LETTER 71. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, April 6th, 1859.

I this morning received your pleasant and friendly note of November 30th. The first part of my MS. is in Murray's hands to see if he likes to publish it. There is no preface, but a short introduction, which must be read by every one who reads my book. The second paragraph in the introduction (71/1. "Origin of Species," Edition I., 1859, pages 1 and 2.) I have had copied verbatim from my foul copy, and you will, I hope, think that I have fairly noticed your paper in the "Linn. Journal." (71/2. "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties, and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection." By Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace. Communicated by Sir Charles Lyell and J.D. Hooker. "Journ. Linn. Soc." Volume III., page 45, 1859. (Read July 1st, 1858.)) You must remember that I am now publishing only an abstract, and I give no references. I shall, of course, allude to your paper on distribution (71/3. "On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species" (A.R. Wallace). "Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XVI., page 184, 1855. The law alluded to is thus stated by Wallace: "Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species" (loc. cit., page 186).); and I have added that I know from correspondence that your explanation of your law is the same as that which I offer. You are right, that I came to the conclusion that selection was the principle of change from the study of domesticated productions; and then, reading Malthus, I saw at once how to apply this principle. Geographical distribution and geological relations of extinct to recent inhabitants of South America first led me to the subject: especially the case of the Galapagos Islands. I hope to go to press in the early part of next month. It will be a small volume of about five hundred pages or so. I will of course send you a copy. I forget whether I told you that Hooker, who is our best British botanist and perhaps the best in the world, is a full convert, and is now going immediately to publish his confession of faith; and I expect daily to see proof-sheets. (71/4. "The Flora of Australia, etc., an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania." London 1859.) Huxley is changed, and believes in mutation of species: whether a convert to us, I do not quite know. We shall live to see all the younger men converts. My neighbour and an excellent naturalist, J. Lubbock, is an enthusiastic convert. I see that you are doing great work in the Archipelago; and most heartily do I sympathise with you. For God's sake take care of your health. There have been few such noble labourers in the cause of Natural Science as you are.

P.S. You cannot tell how I admire your spirit, in the manner in which you have taken all that was done about publishing all our papers. I had actually written a letter to you, stating that I would not publish anything before you had published. I had not sent that letter to the post when I received one from Lyell and Hooker, urging me to send some MS. to them, and allow them to act as they thought fair and honestly to both of us; and I did so.

(71/5. The following is the passage from the Introduction to the "Origin of Species," referred to in the first paragraph of the above letter.)

"My work is now nearly finished; but as it will take me two or three years more to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this Abstract. I have more especially been induced to do this, as Mr. Wallace, who is now studying the Natural History of the Malay Archipelago, has arrived at almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have on the origin of species. Last year he sent to me a memoir on this subject, with a request that I would forward it to Sir Charles Lyell, who sent it to the Linnean Society, and it is published in the third volume of the Journal of that Society. Sir C. Lyell and Dr. Hooker, who both knew of my work—the latter having read my sketch of 1844—honoured me by thinking it advisable to publish, with Mr. Wallace's excellent memoir, some brief extracts from my manuscripts."

LETTER 72. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, May 3rd, 1859.

With respect to reversion, I have been raking up vague recollections of vague facts; and the impression on my mind is rather more in favour of reversion than it was when you were here.

In my abstract (72/1. "The Origin of Species.") I give only a paragraph on the general case of reversion, though I enter in detail on some cases of reversion of a special character. I have not as yet put all my facts on this subject in mass, so can come to no definite conclusion. But as single characters may revert, I must say that I see no improbability in several reverting. As I do not believe any well-founded experiments or facts are known, each must form his opinion from vague generalities. I think you confound two rather distinct considerations; a variation arises from any cause, and reversion is not opposed to this, but solely to its inheritance. Not but what I believe what we must call perhaps a dozen distinct laws are all struggling against each other in every variation which ever arises. To give my impression, if I were forced to bet whether or not, after a hundred generations of growth in a poor sandy soil, a cauliflower and red cabbage would or would not revert to the same form, I must say I would rather stake my money that they would. But in such a case the conditions of life are changed (and here comes the question of direct influence of condition), and there is to be no selection, the comparatively sudden effect of man's selection are left to the free play of reversion.

In short, I dare not come to any conclusion without comparing all facts which I have collected, and I do not think there are many.

Please do not say to any one that I thought my book on species would be fairly popular and have a fairly remunerative sale (which was the height of my ambition), for if it prove a dead failure it would make me the more ridiculous.

LETTER 73. TO W.H. MILLER. Down, June 5th {1859}.

I thank you much for your letter. Had I seen the interest of my remark I would have made many more measurements, though I did make several. I stated the facts merely to give the general reader an idea of the thickness of the walls. (73/1. The walls of bees' cells: see Letter 173.)

Especially if I had seen that the fact had any general bearing, I should have stated that as far as I could measure, the walls are by no means perfectly of the same thickness. Also I should have stated that the chief difference is when the thickness of walls of the upper part of the hexagon and of the pyramidal basal plates are contrasted. Will you oblige me by looking with a strong lens at the bit of comb, brushing off with a knife the upper thickened edges, and then compare, by eye alone, the thickness of the walls there with the thickness of the basal plates, as seen in any cross section. I should very much like to hear whether, even in this way, the difference is not perceptible. It is generally thus perceptible by comparing the thickness of the walls of the hexagon (if not taken very close to the angle) near to the basal plates, where the comparison by eye is of course easier. Your letter actually turned me sick with panic; from not seeing any great importance {in the} fact, till I looked at my notes, I did not remember that I made several measurements. I have now repeated the same measurements, roughly with the same general results, but the difference, I think, is hardly double.

I should not have mentioned the thickness of the basal plates at all, had I not thought it would give an unfair notion of the thickness of the walls to state the lesser measurements alone.

LETTER 74. TO W.H. MILLER. {1859}

I had no thought that you would measure the thickness of the walls of the cells; but if you will, and allow me to give your measurements, it will be an immense advantage. As it is no trouble, I send more specimens. If you measure, please observe that I measured the thickness of the walls of the hexagonal prisms not very near the base; but from your very interesting remarks the lower part of the walls ought to be measured.

Thank you for the suggestion about how bees judge of angles and distances. I will keep it in mind. It is a complete perplexity to me, and yet certainly insects can rudely somehow judge of distance. There are special difficulties on account of the gradation in size between the worker-scells and the larger drone-cells. I am trying to test the case practically by getting combs of different species, and of our own bee from different climates. I have lately had some from the W. Indies of our common bee, but the cells SEEM certainly to be larger; but they have not yet been carefully measured. I will keep your suggestion in mind whenever I return to experiments on living bees; but that will not be soon.

As you have been considering my little discussion in relation to Lord Brougham (74/1. Lord Brougham's paper on "The Mathematical Structure of Bees' Cells," read before the National Institute of France in May, 1858.), and as I have been more vituperated for this part than for almost any other, I should like just to tell you how I think the case stands. The discussion viewed by itself is worth little more than the paper on which it is printed, except in so far as it contains three or four certainly new facts. But to those who are inclined to believe the general truth of the conclusion that species and their instincts are slowly modified by what I call Natural Selection, I think my discussion nearly removes a very great difficulty. I believe in its truth chiefly from the existence of the Melipona, which makes a comb so intermediate in structure between that of the humble and hive-bee, and especially from the new and curious fact of the bees making smooth cups or saucers when they excavated in a thick piece of wax, which saucers stood so close that hexagons were built on their intersecting edges. And, lastly, because when they excavated on a thin slip of wax, the excavation on both sides of similar smooth basins was stopped, and flat planes left between the nearly opposed basins. If my view were wholly false these cases would, I think, never have occurred. Sedgwick and Co. may abuse me to their hearts' content, but I shall as yet continue to think that mine is a rational explanation (as far as it goes) of their method of work.

LETTER 75. TO W.H. MILLER.

Down, December 1st {1859}.

Some months ago you were so kind as to say you would measure the thickness of the walls of the basal and side plates of the cell of the bee. Could you find time to do so soon? Why I want it soon, is that I have lately heard from Murray that he sold at his sale far more copies than he has of the "Origin of Species," and that I must immediately prepare a new edition, which I am now correcting. By the way, I hear from Murray that all the attacks heaped on my book do not seem to have at all injured the sale, which will make poor dear old Sedgwick groan. If the basal plates and walls do differ considerably in thickness, as they certainly did in the one or two cells which I measured without particular care (as I never thought the point of any importance), will you tell me the bearing of the fact as simply as you can, for the chance of one so stupid as I am in geometry being able to understand?

Would the greater thickness of the basal plates and of the rim of the hexagons be a good adaptation to carry the vertical weight of the cells filled with honey and supporting clusters of living bees?

Will you endeavour to screw out time and grant me this favour?

P.S. If the result of your measurement of the thickness of the walls turns out at all what I have asserted, would it not be worth while to write a little bit of a paper on the subject of your former note; and "pluck" the bees if they deserve this degradation? Many mathematicians seem to have thought the subject worthy of attention. When the cells are full of honey and hang vertically they have to support a great weight. Can the thicker basal plates be a contrivance to give strength to the whole comb, with less consumption of wax, than if all the sides of the hexagons were thickened?

This crude notion formerly crossed my mind; but of course it is beyond me even to conjecture how the case would be.

A mathematician, Mr. Wright, has been writing on the geometry of bee-cells in the United States in consequence of my book; but I can hardly understand his paper. (75/1. Chauncey Wright, "Remarks on the Architecture of Bees" ("Amer. Acad. Proc." IV., 1857-60, page 432.)

LETTER 76. TO T.H. HUXLEY.

(76/1. The date of this letter is unfortunately doubtful, otherwise it would prove that at an early date he was acquainted with Erasmus Darwin's views on evolution, a fact which has not always been recognised. We can hardly doubt that it was written in 1859, for at this time Mr. Huxley was collecting facts about breeding for his lecture given at the Royal Institution on February 10th, 1860, on "Species and Races and their Origin." See "Life and Letters," II., page 281.)

Down {June?} 9 {1859?}.

If on the 11th you have half an hour to spare, you might like to see a very good show of pigeons, and the enclosed card will admit you.

The history of error is quite unimportant, but it is curious to observe how exactly and accurately my grandfather (in "Zoonomia," Volume I., page 504, 1794) gives Lamarck's theory. I will quote one sentence. Speaking of birds' beaks, he says: "All which seem to have been gradually produced during many generations by the perpetual endeavour of the creatures to supply the want of food, and to have been delivered to their posterity with constant improvement of them for the purposes required." Lamarck published "Hist. Zoolog." in 1809. The "Zoonomia" was translated into many languages.

LETTER 77. TO C. LYELL. Down, 28 {June 1859}.

It is not worth while troubling you, but my conscience is uneasy at having forgotten to thank you for your "Etna" (77/1. "On the Structure of Lavas which have been consolidated on Steep Slopes, with remarks on the Mode of Origin of Mount Etna, and on the Theory of 'Craters of Elevation'" ("Phil. Trans. R. Soc." Volume CXLVIII., 1858, page 703).), which seems to me a magnificent contribution to volcanic geology, and I should think you might now rest on your oars in this department.

As soon as ever I can get a copy of my book (77/2. "The Origin of Species," London, 1859.) ready, in some six weeks' or two months' time, it shall be sent you; and if you approve of it, even to a moderate extent, it will be the highest satisfaction which I shall ever receive for an amount of labour which no one will ever appreciate.

LETTER 78. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(78/1. The reference in the following letter is to the proofs of Hooker's "Australian Flora.")

Down, 28 {July 1859}.

The returned sheet is chiefly that which I received in MS. Parts seem to me (though perhaps it may be forgetfulness) much improved, and I retain my former impression that the whole discussion on the Australian flora is admirably good and original. I know you will understand and not object to my thus expressing my opinion (for one must form one) so presumptuously. I have no criticisms, except perhaps I should like you somewhere to say, when you refer to me, that you refer only to the notice in the "Linnean Journal;" not that, on my deliberate word of honour, I expect that you will think more favourably of the whole than of the suggestion in the "Journal." I am far more than satisfied at what you say of my work; yet it would be as well to avoid the appearance of your remarks being a criticism on my fuller work.

I am very sorry to hear you are so hard-worked. I also get on very slowly, and have hardly as yet finished half my volume...I returned on last Tuesday from a week's hydropathy.

Take warning by me, and do not work too hard. For God's sake, think of this.

It is dreadfully uphill work with me getting my confounded volume finished.

I wish you well through all your labours. Adios.

LETTER 79. TO ASA GRAY. Down, November 29th {1859}.

This shall be such an extraordinary note as you have never received from me, for it shall not contain one single question or request. I thank you for your impression on my views. Every criticism from a good man is of value to me. What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work will be grievously hypothetical, and large parts by no means worthy of being called induction, my commonest error being probably induction from too few facts. I had not thought of your objection of my using the term "natural selection" as an agent. I use it much as a geologist does the word denudation—for an agent, expressing the result of several combined actions. I will take care to explain, not merely by inference, what I mean by the term; for I must use it, otherwise I should incessantly have to expand it into some such (here miserably expressed) formula as the following: "The tendency to the preservation (owing to the severe struggle for life to which all organic beings at some time or generation are exposed) of any, the slightest, variation in any part, which is of the slightest use or favourable to the life of the individual which has thus varied; together with the tendency to its inheritance." Any variation, which was of no use whatever to the individual, would not be preserved by this process of "natural selection." But I will not weary you by going on, as I do not suppose I could make my meaning clearer without large expansion. I will only add one other sentence: several varieties of sheep have been turned out together on the Cumberland mountains, and one particular breed is found to succeed so much better than all the others that it fairly starves the others to death. I should here say that natural selection picks out this breed, and would tend to improve it, or aboriginally to have formed it...

You speak of species not having any material base to rest on, but is this any greater hardship than deciding what deserves to be called a variety, and be designated by a Greek letter? When I was at systematic work, I know I longed to have no other difficulty (great enough) than deciding whether the form was distinct enough to deserve a name, and not to be haunted with undefined and unanswerable questions whether it was a true species. What a jump it is from a well-marked variety, produced by natural cause, to a species produced by the separate act of the hand of God! But I am running on foolishly. By the way, I met the other day Phillips, the palaeontologist, and he asked me, "How do you define a species?" I answered, "I cannot." Whereupon he said, "at last I have found out the only true definition,—any form which has ever had a specific name!"...

LETTER 80. TO C. LYELL. Ilkley, October 31st {1859}.

That you may not misunderstand how far I go with Pallas and his many disciples I should like to add that, though I believe that our domestic dogs have descended from several wild forms, and though I must think that the sterility, which they would probably have evinced, if crossed before being domesticated, has been eliminated, yet I go but a very little way with Pallas & Co. in their belief in the importance of the crossing and blending of the aboriginal stocks. (80/1. "With our domesticated animals, the various races when crossed together are quite fertile; yet in many cases they are descended from two or more wild species. From this fact we must conclude either that the aboriginal parent-species at first produced perfectly fertile hybrids, or that the hybrids subsequently reared under domestication became quite fertile. This latter alternative, which was first propounded by Pallas, seems by far the most probable, and can, indeed, hardly be doubted" ("Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 240).) You will see this briefly put in the first chapter. Generally, with respect to crossing, the effects may be diametrically opposite. If you cross two very distinct races, you may make (not that I believe such has often been made) a third and new intermediate race; but if you cross two exceedingly close races, or two slightly different individuals of the same race, then in fact you annul and obliterate the difference. In this latter way I believe crossing is all-important, and now for twenty years I have been working at flowers and insects under this point of view. I do not like Hooker's terms, centripetal and centrifugal (80/2. Hooker's "Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania," pages viii. and ix.): they remind me of Forbes' bad term of Polarity. (80/3. Forbes, "On the Manifestation of Polarity in the Distribution of Organised Beings in Time."—"R. Institution Proc." I., 1851-54.)

I daresay selection by man would generally work quicker than Natural Selection; but the important distinction between them is, that man can scarcely select except external and visible characters, and secondly, he selects for his own good; whereas under nature, characters of all kinds are selected exclusively for each creature's own good, and are well exercised; but you will find all this in Chapter IV.

Although the hound, greyhound, and bull-dog may possibly have descended from three distinct stocks, I am convinced that their present great amount of difference is mainly due to the same causes which have made the breeds of pigeons so different from each other, though these breeds of pigeons have all descended from one wild stock; so that the Pallasian doctrine I look at as but of quite secondary importance.

In my bigger book I have explained my meaning fully; whether I have in the Abstract I cannot remember.

LETTER 81. TO C. LYELL. {December 5th, 1859.}

I forget whether you take in the "Times;" for the chance of your not doing so, I send the enclosed rich letter. (81/1. See the "Times," December 1st and December 5th, 1859: two letters signed "Senex," dealing with "Works of Art in the Drift.") It is, I am sure, by Fitz-Roy...It is a pity he did not add his theory of the extinction of Mastodon, etc., from the door of the Ark being made too small. (81/2. A postscript to this letter, here omitted, is published in the "Life and Letters," II., page 240.)

LETTER 82. FRANCIS GALTON TO CHARLES DARWIN. 42, Rutland Gate, London, S.W., December 9th, 1859.

Pray let me add a word of congratulation on the completion of your wonderful volume, to those which I am sure you will have received from every side. I have laid it down in the full enjoyment of a feeling that one rarely experiences after boyish days, of having been initiated into an entirely new province of knowledge, which, nevertheless, connects itself with other things in a thousand ways. I hear you are engaged on a second edition. There is a trivial error in page 68, about rhinoceroses (82/1. Down (loc. cit.) says that neither the elephant nor the rhinoceros is destroyed by beasts of prey. Mr. Galton wrote that the wild dogs hunt the young rhinoceros and "exhaust them to death; they pursue them all day long, tearing at their ears, the only part their teeth can fasten on." The reference to the rhinoceros is omitted in later editions of the "Origin."), which I thought I might as well point out, and have taken advantage of the same opportunity to scrawl down half a dozen other notes, which may, or may not, be worthless to you.

(83/1. The three next letters refer to Huxley's lecture on Evolution, given at the Royal Institution on February 10th, 1860, of which the peroration is given in "Life and Letters," II., page 282, together with some letters on the subject.)

LETTER 83. TO T.H. HUXLEY. November 25th {1859}.

I rejoice beyond measure at the lecture. I shall be at home in a fortnight, when I could send you splendid folio coloured drawings of pigeons. Would this be in time? If not, I think I could write to my servants and have them sent to you. If I do NOT hear I shall understand that about fifteen or sixteen days will be in time.

I have had a kind yet slashing letter against me from poor dear old Sedgwick, "who has laughed till his sides ached at my book."

Phillips is cautious, but decidedly, I fear, hostile. Hurrah for the Lecture—it is grand!

LETTER 84. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 13th {1859}.

I have got fine large drawings (84/1. For Mr. Huxley's R.I. lecture.) of the Pouter, Carrier, and Tumbler; I have only drawings in books of Fantails, Barbs, and Scanderoon Runts. If you had them, you would have a grand display of extremes of diversity. Will they pay at the Royal Institution for copying on a large size drawings of these birds? I could lend skulls of a Carrier and a Tumbler (to show the great difference) for the same purpose, but it would not probably be worth while.

I have been looking at my MS. What you want I believe is about hybridism and breeding. The chapter on hybridism is in a pretty good state—about 150 folio pages with notes and references on the back. My first chapter on breeding is in too bad and imperfect a state to send; but my discussion on pigeons (in about 100 folio pages) is in a pretty good state. I am perfectly convinced that you would never have patience to read such volumes of MS. I speak now in the palace of truth, and pray do you: if you think you would read them I will send them willingly up by my servant, or bring them myself next week. But I have no copy, and I never could possibly replace them; and without you really thought that you would use them, I had rather not risk them. But I repeat I will willingly bring them, if you think you would have the vast patience to use them. Please let me hear on this subject, and whether I shall send the book with small drawings of three other breeds or skulls. I have heard a rumour that Busk is on our side in regard to species. Is this so? It would be very good.

LETTER 85. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 16th {1859}.

I thank you for your very pleasant and amusing note and invitation to dinner, which I am sorry to say I cannot accept. I shall come up (stomach willing) on Thursday for Phil. Club dinner, and return on Saturday, and I am engaged to my brother for Friday. But I should very much like to call at the Museum on Friday or Saturday morning and see you. Would you let me have one line either here or at 57, Queen Anne Street, to say at what hour you generally come to the Museum, and whether you will be probably there on Friday or Saturday? Even if you are at the Club, it will be a mere chance if we sit near each other.

I will bring up the articles on Thursday afternoon, and leave them under charge of the porter at the Museum. They will consist of large drawings of a Pouter, a Carrier, and rather smaller drawings of some sub-varieties (which breed nearly true) of short-faced Tumblers. Also a small drawing of Scanderoon, a kind of Runt, and a very remarkable breed. Also a book with very moderately good drawings of Fantail and Barb, but I very much doubt whether worth the trouble of enlarging.

Also a box (for Heaven's sake, take care!) with a skull of Carrier and short-faced Tumbler; also lower jaws (largest size) of Runt, middle size of Rock-pigeon, and the broad one of Barb. The form of ramus of jaw differs curiously in these jaws.

Also MS. of hybridism and pigeons, which will just weary you to death. I will call myself for or send a servant for the MS. and bones whenever you have done with them; but do not hurry.

You have hit on the exact plan, which, on the advice of Lyell, Murray, etc., I mean to follow—viz., bring out separate volumes in detail—and I shall begin with domestic productions; but I am determined to try and {work} very slowly, so that, if possible, I may keep in a somewhat better state of health. I had not thought of illustrations; that is capital advice. Farewell, my good and admirable agent for the promulgation of damnable heresies!

LETTER 86. TO L. HORNER. Down, December 23rd {1859}.

I must have the pleasure of thanking you for your extremely kind letter. I am very much pleased that you approve of my book, and that you are going to pay me the extraordinary compliment of reading it twice. I fear that it is tough reading, but it is beyond my powers to make the subject clearer. Lyell would have done it admirably.

You must enjoy being a gentlemen at your ease, and I hear that you have returned with ardour to work at the Geological Society. We hope in the course of the winter to persuade Mrs. Horner and yourself and daughters to pay us a visit. Ilkley did me extraordinary good during the latter part of my stay and during my first week at home; but I have gone back latterly to my bad ways, and fear I shall never be decently well and strong.

P.S.—When any of your party write to Mildenhall I should be much obliged if you would say to Bunbury that I hope he will not forget, whenever he reads my book, his promise to let me know what he thinks about it; for his knowledge is so great and accurate that every one must value his opinions highly. I shall be quite contented if his belief in the immutability of species is at all staggered.

LETTER 87. TO C. LYELL.

(87/1. In the "Origin of Species" a section of Chapter X. is devoted to "The succession of the same types within the same areas, during the late Tertiary period" (Edition I., page 339). Mr. Darwin wrote as follows: "Mr. Clift many years ago showed that the fossil mammals from the Australian caves were closely allied to the living marsupials of that continent." After citing other instances illustrating the same agreement between fossil and recent types, Mr. Darwin continues: "I was so much impressed with these facts that I strongly insisted, in 1839 and 1845, on this 'law of the succession of types,' on 'this wonderful relationship in the same continent between the dead and the living.' Professor Owen has subsequently extended the same generalisation to the mammals of the Old World.")

Down, {December} 27th {1859}.

Owen wrote to me to ask for the reference to Clift. As my own notes for the late chapters are all in chaos, I bethought me who was the most trustworthy man of all others to look for references, and I answered myself, "Of course Lyell." In the {"Principles of Geology"}, edition of 1833, Volume III., chapter xi., page 144, you will find the reference to Clift in the "Edinburgh New Phil Journal," No. XX., page 394. (87/2. The correct reference to Clift's "Report" on fossil bones from New Holland is "Edinburgh New Phil. Journal," 1831, page 394.) You will also find that you were greatly struck with the fact itself (87/3. This refers to the discovery of recent and fossil species of animals in an Australian cave-breccia. Mr. Clift is quoted as having identified one of the bones, which was much larger than the rest, as that of a hippopotamus.), which I had quite forgotten. I copied the passage, and sent it to Owen. Why I gave in some detail references to my own work is that Owen (not the first occasion with respect to myself and others) quietly ignores my having ever generalised on the subject, and makes a great fuss on more than one occasion at having discovered the law of succession. In fact, this law, with the Galapagos distribution, first turned my mind on the origin of species. My own references are {to the "Naturalist's Voyage"}:

Long before Owen published I had in MS. worked out the succession of types in the Old World (as I remember telling Sedgwick, who of course disbelieved it).

Since receiving your last letter on Hooker, I have read his introduction as far as page xxiv (87/4. "On the Flora of Australia, etc.; being an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania": London, 1859.), where the Australian flora begins, and this latter part I liked most in the proofs. It is a magnificent essay. I doubt slightly about some assertions, or rather should have liked more facts—as, for instance, in regard to species varying most on the confines of their range. Naturally I doubt a little his remarks about divergence (87/5. "Variation is effected by graduated changes; and the tendency of varieties, both in nature and under cultivation, when further varying, is rather to depart more and more widely from the original type than to revert to it." On the margin Darwin wrote: "Without selection doubtful" (loc. cit., page viii).), and about domestic races being produced under nature without selection. It would take much to persuade me that a Pouter Pigeon, or a Carrier, etc., could have been produced by the mere laws of variation without long continued selection, though each little enlargement of crop and beak are due to variation. I demur greatly to his comparison of the products of sinking and rising islands (87/6. "I venture to anticipate that a study of the vegetation of the islands with reference to the peculiarities of the generic types on the one hand, and of the geological conditions (whether as rising or sinking) on the other, may, in the present state of our knowledge, advance other subjects of distribution and variation considerably" (loc. cit., page xv).); in the Indian Ocean he compares exclusively many rising volcanic and sinking coral islands. The latter have a most peculiar soil, and are excessively small in area, and are tenanted by very few species; moreover, such low coral islands have probably been often, during their subsidence, utterly submerged, and restocked by plants from other islands. In the Pacific Ocean the floras of all the best cases are unknown. The comparison ought to have been exclusively between rising and fringed volcanic islands, and sinking and encircled volcanic islands. I have read Naudin (87/7. Naudin, "Revue Horticole," 1852?.), and Hooker agrees that he does not even touch on my views.

LETTER 88. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. {1859 or 1860.}

I have had another talk with Bentham, who is greatly agitated by your book: evidently the stern, keen intellect is aroused, and he finds that it is too late to halt between two opinions. How it will go we shall see. I am intensely interested in what we shall come to, and never broach the subject to him. I finished the geological evidence chapters yesterday; they are very fine and very striking, but I cannot see they are such forcible objections as you still hold them to be. I would say that you still in your secret soul underrate the imperfection of the Geological Record, though no language can be stronger or arguments fairer and sounder against it. Of course I am influenced by Botany, and the conviction that we have not in a fossilised condition a fraction of the plants that have existed, and that not a fraction of those we have are recognisable specifically. I never saw so clearly put the fact that it is not intermediates between existing species we want, but between these and the unknown tertium quid.

You certainly make a hobby of Natural Selection, and probably ride it too hard; that is a necessity of your case. If the improvement of the creation-by-variation doctrine is conceivable, it will be by unburthening your theory of Natural Selection, which at first sight seems overstrained—i.e., to account for too much. I think, too, that some of your difficulties which you override by Natural Selection may give way before other explanations. But, oh Lord! how little we do know and have known to be so advanced in knowledge by one theory. If we thought ourselves knowing dogs before you revealed Natural Selection, what d—d ignorant ones we must surely be now we do know that law.

