that I should like to hear again, but I dare say I should find my soul too dried up to appreciate it as in old days; and then I should feel very flat, for it is a horrid bore to feel as I constantly do, that I am a withered leaf for every subject except Science. It sometimes makes me hate Science, though God knows I ought to be thankful for such a perennial interest, which makes me forget for some hours every day my accursed stomach." The work on Man was interrupted by illness in the early summer of 1868, and he left home on July 16th for Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, where he remained with his family until August 21st. Here he made the acquaintance of Mrs. Cameron. She received the whole family with open-hearted kindness and hospitality, and my father always retained a warm feeling of friendship for her. She made an excellent photograph of him, which was published with the inscription written by him: "I like this photograph very much better than any other which has been taken of me." Further interruption occurred in the autumn so that continuous work on the 'Descent of Man' did not begin until 1869. The following letters give some idea of the earlier work in 1867:] CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, February 22, [1867?]. My dear Wallace, I am hard at work on sexual selection, and am driven half mad by the number of collateral points which require investigation, such as the relative number of the two sexes, and especially on polygamy. Can you aid me with respect to birds which have strongly marked secondary sexual characters, such as birds of paradise, humming-birds, the Rupicola, or any other such cases? Many gallinaceous birds certainly are polygamous. I suppose that birds may be known not to be polygamous if they are seen during the whole breeding season to associate in pairs, or if the male incubates or aids in feeding the young. Will you have the kindness to turn this in your mind? But it is a shame to trouble you now that, as I am HEARTILY glad to hear, you are at work on your Malayan travels. I am fearfully puzzled how far to extend your protective views with respect to the females in various classes. The more I work the more important sexual selection apparently comes out. Can butterflies be polygamous! i.e. will one male impregnate more than one female? Forgive me troubling you, and I dare say I shall have to ask forgiveness again... CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, February 23 [1867]. Dear Wallace, I much regretted that I was unable to call on you, but after Monday I was unable even to leave the house. On Monday evening I called on Bates, and put a difficulty before him, which he could not answer, and, as on some former similar occasion, his first suggestion was, "You had better ask Wallace." My difficulty is, why are caterpillars sometimes so beautifully and artistically coloured? Seeing that many are coloured to escape danger, I can hardly attribute their bright colour in other cases to mere physical conditions. Bates says the most gaudy caterpillar he ever saw in Amazonia (of a sphinx) was conspicuous at the distance of yards, from its black and red colours, whilst feeding on large green leaves. If any one objected to male butterflies having been made beautiful by sexual selection, and asked why should they not have been made beautiful as well as their caterpillars, what would you answer? I could not answer, but should maintain my ground. Will you think over this, and some time, either by letter or when we meet, tell me what you think? Also I want to know whether your FEMALE mimetic butterfly is more beautiful and brighter than the male. When next in London I must get you to show me your kingfishers. My health is a dreadful evil; I failed in half my engagements during this last visit to London. Believe me, yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN. CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, February 26 [1867].