The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II

Part 1 out of 11








This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher





THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN

INCLUDING AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CHAPTER

EDITED BY HIS SON

FRANCIS DARWIN

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME II




TABLE OF CONTENTS.


VOLUME II.


CHAPTER 2.I.--The Publication of the 'Origin of Species'--October 3, 1859,
to December 31, 1859.

CHAPTER 2.II.--The 'Origin of Species' (continued)--1860.

CHAPTER 2.III.--The Spread of Evolution--1861-1862.

CHAPTER 2.IV.--The Spread of Evolution. 'Variation of Animals and Plants'
--1863-1866.

CHAPTER 2.V.--The Publication of the 'Variation of Animals and Plants under
Domestication'--January 1867-June 1868.

CHAPTER 2.VI.--Work on 'Man'--1864-1870.

CHAPTER 2.VII.--The Publication of the 'Descent of Man.' Work on
'Expression'--1871-1873.

CHAPTER 2.VIII.--Miscellanea, including Second Editions of 'Coral Reefs,'
the 'Descent of Man,' and the 'Variation of Animals and Plants'--1874 and
1875.

CHAPTER 2.IX.--Miscellanea (continued). A Revival of Geological Work--The
Book on Earthworms--Life of Erasmus Darwin--Miscellaneous Letters--1876-
1882.

BOTANICAL LETTERS.

CHAPTER 2.X.--Fertilisation of Flowers--1839-1880.

CHAPTER 2.XI.--The 'Effects of Cross- and Self-Fertilisation in the
Vegetable Kingdom'--1866-1877.

CHAPTER 2.XII.--'Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the same Species'
--1860-1878.

CHAPTER 2.XIII.--Climbing and Insectivorous Plants--1863-1875.

CHAPTER 2.XIV.--The 'Power of Movement in Plants'--1878-1881.

CHAPTER 2.XV.--Miscellaneous Botanical Letters--1873-1882.

...

CHAPTER 2.XVI.--Conclusion.


APPENDICES.

I.--The Funeral in Westminster Abbey.

II.--List of Works by C. Darwin.

III.--Portraits.

IV.--Honours, Degrees, Societies, etc.




TRANSCRIPT OF A FACSIMILE OF A PAGE FROM A NOTE-BOOK OF 1837.

--led to comprehend true affinities. My theory would give zest to recent &
Fossil Comparative Anatomy: it would lead to study of instincts, heredity,
& mind heredity, whole metaphysics, it would lead to closest examination of
hybridity & generation, causes of change in order to know what we have come
from & to what we tend, to what circumstances favour crossing & what
prevents it, this & direct examination of direct passages of structure in
species, might lead to laws of change, which would then be main object of
study, to guide our speculations.




LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN.


VOLUME II.


CHAPTER 2.I.

THE PUBLICATION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.'

OCTOBER 3, 1859, TO DECEMBER 31, 1859.


1859.

[Under the date of October 1st, 1859, in my father's Diary occurs the
entry: "Finished proofs (thirteen months and ten days) of Abstract on
'Origin of Species'; 1250 copies printed. The first edition was published
on November 24th, and all copies sold first day."

On October 2d he started for a water-cure establishment at Ilkley, near
Leeds, where he remained with his family until December, and on the 9th of
that month he was again at Down. The only other entry in the Diary for
this year is as follows: "During end of November and beginning of
December, employed in correcting for second edition of 3000 copies;
multitude of letters."

The first and a few of the subsequent letters refer to proof sheets, and to
early copies of the 'Origin' which were sent to friends before the book was
published.]

C. LYELL TO CHARLES DARWIN. (Part of this letter is given in the 'Life of
Sir Charles Lyell,' volume ii. page 325.)
October 3d, 1859.

My dear Darwin,

I have just finished your volume and right glad I am that I did my best
with Hooker to persuade you to publish it without waiting for a time which
probably could never have arrived, though you lived till the age of a
hundred, when you had prepared all your facts on which you ground so many
grand generalizations.