I hear you may be at the Club on Thursday. I hope so. Huxley will not be there, so do not come on that ground.

LETTER 89. TO T.H. HUXLEY. January 1st {1860}.

I write one line merely to thank you for your pleasant note, and to say that I will keep your secret. I will shake my head as mysteriously as Lord Burleigh. Several persons have asked me who wrote that "most remarkable article" in the "Times." (89/1. The "Times," December 26th, 1859, page 8. The opening paragraphs were by one of the staff of the "Times." See "Life and Letters," II., page 255, for Mr. Huxley's interesting account of his share in the matter.) As a cat may look at a king, so I have said that I strongly suspected you. X was so sharp that the first sentence revealed the authorship. The Z's (God save the mark) thought it was Owen's! You may rely on it that it has made a deep impression, and I am heartily glad that the subject and I owe you this further obligation. But for God's sake, take care of your health; remember that the brain takes years to rest, whilst the muscles take only hours. There is poor Dana, to whom I used to preach by letter, writes to me that my prophecies are come true: he is in Florence quite done up, can read nothing and write nothing, and cannot talk for half an hour. I noticed the "naughty sentence" (89/2. Mr. Huxley, after speaking of the rudimental teeth of the whale, of rudimental jaws in insects which never bite, and rudimental eyes in blind animals, goes on: "And we would remind those who, ignorant of the facts, must be moved by authority, that no one has asserted the incompetence of the doctrine of final causes, in its application to physiology and anatomy, more strongly than our own eminent anatomist, Professor Owen, who, speaking of such cases, says ("On the Nature of Limbs," pages 39, 40), 'I think it will be obvious that the principle of final adaptations fails to satisfy all the conditions of the problem.'"—"The Times," December 26th, 1859.) about Owen, though my wife saw its bearing first. Farewell you best and worst of men!

That sentence about the bird and the fish dinners charmed us. Lyell wrote to me—style like yours.

Have you seen the slashing article of December 26th in the "Daily News," against my stealing from my "master," the author of the "Vestiges?"

LETTER 90. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES. {Undated}

How I should like to know whether Milne Edwards has 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.

LETTER 91. TO C. LYELL.

(91/1. The date of this letter is doubtful; but as it evidently refers to the 2nd edition of the "Origin," which appeared on January 7th, 1860, we believe that December 9th, 1859, is right. The letter of Sedgwick's is doubtless that given in the "Life and Letters," II., page 247; it is there dated December 24th, 1859, but from other evidence it was probably written on November 24th)

{December?} 9th {1859}.

I send Sedgwick's letter; it is terribly muddled, and really the first page seems almost childish.

I am sadly over-worked, so will not write to you. I have worked in a number of your invaluable corrections—indeed, all as far as time permits. I infer from a letter from Huxley that Ramsay (91/2. See a letter to Huxley, November 27th, 1859, "Life and Letters," II., page 282.) is a convert, and I am extremely glad to get pure geologists, as they will be very few. Many thanks for your very pleasant note. What pleasure you have given me. I believe I should have been miserable had it not been for you and a few others, for I hear threatening of attacks which I daresay will be severe enough. But I am sure that I can now bear them.

LETTER 92. TO T.H. HUXLEY.

(92/1. The point here discussed is one to which Mr. Huxley attached great, in our opinion too great, importance.)

Down, January 11th {1860?}.

I fully agree that the difficulty is great, and might be made much of by a mere advocate. Will you oblige me by reading again slowly from pages 267 to 272. (92/2. The reference is to the "Origin," Edition I.: the section on "The Fertility of Varieties when crossed, and of their Mongrel Offspring" occupies pages 267-72.) I may add to what is there said, that it seems to me quite hopeless to attempt to explain why varieties are not sterile, until we know the precise cause of sterility in species.

Reflect for a moment on how small and on what very peculiar causes the unequal reciprocity of fertility in the same two species must depend. Reflect on the curious case of species more fertile with foreign pollen than their own. Reflect on many cases which could be given, and shall be given in my larger book (independently of hybridity) of very slight changes of conditions causing one species to be quite sterile and not affecting a closely allied species. How profoundly ignorant we are on the intimate relation between conditions of life and impaired fertility in pure species!

The only point which I might add to my short discussion on this subject, is that I think it probable that the want of adaptation to uniform conditions of life in our domestic varieties has played an important part in preventing their acquiring sterility when crossed. For the want of uniformity, and changes in the conditions of life, seem the only cause of the elimination of sterility (when crossed) under domestication. (92/3. The meaning which we attach to this obscure sentence is as follows: Species in a state of nature are closely adapted to definite conditions of life, so that the sexual constitution of species A is attuned, as it were, to a condition different from that to which B is attuned, and this leads to sterility. But domestic varieties are not strictly adapted by Natural Selection to definite conditions, and thus have less specialised sexual constitutions.) This elimination, though admitted by many authors, rests on very slight evidence, yet I think is very probably true, as may be inferred from the case of dogs. Under nature it seems improbable that the differences in the reproductive constitution, on which the sterility of any two species when crossed depends, can be acquired directly by Natural Selection; for it is of no advantage to the species. Such differences in reproductive constitution must stand in correlation with some other differences; but how impossible to conjecture what these are! Reflect on the case of the variations of Verbascum, which differ in no other respect whatever besides the fluctuating element of the colour of the flower, and yet it is impossible to resist Gartner's evidence, that this difference in the colour does affect the mutual fertility of the varieties.

The whole case seems to me far too mysterious to rest (92/4. The word "rest" seems to be used in place of "to serve as a foundation for.") a valid attack on the theory of modification of species, though, as you say, it offers excellent ground for a mere advocate.

I am surprised, considering how ignorant we are on very many points, {that} more weak parts in my book have not as yet been pointed out to me. No doubt many will be. H.C. Watson founds his objection in MS. on there being no limit to infinite diversification of species: I have answered this, I think, satisfactorily, and have sent attack and answer to Lyell and Hooker. If this seems to you a good objection, I would send papers to you. Andrew Murray "disposes of" the whole theory by an ingenious difficulty from the distribution of blind cave insects (92/5. See "Life and Letters, Volume II., page 265. The reference here is to Murray's address before the Botanical Society, Edinburgh. Mr. Darwin seems to have read Murray's views only in a separate copy reprinted from the "Proc. R. Soc. Edin." There is some confusion about the date of the paper; the separate copy is dated January 16th, while in the volume of the "Proc. R. Soc." it is February 20th. In the "Life and Letters," II., page 261 it is erroneously stated that these are two different papers.); but it can, I think, be fairly answered.

LETTER 93. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, {February} 2nd {1860}.

I have had this morning a letter from old Bronn (93/1. See "Life and Letters, II., page 277.) (who, to my astonishment, seems slightly staggered by Natural Selection), and he says a publisher in Stuttgart is willing to publish a translation, and that he, Bronn, will to a certain extent superintend. Have you written to Kolliker? if not, perhaps I had better close with this proposal—what do you think? If you have written, I must wait, and in this case will you kindly let me hear as soon as you hear from Kolliker?

My poor dear friend, you will curse the day when you took up the "general agency" line; but really after this I will not give you any more trouble.

Do not forget the three tickets for us for your lecture, and the ticket for Baily, the poulterer.

Old Bronn has published in the "Year-book for Mineralogy" a notice of the "Origin" (93/2. "Neues Jahrb. fur Min." 1860, page 112.); and says he has himself published elsewhere a foreboding of the theory!

LETTER 94. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 14th {1860}.

I succeeded in persuading myself for twenty-four hours that Huxley's lecture was a success. (94/1. At the Royal Institution. See "Life and Letters," II., page 282.) Parts were eloquent and good, and all very bold; and I heard strangers say, "What a good lecture!" I told Huxley so; but I demurred much to the time wasted in introductory remarks, especially to his making it appear that sterility was a clear and manifest distinction of species, and to his not having even alluded to the more important parts of the subject. He said that he had much more written out, but time failed. After conversation with others and more reflection, I must confess that as an exposition of the doctrine the lecture seems to me an entire failure. I thank God I did not think so when I saw Huxley; for he spoke so kindly and magnificently of me, that I could hardly have endured to say what I now think. He gave no just idea of Natural Selection. I have always looked at the doctrine of Natural Selection as an hypothesis, which, if it explained several large classes of facts, would deserve to be ranked as a theory deserving acceptance; and this, of course, is my own opinion. But, as Huxley has never alluded to my explanation of classification, morphology, embryology, etc., I thought he was thoroughly dissatisfied with all this part of my book. But to my joy I find it is not so, and that he agrees with my manner of looking at the subject; only that he rates higher than I do the necessity of Natural Selection being shown to be a vera causa always in action. He tells me he is writing a long review in the "Westminster." It was really provoking how he wasted time over the idea of a species as exemplified in the horse, and over Sir J. Hall's old experiment on marble. Murchison was very civil to me over my book after the lecture, in which he was disappointed. I have quite made up my mind to a savage onslaught; but with Lyell, you, and Huxley, I feel confident we are right, and in the long run shall prevail. I do not think Asa Gray has quite done you justice in the beginning of the review of me. (94/2. "Review of Darwin's Theory on the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection," by "A.G." ("Amer. Jour. Sci." Volume XXIX., page 153, 1860). In a letter to Asa Gray on February 18th, 1860, Darwin writes: "Your review seems to me admirable; by far the best which I have read." ("Life and Letters," II., 1887, page 286.) The review seemed to me very good, but I read it very hastily.

LETTER 95. TO C. LYELL. Down, {February} 18th {1860}.

I send by this post Asa Gray, which seems to me very good, with the stamp of originality on it. Also Bronn's "Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie." (95/1. See Letter 93.)

The united intellect of my family has vainly tried to make it out. I never tried such confoundedly hard german; nor does it seem worth the labour. He sticks to Priestley's Green Matter, and seems to think that till it can be shown how life arises it is no good showing how the forms of life arise. This seems to me about as logical (comparing very great things with little) as to say it was no use in Newton showing the laws of attraction of gravity and the consequent movement of the planets, because he could not show what the attraction of gravity is.

The expression "Wahl der Lebens-Weise" (95/2. "Die fruchtbarste und allgemeinste Ursache der Varietaten-Bildung ist jedoch die Wahl der Lebens-Weise" (loc. cit., page 112).) makes me doubt whether B. understands what I mean by Natural Selection, as I have told him. He says (if I understand him) that you ought to be on the same side with me.

P.S. Sunday afternoon.—I have kept back this to thank you for your letter, with much news, received this morning. My conscience is uneasy at the time you waste in amusing and interesting me. I was very curious to hear about Phillips. The review in the "Annals" is, as I was convinced, by Wollaston, for I have had a very cordial letter from him this morning. (95/3. A bibliographical Notice "On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection; or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." ("Annals and Mag." Volume V., pages 132-43, 1860). The notice is not signed. Referring to the article, in a letter to Lyell, February 15th, 1860, Darwin writes: "I am perfectly convinced...that the review in the "Annals" is by Wollaston; no one else in the world would have used so many parentheses" ("Life and Letters," II., page 284).)

I send by this post an attack in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" by Harvey (a first-rate botanist, as you probably know). (95/4. In the "Gardeners' Chronicle" of February 18th, 1860, W.H. Harvey described a case of monstrosity in Begonia frigida, which he argued was hostile to the theory of Natural Selection. The passage about Harvey's attack was published in the "Life and Letters," II., page 275.) 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 {to this}, that I have been too cautious in not admitting great and sudden variations. Here again comes in the mischief of my abstract. In fuller MS. I have discussed the parallel case of a normal fish like a monstrous gold-fish.

I end my discussion by doubting, because all cases of monstrosities which resemble normal structures which I could find were not in allied groups. Trees like Aspicarpa (95/5. Aspicarpa, an American genus of Malpighiaceae, is quoted in the "Origin" (Edition VI., page 367) as an illustration of Linnaeus' aphorism that the characters do not give the genus, but the genus gives the characters. During several years' cultivation in France Aspicarpa produced only degraded flowers, which differed in many of the most important points of structure from the proper type of the order; but it was recognised by M. Richard that the genus should be retained among the Malpighiaceae. "This case," adds Darwin, "well illustrates the spirit of our classification."), with flowers of two kinds (in the "Origin"), led me also to speculate on the same subject; but I could find only one doubtfully analogous case of species having flowers like the degraded or monstrous flowers. Harvey does not see that if only a few (as he supposes) of the seedlings inherited being monstrosities, Natural Selection would be necessary to select and preserve them. You had better return the "Gardeners' Chronicle," etc., to my brother's. The case of Begonia (95/6. Harvey's criticism was answered by Sir J.D. Hooker in the following number of the "Gardeners' Chronicle" (February 25th, 1860, page 170).) in itself is very curious; I am tempted to answer the notice, but I will refrain, for there would be no end to answers.

With respect to your objection of a multitude of still living simple forms, I have not discussed it anywhere in the "Origin," though I have often thought it over. What you say about progress being only occasional and retrogression not uncommon, I agree to; only that in the animal kingdom I greatly doubt about retrogression being common. I have always put it to myself—What advantage can we see in an infusory animal, or an intestinal worm, or coral polypus, or earthworm being highly developed? If no advantage, they would not become highly developed: not but what all these animals have very complex structures (except infusoria), and they may well be higher than the animals which occupied similar places in the economy of nature before the Silurian epoch. There is a blind snake with the appearances and, in some respects, habits of earthworms; but this blind snake does not tend, as far as we can see, to replace and drive out worms. I think I must in a future edition discuss a few more such points, and will introduce this and H.C. Watson's objection about the infinite number of species and the general rise in organisation. But there is a directly opposite objection to yours which is very difficult to answer—viz. how at the first start of life, when there were only the simplest organisms, how did any complication of organisation profit them? I can only answer that we have not facts enough to guide any speculation on the subject.

With respect to Lepidosiren, Ganoid fishes, perhaps Ornithorhynchus, I suspect, as stated in the "Origin," (95/7. "Origin of Species" (Edition VI.), page 83.), that they have been preserved, from inhabiting fresh-water and isolated parts of the world, in which there has been less competition and less rapid progress in Natural Selection, owing to the fewness of individuals which can inhabit small areas; and where there are few individuals variation at most must be slower. There are several allusions to this notion in the "Origin," as under Amblyopsis, the blind cave-fish (95/8. "Origin," page 112.), and under Heer (95/9. "Origin," page 83.) about Madeira plants resembling the fossil and extinct plants of Europe.

LETTER 96. TO JAMES LAMONT. Down, March 5th {1860?}.

I am much obliged for your long and interesting letter. You have indeed good right to speak confidently about the habits of wild birds and animals; for I should think no one beside yourself has ever sported in Spitzbergen and Southern Africa. It is very curious and interesting that you should have arrived at the conclusion that so-called "Natural Selection" had been efficient in giving their peculiar colours to our grouse. I shall probably use your authority on the similar habits of our grouse and the Norwegian species.

I am particularly obliged for your very curious fact of the effect produced by the introduction of the lowland grouse on the wildness of the grouse in your neighbourhood. It is a very striking instance of what crossing will do in affecting the character of a breed. Have you ever seen it stated in any sporting work that game has become wilder in this country? I wish I could get any sort of proof of the fact, for your explanation seems to me equally ingenious and probable. I have myself witnessed in South America a nearly parallel {case} with that which you mention in regard to the reindeer in Spitzbergen, with the Cervus campestris of La Plata. It feared neither man nor the sound of shot of a rifle, but was terrified at the sight of a man on horseback; every one in that country always riding. As you are so great a sportsman, perhaps you will kindly look to one very trifling point for me, as my neighbours here think it too absurd to notice—namely, whether the feet of birds are dirty, whether a few grains of dirt do not adhere occasionally to their feet. I especially want to know how this is in the case of birds like herons and waders, which stalk in the mud. You will guess that this relates to dispersal of seeds, which is one of my greatest difficulties. My health is very indifferent, and I am seldom able to attend the scientific meetings, but I sincerely hope that I may some time have the pleasure of meeting you.

Pray accept my cordial thanks for your very kind letter.

LETTER 97. TO G.H.K. THWAITES. Down, March 21st {1860}.

I thank you very sincerely for your letter, and am much pleased that you go a little way with me. You will think it presumptuous, but I am well convinced from my own mental experience that if you keep the subject at all before your mind you will ultimately go further. The present volume is a mere abstract, and there are great omissions. One main one, which I have rectified in the foreign editions, is an explanation (which has satisfied Lyell, who made the same objection with you) why many forms do not progress or advance (and I quite agree about some retrograding). I have also a MS. discussion on beauty; but do you really suppose that for instance Diatomaceae were created beautiful that man, after millions of generations, should admire them through the microscope? (97/1. Thwaites (1811-82) published several papers on the Diatomaceae ("On Conjugation in the Diatomaceae," "Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XX., 1847, pages 9-11, 343-4; "Further Observations on the Diatomaceae," loc. cit., 1848, page 161). See "Life and Letters" II., page 292.) I should attribute most of such structures to quite unknown laws of growth; and mere repetition of parts is to our eyes one main element of beauty. When any structure is of use (and I can show what curiously minute particulars are often of highest use), I can see with my prejudiced eyes no limit to the perfection of the coadaptations which could be effected by Natural Selection. I rather doubt whether you see how far, as it seems to me, the argument for homology and embryology may be carried. I do not look at this as mere analogy. I would as soon believe that fossil shells were mere mockeries of real shells as that the same bones in the foot of a dog and wing of a bat, or the similar embryo of mammal and bird, had not a direct signification, and that the signification can be unity of descent or nothing. But I venture to repeat how much pleased I am that you go some little way with me. I find a number of naturalists do the same, and as their halting-places are various, and I must think arbitrary, I believe they will all go further. As for changing at once one's opinion, I would not value the opinion of a man who could do so; it must be a slow process. (97/2. Darwin wrote to Woodward in regard to the "Origin": "It may be a vain and silly thing to say, but I believe my book must be read twice carefully to be fully understood. You will perhaps think it by no means worth the labour.") Thank you for telling me about the Lantana (97/3. An exotic species of Lantana (Verbenaceae) grows vigorously in Ceylon, and is described as frequently making its appearance after the firing of the low-country forests (see H.H.W. Pearson, "The Botany of the Ceylon Patanas," "Journal Linn. Soc." Volume XXXIV., page 317, 1899). No doubt Thwaites' letter to Darwin referred to the spreading of the introduced Lantana, comparable to that of the cardoon in La Plata and of other plants mentioned by Darwin in the "Origin of Species" (Edition VI., page 51).), and I should at any time be most grateful for any information which you think would be of use to me. I hope that you will publish a list of all naturalised plants in Ceylon, as far as known, carefully distinguishing those confined to cultivated soils alone. I feel sure that this most important subject has been greatly undervalued.

LETTER 98. TO T.H. HUXLEY.

(98/1. The reference here is to the review on the "Origin of Species" generally believed to be by the late Sir R. Owen, and published in the April number of the "Edinburgh Review," 1860. Owen's biographer is silent on the subject, and prints, without comment, the following passage in an undated letter from Sedgwick to Owen: "Do you know who was the author of the article in the "Edinburgh" on the subject of Darwin's theory? On the whole, I think it very good. I once suspected that you must have had a hand in it, and I then abandoned that thought. I have not read it with any care" (Owen's "Life," Volume II., page 96).

April 9th {1860}.

I never saw such an amount of misrepresentation. At page 530 (98/2. "Lasting and fruitful conclusions have, indeed, hitherto been based only on the possession of knowledge; now we are called upon to accept an hypothesis on the plea of want of knowledge. The geological record, it is averred, is so imperfect!"—"Edinburgh Review," CXI., 1860, page 530.) he says we are called on to accept the hypothesis on the plea of ignorance, whereas I think I could not have made it clearer that I admit the imperfection of the Geological Record as a great difficulty.

The quotation (98/3. "We are appealed to, or at least 'the young and rising naturalists with plastic minds,* {On the Nature of the Limbs, page 482} are adjured." It will be seen that the inverted comma after "naturalists" is omitted; the asterisk referring, in a footnote (here placed in square brackets), to page 482 of the "Origin," seems to have been incorrectly assumed by Mr. Darwin to show the close of the quotation.—Ibid., page 512.) on page 512 of the "Review" about "young and rising naturalists with plastic minds," attributed to "nature of limbs," is a false quotation, as I do not use the words "plastic minds."

At page 501 (98/4. The passage ("Origin," Edition I., page 483) begins, "But do they really believe...," and shows clearly that the author considers such a belief all but impossible.) the quotation is garbled, for I only ask whether naturalists believe about elemental atoms flashing, etc., and he changes it into that I state that they do believe.

At page 500 (98/5. "All who have brought the transmutation speculation to the test of observed facts and ascertained powers in organic life, and have published the results, usually adverse to such speculations, are set down by Mr. Darwin as 'curiously illustrating the blindness of preconceived opinion.'" The passage in the "Origin," page 482, begins by expressing surprise at the point of view of some naturalists: "They admit that a multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves thought were special creations,...have been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend the same view to other and very slightly different forms...They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion.") it is very false to say that I imply by "blindness of preconceived opinion" the simple belief of creation. And so on in other cases. But I beg pardon for troubling you. I am heartily sorry that in your unselfish endeavours to spread what you believe to be truth, you should have incurred so brutal an attack. (98/6. The "Edinburgh" Reviewer, referring to Huxley's Royal Institution Lecture given February 10th, 1860, "On Species and Races and their Origin," says (page 521), "We gazed with amazement at the audacity of the dispenser of the hour's intellectual amusement, who, availing himself of the technical ignorance of the majority of his auditors, sought to blind them as to the frail foundations of 'natural selection' by such illustrations as the subjoined": And then follows a critique of the lecturer's comparison of the supposed descent of the horse from the Palaeothere with that of various kinds of domestic pigeons from the Rock-pigeon.) And now I will not think any more of this false and malignant attack.

LETTER 99. TO MAXWELL MASTERS. Down, April 13th {1860}.

I thank you very sincerely for your two kind notes. The next time you write to your father I beg you to give him from me my best thanks, but I am sorry that he should have had the trouble of writing when ill. I have been much interested by the facts given by him. If you think he would in the least care to hear the result of an artificial cross of two sweet peas, you can send the enclosed; if it will only trouble him, tear it up. There seems to be so much parallelism in the kind of variation from my experiment, which was certainly a cross, and what Mr. Masters has observed, that I cannot help suspecting that his peas were crossed by bees, which I have seen well dusted with the pollen of the sweet pea; but then I wish this, and how hard it is to prevent one's wish biassing one's judgment!

I was struck with your remark about the Compositae, etc. I do not see that it bears much against me, and whether it does or not is of course of not the slightest importance. Although I fully agree that no definition can be drawn between monstrosities and slight variations (such as my theory requires), yet I suspect there is some distinction. Some facts lead me to think that monstrosities supervene generally at an early age; and after attending to the subject I have great doubts whether species in a state of nature ever become modified by such sudden jumps as would result from the Natural Selection of monstrosities. You cannot do me a greater service than by pointing out errors. I sincerely hope that your work on monstrosities (99/1. "Vegetable Teratology," London, 1869 (Ray Soc.).) will soon appear, for I am sure it will be highly instructive.

Now for your notes, for which let me again thank you.

1. Your conclusion about parts developed (99/2. See "Origin of Species," Edition I., page 153, on the variability of parts "developed in an extraordinary manner in any one species, compared with the other species of the same genus." See "Life and Letters," II., pages 97, 98, also Letter 33.) not being extra variable agrees with Hooker's. You will see that I have stated that the rule apparently does not hold with plants, though it ought, if true, to hold good with them.

2. I cannot now remember in what work I saw the statement about Peloria affecting the axis, but I know it was one which I thought might be trusted. I consulted also Dr. Falconer, and I think that he agreed to the truth of it; but I cannot now tell where to look for my notes. I had been much struck with finding a Laburnum tree with the terminal flowers alone in each raceme peloric, though not perfectly regular. The Pelargonium case in the "Origin" seems to point in the same direction. (99/3. "Origin of Species," Edition I., page 145.)

3. Thanks for the correction about furze: I found the seedlings just sprouting, and was so much surprised and their appearance that I sent them to Hooker; but I never plainly asked myself whether they were cotyledons or first leaves. (99/4. The trifoliate leaves of furze seedlings are not cotyledons, but early leaves: see Lubbock's "Seedlings," I., page 410.)

4. That is a curious fact about the seeds of the furze, the more curious as I found with Leguminosae that immersion in plain cold water for a very few days killed some kinds.

If at any time anything should occur to you illustrating or opposing my notions, and you have leisure to inform me, I should be truly grateful, for I can plainly see that you have wealth of knowledge.

With respect to advancement or retrogression in organisation in monstrosities of the Compositae, etc., do you not find it very difficult to define which is which?

Anyhow, most botanists seem to differ as widely as possible on this head.

LETTER 100. TO J.S. HENSLOW. Down, May 8th {1860}.

Very many thanks about the Elodea, which case interests me much. I wrote to Mr. Marshall (100/1. W. Marshall was the author of "Anacharis alsinastrum, a new water-weed": four letters to the "Cambridge Independent Press," reprinted as a pamphlet, 1852.) at Ely, and in due time he says he will send me whatever information he can procure.

Owen is indeed very spiteful. (100/2. Owen was believed to be the author of the article in the "Edinburgh Review," April, 1860. See Letter 98.) He misrepresents and alters what I say very unfairly. But I think his conduct towards Hooker most ungenerous: viz., to allude to his essay (Australian Flora), and not to notice the magnificent results on geographical distribution. The Londoners say he is mad with envy because my book has been talked about; what a strange man to be envious of a naturalist like myself, immeasurably his inferior! From one conversation with him I really suspect he goes at the bottom of his hidden soul as far as I do.

I wonder whether Sedgwick noticed in the "Edinburgh Review" about the "Sacerdotal revilers,"—so the revilers are tearing each other to pieces. I suppose Sedgwick will be very fierce against me at the Philosophical Society. (100/3. The meeting of the "Cambridge Phil. Soc." was held on May 7th, 1860, and fully reported in the "Cambridge Chronicle," May 19th. Sedgwick is reported to have said that "Darwin's theory is not inductive—is not based on a series of acknowledged facts, leading to a general conclusion evolved, logically out of the facts...The only facts he pretends to adduce, as true elements of proof, are the varieties produced by domestication and the artifices of crossbreeding." Sedgwick went on to speak of the vexatious multiplication of supposed species, and adds, "In this respect Darwin's theory may help to simplify our classifications, and thereby do good service to modern science. But he has not undermined any grand truth in the constancy of natural laws, and the continuity of true species.") Judging from his notice in the "Spectator," (100/4. March 24th, 1860; see "Life and Letters," II., page 297.) he will misrepresent me, but it will certainly be unintentionally done. In a letter to me, and in the above notice, he talks much about my departing from the spirit of inductive philosophy. I wish, if you ever talk on the subject to him, you would ask him whether it was not allowable (and a great step) to invent the undulatory theory of light, i.e. hypothetical undulations, in a hypothetical substance, the ether. And if this be so, why may I not invent the hypothesis of Natural Selection (which from the analogy of domestic productions, and from what we know of the struggle for existence and of the variability of organic beings, is, in some very slight degree, in itself probable) and try whether this hypothesis of Natural Selection does not explain (as I think it does) a large number of facts in geographical distribution—geological succession, classification, morphology, embryology, etc. I should really much like to know why such an hypothesis as the undulation of the ether may be invented, and why I may not invent (not that I did invent it, for I was led to it by studying domestic varieties) any hypothesis, such as Natural Selection.

Pray forgive me and my pen for running away with me, and scribbling on at such length.

I can perfectly understand Sedgwick (100/5. See "Life and Letters," II., page 247; the letter is there dated December 24th, but must, we think, have been written in November at latest.) or any one saying that Natural Selection does not explain large classes of facts; but that is very different from saying that I depart from right principles of scientific investigation.

LETTER 101. TO J.S. HENSLOW. Down, May 14th {1860}.

I have been greatly interested by your letter to Hooker, and I must thank you from my heart for so generously defending me, as far as you could, against my powerful attackers. Nothing which persons say hurts me for long, for I have an entire conviction that I have not been influenced by bad feelings in the conclusions at which I have arrived. Nor have I published my conclusions without long deliberation, and they were arrived at after far more study than the public will ever know of, or believe in. I am certain to have erred in many points, but I do not believe so much as Sedgwick and Co. think.

Is there any Abstract or Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society published? (101/1. Henslow's remarks are not given in the above-mentioned report in the "Cambridge Chronicle.") If so, and you could get me a copy, I should like to have one.

Believe me, my dear Henslow, I feel grateful to you on this occasion, and for the multitude of kindnesses you have done me from my earliest days at Cambridge.

LETTER 102. TO C. LYELL. Down, May 22nd {1860}.

Hooker has sent me a letter of Thwaites (102/1. See Letter 97.), of Ceylon, who makes exactly the same objections which you did at first about the necessity of all forms advancing, and therefore the difficulty of simple forms still existing. There was no worse omission than this in my book, and I had the discussion all ready.

I am extremely glad to hear that you intend adding new arguments about the imperfection of the Geological Record. I always feel this acutely, and am surprised that such men as Ramsay and Jukes do not feel it more.

I quite agree on insufficient evidence about mummy wheat. (102/2. See notes appended to a letter to Lyell, September 1843 (Botany).

When you can spare it, I should like (but out of mere curiosity) to see Binney on Coal marine marshes.

I once made Hooker very savage by saying that I believed the Coal plants grew in the sea, like mangroves. (102/3. See "Life and Letters," I., page 356.)

LETTER 103. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(103/1. This letter is of interest as containing a strong expression upon the overwhelming importance of selection.)

Down {1860}.

Many thanks for Harvey's letter (103/2. W.H. Harvey had been corresponding with Sir J.D. Hooker on the "Origin of Species."), which I will keep a little longer and then return. I will write to him and try to make clear from analogy of domestic productions the part which I believe selection has played. I have been reworking my pigeons and other domestic animals, and I am sure that any one is right in saying that selection is the efficient cause, though, as you truly say, variation is the base of all. Why I do not believe so much as you do in physical agencies is that I see in almost every organism (though far more clearly in animals than in plants) adaptation, and this except in rare instances, must, I should think, be due to selection.

Do not forget the Pyrola when in flower. (103/3. In a letter to Hooker, May 22nd, 1860, Darwin wrote: "Have you Pyrola at Kew? if so, for heaven's sake observe the curvature of the pistil towards the gangway to the nectary." The fact of the stigma in insect-visited flowers being so placed that the visitor must touch it on its way to the nectar, was a point which early attracted Darwin's attention and strongly impressed him.) My blessed little Scaevola has come into flower, and I will try artificial fertilisation on it.

I have looked over Harvey's letter, and have assumed (I hope rightly) that he could not object to knowing that you had forwarded it to me.

LETTER 104. TO ASA GRAY. Down, June 8th {1860}.

I have to thank you for two notes, one through Hooker, and one with some letters to be posted, which was done. I anticipated your request by making a few remarks on Owen's review. (104/1. "The Edinburgh Review," April, 1860.) Hooker is so weary of reviews that I do not think you will get any hints from him. I have lately had many more "kicks than halfpence." A review in the last Dublin "Nat. Hist. Review" is the most unfair thing which has appeared,—one mass of misrepresentation. It is evidently by Haughton, the geologist, chemist and mathematician. It shows immeasurable conceit and contempt of all who are not mathematicians. He discusses bees' cells, and puts a series which I have never alluded to, and wholly ignores the intermediate comb of Melipona, which alone led me to my notions. The article is a curiosity of unfairness and arrogance; but, as he sneers at Malthus, I am content, for it is clear he cannot reason. He is a friend of Harvey, with whom I have had some correspondence. Your article has clearly, as he admits, influenced him. He admits to a certain extent Natural Selection, yet I am sure does not understand me. It is strange that very few do, and I am become quite convinced that I must be an extremely bad explainer. To recur for a moment to Owen: he grossly misrepresents and is very unfair to Huxley. You say that you think the article must be by a pupil of Owen; but no one fact tells so strongly against Owen, considering his former position at the College of Surgeons, as that he has never reared one pupil or follower. In the number just out of "Fraser's Magazine" (104/2. See "Life and Letters," II., page 314.) there is an article or review on Lamarck and me by W. Hopkins, the mathematician, who, like Haughton, despises the reasoning power of all naturalists. Personally he is extremely kind towards me; but he evidently in the following number means to blow me into atoms. He does not in the least appreciate the difference in my views and Lamarck's, as explaining adaptation, the principle of divergence, the increase of dominant groups, and the almost necessary extinction of the less dominant and smaller groups, etc.

LETTER 105. TO C. LYELL. Down, June 17th {1860}.

One word more upon the Deification (105/1. "If we confound 'Variation' or 'Natural Selection' with such creational laws, we deify secondary causes or immeasurably exaggerate their influence" (Lyell, "The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks on Theories on the Origin of Species by Variation," page 469, London, 1863). See Letter 131.) of Natural Selection: attributing so much weight to it does not exclude still more general laws, i.e. the ordering of the whole universe. I have said that Natural Selection is to the structure of organised beings what the human architect is to a building. The very existence of the human architect shows the existence of more general laws; but no one, in giving credit for a building to the human architect, thinks it necessary to refer to the laws by which man has appeared.

No astronomer, in showing how the movements of planets are due to gravity, thinks it necessary to say that the law of gravity was designed that the planets should pursue the courses which they pursue. I cannot believe that there is a bit more interference by the Creator in the construction of each species than in the course of the planets. It is only owing to Paley and Co., I believe, that this more special interference is thought necessary with living bodies. But we shall never agree, so do not trouble yourself to answer.

I should think your remarks were very just about mathematicians not being better enabled to judge of probabilities than other men of common-sense.

I have just got more returns about the gestation of hounds. The period differs at least from sixty-one to seventy-four days, just as I expected.

I was thinking of sending the "Gardeners' Chronicle" to you, on account of a paper by me on the fertilisation of orchids by insects (105/2. "Fertilisation of British Orchids by Insect Agency." This article in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" of June 9th, 1860, page 528, begins with a request that observations should be made on the manner of fertilisation in the bee-and in the fly-orchis.), as it involves a curious point, and as you cared about my paper on kidney beans; but as you are so busy, I will not.

LETTER 106. TO C. LYELL. Down {June?} 20th {1860}.

I send Blyth (106/1. See Letter 27.); it is a dreadful handwriting; the passage is on page 4. In a former note he told me he feared there was hardly a chance of getting money for the Chinese expedition, and spoke of your kindness.

Many thanks for your long and interesting letter. I wonder at, admire, and thank you for your patience in writing so much. I rather demur to Deinosaurus not having "free will," as surely we have. I demur also to your putting Huxley's "force and matter" in the same category with Natural Selection. The latter may, of course, be quite a false view; but surely it is not getting beyond our depth to first causes.

It is truly very remarkable that the gestation of hounds (106/2. In a letter written to Lyell on June 25th, 1860, the following paragraph occurs: "You need not believe one word of what I said about gestation of dogs. Since writing to you I have had more correspondence with the master of hounds, and I see his {record?} is worth nothing. It may, of course, be correct, but cannot be trusted. I find also different statements about the wolf: in fact, I am all abroad.") should vary so much, while that of man does not. It may be from multiple origin. The eggs from the Musk and the common duck take an intermediate period in hatching; but I should rather look at it as one of the ten thousand cases which we cannot explain—namely, when one part or function varies in one species and not in another.

Hooker has told me nothing about his explanation of few Arctic forms; I knew the fact before. I had speculated on what I presume, from what you say, is his explanation (106/3. "Outlines of the Distribution of Arctic Plants," J.D. Hooker, "Trans. Linn. Soc." Volume XXIII., page 251, 1862. {read June 21st, 1860.} In this paper Hooker draws attention to the exceptional character of the Greenland flora; but as regards the paucity of its species and in its much greater resemblance to the floras of Arctic Europe than to those of Arctic America, he considers it difficult to account for these facts, "unless we admit Mr. Darwin's hypotheses" (see "Origin," Edition VI., 1872, Chapter XII., page 330) of a southern migration due to the cold of the glacial period and the subsequent return of the northern types during the succeeding warmer period. Many of the Greenland species, being confined to the peninsula, "would, as it were, be driven into the sea—that is exterminated" (Hooker, op. cit., pages 253-4).); but there must have been at all times an Arctic region. I found the speculation got too complex, as it seemed to me, to be worth following out.

I have been doing some more interesting work with orchids. Talk of adaptation in woodpeckers (106/4. "Can a more striking instance of adaptation be given than that of a woodpecker for climbing trees and seizing insects in the chinks of the bark?" (Origin of Species," Edition HAVE I., page 141).), some of the orchids beat it.

I showed the case to Elizabeth Wedgwood, and her remark was, "Now you have upset your own book, for you won't persuade me that this could be effected by Natural Selection."

LETTER 107. TO T.H. HUXLEY. July 20th {1860}.

Many thanks for your pleasant letter. I agree to every word you say about "Fraser" and the "Quarterly." (107/1. Bishop Wilberforce's review of the "Origin" in the "Quarterly Review," July, 1860, was republished in his "Collected Essays," 1874. See "Life and Letters, II., page 182, and II., page 324, where some quotations from the review are given. For Hopkins' review in "Fraser's Magazine," June, 1860, see "Life and Letters," II., 314.) I have had some really admirable letters from Hopkins. I do not suppose he has ever troubled his head about geographical distribution, classification, morphologies, etc., and it is only those who have that will feel any relief in having some sort of rational explanation of such facts. Is it not grand the way in which the Bishop asserts that all such facts are explained by ideas in God's mind? The "Quarterly" is uncommonly clever; and I chuckled much at the way my grandfather and self are quizzed. I could here and there see Owen's hand. By the way, how comes it that you were not attacked? Does Owen begin to find it more prudent to leave you alone? I would give five shillings to know what tremendous blunder the Bishop made; for I see that a page has been cancelled and a new page gummed in.

I am indeed most thoroughly contented with the progress of opinion. From all that I hear from several quarters, it seems that Oxford did the subject great good. (107/2. An account of the meeting of the British Association at Oxford in 1860 is given in the "Life and Letters," II., page 320, and a fuller account in the one-volume "Life of Charles Darwin," 1892, page 236. See also the "Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley," Volume I., page 179, and the amusing account of the meeting in Mr. Tuckwell's "Reminiscences of Oxford," London, 1900, page 50.) It is of enormous importance the showing the world that a few first-rate men are not afraid of expressing their opinion. I see daily more and more plainly that my unaided book would have done absolutely nothing. Asa Gray is fighting admirably in the United States. He is thorough master of the subject, which cannot be said by any means of such men as even Hopkins.

I have been thinking over what you allude to about a natural history review. (107/3. In the "Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley," Volume I., page 209, some account of the founding of the "Natural History Review" is given in a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker of July 17th, 1860. On August 2nd Mr. Huxley added: "Darwin wrote me a very kind expostulation about it, telling me I ought not to waste myself on other than original work. In reply, however, I assured him that I MUST waste myself willy-nilly, and that the 'Review' was only a save-all.") I suppose you mean really a REVIEW and not journal for original communications in Natural History. Of the latter there is now superabundance. With respect to a good review, there can be no doubt of its value and utility; nevertheless, if not too late, I hope you will consider deliberately before you decide. Remember what a deal of work you have on your shoulders, and though you can do much, yet there is a limit to even the hardest worker's power of working. I should deeply regret to see you sacrificing much time which could be given to original research. I fear, to one who can review as well as you do, there would be the same temptation to waste time, as there notoriously is for those who can speak well.

A review is only temporary; your work should be perennial. I know well that you may say that unless good men will review there will be no good reviews. And this is true. Would you not do more good by an occasional review in some well-established review, than by giving up much time to the editing, or largely aiding, if not editing, a review which from being confined to one subject would not have a very large circulation? But I must return to the chief idea which strikes me—viz., that it would lessen the amount of original and perennial work which you could do. Reflect how few men there are in England who can do original work in the several lines in which you are excellently fitted. Lyell, I remember, on analogous grounds many years ago resolved he would write no more reviews. I am an old slowcoach, and your scheme makes me tremble. God knows in one sense I am about the last man in England who ought to throw cold water on any review in which you would be concerned, as I have so immensely profited by your labours in this line.

With respect to reviewing myself, I never tried: any work of that kind stops me doing anything else, as I cannot possibly work at odds and ends of time. I have, moreover, an insane hatred of stopping my regular current of work. I have now materials for a little paper or two, but I know I shall never work them up. So I will not promise to help; though not to help, if I could, would make me feel very ungrateful to you. You have no idea during how short a time daily I am able to work. If I had any regular duties, like you and Hooker, I should do absolutely nothing in science.

I am heartily glad to hear that you are better; but how such labour as volunteer-soldiering (all honour to you) does not kill you, I cannot understand.

For God's sake remember that your field of labour is original research in the highest and most difficult branches of Natural History. Not that I wish to underrate the importance of clever and solid reviews.

LETTER 108. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Sudbrook Park, Richmond, Thursday {July, 1860}.

I must send you a line to say what a good fellow you are to send me so long an account of the Oxford doings. I have read it twice, and sent it to my wife, and when I get home shall read it again: it has so much interested me. But how durst you attack a live bishop in that fashion? I am quite ashamed of you! Have you no reverence for fine lawn sleeves? By Jove, you seem to have done it well. If any one were to ridicule any belief of the bishop's, would he not blandly shrug his shoulders and be inexpressibly shocked? I am very, very sorry to hear that you are not well; but am not surprised after all your self-imposed labour. I hope you will soon have an outing, and that will do you real good.

I am glad to hear about J. Lubbock, whom I hope to see soon, and shall tell him what you have said. Have you read Hopkins in the last "Fraser?"—well put, in good spirit, except soul discussion bad, as I have told him; nothing actually new, takes the weak points alone, and leaves out all other considerations.

I heard from Asa Gray yesterday; he goes on fighting like a Trojan.

God bless you!—get well, be idle, and always reverence a bishop.

LETTER 109. TO J.D. DANA. Down, July 30th {1860}.

I received several weeks ago your note telling me that you could not visit England, which I sincerely regretted, as I should most heartily have liked to have made your personal acquaintance. You gave me an improved, but not very good, account of your health. I should at some time be grateful for a line to tell me how you are. We have had a miserable summer, owing to a terribly long and severe illness of my eldest girl, who improves slightly but is still in a precarious condition. I have been able to do nothing in science of late. My kind friend Asa Gray often writes to me and tells me of the warm discussions on the "Origin of Species" in the United States. Whenever you are strong enough to read it, I know you will be dead against me, but I know equally well that your opposition will be liberal and philosophical. And this is a good deal more than I can say of all my opponents in this country. I have not yet seen Agassiz's attack (109/1. "Silliman's Journal," July, 1860. A passage from Agassiz's review is given by Mr. Huxley in Darwin's "Life and Letters," II., page 184.), but I hope to find it at home when I return in a few days, for I have been for several weeks away from home on my daughter's account. Prof. Silliman sent me an extremely kind message by Asa Gray that your Journal would be open to a reply by me. I cannot decide till I see it, but on principle I have resolved to avoid answering anything, as it consumes much time, often temper, and I have said my say in the "Origin." No one person understands my views and has defended them so well as A. Gray, though he does not by any means go all the way with me. There was much discussion on the subject at the British Association at Oxford, and I had many defenders, and my side seems (for I was not there) almost to have got the best of the battle. Your correspondent and my neighbour, J. Lubbock, goes on working at such spare time as he has. This is an egotistical note, but I have not seen a naturalist for months. Most sincerely and deeply do I hope that this note may find you almost recovered.

LETTER 110. TO W.H. HARVEY.

(110/1. See Letter 95, note. This letter was written in reply to a long one from W.H. Harvey, dated August 24th, 1860. Harvey had already published a serio-comic squib and a review, to which references are given in the "Life and Letters," II., pages 314 and 375; but apparently he had not before this time completed the reading of the "Origin.")

{August, 1860.}

I have read your long letter with much interest, and I thank you for your great liberality in sending it me. But, on reflection, I do not wish to attempt answering any part, except to you privately. Anything said by myself in defence would have no weight; it is best to be defended by others, or not at all. Parts of your letter seem to me, if I may be permitted to say so, very acute and original, and I feel it a great compliment your giving up so much time to my book. But, on the whole, I am disappointed; not from your not concurring with me, for I never expected that, and, indeed, in your remarks on Chapters XII. and XIII., you go much further with me (though a little way) than I ever anticipated, and am much pleased at the result. But on the whole I am disappointed, because it seems to me that you do not understand what I mean by Natural Selection, as shown at page 11 (110/2. Harvey speaks of the perpetuation or selection of the useful, pre-supposing "a vigilant and intelligent agent," which is very much like saying that an intelligent agent is needed to see that the small stones pass through the meshes of a sieve and the big ones remain behind.) of your letter and by several of your remarks. As my book has failed to explain my meaning, it would be hopeless to attempt it in a letter. You speak in the early part of your letter, and at page 9, as if I had said that Natural Selection was the sole agency of modification, whereas I have over and over again, ad nauseam, directly said, and by order of precedence implied (what seems to me obvious) that selection can do nothing without previous variability (see pages 80, 108, 127, 468, 469, etc.), "nothing can be effected unless favourable variations occur." I consider Natural Selection as of such high importance, because it accumulates successive variations in any profitable direction, and thus adapts each new being to its complex conditions of life. The term "selection," I see, deceives many persons, though I see no more reason why it should than elective affinity, as used by the old chemists. If I had to rewrite my book, I would use "natural preservation" or "naturally preserved." I should think you would as soon take an emetic as re-read any part of my book; but if you did, and were to erase selection and selected, and insert preservation and preserved, possibly the subject would be clearer. As you are not singular in misunderstanding my book, I should long before this have concluded that my brains were in a haze had I not found by published reviews, and especially by correspondence, that Lyell, Hooker, Asa Gray, H.C. Watson, Huxley, and Carpenter, and many others, perfectly comprehend what I mean. The upshot of your remarks at page 11 is that my explanation, etc., and the whole doctrine of Natural Selection, are mere empty words, signifying the "order of nature." As the above-named clear-headed men, who do comprehend my views, all go a certain length with me, and certainly do not think it all moonshine, I should venture to suggest a little further reflection on your part. I do not mean by this to imply that the opinion of these men is worth much as showing that I am right, but merely as some evidence that I have clearer ideas than you think, otherwise these same men must be even more muddle-headed than I am; for they have no temptation to deceive themselves. In the forthcoming September (110/3. "American Journal of Science and Arts," September 1860, "Design versus Necessity," reprinted in Asa Gray's "Darwiniana," 1876, page 62.) number of the "American Journal of Science" there is an interesting and short theological article (by Asa Gray), which gives incidentally with admirable clearness the theory of Natural Selection, and therefore might be worth your reading. I think that the theological part would interest you.

You object to all my illustrations. They are all necessarily conjectural, and may be all false; but they were the best I could give. The bear case (110/4. "Origin of Species," Edition I., page 184. See Letter 120.) has been well laughed at, and disingenuously distorted by some into my saying that a bear could be converted into a whale. As it offended persons, I struck it out in the second edition; but I still maintain that there is no especial difficulty in a bear's mouth being enlarged to any degree useful to its changing habits,—no more difficulty than man has found in increasing the crop of the pigeon, by continued selection, until it is literally as big as the whole rest of the body. If this had not been known, how absurd it would have appeared to say that the crop of a bird might be increased till it became like a balloon!

With respect to the ostrich, I believe that the wings have been reduced, and are not in course of development, because the whole structure of a bird is essentially formed for flight; and the ostrich is essentially a bird. You will see at page 182 of the "Origin" a somewhat analogous discussion. At page 450 of the second edition I have pointed out the essential distinction between a nascent and rudimentary organ. If you prefer the more complex view that the progenitor of the ostrich lost its wings, and that the present ostrich is regaining them, I have nothing to say in opposition.

With respect to trees on islands, I collected some cases, but took the main facts from Alph. De Candolle, and thought they might be trusted. My explanation may be grossly wrong; but I am not convinced it is so, and I do not see the full force of your argument of certain herbaceous orders having been developed into trees in certain rare cases on continents. The case seems to me to turn altogether on the question whether generally herbaceous orders more frequently afford trees and bushes on islands than on continents, relatively to their areas. (110/5. In the "Origin," Edition I., page 392, the author points out that in the presence of competing trees an herbaceous plant would have little chance of becoming arborescent; but on an island, with only other herbaceous plants as competitors, it might gain an advantage by overtopping its fellows, and become tree-like. Harvey writes: "What you say (page 392) of insular trees belonging to orders which elsewhere include only herbaceous species seems to me to be unsupported by sufficient evidence. You cite no particular trees, and I may therefore be wrong in guessing that the orders you allude to are Scrophularineae and Compositae; and the insular trees the Antarctic Veronicas and the arborescent Compositae of St. Helena, Tasmania, etc. But in South Africa Halleria (Scrophularineae) is often as large and woody as an apple tree; and there are several South African arborescent Compositae (Senecio and Oldenburgia). Besides, in Tasmania at least, the arborescent Composites are not found competing with herbaceous plants alone, and growing taller and taller by overtopping them...; for the most arborescent of them all (Eurybia argophylla, the Musk tree) grows...in Eucalyptus forests. And so of the South African Halleria, which is a tree among trees. What the conditions of the arborescent Gerania of the Sandwich Islands may be I am unable to say...I cannot remember any other instances, nor can I accept your explanation in any other of the cases I have cited.")

In page 4 of your letter you say you give up many book-species as separate creations: I give up all, and you infer that our difference is only in degree and not in kind. I dissent from this; for I give a distinct reason how far I go in giving up species. I look at all forms, which resemble each other homologically or embryologically, as certainly descended from the same species.

You hit me hard and fairly (110/6. Harvey writes: "You ask—were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as eggs or seed, or as full grown? To this it is sufficient to reply, was your primordial organism, or were your four or five progenitors created as egg, seed, or full grown? Neither theory attempts to solve this riddle, nor yet the riddle of the Omphalos." The latter point, which Mr. Darwin refuses to give up, is at page 483 of the "Origin," "and, in the case of mammals, were they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's womb?" In the third edition of the "Origin," 1861, page 517, the author adds, after the last-cited passage: "Undoubtedly these same questions cannot be answered by those who, under the present state of science, believe in the creation of a few aboriginal forms, or of some one form of life. In the sixth edition, probably with a view to the umbilicus, he writes (page 423): "Undoubtedly some of these same questions," etc., etc. From notes in Mr. Darwin's copy of the second edition it is clear that the change in the third edition was chiefly due to Harvey's letter. See Letter 115.) about my question (page 483, "Origin") about creation of eggs or young, etc., (but not about mammals with the mark of the umbilical cord), yet I still have an illogical sort of feeling that there is less difficulty in imagining the creation of an asexual cell, increasing by simple division.

Page 5 of your letter: I agree to every word about the antiquity of the world, and never saw the case put by any one more strongly or more ably. It makes, however, no more impression on me as an objection than does the astronomer when he puts on a few hundred million miles to the distance of the fixed stars. To compare very small things with great, Lingula, etc., remaining nearly unaltered from the Silurian epoch to the present day, is like the dovecote pigeons still being identical with wild Rock-pigeons, whereas its "fancy" offspring have been immensely modified, and are still being modified, by means of artificial selection.

You put the difficulty of the first modification of the first protozoon admirably. I assure you that immediately after the first edition was published this occurred to me, and I thought of inserting it in the second edition. I did not, because we know not in the least what the first germ of life was, nor have we any fact at all to guide us in our speculations on the kind of change which its offspring underwent. I dissent quite from what you say of the myriads of years it would take to people the world with such imagined protozoon. In how very short a time Ehrenberg calculated that a single infusorium might make a cube of rock! A single cube on geometrical progression would make the solid globe in (I suppose) under a century. From what little I know, I cannot help thinking that you underrate the effects of the physical conditions of life on these low organisms. But I fully admit that I can give no sort of answer to your objections; yet I must add that it would be marvellous if any man ever could, assuming for the moment that my theory is true. You beg the question, I think, in saying that Protococcus would be doomed to eternal similarity. Nor can you know that the first germ resembled a Protococcus or any other now living form.

Page 12 of your letter: There is nothing in my theory necessitating in each case progression of organisation, though Natural Selection tends in this line, and has generally thus acted. An animal, if it become fitted by selection to live the life, for instance, of a parasite, will generally become degraded. I have much regretted that I did not make this part of the subject clearer. I left out this and many other subjects, which I now see ought to have been introduced. I have inserted a discussion on this subject in the foreign editions. (110/7. In the third Edition a discussion on this point is added in Chapter IV.) In no case will any organic being tend to retrograde, unless such retrogradation be an advantage to its varying offspring; and it is difficult to see how going back to the structure of the unknown supposed original protozoon could ever be an advantage.

Page 13 of your letter: I have been more glad to read your discussion on "dominant" forms than any part of your letter. (110/8. Harvey writes: "Viewing organic nature in its widest aspect, I think it is unquestionable that the truly dominant races are not those of high, but those of low organisation"; and goes on to quote the potato disease, etc. In the third edition of the "Origin," page 56, a discussion is introduced defining the author's use of the term "dominant.") I can now see that I have not been cautious enough in confining my definition and meaning. I cannot say that you have altered my views. If Botrytis {Phytophthora} had exterminated the wild potato, a low form would have conquered a high; but I cannot remember that I have ever said (I am sure I never thought) that a low form would never conquer a high. I have expressly alluded to parasites half exterminating game-animals, and to the struggle for life being sometimes between forms as different as possible: for instance, between grasshoppers and herbivorous quadrupeds. Under the many conditions of life which this world affords, any group which is numerous in individuals and species and is widely distributed, may properly be called dominant. I never dreamed of considering that any one group, under all conditions and throughout the world, would be predominant. How could vertebrata be predominant under the conditions of life in which parasitic worms live? What good would their perfected senses and their intellect serve under such conditions? When I have spoken of dominant forms, it has been in relation to the multiplication of new specific forms, and the dominance of any one species has been relative generally to other members of the same group, or at least to beings exposed to similar conditions and coming into competition. But I daresay that I have not in the "Origin" made myself clear, and space has rendered it impossible. But I thank you most sincerely for your valuable remarks, though I do not agree with them.

About sudden jumps: I have no objection to them—they would aid me in some cases. All I can say is, that I went into the subject, and found no evidence to make me believe in jumps; and a good deal pointing in the other direction. You will find it difficult (page 14 of your letter) to make a marked line of separation between fertile and infertile crosses. I do not see how the apparently sudden change (for the suddenness of change in a chrysalis is of course largely only apparent) in larvae during their development throws any light on the subject.