It is a splendid case of close reasoning, and long substantial argument
throughout so many pages; the condensation immense, too great perhaps for
the uninitiated, but an effective and important preliminary statement,
which will admit, even before your detailed proofs appear, of some
occasional useful exemplification, such as your pigeons and cirripedes, of
which you make such excellent use.

I mean that, when, as I fully expect, a new edition is soon called for, you
may here and there insert an actual case to relieve the vast number of
abstract propositions. So far as I am concerned, I am so well prepared to
take your statements of facts for granted, that I do not think the "pieces
justificatives" when published will make much difference, and I have long
seen most clearly that if any concession is made, all that you claim in
your concluding pages will follow. It is this which has made me so long
hesitate, always feeling that the case of Man and his races, and of other
animals, and that of plants is one and the same, and that if a "vera causa"
be admitted for one, instead of a purely unknown and imaginary one, such as
the word "Creation," all the consequences must follow.

I fear I have not time to-day, as I am just leaving this place, to indulge
in a variety of comments, and to say how much I was delighted with Oceanic
Islands--Rudimentary Organs--Embryology--the genealogical key to the
Natural System, Geographical Distribution, and if I went on I should be
copying the heads of all your chapters. But I will say a word of the
Recapitulation, in case some slight alteration, or at least, omission of a
word or two be still possible in that.

In the first place, at page 480, it cannot surely be said that the most
eminent naturalists have rejected the view of the mutability of species?
You do not mean to ignore G. St. Hilaire and Lamarck. As to the latter,
you may say, that in regard to animals you substitute natural selection for
volition to a certain considerable extent, but in his theory of the changes
of plants he could not introduce volition; he may, no doubt, have laid an
undue comparative stress on changes in physical conditions, and too little
on those of contending organisms. He at least was for the universal
mutability of species and for a genealogical link between the first and the
present. The men of his school also appealed to domesticated varieties.
(Do you mean LIVING naturalists?) (In the published copies of the first
edition, page 480, the words are "eminent living naturalists.")

The first page of this most important summary gives the adversary an
advantage, by putting forth so abruptly and crudely such a startling
objection as the formation of "the eye," not by means analogous to man's
reason, or rather by some power immeasurably superior to human reason, but
by superinduced variation like those of which a cattle-breeder avails
himself. Pages would be required thus to state an objection and remove it.
It would be better, as you wish to persuade, to say nothing. Leave out
several sentences, and in a future edition bring it out more fully.
Between the throwing down of such a stumbling-block in the way of the
reader, and the passage to the working ants, in page 460, there are pages
required; and these ants are a bathos to him before he has recovered from
the shock of being called upon to believe the eye to have been brought to
perfection, from a state of blindness or purblindness, by such variations
as we witness. I think a little omission would greatly lessen the
objectionableness of these sentences if you have not time to recast and
amplify.

...But these are small matters, mere spots on the sun. Your comparison of
the letters retained in words, when no longer wanted for the sound, to
rudimentary organs is excellent, as both are truly genealogical.

The want of peculiar birds in Madeira is a greater difficulty than seemed
to me allowed for. I could cite passages where you show that variations
are superinduced from the new circumstances of new colonists, which would
require some Madeira birds, like those of the Galapagos, to be peculiar.
There has been ample time in the case of Madeira and Porto Santo...

You enclose your sheets in old MS., so the Post Office very properly charge
them as letters, 2 pence extra. I wish all their fines on MS. were worth
as much. I paid 4 shillings 6 pence for such wash the other day from
Paris, from a man who can prove 300 deluges in the valley of the Seine.

With my hearty congratulations to you on your grand work, believe me,

Ever very affectionately yours,
CHAS. LYELL.


CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
October 11th [1859].

My dear Lyell,

I thank you cordially for giving me so much of your valuable time in
writing me the long letter of 3d, and still longer of 4th. I wrote a line
with the missing proof-sheet to Scarborough. I have adopted most
thankfully all your minor corrections in the last chapter, and the greater
ones as far as I could with little trouble. I damped the opening passage
about the eye (in my bigger work I show the gradations in structure of the
eye) by putting merely "complex organs." But you are a pretty Lord
Chancellor to tell the barrister on one side how best to win the cause!
The omission of "living" before eminent naturalists was a dreadful blunder.