I wish I could have made this letter better worth sending to you. I have had it copied to save you at least the intolerable trouble of reading my bad handwriting. Again I thank you for your great liberality and kindness in sending me your criticisms, and I heartily wish we were a little nearer in accord; but we must remain content to be as wide asunder as the poles, but without, thank God, any malice or other ill-feeling.

LETTER 111. TO T.H. HUXLEY.

(111/1. Dr. Asa Gray's articles in the "Atlantic Monthly," July, August, and October, 1860, were published in England as a pamphlet, and form Chapter III. in his "Darwiniana" (1876). See "Life and Letters," II., page 338. The article referred to in the present letter is that in the August number.)

Down, September 10th {1860}.

I send by this post a review by Asa Gray, so good that I should like you to see it; I must beg for its return. I want to ask, also, your opinion about getting it reprinted in England. I thought of sending it to the Editor of the "Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist." in which two hostile reviews have appeared (although I suppose the "Annals" have a very poor circulation), and asking them in the spirit of fair play to print this, with Asa Gray's name, which I will take the responsibility of adding. Also, as it is long, I would offer to pay expenses.

It is very good, in addition, as bringing in Pictet so largely. (111/2. Pictet (1809-72) wrote a "perfectly fair" review opposed to the "Origin." See "Life and Letters," II., page 297.) Tell me briefly what you think.

What an astonishing expedition this is of Hooker's to Syria! God knows whether it is wise.

How are you and all yours? I hope you are not working too hard. For Heaven's sake, think that you may become such a beast as I am. How goes on the "Nat. Hist. Review?" Talking of reviews, I damned with a good grace the review in the "Athenaeum" (111/3. Review of "The Glaciers of the Alps" ("Athenaeum," September 1, 1860, page 280).) on Tyndall with a mean, scurvy allusion to you. It is disgraceful about Tyndall,—in fact, doubting his veracity.

I am very tired, and hate nearly the whole world. So good-night, and take care of your digestion, which means brain.

LETTER 112. TO C. LYELL. 15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, 26th {September 1860}.

It has just occurred to me that I took no notice of your questions on extinction in St. Helena. I am nearly sure that Hooker has information on the extinction of plants (112/1. "Principles of Geology," Volume II. (Edition X., 1868), page 453. Facts are quoted from Hooker illustrating the extermination of plants in St. Helena.), but I cannot remember where I have seen it. One may confidently assume that many insects were exterminated.

By the way, I heard lately from Wollaston, who told me that he had just received eminently Madeira and Canary Island insect forms from the Cape of Good Hope, to which trifling distance, if he is logical, he will have to extend his Atlantis! I have just received your letter, and am very much pleased that you approve. But I am utterly disgusted and ashamed about the dingo. I cannot think how I could have misunderstood the paper so grossly. I hope I have not blundered likewise in its co-existence with extinct species: what horrid blundering! I am grieved to hear that you think I must work in the notes in the text; but you are so much better a judge that I will obey. I am sorry that you had the trouble of returning the Dog MS., which I suppose I shall receive to-morrow.

I mean to give good woodcuts of all the chief races of pigeons. (112/2. "The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," 1868.)

Except the C. oenas (112/3. The Columba oenas of Europe roosts on trees and builds its nest in holes, either in trees or the ground ("Var. of Animals," Volume I., page 183).) (which is partly, indeed almost entirely, a wood pigeon), there is no other rock pigeon with which our domestic pigeon would cross—that is, if several exceedingly close geographical races of C. livia, which hardly any ornithologist looks at as true species, be all grouped under C. livia. (112/4. Columba livia, the Rock-pigeon. "We may conclude with confidence that all the domestic races, notwithstanding their great amount of difference, are descended from the Columba livia, including under this name certain wild races" (op. cit., Volume I., page 223).)

I am writing higgledy-piggledy, as I re-read your letter. I thought that my letter had been much wilder than yours. I quite feel the comfort of writing when one may "alter one's speculations the day after." It is beyond my knowledge to weigh ranks of birds and monotremes; in the respiratory and circulatory system and muscular energy I believe birds are ahead of all mammals.

I knew that you must have known about New Guinea; but in writing to you I never make myself civil!

After treating some half-dozen or dozen domestic animals in the same manner as I treat dogs, I intended to have a chapter of conclusions. But Heaven knows when I shall finish: I get on very slowly. You would be surprised how long it took me to pick out what seemed useful about dogs out of multitudes of details.

I see the force of your remark about more isolated races of man in old times, and therefore more in number. It seems to me difficult to weigh probabilities. Perhaps so, if you refer to very slight differences in the races: to make great differences much time would be required, and then, even at the earliest period I should have expected one race to have spread, conquered, and exterminated the others.

With respect to Falconer's series of Elephants (112/5. In 1837 Dr. Falconer and Sir Proby Cautley collected a large number of fossil remains from the Siwalik Hills. Falconer and Cautley, "Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis," 1845-49.), I think the case could be answered better than I have done in the "Origin," page 334. (112/6. "Origin of Species," Edition I., page 334. "It is no real objection to the truth of the statement that the fauna of each period as a whole is nearly intermediate in character between the preceding and succeeding faunas, that certain genera offer exceptions to the rule. For instance, mastodons and elephants, when arranged by Dr. Falconer in two series, first according to their mutual affinities and then according to their periods of existence, do not accord in arrangement. The species extreme in character are not the oldest, or the most recent; nor are those which are intermediate in character intermediate in age. But supposing for an instant, in this and other such cases, that the record of the first appearance and disappearance of the species was perfect, we have no reason to believe that forms successively produced necessarily endure for corresponding lengths of time. A very ancient form might occasionally last much longer than a form elsewhere subsequently produced, especially in the case of terrestrial productions inhabiting separated districts" (pages 334-5). The same words occur in the later edition of the "Origin" (Edition VI., page 306.) All these new discoveries show how imperfect the discovered series is, which Falconer thought years ago was nearly perfect.

I will send to-day or to-morrow two articles by Asa Gray. The longer one (now not finally corrected) will come out in the October "Atlantic Monthly," and they can be got at Trubner's. Hearty thanks for all your kindness.

Do not hurry over Asa Gray. He strikes me as one of the best reasoners and writers I ever read. He knows my book as well as I do myself.

LETTER 113. TO C. LYELL. 15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, October 3rd {1860}.

Your last letter has interested me much in many ways.

I enclose a letter of Wyman's which touches on brains. Wyman is mistaken in supposing that I did not know that the Cave-rat was an American form; I made special enquiries. He does not know that the eye of the Tucotuco was carefully dissected.

With respect to reviews by A. Gray. I thought of sending the Dialogue to the "Saturday Review" in a week's time or so, as they have lately discussed Design. (113/1. "Discussion between two Readers of Darwin's Treatise on the Origin of Species, upon its Natural Theology" ("Amer. Journ. Sci." Volume XXX, page 226, 1860). Reprinted in "Darwiniana," 1876, page 62. The article begins with the following question: "First Reader—Is Darwin's theory atheistic or pantheistic? Or does it tend to atheism or pantheism?" The discussion is closed by the Second Reader, who thus sums up his views: "Wherefore we may insist that, for all that yet appears, the argument for design, as presented by the natural theologians, is just as good now, if we accept Darwin's theory, as it was before the theory was promulgated; and that the sceptical juryman, who was about to join the other eleven in an unanimous verdict in favour of design, finds no good excuse for keeping the Court longer waiting.") I have sent the second, or August, "Atlantic" article to the "Annals and Mag. of Nat. History." (113/2. "Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume VI., pages 373-86, 1860. (From the "Atlantic Monthly," August, 1860.)) The copy which you have I want to send to Pictet, as I told A. Gray I would, thinking from what he said he would like this to be done. I doubt whether it would be possible to get the October number reprinted in this country; so that I am in no hurry at all for this.

I had a letter a few weeks ago from Symonds on the imperfection of the Geological Record, less clear and forcible than I expected. I answered him at length and very civilly, though I could hardly make out what he was driving at. He spoke about you in a way which it did me good to read.

I am extremely glad that you like A. Gray's reviews. How generous and unselfish he has been in all his labour! Are you not struck by his metaphors and similes? I have told him he is a poet and not a lawyer.

I should altogether doubt on turtles being converted into land tortoises on any one island. Remember how closely similar tortoises are on all continents, as well as islands; they must have all descended from one ancient progenitor, including the gigantic tortoise of the Himalaya.

I think you must be cautious in not running the convenient doctrine that only one species out of very many ever varies. Reflect on such cases as the fauna and flora of Europe, North America, and Japan, which are so similar, and yet which have a great majority of their species either specifically distinct, or forming well-marked races. We must in such cases incline to the belief that a multitude of species were once identically the same in all the three countries when under a warmer climate and more in connection; and have varied in all the three countries. I am inclined to believe that almost every species (as we see with nearly all our domestic productions) varies sufficiently for Natural Selection to pick out and accumulate new specific differences, under new organic and inorganic conditions of life, whenever a place is open in the polity of nature. But looking to a long lapse of time and to the whole world, or to large parts of the world, I believe only one or a few species of each large genus ultimately becomes victorious, and leaves modified descendants. To give an imaginary instance: the jay has become modified in the three countries into (I believe) three or four species; but the jay genus is not, apparently, so dominant a group as the crows; and in the long run probably all the jays will be exterminated and be replaced perhaps by some modified crows.

I merely give this illustration to show what seems to me probable.

But oh! what work there is before we shall understand the genealogy of organic beings!

With respect to the Apteryx, I know not enough of anatomy; but ask Dr. F. whether the clavicle, etc., do not give attachment to some of the muscles of respiration. If my views are at all correct, the wing of the Apteryx (113/3. "Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 140.) cannot be (page 452 of the "Origin") a nascent organ, as these wings are useless. I dare not trust to memory, but I know I found the whole sternum always reduced in size in all the fancy and confined pigeons relatively to the same bones in the wild Rock-pigeon: the keel was generally still further reduced relatively to the reduced length of the sternum; but in some breeds it was in a most anomalous manner more prominent. I have got a lot of facts on the reduction of the organs of flight in the pigeon, which took me weeks to work out, and which Huxley thought curious.

I am utterly ashamed, and groan over my handwriting. It was "Natural Preservation." Natural persecution is what the author ought to suffer. It rejoices me that you do not object to the term. Hooker made the same remark that it ought to have been "Variation and Natural Selection." Yet with domestic productions, when selection is spoken of, variation is always implied. But I entirely agree with your and Hooker's remark.

Have you begun regularly to write your book on the antiquity of man? (113/4. Published in 1863.)

I do NOT agree with your remark that I make Natural Selection do too much work. You will perhaps reply that every man rides his hobby-horse to death; and that I am in the galloping state.

LETTER 114. TO C. LYELL. 15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, Friday 5th {October, 1860}.

I have two notes to thank you for, and I return Wollaston. It has always seemed to me rather strange that Forbes, Wollaston and Co. should argue, from the presence of allied, and not identical species in islands, for the former continuity of land.

They argue, I suppose, from the species being allied in different regions of the same continent, though specifically distinct. But I think one might on the creative doctrine argue with equal force in a directly reverse manner, and say that, as species are so often markedly distinct, yet allied, on islands, all our continents existed as islands first, and their inhabitants were first created on these islands, and since became mingled together, so as not to be so distinct as they now generally are on islands.

LETTER 115. TO H.G. BRONN. Down, October 5th {1860}.

I ought to apologise for troubling you, but I have at last carefully read your excellent criticisms on my book. (115/1. Bronn added critical remarks to his German translation of the "Origin": see "Life and Letters," II., page 279.) I agree with much of them, and wholly with your final sentence. The objections and difficulties which may be urged against my view are indeed heavy enough almost to break my back, but it is not yet broken! You put very well and very fairly that I can in no one instance explain the course of modification in any particular instance. I could make some sort of answer to your case of the two rats; and might I not turn round and ask him who believes in the separate creation of each species, why one rat has a longer tail or shorter ears than another? I presume that most people would say that these characters were of some use, or stood in some connection with other parts; and if so, Natural Selection would act on them. But as you put the case, it tells well against me. You argue most justly against my question, whether the many species were created as eggs (115/2. See Letter 110.) or as mature, etc. I certainly had no right to ask that question. I fully agree that there might have been as well a hundred thousand creations as eight or ten, or only one. But then, on the view of eight or ten creations (i.e. as many as there are distinct types of structure) we can on my view understand the homological and embryological resemblance of all the organisms of each type, and on this ground almost alone I disbelieve in the innumerable acts of creation. There are only two points on which I think you have misunderstood me. I refer only to one Glacial period as affecting the distribution of organic beings; I did not wish even to allude to the doubtful evidence of glacial action in the Permian and Carboniferous periods. Secondly, I do not believe that the process of development has always been carried on at the same rate in all different parts of the world. Australia is opposed to such belief. The nearly contemporaneous equal development in past periods I attribute to the slow migration of the higher and more dominant forms over the whole world, and not to independent acts of development in different parts. Lastly, permit me to add that I cannot see the force of your objection, that nothing is effected until the origin of life is explained: surely it is worth while to attempt to follow out the action of electricity, though we know not what electricity is.

If you should at any time do me the favour of writing to me, I should be very much obliged if you would inform me whether you have yourself examined Brehm's subspecies of birds; for I have looked through some of his writings, but have never met an ornithologist who believed in his {illegible}. Are these subspecies really characteristic of certain different regions of Germany?

Should you write, I should much like to know how the German edition sells.

LETTER 116. TO J.S. HENSLOW. October 26th {1860}.

Many thanks for your note and for all the trouble about the seeds, which will be most useful to me next spring. On my return home I will send the shillings. (116/1. Shillings for the little girls in Henslow's parish who collected seeds for Darwin.) I concluded that Dr. Bree had blundered about the Celts. I care not for his dull, unvarying abuse of me, and singular misrepresentation. But at page 244 he in fact doubts my deliberate word, and that is the act of a man who has not the soul of a gentleman in him. Kingsley is "the celebrated author and divine" (116/2. "Species not Transmutable," by C.R. Bree. After quoting from the "Origin," Edition II., page 481, the words in which a celebrated author and divine confesses that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms, etc.," Dr. Bree goes on: "I think we ought to have had the name of this divine given with this remarkable statement. I confess that I have not yet fully made up my mind that any divine could have ever penned lines so fatal to the truths he is called upon to teach.") whose striking sentence I give in the second edition with his permission. I did not choose to ask him to let me use his name, and as he did not volunteer, I had of course no choice. (116/3. We are indebted to Mr. G.W. Prothero for calling our attention to the following striking passage from the works of a divine of this period:—"Just a similar scepticism has been evinced by nearly all the first physiologists of the day, who have joined in rejecting the development theories of Lamarck and the 'Vestiges'...Yet it is now acknowledged under the high sanction of the name of Owen that 'creation' is only another name for our ignorance of the mode of production...while a work has now appeared by a naturalist of the most acknowledged authority, Mr. Darwin's masterly volume on the 'Origin of Species,' by the law of 'natural selection,' which now substantiates on undeniable grounds the very principle so long denounced by the first naturalists—the origination of new species by natural causes: a work which must soon bring about an entire revolution of opinion in favour of the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature."—Prof. Baden Powell's "Study of the Evidences of Christianity," "Essays and Reviews," 7th edition, 1861 (pages 138, 139).)

Dr. Freke has sent me his paper, which is far beyond my scope—something like the capital quiz in the "Anti-Jacobin" on my grandfather, which was quoted in the "Quarterly Review."

LETTER 117. TO D.T. ANSTED.

(117/1. The following letter was published in Professor Meldola's presidential address to the Entomological Society, 1897, and to him we are indebted for a copy.)

15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, October 27th {1860}.

As I am away from home on account of my daughter's health, I do not know your address, and fly this at random, and it is of very little consequence if it never reaches you.

I have just been reading the greater part of your "Geological Gossip," and have found part very interesting; but I want to express my admiration at the clear and correct manner in which you have given a sketch of Natural Selection. You will think this very slight praise; but I declare that the majority of readers seem utterly incapable of comprehending my long argument. Some of the reviewers, who have servilely stuck to my illustrations and almost to my words, have been correct, but extraordinarily few others have succeeded. I can see plainly, by your new illustrations and manner and order of putting the case, that you thoroughly comprehend the subject. I assure you this is most gratifying to me, and it is the sole way in which the public can be indoctrinated. I am often in despair in making the generality of NATURALISTS even comprehend me. Intelligent men who are not naturalists and have not a bigoted idea of the term species, show more clearness of mind. I think that you have done the subject a real service, and I sincerely thank you. No doubt there will be much error found in my book, but I have great confidence that the main view will be, in time, found correct; for I find, without exception, that those naturalists who went at first one inch with me now go a foot or yard with me.

This note obviously requires no answer.

LETTER 118. TO H.W. BATES. Down, November 22nd {1860}.

I thank you sincerely for writing to me and for your very interesting letter. Your name has for very long been familiar to me, and I have heard of your zealous exertions in the cause of Natural History. But I did not know that you had worked with high philosophical questions before your mind. I have an old belief that a good observer really means a good theorist (118/1. For an opposite opinion, see Letter 13.), and I fully expect to find your observations most valuable. I am very sorry to hear that your health is shattered; but I trust under a healthy climate it may be restored. I can sympathise with you fully on this score, for I have had bad health for many years, and fear I shall ever remain a confirmed invalid. I am delighted to hear that you, with all your large practical knowledge of Natural History, anticipated me in many respects and concur with me. As you say, I have been thoroughly well attacked and reviled (especially by entomologists—Westwood, Wollaston, and A. Murray have all reviewed and sneered at me to their hearts' content), but I care nothing about their attacks; several really good judges go a long way with me, and I observe that all those who go some little way tend to go somewhat further. What a fine philosophical mind your friend Mr. Wallace has, and he has acted, in relation to me, like a true man with a noble spirit. I see by your letter that you have grappled with several of the most difficult problems, as it seems to me, in Natural History—such as the distinctions between the different kinds of varieties, representative species, etc. Perhaps I shall find some facts in your paper on intermediate varieties in intermediate regions, on which subject I have found remarkably little information. I cannot tell you how glad I am to hear that you have attended to the curious point of equatorial refrigeration. I quite agree that it must have been small; yet the more I go into that question the more convinced I feel that there was during the Glacial period some migration from north to south. The sketch in the "Origin" gives a very meagre account of my fuller MS. essay on this subject.

I shall be particularly obliged for a copy of your paper when published (118/2. Probably a paper by Bates entitled "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley" ("Trans. Entomol. Soc." Volume V., page 335, 1858-61).); and if any suggestions occur to me (not that you require any) or questions, I will write and ask.

I have at once to prepare a new edition of the "Origin," (118/3. Third Edition, March, 1861.), and I will do myself the pleasure of sending you a copy; but it will be only very slightly altered.

Cases of neuter ants, divided into castes, with intermediate gradations (which I imagine are rare) interest me much. See "Origin" on the driver-ant, page 241 (please look at the passage.)

LETTER 119. TO T.H. HUXLEY.

(119/1. This refers to the first number of the new series of the "Natural History Review," 1861, a periodical which Huxley was largely instrumental in founding, and of which he was an editor (see Letter 107). The first series was published in Dublin, and ran to seven volumes between 1854 and 1860. The new series came to an end in 1865.)

Down, January, 3rd {1861}.

I have just finished No. 1 of the "Natural History Review," and must congratulate you, as chiefly concerned, on its excellence. The whole seems to me admirable,—so admirable that it is impossible that other numbers should be so good, but it would be foolish to expect it. I am rather a croaker, and I do rather fear that the merit of the articles will be above the run of common readers and subscribers. I have been much interested by your brain article. (119/2. The "Brain article" of Huxley bore the title "On the Zoological Relations of Man with the Lower Animals," and appeared in No. 1, January 1861, page 67. It was Mr. Huxley's vindication of the unqualified contradiction given by him at the Oxford meeting of the British Association to Professor Owen's assertions as to the difference between the brains of man and the higher apes. The sentence omitted by Owen in his lecture before the University of Cambridge was a footnote on the close structural resemblance between Homo and Pithecus, which occurs in his paper on the characters of the class Mammalia in the "Linn. Soc. Journal," Volume II., 1857, page 20. According to Huxley the lecture, or "Essay on the Classification of the Mammalia," was, with this omission, a reprint of the Linnean paper. In "Man's Place in Nature," page 110, note, Huxley remarks: "Surely it is a little singular that the 'anatomist,' who finds it 'difficult' to 'determine the difference' between Homo and Pithecus, should yet range them, on anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes.") What a complete and awful smasher (and done like a "buttered angel") it is for Owen! What a humbug he is to have left out the sentence in the lecture before the orthodox Cambridge dons! I like Lubbock's paper very much: how well he writes. (119/3. Sir John Lubbock's paper was a review of Leydig on the Daphniidae. M'Donnell's was "On the Homologies of the Electric Organ of the Torpedo," afterwards used in the "Origin" (see Edition VI., page 150).) M'Donnell, of course, pleases me greatly. But I am very curious to know who wrote the Protozoa article: I shall hear, if it be not a secret, from Lubbock. It strikes me as very good, and, by Jove, how Owen is shown up—"this great and sound reasoner"! By the way, this reminds me of a passage which I have just observed in Owen's address at Leeds, which a clever reviewer might turn into good fun. He defines (page xc) and further on amplifies his definition that creation means "a process he knows not what." And in a previous sentence he says facts shake his confidence that the Apteryx in New Zealand and Red Grouse in England are "distinct creations." So that he has no confidence that these birds were produced by "processes he knows not what!" To what miserable inconsistencies and rubbish this truckling to opposite opinions leads the great generaliser! (119/4. In the "Historical Sketch," which forms part of the later editions of the "Origin," Mr. Darwin made use of Owen's Leeds Address in the manner sketched above. See "Origin," Edition VI., page xvii.)

Farewell: I heartily rejoice in the clear merit of this number. I hope Mrs. Huxley goes on well. Etty keeps much the same, but has not got up to the same pitch as when you were here. Farewell.

LETTER 120. TO JAMES LAMONT. Down, February 25th {1861}.

I am extremely much obliged for your very kind present of your beautiful work, "Seasons with the Sea-Horses;" and I have no doubt that I shall find much interesting from so careful and acute an observer as yourself. (120/1. "Seasons with the Sea-Horses; or, Sporting Adventures in the Northern Seas." London, 1861. Mr. Lamont (loc. cit., page 273) writes: "The polar bear seems to me to be nothing more than a variety of the bears inhabiting Northern Europe, Asia, and America; and it surely requires no very great stretch of the imagination to suppose that this variety was originally created, not as we see him now, but by individuals of Ursus arctos in Siberia, who, finding their means of subsistence running short, and pressed by hunger, ventured on the ice and caught some seals. These individuals would find that they could make a subsistence in this way, and would take up their residence on the shore and gradually take to a life on the ice...Then it stands to reason that those individuals who might happen to be palest in colour would have the best chance of succeeding in surprising seals...The process of Natural Selection would do the rest, and Ursus arctos would in the course of a few thousands, or a few millions of years, be transformed into the variety at present known as Ursus maritimus." The author adds the following footnote (op. cit., page 275): "It will be obvious to any one that I follow Mr. Darwin in these remarks; and, although the substance of this chapter was written in Spitzbergen, before "The Origin of Species" was published, I do not claim any originality for my views; and I also cheerfully acknowledge that, but for the publication of that work in connection with the name of so distinguished a naturalist, I never would have ventured to give to the world my own humble opinions on the subject.")

P.S. I have just been cutting the leaves of your book, and have been very much pleased and surprised at your note about what you wrote in Spitzbergen. As you thought it out independently, it is no wonder that you so clearly understand Natural Selection, which so few of my reviewers do or pretend not to do.

I never expected to see any one so heroically bold as to defend my bear illustration. (120/2. "In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, almost like a whale, insects in the water."—"Origin," Edition VI., page 141. See Letter 110.) But a man who has done all that you have done must be bold! It is laughable how often I have been attacked and misrepresented about this bear. I am much pleased with your remarks, and thank you cordially for coming to the rescue.

LETTER 121. TO W.B. TEGETMEIER.

(121/1. Mr. Darwin's letters to Mr. Tegetmeier, taken as a whole, give a striking picture of the amount of assistance which Darwin received from him during many years. Some citations from these letters given in "Life and Letters," II., pages 52, 53, show how freely and generously Mr. Tegetmeier gave his help, and how much his co-operation was valued.

The following letter is given as an example of the questions on which Darwin sought Mr. Tegetmeier's opinion and guidance.)

Down, March 22 {1861}.

I ought to have answered your last note sooner; but I have been very busy. How wonderfully successful you have been in breeding Pouters! You have a good right to be proud of your accuracy of eye and judgment. I am in the thick of poultry, having just commenced, and shall be truly grateful for the skulls, if you can send them by any conveyance to the Nag's Head next Thursday.

You ask about vermilion wax: positively it was not in the state of comb, but in solid bits and cakes, which were thrown with other rubbish not far from my hives. You can make any use of the fact you like. Combs could be concentrically and variously coloured and dates recorded by giving for a few days wax darkly coloured with vermilion and indigo, and I daresay other substances. You ask about my crossed fowls, and this leads me to make a proposition to you, which I hope cannot be offensive to you. I trust you know me too well to think that I would propose anything objectionable to the best of my judgment. The case is this: for my object of treating poultry I must give a sketch of several breeds, with remarks on various points. I do not feel strong on the subject. Now, when my MS. is fairly copied in an excellent handwriting, would you read it over, which would take you at most an hour or two, and make comments in pencil on it; and accept, like a barrister, a fee, we will say, of a couple of guineas. This would be a great assistance to me, specially if you would allow me to put a note, stating that you, a distinguished judge and fancier, had read it over. I would state that you doubted or concurred, as each case might be, of course striking out what you were sure was incorrect. There would be little new in my MS. to you; but if by chance you used any of my facts or conclusions before I published, I should wish you to state that they were on my authority; otherwise I shall be accused of stealing from you. There will be little new, except that perhaps I have consulted some out-of-the-way books, and have corresponded with some good authorities. Tell me frankly what you think of this; but unless you will oblige me by accepting remuneration, I cannot and will not give you such trouble. I have little doubt that several points will arise which will require investigation, as I care for many points disregarded by fanciers; and according to any time thus spent, you will, I trust, allow me to make remuneration. I hope that you will grant me this favour. There is one assistance which I will now venture to beg of you—viz., to get me, if you can, another specimen of an old white Angora rabbit. I want it dead for the skeleton; and not knocked on the head. Secondly, I see in the "Cottage Gardener" (March 19th, page 375) there are impure half-lops with one ear quite upright and shorter than the other lopped ear. I much want a dead one. Baker cannot get one. Baily is looking out; but I want two specimens. Can you assist me, if you meet any rabbit-fancier? I have had rabbits with one ear more lopped than the other; but I want one with one ear quite upright and shorter, and the other quite long and lopped.

LETTER 122. TO H.W. BATES. Down, March 26th {1861}.

I have read your papers with extreme interest, and I have carefully read every word of them. (122/1. "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley." (Read March 5th and November 24th, 1860). "Entomological Soc. Trans." V., pages 223 and 335).) They seem to me to be far richer in facts of variation, and especially on the distribution of varieties and subspecies, than anything which I have read. Hereafter I shall re-read them, and hope in my future work to profit by them and make use of them. The amount of variation has much surprised me. The analogous variation of distinct species in the same regions strikes me as particularly curious. The greater variability of the female sex is new to me. Your Guiana case seems in some degree analogous, as far as plants are concerned, with the modern plains of La Plata, which seem to have been colonised from the north, but the species have been hardly modified. (122/2. Mr. Bates (page 349) gives reason to believe that the Guiana region should be considered "a perfectly independent province," and that it has formed a centre "whence radiated the species which now people the low lands on its borders.")

Would you kindly answer me two or three questions if in your power? When species A becomes modified in another region into a well-marked form C, but is connected with it by one (or more) gradational forms B inhabiting an intermediate region; does this form B generally exist in equal numbers with A and C, OR INHABIT AN EQUALLY LARGE AREA? The probability is that you cannot answer this question, though one of your cases seems to bear on it...

You will, I think, be glad to hear that I now often hear of naturalists accepting my views more or less fully; but some are curiously cautious in running the risk of any small odium in expressing their belief.

LETTER 123. TO H.W. BATES. Down, April 4th {1861}.

I have been unwell, so have delayed thanking you for your admirable letter. I hope you will not think me presumptuous in saying how much I have been struck with your varied knowledge, and with the decisive manner in which you bring it to bear on each point,—a rare and most high quality, as far as my experience goes. I earnestly hope you will find time to publish largely: before the Linnean Society you might bring boldly out your views on species. Have you ever thought of publishing your travels, and working in them the less abstruse parts of your Natural History? I believe it would sell, and be a very valuable contribution to Natural History. You must also have seen a good deal of the natives. I know well it would be quite unreasonable to ask for any further information from you; but I will just mention that I am now, and shall be for a long time, writing on domestic varieties of all animals. Any facts would be useful, especially any showing that savages take any care in breeding their animals, or in rejecting the bad and preserving the good; or any fancies which they may have that one coloured or marked dog, etc., is better than another. I have already collected much on this head, but am greedy for facts. You will at once see their bearing on variation under domestication.

Hardly anything in your letter has pleased me more than about sexual selection. In my larger MS. (and indeed in the "Origin" with respect to the tuft of hairs on the breast of the cock-turkey) I have guarded myself against going too far; but I did not at all know that male and female butterflies haunted rather different sites. If I had to cut up myself in a review I would have {worried?} and quizzed sexual selection; therefore, though I am fully convinced that it is largely true, you may imagine how pleased I am at what you say on your belief. This part of your letter to me is a quintessence of richness. The fact about butterflies attracted by coloured sepals is another good fact, worth its weight in gold. It would have delighted the heart of old Christian C. Sprengel—now many years in his grave.

I am glad to hear that you have specially attended to "mimetic" analogies—a most curious subject; I hope you publish on it. I have for a long time wished to know whether what Dr. Collingwood asserts is true—that the most striking cases generally occur between insects inhabiting the same country.

LETTER 124. TO F.W. HUTTON. Down, April 20th {1861}.

I hope that you will permit me to thank you for sending me a copy of your paper in "The Geologist" (124/1. In a letter to Hooker (April 23rd?, 1861) Darwin refers to Hutton's review as "very original," and adds that Hutton is "one of the very few who see that the change of species cannot be directly proved..." ("Life and Letters," II., page 362). The review appeared in "The Geologist" (afterwards known as "The Geological Magazine") for 1861, pages 132-6 and 183-8. A letter on "Difficulties of Darwinism" is published in the same volume of "The Geologist," page 286.), and at the same time to express my opinion that you have done the subject a real service by the highly original, striking, and condensed manner with which you have put the case. I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce direct evidence of one species changing into another, but that I believe that this view in the main is correct, because so many phenomena can be thus grouped together and explained. But it is generally of no use; I cannot make persons see this. I generally throw in their teeth the universally admitted theory of the undulation of light,—neither the undulation nor the very existence of ether being proved, yet admitted because the view explains so much. You are one of the very few who have seen this, and have now put it most forcibly and clearly. I am much pleased to see how carefully you have read my book, and, what is far more important, reflected on so many points with an independent spirit. As I am deeply interested in the subject (and I hope not exclusively under a personal point of view) I could not resist venturing to thank you for the right good service which you have done.

I need hardly say that this note requires no answer.

LETTER 125. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(125/1. Parts of this letter are published in "Life and Letters," II., page 362.)

Down, {April} 23rd, {1861}.

I have been much interested by Bentham's paper in the "Natural History Review," but it would not, of course, from familiarity, strike you as it did me. (125/2. This refers to Bentham's paper "On the Species and Genera of Plants, etc." "Nat. Hist. Review," April, 1861, page 133, which is founded on, or extracted from, a paper read before the Linn. Soc., November 15th, 1858. It had been originally set down to be read on July 1st, 1858, but gave way to the papers of Darwin and Wallace. Mr. Bentham has described ("Life and Letters," II., page 294) how he reluctantly cancelled the parts urging "original fixity" of specific type, and the remainder seems not to have been published except in the above-quoted paper in the "Nat. Hist. Review.") 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. 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." (125/3. See "Nat. Hist. Review," 1861, page 206. The paper is "On the Brain of the Orang Utang," and forms part of the bitter controversy of this period to which reference occurs in letters to Huxley and elsewhere in these volumes. Rolleston's work is quoted by Huxley ("Man's Place in Nature," page 117) as part of the crushing refutation of Owen's position. Mr. Huxley's letter referred to above is no doubt that in the "Athenaeum," April 13th, 1861, page 498; it is certainly severe, but to those who know Mr. Huxley's "Succinct History of the Controversy," etc. ("Man's Place in Nature," page 113), it will not seem too severe.) I had a dim perception of the truth of your profound remark—that he wrote in fear and trembling "of God, man, and monkeys," but I would alter it into "God, man, Owen, and monkeys." Huxley's letter was truculent, and I see that every one thinks it too truculent; but in simple truth I am become quite demoniacal about Owen—worse than Huxley; and I told Huxley that I should put myself under his care to be rendered milder. But I mean to try and get more angelic in my feelings; yet I never shall forget his cordial shake of the hand, when he was writing as spitefully as he possibly could against me. But I have always thought that you have more cause than I to be demoniacally inclined towards him. Bell told me that Owen says that the editor mutilated his article in the "Edinburgh Review" (125/4. This is the only instance, with which we are acquainted, of Owen's acknowledging the authorship of the "Edinburgh Review" article.), and Bell seemed to think it was rendered more spiteful by the Editor; perhaps the opposite view is as probable. Oh, dear! this does not look like becoming more angelic in my temper!

I had a splendid long talk with Lyell (you may guess how splendid, for he was many times on his knees, with elbows on the sofa) (125/5. Mr. Darwin often spoke of Sir Charles Lyell's tendency to take curious attitudes when excited.) on his work in France: he seems to have done capital work in making out the age of the celt-bearing beds, but the case gets more and more complicated. All, however, tends to greater and greater antiquity of man. The shingle beds seem to be estuary deposits. 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. Farewell, with sincere sympathy, my old friend.

P.S.—We are very much obliged for "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 "Gardeners' Chronicle," both of which are intolerably dull, but I have taken them in for so many years that I cannot give them up. The "Cottage Gardener," for my purpose, is now far better than the "Gardeners' Chronicle."

LETTER 126. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES. Down, April 25 {1861}.

I received this morning your "Unite de l'Espece Humaine" {published in 1861}, and most sincerely do I thank you for this your very kind present. I had heard of and been recommended to read your articles, but, not knowing that they were separately published, did not know how to get them. So your present is most acceptable, and I am very anxious to see your views on the whole subject of species and variation; and I am certain to derive much benefit from your work. In cutting the pages I observe that you have most kindly mentioned my work several times. My views spread slowly in England and America; and I am much surprised to find them most commonly accepted by geologists, next by botanists, and least by zoologists. I am much pleased that the younger and middle-aged geologists are coming round, for the arguments from Geology have always seemed strongest against me. Not one of the older geologists (except Lyell) has been even shaken in his views of the eternal immutability of species. But so many of the younger men are turning round with zeal that I look to the future with some confidence. I am now at work on "Variation under Domestication," but make slow progress—it is such tedious work comparing skeletons.

With very sincere thanks for the kind sympathy which you have always shown me, and with much respect,...

P.S.—I have lately read M. Naudin's paper (126/1. Naudin's paper ("Revue Horticole," 1852) is mentioned in the "Historical Sketch" prefixed to the later editions of the "Origin" (Edition VI., page xix). Naudin insisted that species are formed in a manner analogous to the production of varieties by cultivators, i.e., by selection, "but he does not show how selection acts under nature." In the "Life and Letters," II., page 246, Darwin, speaking of Naudin's work, says: "Decaisne seems to think he gives my whole theory."), but it does not seem to me to anticipate me, as he does not show how selection could be applied under nature; but an obscure writer (126/2. The obscure writer is Patrick Matthew (see the "Historical Sketch" in the "Origin.") on forest trees, in 1830, in Scotland, most expressly and clearly anticipated my views—though he put the case so briefly that no single person ever noticed the scattered passages in his book.

LETTER 127. TO L. HINDMARSH.

(127/1. The following letter was in reply to one from Mr. Hindmarsh, to whom Mr. Darwin had written asking for information on the average number of animals killed each year in the Chillingham herd. The object of the request was to obtain information which might throw light on the rate of increase of the cattle relatively to those on the pampas of South America. Mr. Hindmarsh had contributed a paper "On the Wild Cattle of Chillingham Park" to the "Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume II., page 274, 1839.)

Down, May 12th {1861}.

I thank you sincerely for your prompt and great kindness, and return the letter, which I have been very glad to see and have had copied. The increase is more rapid than I anticipated, but it seems rather conjectural; I had hoped that in so interesting a case some exact record had been kept. The number of births, or of calves reared till they followed their mothers, would perhaps have been the best datum. From Mr. Hardy's letter I infer that ten must be annually born to make up the deaths from various causes. In Paraguay, Azara states that in a herd of 4,000, from 1,000 to 1,300 are reared; but then, though they do not kill calves, but castrate the young bulls, no doubt the oxen would be killed earlier than the cows, so that the herd would contain probably more of the female sex than the herd at Chillingham. There is not apparently any record whether more young bulls are killed than cows. I am surprised that Lord Tankerville does not have an exact record kept of deaths and sexes and births: after a dozen years it would be an interesting statistical record to the naturalist and agriculturist.

(PLATE: PROFESSOR HENSLOW.) LETTER 128. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(128/1. The death of Professor Henslow (who was Sir J.D. Hooker's father-in-law) occurred on May 16th, 1861.)

Down, May 24th {1861}.

Thanks for your two notes. I am glad that the burial is over, and sincerely sympathise and can most fully understand your feelings at your loss.

I grieve to think how little I saw of Henslow for many years. With respect to a biography of Henslow, I cannot help feeling rather doubtful, on the principle that a biography could not do him justice. His letters were generally written in a hurry, and I fear he did not keep any journal or diary. If there were any vivid materials to describe his life as parish priest, and manner of managing the poor, it would be very good.

I am never very sanguine on literary projects. I cannot help fearing his Life might turn out flat. There can hardly be marked incidents to describe. I sincerely hope that I take a wrong and gloomy view, but I cannot help fearing—I would rather see no Life than one that would interest very few. It will be a pleasure and duty in me to consider what I can recollect; but at present I can think of scarcely anything. The equability and perfection of Henslow's whole character, I should think, would make it very difficult for any one to pourtray him. I have been thinking about Henslow all day a good deal, but the more I think the less I can think of to write down. It is quite a new style for me to set about, but I will continue to think what I could say to give any, however imperfect, notion of him in the old Cambridge days.

Pray give my kindest remembrances to L. Jenyns (128/2. The Rev. Leonard Jenyns (afterwards Blomefield) undertook the "Life" of Henslow, to which Darwin contributed a characteristic and delightful sketch. See Letter 17.), who is often associated with my recollection of those old happy days.

LETTER 129. HENRY FAWCETT TO CHARLES DARWIN.

(129/1. It was in reply to the following letter that Darwin wrote to Fawcett: "You could not possibly have told me anything which would have given me more satisfaction than what you say about Mr. Mill's opinion. Until your review appeared I began to think that perhaps I did not understand at all how to reason scientifically." ("Life of Henry Fawcett," by Leslie Stephen, 1885, page 100.)

Bodenham, Salisbury, July 16th {1861}.

I feel that I ought not to have so long delayed writing to thank you for your very kind letter to me about my article on your book in "Macmillan's Magazine."

I was particularly anxious to point out that the method of investigation pursued was in every respect philosophically correct. I was spending an evening last week with my friend Mr. John Stuart Mill, and I am sure you will be pleased to hear from such an authority that he considers that your reasoning throughout is in the most exact accordance with the strict principles of logic. He also says the method of investigation you have followed is the only one proper to such a subject.

It is easy for an antagonistic reviewer, when he finds it difficult to answer your arguments, to attempt to dispose of the whole matter by uttering some such commonplace as "This is not a Baconian induction."

I expect shortly to be spending a few days in your neighbourhood, and if I should not be intruding upon you, I should esteem it a great favour if you will allow me to call on you, and have half an hour's conversation with you.

As far as I am personally concerned, I am sure I ought to be grateful to you, for since my accident nothing has given me so much pleasure as the perusal of your book. Such studies are now a great resource to me.

LETTER 130. TO C. LYELL. 2, Hesketh Terrace, Torquay {August 2nd, 1861}.

I declare that you read the reviews on the "Origin" more carefully than I do. I agree with all your remarks. The point of correlation struck me as well put, and on varieties growing together; but I have already begun to put things in train for information on this latter head, on which Bronn also enlarges. With respect to sexuality, I have often speculated on it, and have always concluded that we are too ignorant to speculate: no physiologist can conjecture why the two elements go to form a new being, and, more than that, why nature strives at uniting the two elements from two individuals. What I am now working at in my orchids is an admirable illustration of the law. I should certainly conclude that all sexuality had descended from one prototype. Do you not underrate the degree of lowness of organisation in which sexuality occurs—viz., in Hydra, and still lower in some of the one-celled free confervae which "conjugate," which good judges (Thwaites) believe is the simplest form of true sexual generation? (130/1. See Letter 97.) But the whole case is a mystery.

There is another point on which I have occasionally wished to say a few words. I believe you think with Asa Gray that I have not allowed enough for the stream of variation having been guided by a higher power. I have had lately a good deal of correspondence on this head. Herschel, in his "Physical Geography" (130/2. "Physical Geography of the Globe," by Sir John F.W. Herschel, Edinburgh, 1861. On page 12 Herschel writes of the revelations of Geology pointing to successive submersions and reconstructions of the continents and fresh races of animals and plants. He refers to a "great law of change" which has not operated either by a gradually progressing variation of species, nor by a sudden and total abolition of one race...The following footnote on page 12 of the "Physical Geography" was added in January, 1861: "This was written previous to the publication of Mr. Darwin's work on the "Origin of Species," a work which, whatever its merit or ingenuity, we cannot, however, consider as having disproved the view taken in the text. We can no more accept the principle of arbitrary and casual variation and natural selection as a sufficient account, per se, of the past and present organic world, than we can receive the Laputan method of composing books (pushed a outrance) as a sufficient one of Shakespeare and the "Principia." Equally in either case an intelligence, guided by a purpose, must be continually in action to bias the directions of the steps of change—to regulate their amount, to limit their divergence, and to continue them in a definite course. We do not believe that Mr. Darwin means to deny the necessity of such intelligent direction. But it does not, so far as we can see, enter into the formula of this law, and without it we are unable to conceive how far the law can have led to the results. On the other hand, we do not mean to deny that such intelligence may act according to a law (that is to say, on a preconceived and definite plan). Such law, stated in words, would be no other than the actual observed law of organic succession; a one more general, taking that form when applied to our own planet, and including all the links of the chain which have disappeared. BUT THE ONE LAW IS A NECESSARY SUPPLEMENT TO THE OTHER, AND OUGHT, IN ALL LOGICAL PROPRIETY, TO FORM A PART OF ITS ENUNCIATION. Granting this, and with some demur as to the genesis of man, we are far from disposed to repudiate the view taken of this mysterious subject in Mr. Darwin's book." The sentence in italics is no doubt the one referred to in the letter to Lyell. See Letter 243.), has a sentence with respect to the "Origin," something to the effect that the higher law of Providential Arrangement should always be stated. But astronomers do not state that God directs the course of each comet and planet. The view that each variation has been providentially arranged seems to me to make Natural Selection entirely superfluous, and indeed takes the whole case of the appearance of new species out of the range of science. But what makes me most object to Asa Gray's view is the study of the extreme variability of domestic animals. He who does not suppose that each variation in the pigeon was providentially caused, by accumulating which variations, man made a Fantail, cannot, I think, logically argue that the tail of the woodpecker was formed by variations providentially ordained. It seems to me that variations in the domestic and wild conditions are due to unknown causes, and are without purpose, and in so far accidental; and that they become purposeful only when they are selected by man for his pleasure, or by what we call Natural Selection in the struggle for life, and under changing conditions. I do not wish to say that God did not foresee everything which would ensue; but here comes very nearly the same sort of wretched imbroglio as between freewill and preordained necessity. I doubt whether I have made what I think clear; but certainly A. Gray's notion of the courses of variation having been led like a stream of water by gravity, seems to me to smash the whole affair. It reminds me of a Spaniard whom I told I was trying to make out how the Cordillera was formed; and he answered me that it was useless, for "God made them." It may be said that God foresaw how they would be made. I wonder whether Herschel would say that you ought always to give the higher providential law, and declare that God had ordered all certain changes of level, that certain mountains should arise. I must think that such views of Asa Gray and Herschel merely show that the subject in their minds is in Comte's theological stage of science...

Of course I do not want any answer to my quasi-theological discussion, but only for you to think of my notions, if you understand them.

I hope to Heaven your long and great labours on your new edition are drawing to a close.

LETTER 131. TO C. LYELL. Torquay, {August 13th, 1861}.

Very many thanks for the orchids, which have proved extremely useful to me in two ways I did not anticipate, but were too monstrous (yet of some use) for my special purpose.

When you come to "Deification" (131/1. See Letter 105, note.), ask yourself honestly whether what you are thinking applies to the endless variations of domestic productions, which man accumulates for his mere fancy or use. No doubt these are all caused by some unknown law, but I cannot believe they were ordained for any purpose, and if not so ordained under domesticity, I can see no reason to believe that they were ordained in a state of nature. Of course it may be said, when you kick a stone, or a leaf falls from a tree, that it was ordained, before the foundations of the world were laid, exactly where that stone or leaf should lie. In this sense the subject has no interest for me.

Once again, many thanks for the orchids; you must let me repay you what you paid the collector.

LETTER 132. TO C. LYELL.

(132/1. The first paragraph probably refers to the proof-sheets of Lyell's "Antiquity of Man," but the passage referred to seems not to occur in the book.)

Torquay, August 21st {1861}.

...I have really no criticism, except a trifling one in pencil near the end, which I have inserted on account of dominant and important species generally varying most. You speak of "their views" rather as if you were a thousand miles away from such wretches, but your concluding paragraph shows that you are one of the wretches.

I am pleased that you approve of Hutton's review. (132/2. "Some Remarks on Mr. Darwin's Theory," by F.W. Hutton. "Geologist," Volume IV., page 132 (1861). See Letter 124.) It seemed to me to take a more philosophical view of the manner of judging the question than any other review. The sentence you quote from it seems very true, but I do not agree with the theological conclusion. I think he quotes from Asa Gray, certainly not from me; but I have neither A. Gray nor "Origin" with me. Indeed, I have over and over again said in the "Origin" that Natural Selection does nothing without variability; I have given a whole chapter on laws, and used the strongest language how ignorant we are on these laws. But I agree that I have somehow (Hooker says it is owing to my title) not made the great and manifest importance of previous variability plain enough. Breeders constantly speak of Selection as the one great means of improvement; but of course they imply individual differences, and this I should have thought would have been obvious to all in Natural Selection; but it has not been so.

I have just said that I cannot agree with "which variations are the effects of an unknown law, ordained and guided without doubt by an intelligent cause on a preconceived and definite plan." Will you honestly tell me (and I should be really much obliged) whether you believe that the shape of my nose (eheu!) was ordained and "guided by an intelligent cause?" (132/3. It should be remembered that the shape of his nose nearly determined Fitz-Roy to reject Darwin as naturalist to H.M.S. "Beagle" ("Life and Letters," I., page 60).) By the selection of analogous and less differences fanciers make almost generic differences in their pigeons; and can you see any good reason why the Natural Selection of analogous individual differences should not make new species? If you say that God ordained that at some time and place a dozen slight variations should arise, and that one of them alone should be preserved in the struggle for life and the other eleven should perish in the first or few first generations, then the saying seems to me mere verbiage. It comes to merely saying that everything that is, is ordained.

Let me add another sentence. Why should you or I speak of variation as having been ordained and guided, more than does an astronomer, in discussing the fall of a meteoric stone? He would simply say that it was drawn to our earth by the attraction of gravity, having been displaced in its course by the action of some quite unknown laws. Would you have him say that its fall at some particular place and time was "ordained and guided without doubt by an intelligent cause on a preconceived and definite plan"? Would you not call this theological pedantry or display? I believe it is not pedantry in the case of species, simply because their formation has hitherto been viewed as beyond law; in fact, this branch of science is still with most people under its theological phase of development. The conclusion which I always come to after thinking of such questions is that they are beyond the human intellect; and the less one thinks on them the better. You may say, Then why trouble me? But I should very much like to know clearly what you think.

LETTER 133. TO HENRY FAWCETT.

(133/1. The following letter was published in the "Life" of Mr. Fawcett (1885); we are indebted to Mrs. Fawcett and Messrs. Smith & Elder for permission to reprint it. See Letter 129.)

September 18th {1861}.

I wondered who had so kindly sent me the newspaper (133/2. The newspaper sent was the "Manchester Examiner" for September 9th, 1861, containing a report of Mr. Fawcett's address given before Section D of the British Association, "On the method of Mr. Darwin in his treatise on the origin of species," in which the speaker showed that the "method of investigation pursued by Mr. Darwin in his treatise on the origin of species is in strict accordance with the principles of logic." The "A" of the letter (as published in Fawcett's Life) is the late Professor Williamson, who is reported to have said that "while he would not say that Mr. Darwin's book had caused him a loss of reputation, he was sure that it had not caused a gain." The reference to "B" is explained by the report of the late Dr. Lankester's speech in which he said, "The facts brought forward in support of the hypothesis had a very different value indeed from that of the hypothesis...A great naturalist, who was still a friend of Mr. Darwin, once said to him (Dr. Lankester), 'The mistake is, that Darwin has dealt with origin. Why did he not put his facts before us, and let them rest?'" Another speaker, the Rt. Hon. J.R. Napier, remarked: "I am going to speak closely to the question. If the hypothesis is put forward to contradict facts, and the averments are contrary to the Word of God, I say that it is not a logical argument." At this point the chairman, Professor Babington, wisely interfered, on the ground that the meeting was a scientific one.), which I was very glad to see; and now I have to thank you sincerely for allowing me to see your MS. It seems to me very good and sound; though I am certainly not an impartial judge. You will have done good service in calling the attention of scientific men to means and laws of philosophising. As far as I could judge by the papers, your opponents were unworthy of you. How miserably A. talked of my reputation, as if that had anything to do with it!...How profoundly ignorant B must be of the very soul of observation! About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!

I have returned only lately from a two months' visit to Torquay, which did my health at the time good; but I am one of those miserable creatures who are never comfortable for twenty-four hours; and it is clear to me that I ought to be exterminated. I have been rather idle of late, or, speaking more strictly, working at some miscellaneous papers, which, however, have some direct bearing on the subject of species; yet I feel guilty at having neglected my larger book. But, to me, observing is much better sport than writing. I fear that I shall have wearied you with this long note.

Pray believe that I feel sincerely grateful that you have taken up the cudgels in defence of the line of argument in the "Origin;" you will have benefited the subject.

Many are so fearful of speaking out. A German naturalist came here the other day; and he tells me that there are many in Germany on our side, but that all seem fearful of speaking out, and waiting for some one to speak, and then many will follow. The naturalists seem as timid as young ladies should be, about their scientific reputation. There is much discussion on the subject on the Continent, even in quiet Holland; and I had a pamphlet from Moscow the other day by a man who sticks up famously for the imperfection of the "Geological Record," but complains that I have sadly understated the variability of the old fossilised animals! But I must not run on.

LETTER 134. TO H.W. BATES. Down, September 25th {1861}.

Now for a few words on science. Many thanks for facts on neuters. You cannot tell how I rejoice that you do not think what I have said on the subject absurd. Only two persons have even noticed it to me—viz., the bitter sneer of Owen in the "Edinburgh Review" (134/1. "Edinburgh Review," April, 1860, page 525.), and my good friend and supporter, Sir C. Lyell, who could only screw up courage to say, "Well, you have manfully faced the difficulty."

What a wonderful case of Volucella of which I had never heard. (134/2. Volucella is a fly—one of the Syrphidae—supposed to supply a case of mimicry; this was doubtless the point of interest with Bates. Dr. Sharp says {"Insects," Part II. (in the Camb. Nat. Hist. series), 1899, page 500}: "It was formerly assumed that the Volucella larvae lived on the larvae of the bees, and that the parent flies were providentially endowed with a bee-like appearance that they might obtain entrance into the bees' nests without being detected." Dr. Sharp goes on to say that what little is known on the subject supports the belief that the "presence of the Volucella in the nests is advantageous to both fly and bee.") I had no idea such a case occurred in nature; I must get and see specimens in British Museum. I hope and suppose you will give a good deal of Natural History in your Travels; every one cares about ants—more notice has been taken about slave-ants in the "Origin" than of any other passage.

I fully expect to delight in your Travels. Keep to simple style, as in your excellent letters,—but I beg pardon, I am again advising.

What a capital paper yours will be on mimetic resemblances! You will make quite a new subject of it. I had thought of such cases as a difficulty; and once, when corresponding with Dr. Collingwood, I thought of your explanation; but I drove it from my mind, for I felt that I had not knowledge to judge one way or the other. Dr C., I think, states that the mimetic forms inhabit the same country, but I did not know whether to believe him. What wonderful cases yours seem to be! Could you not give a few woodcuts in your Travels to illustrate this? I am tired with a hard day's work, so no more, except to give my sincere thanks and hearty wishes for the success of your Travels.

LETTER 135. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, March 18th {1862}.

Your letter discusses lots of interesting subjects, and I am very glad you have sent for your letter to Bates. (135/1. Published in Mr. Clodd's memoir of Bates in the "Naturalist on the Amazons," 1892, page l.) What do you mean by "individual plants"? (135/2. In a letter to Mr. Darwin dated March 17th, 1862, Sir J.D. Hooker had discussed a supposed difference between animals and plants, "inasmuch as the individual animal is certainly changed materially by external conditions, the latter (I think) never, except in such a coarse way as stunting or enlarging—e.g. no increase of cold on the spot, or change of individual plant from hot to cold, will induce said individual plant to get more woolly covering; but I suppose a series of cold seasons would bring about such a change in an individual quadruped, just as rowing will harden hands, etc.") I fancied a bud lived only a year, and you could hardly expect any change in that time; but if you call a tree or plant an individual, you have sporting buds. Perhaps you mean that the whole tree does not change. Tulips, in "breaking," change. Fruit seems certainly affected by the stock. I think I have (135/3. See note, Letter 16.) got cases of slight change in alpine plants transplanted. All these subjects have rather gone out of my head owing to orchids, but I shall soon have to enter on them in earnest when I come again to my volume on variation under domestication.

...In the lifetime of an animal you would, I think, find it very difficult to show effects of external condition on animals more than shade and light, good and bad soil, produce on a plant.

You speak of "an inherent tendency to vary wholly independent of physical conditions"! This is a very simple way of putting the case (as Dr. Prosper Lucas also puts it) (135/4. Prosper Lucas, the author of "Traite philosophique et physiologique de l'heredite naturelle dans les etats de sante et de maladie du systeme nerveux": 2 volumes, Paris, 1847-50.): but two great classes of facts make me think that all variability is due to change in the conditions of life: firstly, that there is more variability and more monstrosities (and these graduate into each other) under unnatural domestic conditions than under nature; and, secondly, that changed conditions affect in an especial manner the reproductive organs—those organs which are to produce a new being. But why one seedling out of thousands presents some new character transcends the wildest powers of conjecture. It was in this sense that I spoke of "climate," etc., possibly producing without selection a hooked seed, or any not great variation. (135/5. This statement probably occurs in a letter, and not in Darwin's published works.)

I have for years and years been fighting with myself not to attribute too much to Natural Selection—to attribute something to direct action of conditions; and perhaps I have too much conquered my tendency to lay hardly any stress on conditions of life.

I am not shaken about "saltus" (135/6. Sir Joseph had written, March 17th, 1862: "Huxley is rather disposed to think you have overlooked saltus, but I am not sure that he is right—saltus quoad individuals is not saltus quoad species—as I pointed out in the Begonia case, though perhaps that was rather special pleading in the present state of science." For the Begonia case, see "Life and Letters," II., page 275, also letter 110, page 166.), I did not write without going pretty carefully into all the cases of normal structure in animals resembling monstrosities which appear per saltus.

LETTER 136. TO J.D. HOOKER. 26th {March, 1862}.

Thanks also for your own (136/1. See note in Letter 135.) and Bates' letter now returned. They are both excellent; you have, I think, said all that can be said against direct effects of conditions, and capitally put. But I still stick to my own and Bates' side. Nevertheless I am pleased to attribute little to conditions, and I wish I had done what you suggest—started on the fundamental principle of variation being an innate principle, and afterwards made a few remarks showing that hereafter, perhaps, this principle would be explicable. Whenever my book on poultry, pigeons, ducks, and rabbits is published, with all the measurements and weighings of bones, I think you will see that "use and disuse" at least have some effect. I do not believe in perfect reversion. I rather demur to your doctrine of "centrifugal variation." (136/2. The "doctrine of centrifugal variation" is given in Sir J.D. Hooker's "Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania" (Part III. of the Botany of the Antarctic Expedition), 1859, page viii. In paragraph 10 the author writes: "The tendency of varieties, both in nature and under cultivation...is rather to depart more and more widely from the original type than to revert to it." In Sir Joseph's letter to Bates (loc. cit., page lii) he wrote: "Darwin also believes in some reversion to type which is opposed to my view of variation." It may be noted in this connection that Mr. Galton has shown reason to believe in a centripetal tendency in variation (to use Hooker's phraseology) which is not identical with the reversion of cultivated plants to their ancestors, the case to which Hooker apparently refers. See "Natural Inheritance," by F. Galton, 1889.) I suppose you do not agree with or do not remember my doctrine of the good of diversification (136/3. Darwin usually used the word "divergence" in this connection.); this seems to me amply to account for variation being centrifugal—if you forget it, look at this discussion (page 117 of 3rd edition), it was the best point which, according to my notions, I made out, and it has always pleased me. It is really curiously satisfactory to me to see so able a man as Bates (and yourself) believing more fully in Natural Selection than I think I even do myself. (136/4. This refers to a very interesting passage in Hooker's letter to Bates (loc. cit., page liii): "I am sure that with you, as with me, the more you think the less occasion you will see for anything but time and natural selection to effect change; and that this view is the simplest and clearest in the present state of science is one advantage, at any rate. Indeed, I think that it is, in the present state of the inquiry, the legitimate position to take up; it is time enough to bother our heads with the secondary cause when there is some evidence of it or some demand for it—at present I do not see one or the other, and so feel inclined to renounce any other for the present.") By the way, I always boast to you, and so I think Owen will be wrong that my book will be forgotten in ten years, for a French edition is now going through the press and a second German edition wanted. Your long letter to Bates has set my head working, and makes me repent of the nine months spent on orchids; though I know not why I should not have amused myself on them as well as slaving on bones of ducks and pigeons, etc. The orchids have been splendid sport, though at present I am fearfully sick of them.

I enclose a waste copy of woodcut of Mormodes ignea; I wish you had a plant at Kew, for I am sure its wonderful mechanism and structure would amuse you. Is it not curious the way the labellum sits on the top of the column?—here insects alight and are beautifully shot, when they touch a certain sensitive point, by the pollinia.

How kindly you have helped me in my work! Farewell, my dear old fellow.

LETTER 137. TO H.W. BATES. Down, May 4th {1862}.

Hearty thanks for your most interesting letter and three very valuable extracts. I am very glad that you have been looking at the South Temperate insects. I wish that the materials in the British Museum had been richer; but I should think the case of the South American Carabi, supported by some other case, would be worth a paper. To us who theorise I am sure the case is very important. Do the South American Carabi differ more from the other species than do, for instance, the Siberian and European and North American and Himalayan (if the genus exists there)? If they do, I entirely agree with you that the difference would be too great to account for by the recent Glacial period. I agree, also, with you in utterly rejecting an independent origin for these Carabi. There is a difficulty, as far as I know, in our ignorance whether insects change quickly in time; you could judge of this by knowing how far closely allied coleoptera generally have much restricted ranges, for this almost implies rapid change. What a curious case is offered by land-shells, which become modified in every sub-district, and have yet retained the same general structure from very remote geological periods! When working at the Glacial period, I remember feeling much surprised how few birds, no mammals, and very few sea-mollusca seemed to have crossed, or deeply entered, the inter-tropical regions during the cold period. Insects, from all you say, seem to come under the same category. Plants seem to migrate more readily than animals. Do not underrate the length of Glacial period: Forbes used to argue that it was equivalent to the whole of the Pleistocene period in the warmer latitudes. I believe, with you, that we shall be driven to an older Glacial period.

I am very sorry to hear about the British Museum; it would be hopeless to contend against any one supported by Owen. Perhaps another chance might occur before very long. How would it be to speak to Owen as soon as your own mind is made up? From what I have heard, since talking to you, I fear the strongest personal interest with a Minister is requisite for a pension.

Farewell, and may success attend the acerrimo pro-pugnatori.

P.S. I deeply wish you could find some situation in which you could give your time to science; it would be a great thing for science and for yourself.

LETTER 138. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES. Down, July 11th {1862}.

I thank you cordially for so kindly and promptly answering my questions. I will quote some of your remarks. The case seems to me of some importance with reference to my heretical notions, for it shows how larvae might be modified. I shall not publish, I daresay, for a year, for much time is expended in experiments. If within this time you should acquire any fresh information on the similarity of the moths of distinct races, and would allow me to quote any facts on your authority, I should feel very grateful.

I thank you for your great kindness with respect to the translation of the "Origin;" it is very liberal in you, as we differ to a considerable degree. I have been atrociously abused by my religious countrymen; but as I live an independent life in the country, it does not in the least hurt me in any way, except indeed when the abuse comes from an old friend like Professor Owen, who abuses me and then advances the doctrine that all birds are probably descended from one parent.

I wish the translator (138/1. Mdlle. Royer, who translated the first French edition of the "Origin.') had known more of Natural History; she must be a clever but singular lady, but I never heard of her till she proposed to translate my book.

LETTER 139. TO ASA GRAY. Down, July 23rd {1862}.

I received several days ago two large packets, but have as yet read only your letter; for we have been in fearful distress, and I could attend to nothing. Our poor boy had the rare case of second rash and sore throat...; and, as if this was not enough, a most serious attack of erysipelas, with typhoid symptoms. I despaired of his life; but this evening he has eaten one mouthful, and I think has passed the crisis. He has lived on port wine every three-quarters of an hour, day and night. This evening, to our astonishment, he asked whether his stamps were safe, and I told him of one sent by you, and that he should see it to-morrow. He answered, "I should awfully like to see it now"; so with difficulty he opened his eyelids and glanced at it, and, with a sigh of satisfaction, said, "All right." Children are one's greatest happiness, but often and often a still greater misery. A man of science ought to have none—perhaps not a wife; for then there would be nothing in this wide world worth caring for, and a man might (whether he could is another question) work away like a Trojan. I hope in a few days to get my brains in order, and then I will pick out all your orchid letters, and return them in hopes of your making use of them...

Of all the carpenters for knocking the right nail on the head, you are the very best; no one else has perceived that my chief interest in my orchid book has been that it was a "flank movement" on the enemy. I live in such solitude that I hear nothing, and have no idea to what you allude about Bentham and the orchids and species. But I must enquire.

By the way, one of my chief enemies (the sole one who has annoyed me), namely Owen, I hear has been lecturing on birds; and admits that all have descended from one, and advances as his own idea that the oceanic wingless birds have lost their wings by gradual disuse. He never alludes to me, or only with bitter sneers, and coupled with Buffon and the "Vestiges."

Well, it has been an amusement to me this first evening, scribbling as egotistically as usual about myself and my doings; so you must forgive me, as I know well your kind heart will do. I have managed to skim the newspaper, but had not heart to read all the bloody details. Good God! What will the end be? Perhaps we are too despondent here; but I must think you are too hopeful on your side of the water. I never believed the "canards" of the army of the Potomac having capitulated. My good dear wife and self are come to wish for peace at any price. Good night, my good friend. I will scribble on no more.

One more word. I should like to hear what you think about what I say in the last chapter of the orchid book on the meaning and cause of the endless diversity of means for the same general purpose. It bears on design, that endless question. Good night, good night!

LETTER 140. TO C. LYELL. 1, Carlton Terrace, Southampton, August 22nd {1862}.

You say that the Bishop and Owen will be down on you (140/1. This refers to the "Antiquity of Man," which was published in 1863.): 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. (140/2. The first paragraph of this letter was published in "Life and Letters," II., pages 387, 388.) 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. What an unblushing man he must be to lecture thus after abusing me so, and never to have openly retracted, or alluded to my book!

LETTER 141. TO JOHN LUBBOCK (LORD AVEBURY). Cliff Cottage, Bournemouth, September 5th {1862}.

Many thanks for your pleasant note in return for all my stupid trouble. I did not fully appreciate your insect-diving case (141/1. "On two Aquatic Hymenoptera, one of which uses its Wings in Swimming." By John Lubbock. "Trans. Linn. Soc." Volume XXIV., 1864, pages 135-42.) {Read May 7th, 1863.} In this paper Lubbock describes a new species of Polynema—P. natans—which swims by means of its wings, and is capable of living under water for several hours; the other species, referred to a new genus Prestwichia, lives under water, holds its wings motionless and uses its legs as oars.) before your last note, nor had I any idea that the fact was new, though new to me. It is really very interesting. Of course you will publish an account of it. You will then say whether the insect can fly well through the air. (141/2. In describing the habits of Polynema, Lubbock writes, "I was unfortunately unable to ascertain whether they could fly" (loc. cit., page 137).) My wife asked, "How did he find that it stayed four hours under water without breathing?" I answered at once: "Mrs. Lubbock sat four hours watching." I wonder whether I am right.

I long to be at home and at steady work, and I hope we may be in another month. I fear it is hopeless my coming to you, for I am squashier than ever, but hope two shower-baths a day will give me a little strength, so that you will, I hope, come to us. It is an age since I have seen you or any scientific friend.

I heard from Lyell the other day in the Isle of Wight, and from Hooker in Scotland. About Huxley I know nothing, but I hope his book progresses, for I shall be very curious to see it. (141/3. "Man's Place in Nature." London, 1863.)

I do nothing here except occasionally look at a few flowers, and there are very few here, for the country is wonderfully barren.

See what it is to be well trained. Horace said to me yesterday, "If every one would kill adders they would come to sting less." I answered: "Of course they would, for there would be fewer." He replied indignantly: "I did not mean that; but the timid adders which run away would be saved, and in time would never sting at all." Natural selection of cowards!

LETTER 142. H. FALCONER TO CHARLES DARWIN.

(142/1. This refers to the MS. of Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.)," published in the "Natural History Review," January, 1863, page 43. The section dealing with the bearing of his facts on Darwin's views is at page 77. He insists strongly (page 78) on the "persistence and uniformity of the characters of the molar teeth in the earliest known mammoth, and his most modern successor." Nevertheless, he adds that the "inferences I draw from these facts are not opposed to one of the leading propositions of Darwin's theory." These admissions were the more satisfactory since, as Falconer points out (page 77), "I have been included by him in the category of those who have vehemently maintained the persistence of specific characters.")

21, Park Crescent, Portland Place, N.W., September 24th {1862}.

Do not be frightened at the enclosure. I wish to set myself right by you before I go to press. I am bringing out a heavy memoir on elephants—an omnium gatherum affair, with observations on the fossil and recent species. One section is devoted to the persistence in time of the specific characters of the mammoth. I trace him from before the Glacial period, through it and after it, unchangeable and unchanged as far as the organs of digestion (teeth) and locomotion are concerned. Now, the Glacial period was no joke: it would have made ducks and drakes of your dear pigeons and doves.

With all my shortcomings, I have such a sincere and affectionate regard for you and such admiration of your work, that I should be pained to find that I had expressed my honest convictions in a way that would be open to any objection by you. The reasoning may be very stupid, but I believe that the observation is sound. Will you, therefore, look over the few pages which I have sent, and tell me whether you find any flaw, or whether you think I should change the form of expression? You have been so unhandsomely and uncandidly dealt with by a friend of yours and mine that I should be sorry to find myself in the position of an opponent to you, and more particularly with the chance of making a fool of myself.

I met your brother yesterday, who tells me you are coming to town. I hope you will give me a hail. I long for a jaw with you, and have much to speak to you about.

You will have seen the eclaircissement about the Eocene monkeys of England. By a touch of the conjuring wand they have been metamorphosed—a la Darwin—into Hyracotherian pigs. (142/2. "On the Hyracotherian Character of the Lower Molars of the supposed Macacus from the Eocene Sand of Kyson, Suffolk." "Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume X., 1862, page 240. In this note Owen stated that the teeth which he had named Macacus ("Ann. Mag." 1840, page 191) most probably belonged to Hyracotherium cuniculus. See "A Catalogue of British Fossil Vertebrata," A.S. Woodward and C.D. Sherborn, 1890, under Hyracotherium, page 356; also Zittel's "Handbuch der Palaeontologie" Abth. I., Bd. IV., Leipzig, 1891-93, page 703.) Would you believe it? This even is a gross blunder. They are not pigs.

LETTER 143. TO HUGH FALCONER. Down, October 1st {1862}.

On my return home yesterday I found your letter and MS., which I have read with extreme interest. Your note and every word in your paper are expressed with the same kind feeling which I have experienced from you ever since I have had the happiness of knowing you. I value scientific praise, but I value incomparably higher such kind feeling as yours. There is not a single word in your paper to which I could possibly object: I should be mad to do so; its only fault is perhaps its too great kindness. Your case seems the most striking one which I have met with of the persistence of specific characters. It is very much the more striking as it relates to the molar teeth, which differ so much in the species of the genus, and in which consequently I should have expected variation. As I read on I felt not a little dumbfounded, and thought to myself that whenever I came to this subject I should have to be savage against myself; and I wondered how savage you would be. I trembled a little. My only hope was that something could be made out of the bog N. American forms, which you rank as a geographical race; and possibly hereafter out of the Sicilian species. Guess, then, my satisfaction when I found that you yourself made a loophole (143/1. This perhaps refers to a passage ("N.H. Review," 1863, page 79) in which Falconer allows the existence of intermediate forms along certain possible lines of descent. Falconer's reference to the Sicilian elephants is in a note on page 78; the bog-elephant is mentioned on page 79.), which I never, of course, could have guessed at; and imagine my still greater satisfaction at your expressing yourself as an unbeliever in the eternal immutability of species. Your final remarks on my work are too generous, but have given me not a little pleasure. As for criticisms, I have only small ones. When you speak of "moderate range of variation" I cannot but think that you ought to remind your readers (though I daresay previously done) what the amount is, including the case of the American bog-mammoth. You speak of these animals as having been exposed to a vast range of climatal changes from before to after the Glacial period. I should have thought, from analogy of sea-shells, that by migration (or local extinction when migration not possible) these animals might and would have kept under nearly the same climate.

A rather more important consideration, as it seems to me, is that the whole proboscidean group may, I presume, be looked at as verging towards extinction: anyhow, the extinction has been complete as far as Europe and America are concerned. Numerous considerations and facts have led me in the "Origin" to conclude that it is the flourishing or dominant members of each order which generally give rise to new races, sub-species, and species; and under this point of view I am not at all surprised at the constancy of your species. This leads me to remark that the sentence at the bottom of page {80} is not applicable to my views (143/2. See Falconer at the bottom of page 80: it is the old difficulty—how can variability co-exist with persistence of type? In our copy of the letter the passage is given as occurring on page 60, a slip of the pen for page 80.), though quite applicable to those who attribute modification to the direct action of the conditions of life. An elephant might be more individually variable than any known quadruped (from the effects of the conditions of life or other innate unknown causes), but if these variations did not aid the animal in better resisting all hostile influences, and therefore making it increase in numbers, there would be no tendency to the preservation and accumulation of such variations—i.e. to the formation of a new race. As the proboscidean group seems to be from utterly unknown causes a failing group in many parts of the world, I should not have anticipated the formation of new races.

You make important remarks versus Natural Selection, and you will perhaps be surprised that I do to a large extent agree with you. I could show you many passages, written as strongly as I could in the "Origin," declaring that Natural Selection can do nothing without previous variability; and I have tried to put equally strongly that variability is governed by many laws, mostly quite unknown. My title deceives people, and I wish I had made it rather different. Your phyllotaxis (143/3. Falconer, page 80: "The law of Phyllotaxis...is nearly as constant in its manifestation as any of the physical laws connected with the material world.") will serve as example, for I quite agree that the spiral arrangement of a certain number of whorls of leaves (however that may have primordially arisen, and whether quite as invariable as you state), governs the limits of variability, and therefore governs what Natural Selection can do. Let me explain how it arose that I laid so much stress on Natural Selection, and I still think justly. I came to think from geographical distribution, etc., etc., that species probably change; but for years I was stopped dead by my utter incapability of seeing how every part of each creature (a woodpecker or swallow, for instance) had become adapted to its conditions of life. This seemed to me, and does still seem, the problem to solve; and I think Natural Selection solves it, as artificial selection solves the adaptation of domestic races for man's use. But I suspect that you mean something further,—that there is some unknown law of evolution by which species necessarily change; and if this be so, I cannot agree. This, however, is too large a question even for so unreasonably long a letter as this. Nevertheless, just to explain by mere valueless conjectures how I imagine the teeth of your elephants change, I should look at the change as indirectly resulting from changes in the form of the jaws, or from the development of tusks, or in the case of the primigenius even from correlation with the woolly covering; in all cases Natural Selection checking the variation. If, indeed, an elephant would succeed better by feeding on some new kinds of food, then any variation of any kind in the teeth which favoured their grinding power would be preserved. Now, I can fancy you holding up your hands and crying out what bosh! To return to your concluding sentence: far from being surprised, I look at it as absolutely certain that very much in the "Origin" will be proved rubbish; but I expect and hope that the framework will stand. (143/4. Falconer, page 80: "He {Darwin} has laid the foundations of a great edifice: but he need not be surprised if, in the progress of erection, the superstructure is altered by his successors...")

I had hoped to have called on you on Monday evening, but was quite knocked up. I saw Lyell yesterday morning. He was very curious about your views, and as I had to write to him this morning I could not help telling him a few words on your views. I suppose you are tired of the "Origin," and will never read it again; otherwise I should like you to have the third edition, and would gladly send it rather than you should look at the first or second edition. With cordial thanks for your generous kindness.

LETTER 144. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. Royal Gardens, Kew, November 7th, 1862.

I am greatly relieved by your letter this morning about my Arctic essay, for I had been conjuring up some egregious blunder (like the granitic plains of Patagonia).. Certes, after what you have told me of Dawson, he will not like the letter I wrote to him days ago, in which I told him that it was impossible to entertain a strong opinion against the Darwinian hypothesis without its giving rise to a mental twist when viewing matters in which that hypothesis was or might be involved. I told him I felt that this was so with me when I opposed you, and that all minds are subject to such obliquities!—the Lord help me, and this to an LL.D. and Principal of a College! I proceeded to discuss his Geology with the effrontery of a novice; and, thank God, I urged the very argument of your letter about evidence of subsidence—viz., not all submerged at once, and glacial action being subaerial and not oceanic. Your letter hence was a relief, for I felt I was hardly strong enough to have launched out as I did to a professed geologist.

(144/1. {On the subject of the above letter, see one of earlier date by Sir J.D. Hooker (November 2nd, 1862) given in the present work (Letter 354) with Darwin's reply (Letter 355).})

LETTER 145. TO HUGH FALCONER. Down, November 14th {1862}.

I have read your paper (145/1. "On the disputed Affinity of the Mammalian Genus Plagiaulax, from the Purbeck beds."—"Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume XVIII., page 348, 1862.) with extreme interest, and I thank you for sending it, though I should certainly have carefully read it, or anything with your name, in the Journal. It seems to me a masterpiece of close reasoning: although, of course, not a judge of such subjects, I cannot feel any doubt that it is conclusive. Will Owen answer you? I expect that from his arrogant view of his own position he will not answer. Your paper is dreadfully severe on him, but perfectly courteous, and polished as the finest dagger. How kind you are towards me: your first sentence (145/2. "One of the most accurate observers and original thinkers of our time has discoursed with emphatic eloquence on the Imperfection of the Geological Record.") has pleased me more than perhaps it ought to do, if I had any modesty in my composition. By the way, after reading the first whole paragraph, I re-read it, not for matter, but for style; and then it suddenly occurred to me that a certain man once said to me, when I urged him to publish some of his miscellaneous wealth of knowledge, "Oh, he could not write,—he hated it," etc. You false man, never say that to me again. Your incidental remark on the remarkable specialisation of Plagiaulax (145/3. "If Plagiaulax be regarded through the medium of the view advocated with such power by Darwin, through what a number of intermediate forms must not the genus have passed before it attained the specialised condition in which the fossils come before us!") (which has stuck in my gizzard ever since I read your first paper) as bearing on the number of preceding forms, is quite new to me, and, of course, is in accordance to my notions a most impressive argument. I was also glad to be reminded of teeth of camel and tarsal bones. (145/4. Op. cit. page 353. A reference to Cuvier's instance "of the secret relation between the upper canine-shaped incisors of the camel and the bones of the tarsus.") Descent from an intermediate form, Ahem!

Well, all I can say is that I have not been for a long time more interested with a paper than with yours. It gives me a demoniacal chuckle to think of Owen's pleasant countenance when he reads it.

I have not been in London since the end of September; when I do come I will beat up your quarters if I possibly can; but I do not know what has come over me. I am worse than ever in bearing any excitement. Even talking of an evening for less than two hours has twice recently brought on such violent vomiting and trembling that I dread coming up to London. I hear that you came out strong at Cambridge (145/5. Prof. Owen, in a communication to the British Association at Cambridge (1862) "On a tooth of Mastodon from the Tertiary marls, near Shanghai," brought forward the case of the Australian Mastodon as a proof of the remarkable geographical distribution of the Proboscidia. In a subsequent discussion he frankly abandoned it, in consequence of the doubts then urged regarding its authenticity. (See footnote, page 101, in Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil Elephant," "Nat. Hist. Review," 1863.)), and am heartily glad you attacked the Australian Mastodon. I never did or could believe in him. I wish you would read my little Primula paper in the "Linnean Journal," Volume VI. Botany (No. 22), page 77 (I have no copy which I can spare), as I think there is a good chance that you may have observed similar cases. This is my real hobby-horse at present. I have re-tested this summer the functional difference of the two forms in Primula, and find all strictly accurate. If you should know of any cases analogous, pray inform me. Farewell, my good and kind friend.

LETTER 146. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(146/1. The following letter is interesting in connection with a letter addressed to Sir J.D. Hooker, March 26th, 1862, No. 136, where the value of Natural Selection is stated more strongly by Sir Joseph than by Darwin. It is unfortunate that Sir Joseph's letter, to which this is a reply, has not been found.)

Down, November 20th {1862}.

Your last letter has interested me to an extraordinary degree, and your truly parsonic advice, "some other wise and discreet person," etc., etc., amused us not a little. I will put a concrete case to show what I think A. Gray believes about crossing and what I believe. If 1,000 pigeons were bred together in a cage for 10,000 years their number not being allowed to increase by chance killing, then from mutual intercrossing no varieties would arise; but, if each pigeon were a self-fertilising hermaphrodite, a multitude of varieties would arise. This, I believe, is the common effect of crossing, viz., the obliteration of incipient varieties. I do not deny that when two marked varieties have been produced, their crossing will produce a third or more intermediate varieties. Possibly, or probably, with domestic varieties, with a strong tendency to vary, the act of crossing tends to give rise to new characters; and thus a third or more races, not strictly intermediate, may be produced. But there is heavy evidence against new characters arising from crossing wild forms; only intermediate races are then produced. Now, do you agree thus far? if not, it is no use arguing; we must come to swearing, and I am convinced I can swear harder than you, therefore I am right. Q.E.D.

If the number of 1,000 pigeons were prevented increasing not by chance killing, but by, say, all the shorter-beaked birds being killed, then the WHOLE body would come to have longer beaks. Do you agree?

Thirdly, if 1,000 pigeons were kept in a hot country, and another 1,000 in a cold country, and fed on different food, and confined in different-size aviary, and kept constant in number by chance killing, then I should expect as rather probable that after 10,000 years the two bodies would differ slightly in size, colour, and perhaps other trifling characters; this I should call the direct action of physical conditions. By this action I wish to imply that the innate vital forces are somehow led to act rather differently in the two cases, just as heat will allow or cause two elements to combine, which otherwise would not have combined. I should be especially obliged if you would tell me what you think on this head.

But the part of your letter which fairly pitched me head over heels with astonishment, is that where you state that every single difference which we see might have occurred without any selection. I do and have always fully agreed; but you have got right round the subject, and viewed it from an entirely opposite and new side, and when you took me there I was astounded. When I say I agree, I must make the proviso, that under your view, as now, each form long remains adapted to certain fixed conditions, and that the conditions of life are in the long run changeable; and second, which is more important, that each individual form is a self-fertilising hermaphrodite, so that each hair-breadth variation is not lost by intercrossing. Your manner of putting the case would be even more striking than it is if the mind could grapple with such numbers—it is grappling with eternity—think of each of a thousand seeds bringing forth its plant, and then each a thousand. A globe stretching to the furthest fixed star would very soon be covered. I cannot even grapple with the idea, even with races of dogs, cattle, pigeons, or fowls; and here all admit and see the accurate strictness of your illustration.

Such men as you and Lyell thinking that I make too much of a Deus of Natural Selection is a conclusive argument against me. Yet I hardly know how I could have put in, in all parts of my book, stronger sentences. The title, as you once pointed out, might have been better. No one ever objects to agriculturalists using the strongest language about their selection, yet every breeder knows that he does not produce the modification which he selects. My enormous difficulty for years was to understand adaptation, and this made me, I cannot but think, rightly, insist so much on Natural Selection. God forgive me for writing at such length; but you cannot tell how much your letter has interested me, and how important it is for me with my present book in hand to try and get clear ideas. Do think a bit about what is meant by direct action of physical conditions. I do not mean whether they act; my facts will throw some light on this. I am collecting all cases of bud-variations, in contradistinction to seed-variations (do you like this term, for what some gardeners call "sports"?); these eliminate all effects of crossing. Pray remember how much I value your opinion as the clearest and most original I ever get.

I see plainly that Welwitschia (146/2. Sir Joseph's great paper on Welwitschia mirabilis was published in the "Linn. Soc. Trans." 1863.) will be a case of Barnacles.

I have another plant to beg, but I write on separate paper as more convenient for you to keep. I meant to have said before, as an excuse for asking for so much from Kew, that I have now lost TWO seasons, by accursed nurserymen not having right plants, and sending me the wrong instead of saying that they did not possess.

LETTER 147. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 24th {November, 1862}.

I have just received enclosed for you, and I have thought that you would like to read the latter half of A. Gray's letter to me, as it is political and nearly as mad as ever in our English eyes. You will see how the loss of the power of bullying is in fact the sore loss to the men of the North from disunion.

I return with thanks Bates' letter, which I was glad to see. It was very good of you writing to him, for he is evidently a man who wants encouragement. I have now finished his paper (but have read nothing else in the volume); it seems to me admirable. To my mind the act of segregation of varieties into species was never so plainly brought forward, and there are heaps of capital miscellaneous observations.

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. (147/1. This paragraph was published in "Life and Letters," II., page 390. It is not clear why a belief in "direct action" should diminish the glory of Natural Selection, since the changes so produced must, like any other variations, pass through the ordeal of the survival of the fittest. On the whole question of direct action see Mr. Adam Sedgwick's "Presidential Address to the Zoological Section of the British Association," 1899.)

LETTER 148. TO H.W. BATES. Down, November 25th {1862?}.

I should think it was not necessary to get a written agreement. (148/1. Mr. Bates' book, "A Naturalist on the Amazons," was published in 1863.) I have never had one from Murray. I suppose you have a letter with terms; if not, I should think you had better ask for one to prevent misunderstandings. I think Sir C. Lyell told me he had not any formal agreements. I am heartily glad to hear that your book is progressing. Could you find me some place, even a footnote (though these are in nine cases out of ten objectionable), where you could state, as fully as your materials permit, all the facts about similar varieties pairing,—at a guess how many you caught, and how many now in your collection? I look at this fact as very important; if not in your book, put it somewhere else, or let me have cases.

I entirely agree with you on the enormous advantage of thoroughly studying one group.

I really have no criticism to make. (148/2. Mr. Bates' paper on mimetic butterflies was read before the Linnean Society, November 21st, 1861, and published in the "Linn. Soc. Trans." XXIII., 1862, page 495, under the title of "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley.") Style seems to me very good and clear; but I much regret that in the title or opening passage you did not blow a loud trumpet about what you were going to show. Perhaps the paper would have been better more divided into sections with headings. Perhaps you might have given somewhere rather more of a summary on the progress of segregation of varieties, and not referred your readers to the descriptive part, excepting such readers as wanted minute detail. But these are trifles: I consider your paper as a most admirable production in every way. Whenever I come to variation under natural conditions (my head for months has been exclusively occupied with domestic varieties), I shall have to study and re-study your paper, and no doubt shall then have to plague you with questions. I am heartily glad to hear that you are well. I have been compelled to write in a hurry; so excuse me.

LETTER 149. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 7th {1862}.

I was on the point of adding to an order to Williams & Norgate for your Lectures (149/1. "A Course of Six Lectures to Working Men," published in six pamphlets by Hardwicke, and later as a book. See Letter 156.) when they arrived, and much obliged I am. I have read them with interest, and they seem to me very good for this purpose and capitally written, as is everything which you write. I suppose every book nowadays requires some pushing, so that if you do not wish these lectures to be extensively circulated, I suppose they will not; otherwise I should think they would do good and spread a taste for the natural sciences. Anyhow, I have liked them; but I get more and more, I am sorry to say, to care for nothing but Natural History; and chiefly, as you once said, for the mere species question. I think I liked No. III. the best of all. I have often said and thought that the process of scientific discovery was identical with everyday thought, only with more care; but I never succeeded in putting the case to myself with one-tenth of the clearness with which you have done. I think your second geological section will puzzle your non-scientific readers; anyhow, it has puzzled me, and with the strong middle line, which must represent either a line of stratification or some great mineralogical change, I cannot conceive how your statement can hold good.

I am very glad to hear of your "three-year-old" vigour {?}; but I fear, with all your multifarious work, that your book on Man will necessarily be delayed. You bad man; you say not a word about Mrs. Huxley, of whom my wife and self are always truly anxious to hear.

P.S. I see in the "Cornhill Magazine" a notice of a work by Cohn, which apparently is important, on the contractile tissue of plants. (149/2. "Ueber contractile Gewebe im Pflanzenreiche." "Abhand. der Schlesischen Gesellschaft fur vaterlandische Cultur," Heft I., 1861.) You ought to have it reviewed. I have ordered it, and must try and make out, if I can, some of the accursed german, for I am much interested in the subject, and experimented a little on it this summer, and came to the conclusion that plants must contain some substance most closely analogous to the supposed diffused nervous matter in the lower animals; or as, I presume, it would be more accurate to say with Cohn, that they have contractile tissue.

Lecture VI., page 151, line 7 from top—wetting FEET or bodies? (Miss Henrietta Darwin's criticism.) (149/3. Lecture VI., page 151: Lamarck "said, for example, that the short-legged birds, which live on fish, had been converted into the long-legged waders by desiring to get the fish without wetting their feet."

Their criticisms on Lectures IV. and VI. are on a separate piece of undated paper, and must belong to a letter of later date; only three lectures were published by December 7th, 1862.)

Lecture IV., page 89—Atavism.

You here and there use atavism = inheritance. Duchesne, who, I believe, invented the word, in his Strawberry book confined it, as every one has since done, to resemblance to grandfather or more remote ancestor, in contradistinction to resemblance to parents.

LETTER 150. TO JOHN SCOTT.

(150/1. The following is the first of a series of letters addressed to the late John Scott, of which the major part is given in our Botanical chapters. We have been tempted to give this correspondence fully not only because of its intrinsic scientific interest, but also because they are almost the only letters which show Darwin in personal relation with a younger man engaged in research under his supervision.)

{1862?}

To the best of my judgment, no subject is so important in relation to theoretical natural science, in several respects, and likewise in itself deserving investigation, as the effects of changed or unnatural conditions, or of changed structure on the reproductive system. Under this point of view the relation of well-marked but undoubted varieties in fertilising each other requires far more experiments than have been tried. See in the "Origin" the brief abstract of Gartner on Verbascum and Zea. Mr. W. Crocker, lately foreman at Kew and a very good observer, is going at my suggestion to work varieties of hollyhock. (150/2. Altheae species. These experiments seem not to have been carried out.) The climate would be too cold, I suppose, for varieties of tobacco. I began on cabbages, but immediately stopped from early shedding of their pollen causing too much trouble. Your knowledge would suggest some {plants}. On the same principle it would be well to test peloric flowers with their own pollen, and with pollen of regular flowers, and try pollen of peloric on regular flowers—seeds being counted in each case. I have now got one seedling from many crosses of a peloric Pelargonium by peloric pollen; I have two or three seedlings from a peloric flower by pollen of regular flower. I have ordered a peloric Antirrhinum (150/3. See "Variation of Animals and Plants," Edition I., Volume II., page 70.) and the peloric Gloxinia, but I much fear I shall never have time to try them. The Passiflora cases are truly wonderful, like the Crinum cases (see "Origin"). (150/4. "Origin," Edition VI., page 238.) I have read in a German paper that some varieties of potatoes (name not given) cannot be fertilised by {their} own pollen, but can by pollen of other varieties: well worth trying. Again, fertility of any monster flower, which is pretty regularly produced; I have got the wonderful Begonia frigida (150/5. The species on which Sir J.D. Hooker wrote in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," February 25th, 1860. See "Life and Letters," II., page 275.) from Kew, but doubt whether I have heat to set its seeds. If an unmodified Celosia could be got, it would be well to test with the modified cockscomb. There is a variation of columbine {Aquilegia} with simple petals without nectaries, etc., etc. I never could think what to try; but if one could get hold of a long-cultivated plant which crossed with a distinct species and yielded a very small number of seeds, then it would be highly good to test comparatively the wild parent-form and its varying offspring with this third species: for instance, if a polyanthus would cross with some species of Primula, then to try a wild cowslip with it. I believe hardly any primulas have ever been crossed. If we knew and could get the parent of the carnation (150/6. Dianthus caryophyllus, garden variety.), it would be very good for this end. Any member of the Lythraceae raised from seed ought to be well looked after for dimorphism. I have wonderful facts, the result of experiment, on Lythrum salicaria.

LETTER 151. TO JOHN SCOTT. Down, December 11th {1862}.

I have read your paper with much interest. (151/1. "On the Nature and Peculiarities of the Fern-spore." "Bot. Soc. Edin." Read June 12th, 1862.) You ask for remarks on the matter, which is alone really important. Shall you think me impertinent (I am sure I do not mean to be so) if I hazard a remark on the style, which is of more importance than some think? In my opinion (whether or no worth much) your paper would have been much better if written more simply and less elaborated—more like your letters. It is a golden rule always to use, if possible, a short old Saxon word. Such a sentence as "so purely dependent is the incipient plant on the specific morphological tendency" does not sound to my ears like good mother-English—it wants translating. Here and there you might, I think, have condensed some sentences. I go on the plan of thinking every single word which can be omitted without actual loss of sense as a decided gain. Now perhaps you will think me a meddling intruder: anyhow, it is the advice of an old hackneyed writer who sincerely wishes you well. Your remark on the two sexes counteracting variability in product of the one is new to me. (151/2. Scott (op. cit., page 214): "The reproductive organs of phoenogams, as is well-known, are always products of two morphologically distinct organs, the stamens producing the pollen, the carpels producing the ovules...The embryo being in this case the modified resultant of two originally distinct organs, there will necessarily be a greater tendency to efface any individual peculiarities of these than would have been the case had the embryo been the product of a single organ." A different idea seems to have occurred to Mr. Darwin, for in an undated letter to Scott he wrote: "I hardly know what to say on your view of male and female organs and variability. I must think more over it. But I was amused by finding the other day in my portfolio devoted to bud-variation a slip of paper dated June, 1860, with some such words as these, 'May not permanence of grafted buds be due to the two sexual elements derived from different parts not having come into play?' I had utterly forgotten, when I read your paper that any analogous notion had ever passed through my mind—nor can I now remember, but the slip shows me that it had." It is interesting that Huxley also came to a conclusion differing from Scott's; and, curiously enough, Darwin confused the two views, for he wrote to Scott (December 19th): "By an odd chance, reading last night some short lectures just published by Prof. Huxley, I find your observation, independently arrived at by him, on the confluence of the two sexes causing variability." Professor Huxley's remarks are in his "Lectures to Working Men on our Knowledge, etc." No. 4, page 90: "And, indeed, I think that a certain amount of variation from the primitive stock is the necessary result of the method of sexual propagation itself; for inasmuch as the thing propagated proceeds from two organisms of different sexes and different makes and temperaments, and, as the offspring is to be either of one sex or the other, it is quite clear that it cannot be an exact diagonal of the two, or it would be of no sex at all; it cannot be an exact intermediate form between that of each of its parents—it must deviate to one side or the other.") But I cannot avoid thinking that there is something unknown and deeper in seminal generation. Reflect on the long succession of embryological changes in every animal. Does a bud ever produce cotyledons or embryonic leaves? I have been much interested by your remark on inheritance at corresponding ages; I hope you will, as you say, continue to attend to this. Is it true that female Primula plants always produce females by parthenogenesis? (151/3. It seems probable that Darwin here means vegetative reproduction.) If you can answer this I should be glad; it bears on my Primula work. I thought on the subject, but gave up investigating what had been observed, because the female bee by parthenogenesis produces males alone. Your paper has told me much that in my ignorance was quite new to me. Thanks about P. scotica. If any important criticisms are made on the Primula to the Botanical Society, I should be glad to hear them. If you think fit, you may state that I repeated the crossing experiments on P. sinensis and cowslip with the same result this spring as last year—indeed, with rather more marked difference in fertility of the two crosses. In fact, had I then proved the Linum case, I would not have wasted time in repetition. I am determined I will at once publish on Linum...

I was right to be cautious in supposing you in error about Siphocampylus (no flowers were enclosed). I hope that you will make out whether the pistil presents two definite lengths; I shall be astounded if it does. I do not fully understand your objections to Natural Selection; if I do, I presume they would apply with full force to, for instance, birds. Reflect on modification of Arab-Turk horse into our English racehorse. I have had the satisfaction to tell my publisher to send my "Journal" and "Origin" to your address. I suspect, with your fertile mind, you will find it far better to experiment on your own choice; but if, on reflection, you would like to try some which interest me, I should be truly delighted, and in this case would write in some detail. If you have the means to repeat Gartner's experiments on variations of Verbascum or on maize (see the "Origin"), such experiments would be pre-eminently important. I could never get variations of Verbascum. I could suggest an experiment on potatoes analogous with the case of Passiflora; even the case of Passiflora, often as it has been repeated, might be with advantage repeated. I have worked like a slave (having counted about nine thousand seeds) on Melastoma, on the meaning of the two sets of very different stamens, and as yet have been shamefully beaten, and I now cry for aid. I could suggest what I believe a very good scheme (at least, Dr. Hooker thought so) for systematic degeneration of culinary plants, and so find out their origin; but this would be laborious and the work of years.

LETTER 152. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 12th {December, 1862}.

My good old Friend—

How kind you have been to give me so much of your time! Your letter is of real use, and has been and shall be well considered. I am much pleased to find that we do not differ as much as I feared. I begin my book with saying that my chief object is to show the inordinate scale of variation; I have especially studied all sorts of variations of the individual. On crossing I cannot change; the more I think, the more reason I have to believe that my conclusion would be agreed to by all practised breeders. I also greatly doubt about variability and domestication being at all necessarily correlative, but I have touched on this in "Origin." Plants being identical under very different conditions has always seemed to me a very heavy argument against what I call direct action. I think perhaps I will take the case of 1,000 pigeons (152/1. See Letter 146.) to sum up my volume; I will not discuss other points, but, as I have said, I shall recur to your letter. But I must just say that if sterility be allowed to come into play, if long-beaked be in the least degree sterile with short-beaked, my whole case is altered. By the way, my notions on hybridity are becoming considerably altered by my dimorphic work. I am now strongly inclined to believe that sterility is at first a selected quality to keep incipient species distinct. If you have looked at Lythrum you will see how pollen can be modified merely to favour crossing; with equal readiness it could be modified to prevent crossing.

It is this which makes me so much interested with dimorphism, etc. (152/2. This gives a narrow impression of Darwin's interest in dimorphism. The importance of his work was (briefly put) the proof that sterility has no necessary connection with specific difference, but depends on sexual differentiation independent of racial differences. See "Life and Letters," III., page 296. His point of view that sterility is a selected quality is again given in a letter to Huxley ("Life and Letters," II., page 384), but was not upheld in his later writings (see "Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 245). The idea of sterility being a selected quality is interesting in connection with Romanes' theory of physiological selection. (See Letters 209-214.))

One word more. When you pitched me head over heels by your new way of looking at the back side of variation, I received assurance and strength by considering monsters—due to law: horribly strange as they are, the monsters were alive till at least when born. They differ at least as much from the parent as any one mammal from another.

I have just finished a long, weary chapter on simple facts of variation of cultivated plants, and am now refreshing myself with a paper on Linum for the Linnean Society.

LETTER 153. TO W.B. TEGETMEIER.

(153/1. The following letter also bears on the question of the artificial production of sterility.)

Down, 27th {December, 1862}.

The present plan is to try whether any existing breeds happen to have acquired accidentally any degree of sterility; but to this point hereafter. The enclosed MS. will show what I have done and know on the subject. Please at some future time carefully return the MS. to me. If I were going to try again, I would prefer Turbit with Carrier or Dragon.

I will suggest an analogous experiment, which I have had for two years in my experimental book with "be sure and try," but which, as my health gets yearly weaker and weaker and my other work increases, I suppose I shall never try. Permit me to add that if 5 pounds would cover the expenses of the experiment, I should be delighted to give it, and you could publish the result if there be any result. I crossed the Spanish cock (your bird) and white Silk hen and got plenty of eggs and chickens; but two of them seemed to be quite sterile. I was then sadly overdone with work, but have ever since much reproached myself that I did not preserve and carefully test the procreative power of these hens. Now, if you are inclined to get a Spanish cock and a couple of white Silk hens, I shall be most grateful to hear whether the offspring breed well: they will prove, I think, not hardy; if they should prove sterile, which I can hardly believe, they will anyhow do for the pot. If you do try this, how would it do to put a Silk cock to your curious silky Cochin hen, so as to get a big silk breed; it would be curious if you could get silky fowl with bright colours. I believe a Silk hen crossed by any other breed never gives silky feathers. A cross from Silk cock and Cochin Silk hen ought to give silky feathers and probably bright colours.

I have been led lately from experiments (not published) on dimorphism to reflect much on sterility from hybridism, and partially to change the opinion given in "Origin." I have now letters out enquiring on the following point, implied in the experiment, which seems to me well worth trying, but too laborious ever to be attempted. I would ask every pigeon and fowl fancier whether they have ever observed, in the same breed, a cock A paired to a hen B which did not produce young. Then I would get cock A and match it to a hen of its nearest blood; and hen B to its nearest blood. I would then match the offspring of A (viz., a, b, c, d, e) to the offspring of B (viz., f, g, h, i, j), and all those children which were fertile together should be destroyed until I found one—say a, which was not quite fertile with—say, i. Then a and i should be preserved and paired with their parents A and B, so as to try and get two families which would not unite together; but the members WITHIN each family being fertile together. This would probably be quite hopeless; but he who could effect this would, I believe, solve the problem of sterility from hybridism. If you should ever hear of individual fowls or pigeons which are sterile together, I should be very grateful to hear of the case. It is a parallel case to those recorded of a man not impotent long living with a woman who remained childless; the husband died, and the woman married again and had plenty of children. Apparently (by no means certainly) this first man and woman were dissimilar in their sexual organisation. I conceive it possible that their offspring (if both had married again and both had children) would be sexually dissimilar, like their parents, or sterile together. Pray forgive my dreadful writing; I have been very unwell all day, and have no strength to re-write this scrawl. I am working slowly on, and I suppose in three or four months shall be ready.

I am sure I do not know whether any human being could understand or read this shameful scrawl.

LETTER 154. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December, 28th {1862}.

I return enclosed: if you write, thank Mr. Kingsley for thinking of letting me see the sound sense of an Eastern potentate. (154/1. Kingsley's letter to Huxley, dated December 20th, 1862, contains a story or parable of a heathen Khan in Tartary who was visited by a pair of proselytising Moollahs. The first Moollah said: "Oh! Khan, worship my God. He is so wise that he made all things." But Moollah No. 2 won the day by pointing out that his God is "so wise that he makes all things make themselves.") All that I said about the little book (154/2. The six "Lectures to Working Men," published in six pamphlets and in book-form in 1863. Mr. Huxley considered that Mr. Darwin's argument required the production by man's selection of breeds which should be mutually infertile, and thus resemble distinct species physiologically as well as morphologically.) is strictly my opinion; it is in every way excellent, and cannot fail to do good the wider it is circulated. Whether it is worth your while to give up time to it is another question for you alone to decide; that it will do good for the subject is beyond all question. I do not think a dunce exists who could not understand it, and that is a bold saying after the extent to which I have been misunderstood. I did not understand what you required about sterility: assuredly the facts given do not go nearly so far. We differ so much that it is no use arguing. To get the degree of sterility you expect in recently formed varieties seems to me simply hopeless. It seems to me almost like those naturalists who declare they will never believe that one species turns into another till they see every stage in process.

I have heard from Tegetmeier, and have given him the result of my crosses of the birds which he proposes to try, and have told him how alone I think the experiment could be tried with the faintest hope of success—namely, to get, if possible, a case of two birds which when paired were unproductive, yet neither impotent. For instance, I had this morning a letter with a case of a Hereford heifer, which seemed to be, after repeated trials, sterile with one particular and far from impotent bull, but not with another bull. But it is too long a story—it is to attempt to make two strains, both fertile, and yet sterile when one of one strain is crossed with one of the other strain. But the difficulty...would be beyond calculation. As far as I see, Tegetmeier's plan would simply test whether two existing breeds are now in any slight degree sterile; which has already been largely tested: not that I dispute the good of re-testing.

LETTER 155. TO HUGH FALCONER.

(155/1. The original letter is dated "December 10th," but this must, we think, be a slip of the pen for January 10th. It contains a reference to No. VI. of the "Lectures to Working Men" which, as Mr. Leonard Huxley is good enough to inform us, was not delivered until December 15th, and therefore could not have been seen by Mr. Darwin on December 10th. The change of date makes comprehensible the reference to Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.)," which appeared in the January number of the "Natural History Review." It is true that he had seen advanced sheets of Falconer's paper ("Life and Letters," II., page 389), but the reference here is to the complete paper.

In the present volume we have thought it right to give some expression to the attitude of Darwin towards Owen. Professor Owen's biographer has clearly felt the difficulty of making a statement on Owen's attitude towards Darwinism, and has ("Life of Sir Richard Owen," Volume II., page 92) been driven to adopt the severe indictment contained in the "Origin of Species," Edition VI., page xviii. Darwin was by no means alone in his distrust of Owen; and to omit altogether a reference to the conduct which led up to the isolation of Owen among his former friends and colleagues would be to omit a part of the history of science of the day. And since we cannot omit to notice Darwin's point of view, it seems right to give the facts of a typical case illustrating the feeling with which he regarded Owen. This is all the more necessary since the recently published biography of Sir R. Owen gives no hint, as far as we are aware, of even a difference of opinion with other scientific men.

The account which Falconer gives in the above-mentioned paper in the "Nat. Hist. Review" (January, 1863) would be amusing if the matter were less serious. In 1857 Falconer described ("Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." XIII.) a new species of fossil elephant from America, to which he gave the name Elephas Columbi, a designation which was recognised and adopted by Continental writers. In 1858 (Brit. Assoc. Leeds) Owen made use of the name "Elephas texianus," Blake" for the species which Falconer had previously named E. Columbi, but without referring to Falconer's determination; he gave no authority, "thus by the established usage in zoology producing it as his own." In 1861 Owen in his Palaeontology, 2nd edition, 1861, describes the elephant as E. texianus, Blake. To Mr. Blake's name is appended an asterisk which refers to a footnote to Bollaert's "Antiquities of S. America," 2nd edition. According to Falconer (page 46) no second edition of Bollaert had appeared at the time of writing (August, 1862), and in the first edition (1860) he was "unable to detect the occurrence of the name even, of E. texianus, anywhere throughout the volume"; though Bollaert mentions the fact that he had deposited, in the British Museum, the tooth of a fossil elephant from Texas.

In November, 1861, Blake wrote a paper in the "Geologist" in which the new elephant no longer bears his own name as authority, but is described as "Elephas texianus, Owen, E. Columbi, Falconer." Finally, in another paper the name of Owen is dropped and the elephant is once more his own. As Falconer remarks, "the usage of science does not countenance such accommodating arrangements, when the result is to prejudice a prior right."

It may be said, no doubt, that the question who first described a given species is a petty one; but this view has a double edge, and applies most strongly to those who neglect the just claims of their predecessors.

Down, January 5th {1863}.

I finished your Elephant paper last night, and you must let me express my admiration at it. (155/2. "On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.), etc." "Nat. Hist. Rev." 1863, page 81. (Cf. Letter to Lyell. "Life and Letters," II., page 389; also "Origin," Edition VI., page 306.) See Letter 143.) All the points strike me as admirably worked out, and very many most interesting. I was particularly struck with your remarks on the character of the ancient Mammalian Fauna of N. America (155/3. Falconer, page 62. This passage is marked in Darwin's copy.); it agrees with all I fancied was the case, namely a temporary irruption of S. American forms into N. America, and conversely, I chuckled a little over the specimen of M. Andium "hesitating" between the two groups. (155/4. In speaking of the characters of Mastodon Andium, Falconer refers to a former paper by himself ("Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume XIII. 1857, page 313), in which he called attention "to the exceptional character of certain specimens of M. Andium, as if hesitating between {the groups} Tetralophodon and Trilophodon" (ibid., page 100).) I have been assured by Mr. Wallace that abundant Mastodon remains have been found at Timor, and that is rather close to Australia. I rejoice that you have smashed that case. (155/5. In the paper in the "Nat. Hist. Review" (loc. cit.) Falconer writes: "It seems more probable that some unintentional error has got mixed up with the history of this remarkable fossil; and until further confirmatory evidence is adduced, of an unimpeachable character, faith cannot be reposed in the reality of the asserted Australian Mastodon" (page 101).) It is indeed a grand paper. I will say nothing more about your allusions to me, except that they have pleased me quite as much in print as in MS. You must have worked very hard; the labour must have been extreme, but I do hope that you will have health and strength to go on. You would laugh if you could see how indignant all Owen's mean conduct about E. Columbi made me. (155/6. See Letter 157.) I did not get to sleep till past 3 o'clock. How well you lash him, firmly and severely, with unruffled temper, as if you were performing a simple duty. The case is come to such a pass, that I think every man of science is bound to show his feelings by some overt act, and I shall watch for a fitting opportunity.

P.S.—I have kept back for a day the enclosed owing to the arrival of your most interesting letter. I knew it was a mere chance whether you could inform me on the points required; but no one other person has so often responded to my miscellaneous queries. I believe I have now in my greenhouse L. trigynum (155/7. Linum trigynum.), which came up from seed purchased as L. flavum, from which it is wholly different in foliage. I have just sent in a paper on Dimorphism of Linum to the Linnean Society (155/8. "On the Existence of the Forms, and on their reciprocal Sexual Relation, in several species of the genus Linum.—"Journ. Linn. Soc." Volume VII., page 69, 1864.), and so I do not doubt your memory is right about L. trigynum: the functional difference in the two forms of Linum is really wonderful. I assure you I quite long to see you and a few others in London; it is not so much the eczema which has taken the epidermis a dozen times clean off; but I have been knocked up of late with extraordinary facility, and when I shall be able to come up I know not. I particularly wish to hear about the wondrous bird: the case has delighted me, because no group is so isolated as Birds. I much wish to hear when we meet which digits are developed; when examining birds two or three years ago, I distinctly remember writing to Lyell that some day a fossil bird would be found with the end of wing cloven, i.e. the bastard-wing and other part, both well developed. Thanks for Von Martius, returned by this post, which I was glad to see. Poor old Wagner (Probably Johann Andreas Wagner, author of "Zur Feststellung des Artbegriffes, mit besonderer Bezugnahme auf die Ansichten von Nathusius, Darwin, Is. Geoffroy and Agassiz," "Munchen Sitzungsb." (1861), page 301, and of numerous papers on zoological and palaeozoological subjects.) always attacked me in a proper spirit, and sent me two or three little brochures, and I thanked him cordially. The Germans seem much stirred up on the subject. I received by the same post almost a little volume on the "Origin."

I cannot work above a couple of hours daily, and this plays the deuce with me.

P.S. 2nd.—I have worked like a slave and been baffled like a slave in trying to make out the meaning of two very different sets of stamens in some Melastomaceae. (155/9. Several letters on the Melastomaceae occur in our Botanical section.) I must tell you one fact. I counted 9,000 seeds, one by one, from my artificially fertilised pods. There is something very odd, but I am as yet beaten. Plants from two pollens grow at different rates! Now, what I want to know is, whether in individuals of the same species, growing together, you have ever noticed any difference in the position of the pistil or in the size and colour of the stamens?

LETTER 156. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 18th {1862}.

I have read Nos. IV, and V. (156/1. "On our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature," being six Lectures to Working Men delivered at the Museum of Practical Geology by Prof. Huxley, 1863. These lectures, which were given once a week from November 10th, 1862, onwards, were printed from the notes of Mr. J.A. Mays, a shorthand writer, who asked permission to publish them on his own account; Mr. Huxley stating in a prefatory "Notice" that he had no leisure to revise the lectures.) They are simply perfect. They ought to be largely advertised; but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down No. IV. with this reflection, "What is the good of writing a thundering big book, when everything is in this green little book, so despicable for its size?" In the name of all that is good and bad, I may as well shut up shop altogether. You put capitally and most simply and clearly the relation of animals and plants to each other at page 122.

Be careful about Fantails: their tail-feathers are fixed in a radiating position, but they can depress and elevate them. I remember in a pigeon-book seeing withering contempt expressed at some naturalist for not knowing this important point! Page 111 (156/2. The reference is to the original little green paper books in which the lectures first appeared; the paging in the bound volume dated 1863 is slightly different. The passage here is, "...If you couple a male and female hybrid...the result is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will get no offspring at all." Darwin maintains elsewhere that Huxley, from not knowing the botanical evidence, made too much of this point. See "Life and Letters," II., page 384.) seems a little too strong—viz., ninety-nine out of a hundred, unless you except plants.

Page 118: You say the answer to varieties when crossed being at all sterile is "absolutely a negative." (156/3. Huxley, page 112: "Can we find any approximation to this {sterility of hybrids} in the different races known to be produced by selective breeding from a common stock? Up to the present time the answer to that question is absolutely a negative one.") Do you mean to say that Gartner lied, after experiments by the hundred (and he a hostile witness), when he showed that this was the case with Verbascum and with maize (and here you have selected races): does Kolreuter lie when he speaks about the varieties of tobacco? My God, is not the case difficult enough, without its being, as I must think, falsely made more difficult? I believe it is my own fault—my d—d candour: I ought to have made ten times more fuss about these most careful experiments. I did put it stronger in the third edition of the "Origin." If you have a new edition, do consider your second geological section: I do not dispute the truth of your statement; but I maintain that in almost every case the gravel would graduate into the mud; that there would not be a hard, straight line between the mass of gravel and mud; that the gravel, in crawling inland, would be separated from the underlying beds by oblique lines of stratification. A nice idea of the difficulty of Geology your section would give to a working man! Do show your section to Ramsay, and tell him what I say; and if he thinks it a fair section for a beginner I am shut up, and "will for ever hold my tongue." Good-night.

LETTER 157. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, {January} 10th {1863}.

You will be weary of notes from me about the little book of yours. It is lucky for me that I expressed, before reading No. VI. (157/1. "Lectures to Working Men," No. VI., is a critical examination of the position of the "Origin of Species" in relation to the complete theory of the "causes of the phenomena of organic nature."), my opinion of its absolute excellence, and of its being well worth wide distribution and worth correction (not that I see where you could improve), if you thought it worth your valuable time. Had I read No. VI., even a rudiment of modesty would, or ought to, have stopped me saying so much. Though I have been well abused, yet I have had so much praise, that I have become a gourmand, both as to capacity and taste; and I really did not think that mortal man could have tickled my palate in the exquisite manner with which you have done the job. So I am an old ass, and nothing more need be said about this. I agree entirely with all your reservations about accepting the doctrine, and you might have gone further with further safety and truth. Of course I do not wholly agree about sterility. I hate beyond all things finding myself in disagreement with any capable judge, when the premises are the same; and yet this will occasionally happen. Thinking over my former letter to you, I fancied (but I now doubt) that I had partly found out the cause of our disagreement, and I attributed it to your naturally thinking most about animals, with which the sterility of the hybrids is much more conspicuous than the lessened fertility of the first cross. Indeed, this could hardly be ascertained with mammals, except by comparing the products of {their} whole life; and, as far as I know, this has only been ascertained in the case of the horse and ass, which do produce fewer offspring in {their} lifetime than in pure breeding. In plants the test of first cross seems as fair as test of sterility of hybrids. And this latter test applies, I will maintain to the death, to the crossing of varieties of Verbascum, and varieties, selected varieties, of Zea. (157/2. See Letter 156.) You will say Go to the Devil and hold your tongue. No, I will not hold my tongue; for I must add that after going, for my present book, all through domestic animals, I have come to the conclusion that there are almost certainly several cases of two or three or more species blended together and now perfectly fertile together. Hence I conclude that there must be something in domestication,—perhaps the less stable conditions, the very cause which induces so much variability,—which eliminates the natural sterility of species when crossed. If so, we can see how unlikely that sterility should arise between domestic races. Now I will hold my tongue. Page 143: ought not "Sanscrit" to be "Aryan"? What a capital number the last "Natural History Review" is! That is a grand paper by Falconer. I cannot say how indignant Owen's conduct about E. Columbi has made me. I believe I hate him more than you do, even perhaps more than good old Falconer does. But I have bubbled over to one or two correspondents on this head, and will say no more. I have sent Lubbock a little review of Bates' paper in "Linn. Transact." (157/3. The unsigned review of Mr. Bates' work on mimetic butterflies appeared in the "Nat. Hist. Review" (1863), page 219.) which L. seems to think will do for your "Review." Do inaugurate a great improvement, and have pages cut, like the Yankees do; I will heap blessings on your head. Do not waste your time in answering this.

LETTER 158. TO JOHN LUBBOCK {LORD AVEBURY}. Down, January 23rd {1863}.

I have no criticism, except one sentence not perfectly smooth. I think your introductory remarks very striking, interesting, and novel. (158/1. "On the Development of Chloeon (Ephemera) dimidiatum, Part I. By John Lubbock. "Trans. Linn. Soc." Volume XXIV., pages 61-78, 1864 {Read January 15th, 1863}.) They interested me the more, because the vaguest thoughts of the same kind had passed through my head; but I had no idea that they could be so well developed, nor did I know of exceptions. Sitaris and Meloe (158/2. Sitaris and Meloe, two genera of coleopterous insects, are referred to by Lubbock (op. cit., pages 63-64) as "perhaps...the most remarkable cases...among the Coleoptera" of curious and complicated metamorphoses.) seem very good. You have put the whole case of metamorphosis in a new light; I dare say what you remark about poverty of fresh-water is very true. (158/3. "We cannot but be struck by the poverty of the fresh-water fauna when compared with that of the ocean" (op. cit., page 64).) I think you might write a memoir on fresh-water productions. I suggest that the key-note is that land-productions are higher and have advantage in general over marine; and consequently land-productions have generally been modified into fresh-water productions, instead of marine productions being directly changed into fresh-water productions, as at first seems more probable, as the chance of immigration is always open from sea to rivers and ponds.

My talk with you did me a deal of good, and I enjoyed it much.

LETTER 159. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 13th {1863}.

I send a very imperfect answer to {your} question, which I have written on foreign paper to save you copying, and you can send when you write to Thomson in Calcutta. Hereafter I shall be able to answer better your question about qualities induced in individuals being inherited; gout in man—loss of wool in sheep (which begins in the first generation and takes two or three to complete); probably obesity (for it is rare with poor); probably obesity and early maturity in short-horn cattle, etc., etc.

LETTER 160. TO A. DE CANDOLLE. Down, January 14th {1863}.

I thank you most sincerely for sending me your Memoir. (160/1. Etude sur l'Espece a l'occasion d'une revision de la Famille des Cupuliferes. "Biblioth. Univ. (Arch. des Sc. Phys. et Nat.)," Novembre 1862.) I have read it with the liveliest interest, as is natural for me; but you have the art of making subjects, which might be dry, run easily. I have been fairly astonished at the amount of individual variability in the oaks. I never saw before the subject in any department of nature worked out so carefully. What labour it must have cost you! You spoke in one letter of advancing years; but I am very sure that no one would have suspected that you felt this. I have been interested with every part; though I am so unfortunate as to differ from most of my contemporaries in thinking that the vast continental extensions (160/2. See Letters 47, 48.) of Forbes, Heer, and others are not only advanced without sufficient evidence, but are opposed to much weighty evidence. You refer to my work in the kindest and most generous spirit. I am fully satisfied at the length in belief to which you go, and not at all surprised at the prudent reservations which you make. I remember well how many years it cost me to go round from old beliefs. It is encouraging to me to observe that everyone who has gone an inch with me, after a period goes a few more inches or even feet. But the great point, as it seems to me, is to give up the immutability of specific forms; as long as they are thought immutable, there can be no real progress in "Epiontology." (160/3. See De Candolle, loc. cit., page 67: he defines "Epiontologie" as the study of the distribution and succession of organised beings from their origin up to the present time. At present Epiontology is divided into geography and palaeontology, "mais cette division trop inegale et a limites bien vagues disparaitra probablement.") It matters very little to any one except myself, whether I am a little more or less wrong on this or that point; in fact, I am sure to be proved wrong in many points. But the subject will have, I am convinced, a grand future. Considering that birds are the most isolated group in the animal kingdom, what a splendid case is this Solenhofen bird-creature with its long tail and fingers to its wings! I have lately been daily and hourly using and quoting your "Geographical Botany" in my book on "Variation under Domestication."

LETTER 161. TO HORACE DOBELL. Down, February 16th {1863}.

Absence from home and consequent idleness are the causes that I have not sooner thanked you for your very kind present of your Lectures. (161/1. "On the Germs and Vestiges of Disease," (London) 1861.) Your reasoning seems quite satisfactory (though the subject is rather beyond my limit of thought and knowledge) on the V.M.F. not being "a given quantity." (161/2. "It has been too common to consider the force exhibited in the operations of life (the V.M.F.) as a given quantity, to which no accessions can be made, but which is apportioned to each living being in quantity sufficient for its necessities, according to some hidden law" (op. cit., page 41.) And I can see that the conditions of life must play a most important part in allowing this quantity to increase, as in the budding of a tree, etc. How far these conditions act on "the forms of organic life" (page 46) I do not see clearly. In fact, no part of my subject has so completely puzzled me as to determine what effect to attribute to (what I vaguely call) the direct action of the conditions of life. I shall before long come to this subject, and must endeavour to come to some conclusion when I have got the mass of collected facts in some sort of order in my mind. My present impression is that I have underrated this action in the "Origin." I have no doubt when I go through your volume I shall find other points of interest and value to me. I have already stumbled on one case (about which I want to consult Mr. Paget)—namely, on the re-growth of supernumerary digits. (161/3. See Letters 178, 270.) You refer to "White on Regeneration, etc., 1785." I have been to the libraries of the Royal and the Linnean Societies, and to the British Museum, where the librarians got out your volume and made a special hunt, and could discover no trace of such a book. Will you grant me the favour of giving me any clue, where I could see the book? Have you it? if so, and the case is given briefly, would you have the great kindness to copy it? I much want to know all particulars. One case has been given me, but with hardly minute enough details, of a supernumerary little finger which has already been twice cut off, and now the operation will soon have to be done for the third time. I am extremely much obliged for the genealogical table; the fact of the two cousins not, as far as yet appears, transmitting the peculiarity is extraordinary, and must be given by me.

LETTER 162. TO C. LYELL. {February 17th, 1863.}

The same post that brought the enclosed brought Dana's pamphlet on the same subject. (162/1. The pamphlet referred to was published in "Silliman's Journal," Volume XXV., 1863, pages 65 and 71, also in the "Annals and Magazine of Natural History," Volume XI., pages 207-14, 1863: "On the Higher Subdivisions in the Classification of Mammals." In this paper Dana maintains the view that "Man's title to a position by himself, separate from the other mammals in classification, appears to be fixed on structural as well as physical grounds" (page 210). His description is as follows:—

The whole seems to me utterly wild. If there had not been the foregone wish to separate men, I can never believe that Dana or any one would have relied on so small a distinction as grown man not using fore-limbs for locomotion, seeing that monkeys use their limbs in all other respects for the same purpose as man. To carry on analogous principles (for they are not identical, in crustacea the cephalic limbs are brought close to mouth) from crustacea to the classification of mammals seems to me madness. Who would dream of making a fundamental distinction in birds, from fore-limbs not being used at all in {some} birds, or used as fins in the penguin, and for flight in other birds?

I get on slowly with your grand work, for I am overwhelmed with odds and ends and letters.

LETTER 163. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(163/1. The following extract refers to Owen's paper in the "Linn. Soc. Journal," June, 1857, in which the classification of the Mammalia by cerebral characters was proposed. In spite of the fact that men and apes are placed in distinct Sub-Classes, Owen speaks (in the foot-note of which Huxley made such telling effect) of the determination of the difference between Homo and Pithecus as the anatomist's difficulty. (See Letter 119.))

July 5th, 1857.

What a capital number of the "Linnean Journal!" Owen's is a grand paper; but I cannot swallow Man making a division as distinct from a chimpanzee as an Ornithorhynchus from a horse; I wonder what a chimpanzee would say to this? (163/2. According to Owen the sub-class Archencephala contains only the genus Homo: the Gyrencephala contains both chimpanzee and horse, the Lyencephala contains Ornithorhynchus.)

LETTER 164. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down {February?} 26th, 1863.

I have just finished with very great interest "Man's Place." (164/1. "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," 1863 (preface dated January 1863).) I never fail to admire the clearness and condensed vigour of your style, as one calls it, but really of your thought. I have no criticisms; nor is it likely that I could have. But I think you could have added some interesting matter on the character or disposition of the young ourangs which have been kept in France and England. I should have thought you might have enlarged a little on the later embryological changes in man and on his rudimentary structure, tail as compared with tail of higher monkeys, intermaxillary bone, false ribs, and I daresay other points, such as muscles of ears, etc., etc. I was very much struck with admiration at the opening pages of Part II. (and oh! what a delicious sneer, as good as a dessert, at page 106) (164/2. Huxley, op. cit., page 106. After saying that "there is but one hypothesis regarding the origin of species of animals in general which has any scientific existence—that propounded by Mr. Darwin," and after a few words on Lamarck, he goes on: "And though I have heard of the announcement of a formula touching 'the ordained continuous becoming of organic forms,' it is obvious that it is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible, and that a qua-qua-versal proposition of this kind, which may be read backwards or forwards, or sideways, with exactly the same amount of significance, does not really exist, though it may seem to do so." The "formula" in question is Owen's.): but my admiration is unbounded at pages 109 to 112. I declare I never in my life read anything grander. Bacon himself could not have charged a few paragraphs with more condensed and cutting sense than you have done. It is truly grand. I regret extremely that you could not, or did not, end your book (not that I mean to say a word against the Geological History) with these pages. With a book, as with a fine day, one likes it to end with a glorious sunset. I congratulate you on its publication; but do not be disappointed if it does not sell largely: parts are highly scientific, and I have often remarked that the best books frequently do not get soon appreciated: certainly large sale is no proof of the highest merit. But I hope it may be widely distributed; and I am rejoiced to see in your note to Miss Rhadamanthus (164/3. This refers to Mr. Darwin's daughter (now Mrs. Litchfield), whom Mr. Huxley used to laugh at for the severity of her criticisms.) that a second thousand is called for of the little book. What a letter that is of Owen's in the "Athenaeum" (164/4. A letter by Owen in the "Athenaeum," February 21st, 1863, replying to strictures on his treatment of the brain question, which had appeared in Lyell's "Antiquity of Man."); how cleverly he will utterly muddle and confound the public. Indeed he quite muddled me, till I read again your "concise statement" (164/5. This refers to a section (pages 113-18) in "Man's Place in Nature," headed "A succinct History of the Controversy respecting the Cerebral Structure of Man and the Apes." Huxley follows the question from Owen's attempt to classify the mammalia by cerebral characters, published by the "Linn. Soc." in 1857, up to his revival of the subject at the Cambridge meeting of the British Association in 1862. It is a tremendous indictment of Owen, and seems to us to conclude not unfittingly with a citation from Huxley's article in the "Medical Times," October 11th, 1862. Huxley here points out that special investigations have been made into the question at issue "during the last two years" by Allen Thomson, Rolleston, Marshall, Flower, Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, and that "all these able and conscientious observers" have testified to the accuracy of his statements, "while not a single anatomist, great or small, has supported Professor Owen." He sums up the case once more, and concludes: "The question has thus become one of personal veracity. For myself I will accept no other issue than this, grave as it is, to the present controversy.") (which is capitally clear), and then I saw that my suspicion was true that he has entirely changed his ground to size of Brain. How candid he shows himself to have taken the slipped Brain! (164/6. Owen in the "Athenaeum," February 21st, 1863, admits that in the brain which he used in illustration of his statements "the cerebral hemispheres had glided forward and apart behind so as to expose a portion of the cerebellum.") I am intensely curious to see whether Lyell will answer. (164/7. Lyell's answer was in the "Athenaeum" March 7th, 1863.) Lyell has been, I fear, rather rash to enter on a subject on which he of course knows nothing by himself. By heavens, Owen will shake himself, when he sees what an antagonist he has made for himself in you. With hearty admiration, Farewell.

I am fearfully disappointed at Lyell's excessive caution (164/8. In the "Antiquity of Man": see "Life and Letters," III., page 8.) in expressing any judgment on Species or {on the} origin of Man.

LETTER 165. TO JOHN SCOTT. Down, March 6th, 1863.

I thank you for your criticisms on the "Origin," and which I have not time to discuss; but I cannot help doubting, from your expression of an "INNATE...selective principle," whether you fully comprehend what is meant by Natural Selection. Certainly when you speak of weaker (i.e. less well adapted) forms crossing with the stronger, you take a widely different view from what I do on the struggle for existence; for such weaker forms could not exist except by the rarest chance. With respect to utility, reflect that 99/100ths part of the structure of each being is due to inheritance of formerly useful structures. Pray read what I have said on "correlation." Orchids ought to show us how ignorant we are of what is useful. No doubt hundreds of cases could be advanced of which no explanation could be offered; but I must stop. Your letter has interested me much. I am very far from strong, and have great fear that I must stop all work for a couple of months for entire rest, and leave home. It will be ruin to all my work.

LETTER 166. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, April 23rd {1863}.

The more I think of Falconer's letter (166/1. Published in the "Athenaeum" April 4th, 1863, page 459. The writer asserts that Lyell did not make it clear that certain material made use of in the "Antiquity of Man" was supplied by the original work of Mr. Prestwich and himself. (See "Life and Letters," III., page 19.)) the more grieved I am; he and Prestwich (the latter at least must owe much to the "Principles") assume an absurdly unwarrantable position with respect to Lyell. It is too bad to treat an old hero in science thus. I can see from a note from Falconer (about a wonderful fossil Brazilian Mammal, well called Meso- or Typo-therium) that he expects no sympathy from me. He will end, I hope, by being sorry. Lyell lays himself open to a slap by saying that he would come to show his original observations, and then not distinctly doing so; he had better only have laid claim, on this one point of man, to verification and compilation.

Altogether, I much like Lyell's letter. But all this squabbling will greatly sink scientific men. I have seen a sneer already in the "Times."

LETTER 167. TO H.W. BATES. At Rev. C. Langton, Hartfield, Tunbridge Wells, April 30th {1863}.

You will have received before this the note which I addressed to Leicester, after finishing Volume I., and you will have received copies of my little review (167/1. "Nat. Hist. Review," 1863, page 219. A review of Bates' paper on Mimetic Butterflies.) of your paper...I have now finished Volume II., and my opinion remains the same—that you have written a truly admirable work (167/2. "The Naturalist on the Amazons," 1863.), with capital original remarks, first-rate descriptions, and the whole in a style which could not be improved. My family are now reading the book, and admire it extremely; and, as my wife remarks, it has so strong an air of truthfulness. I had a letter from a person the other day, unknown to you, full of praise of the book. I do hope it may get extensively heard of and circulated; but to a certain extent this, I think, always depends on chance.

I suppose the clicking noise of surprise made by the Indian is that which the end of the tongue, applied to the palate of the mouth and suddenly withdrawn, makes?

I have not written since receiving your note of April 20th, in which you confided in me and told me your prospects. I heartily wish they were better, and especially more certain; but with your abilities and powers of writing it will be strange if you cannot add what little you require for your income. I am glad that you have got a retired and semi-rural situation. What a grand ending you give to your book, contrasting civilisation and wild life! I quite regret that I have finished it: every evening it was a real treat to me to have my half-hour in the grand Amazonian forest, and picture to myself your vivid descriptions. There are heaps of facts of value to me in a natural history point of view. It was a great misfortune that you were prevented giving the discussion on species. But you will, I hope, be able to give your views and facts somewhere else.

LETTER 168. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, May 15th {1863}.

Your letter received this morning interested me more than even most of your letters, and that is saying a good deal. I must scribble a little on several points. About Lyell and species—you put the whole case, I do believe, when you say that he is "half-hearted and whole-headed." (168/1. Darwin's disappointment with the cautious point of view taken up by Lyell in the "Antiquity of Man" is illustrated in the "Life and Letters," III., pages 11, 13. See also Letter 164, page 239.) I wrote to A. Gray that, when I saw such men as Lyell and he refuse to judge, it put me in despair, and that I sometimes thought I should prefer that Lyell had judged against modification of species rather than profess inability to decide; and I left him to apply this to himself. I am heartily rejoiced to hear that you intend to try to bring L. and F. (168/2. Falconer claimed that Lyell had not "done justice to the part he took in resuscitating the cave question." See "Life and Letters," III., page 14.) together again; but had you not better wait till they are a little cooled? You will do Science a real good service. Falconer never forgave Lyell for taking the Purbeck bones from him and handing them over to Owen.

With respect to island floras, if I understand rightly, we differ almost solely how plants first got there. I suppose that at long intervals, from as far back as later Tertiary periods to the present time, plants occasionally arrived (in some cases, perhaps, aided by different currents from existing currents and by former islands), and that these old arrivals have survived little modified on the islands, but have become greatly modified or become extinct on the continent. If I understand, you believe that all islands were formerly united to continents, and then received all their plants and none since; and that on the islands they have undergone less extinction and modification than on the continent. The number of animal forms on islands, very closely allied to those on continents, with a few extremely distinct and anomalous, does not seem to me well to harmonise with your supposed view of all having formerly arrived or rather having been left together on the island.

LETTER 169. TO ASA GRAY. Down, May 31st {1863?}.

I was very glad to receive your review (169/1. The review on De Candolle's work on the Oaks (A. Gray's "Scientific Papers," I., page 130).) of De Candolle a week ago. It seems to me excellent, and you speak out, I think, more plainly in favour of derivation of species than hitherto, though doubtfully about Natural Selection. Grant the first, I am easy about the second. Do you not consider such cases as all the orchids next thing to a demonstration against Heer's view of species arising suddenly by monstrosities?—it is impossible to imagine so many co-adaptations being formed all by a chance blow. Of course creationists would cut the enigma.

LETTER 170. TO T.H. HUXLEY. June 27th {1863?}

What are you doing now? I have never yet got hold of the "Edinburgh Review," in which I hear you are well abused. By the way, I heard lately from Asa Gray that Wyman was delighted at "Man's Place." (170/1. "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," by T.H. Huxley, 1863.) I wonder who it is who pitches weakly, but virulently into you, in the "Anthropological Review." How quiet Owen seems! I do at last begin to believe that he will ultimately fall in public estimation. What nonsense he wrote in the "Athenaeum" (170/2. "Athenaeum," March 28th, 1863. See "Life and Letters," III., page 17.) on Heterogeny! I saw in his Aye-Aye (170/3. See Owen in the "Trans. Zool. Soc." Volume V. The sentence referred to seems to be the following (page 95): "We know of no changes in progress in the Island of Madagascar, necessitating a special quest of wood-boring larvae by small quadrupeds of the Lemurine or Sciurine types of organisation.') paper (I think) that he sneers at the manner in which he supposes that we should account for the structure of its limbs; and asks how we know that certain insects had increased in the Madagascar forests. Would it not be a good rebuff to ask him how he knows there were trees at all on the leafless plains of La Plata for his Mylodons to tear down? But I must stop, for if I once begin about {him} there will be no end. I was disappointed in the part about species in Lyell. (170/4. Lyell's "Antiquity of Man." See "Life and Letters," III., page 11.) You and Hooker are the only two bold men. I have had a bad spring and summer, almost constantly very unwell; but I am crawling on in my book on "Variation under Domestication.")

LETTER 171. TO C. LYELL. Down, August 14th {1863}.

Have you seen Bentham's remarks on species in his address to the Linnean Society? (171/1. Presidential address before the Linnean Society by G. Bentham ("Journ. Proc. Linn. Soc." Volume VII., page xi., 1864).) they have pleased me more than anything I have read for some time. I have no news, for I have not seen a soul for months, and have had a bad spring and summer, but have managed to do a good deal of work. Emma is threatening me to take me to Malvern, and perhaps I shall be compelled, but it is a horrid waste of time; you must have enjoyed North Wales, I should think, it is to me a most glorious country...

If you have not read Bates' book (171/2. Henry Walter Bates, "The Naturalist on the River Amazons," 2 volumes, London, 1863. In a letter to Bates, April 18th, 1863, Darwin writes, "It is the best work of natural history travels ever published in England" ("Life and Letters," II., page 381.), I think it would interest you. He is second only to Humboldt in describing a tropical forest. (171/3. Quoted in "Life and Letters," II., page 381.). Talking of reading, I have never got the "Edinburgh" (171/4. The "Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man," by Sir Charles Lyell, and works by other authors reviewed in the "Edinburgh Review." Volume CXVIII., July 1863. The writer sums up his criticism as follows: "Glancing at the work of Sir Charles Lyell as a whole, it leaves the impression on our minds that we have been reading an ingenious academical thesis, rather than a work of demonstration by an original writer...There is no argument in it, and only a few facts which have not been stated elsewhere by Sir C. Lyell himself or by others" (loc. cit., page 294).), in which, I suppose, you are cut up.

LETTER 172. TO H. FALCONER. December 26th {1863}.

Thank you for telling me about the Pliocene mammal, which is very remarkable; but has not Owen stated that the Pliocene badger is identical with the recent? Such a case does indeed well show the stupendous duration of the same form. I have not heard of Suess' pamphlet (172/1. Probably Suess's paper "Ueber die Verschiedenheit und die Aufeinanderfolge der tertiaren Land-faunen in der Niederung von Wien." "Sitz.-Ber. Wien Akad." XLVII., page 306, 1863.), and should much like to learn the title, if it can be procured; but I am on different subjects just at present. I should rather like to see it rendered highly probable that the process of formation of a new species was short compared to its duration—that is, if the process was allowed to be slow and long; the idea is new to me. Heer's view that new species are suddenly formed like monsters, I feel a conviction from many reasons is false.