MADEIRA AND BERMUDA BIRDS NOT PECULIAR.

You are right, there is a screw out here; I thought no one would have
detected it; I blundered in omitting a discussion, which I have written out
in full. But once for all, let me say as an excuse, that it was most
difficult to decide what to omit. Birds, which have struggled in their own
homes, when settled in a body, nearly simultaneously in a new country,
would not be subject to much modification, for their mutual relations would
not be much disturbed. But I quite agree with you, that in time they ought
to undergo some. In Bermuda and Madeira they have, as I believe, been kept
constant by the frequent arrival, and the crossing with unaltered
immigrants of the same species from the mainland. In Bermuda this can be
proved, in Madeira highly probable, as shown me by letters from E.V.
Harcourt. Moreover, there are ample grounds for believing that the crossed
offspring of the new immigrants (fresh blood as breeders would say), and
old colonists of the same species would be extra vigorous, and would be the
most likely to survive; thus the effects of such crossing in keeping the
old colonists unaltered would be much aided.

ON GALAPAGOS PRODUCTIONS HAVING AMERICAN TYPE ON VIEW OF CREATION.

I cannot agree with you, that species if created to struggle with American
forms, would have to be created on the American type. Facts point
diametrically the other way. Look at the unbroken and untilled ground in
La Plata, COVERED with European products, which have no near affinity to
the indigenous products. They are not American types which conquer the
aborigines. So in every island throughout the world. Alph. De Candolle's
results (though he does not see its full importance), that thoroughly well
naturalised [plants] are in general very different from the aborigines
(belonging in large proportion of cases to non-indigenous genera) is most
important always to bear in mind. Once for all, I am sure, you will
understand that I thus write dogmatically for brevity sake.

ON THE CONTINUED CREATION Of MONADS.

This doctrine is superfluous (and groundless) on the theory of Natural
Selection, which implies no NECESSARY tendency to progression. A monad, if
no deviation in its structure profitable to it under its EXCESSIVELY SIMPLE
conditions of life occurred, might remain unaltered from long before the
Silurian Age to the present day. I grant there will generally be a
tendency to advance in complexity of organisation, though in beings fitted
for very simple conditions it would be slight and slow. How could a
complex organisation profit a monad? if it did not profit it there would be
no advance. The Secondary Infusoria differ but little from the living.
The parent monad form might perfectly well survive unaltered and fitted for
its simple conditions, whilst the offspring of this very monad might become
fitted for more complex conditions. The one primordial prototype of all
living and extinct creatures may, it is possible, be now alive! Moreover,
as you say, higher forms might be occasionally degraded, the snake Typhlops
SEEMS (?!) to have the habits of earth-worms. So that fresh creatures of
simple forms seem to me wholly superfluous.

"MUST YOU NOT ASSUME A PRIMEVAL CREATIVE POWER WHICH DOES NOT ACT WITH
UNIFORMITY, OR HOW COULD MAN SUPERVENE?"

I am not sure that I understand your remarks which follow the above. We
must under present knowledge assume the creation of one or of a few forms
in the same manner as philosophers assume the existence of a power of
attraction without any explanation. But I entirely reject, as in my
judgment quite unnecessary, any subsequent addition "of new powers and
attributes and forces;" or of any "principle of improvement," except in so
far as every character which is naturally selected or preserved is in some
way an advantage or improvement, otherwise it would not have been selected.
If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural
selection, I would reject it as rubbish, but I have firm faith in it, as I
cannot believe, that if false, it would explain so many whole classes of
facts, which, if I am in my senses, it seems to explain. As far as I
understand your remarks and illustrations, you doubt the possibility of
gradations of intellectual powers. Now, it seems to me, looking to
existing animals alone, that we have a very fine gradation in the
intellectual powers of the Vertebrata, with one rather wide gap (not half
so wide as in many cases of corporeal structure), between say a Hottentot
and a Ourang, even if civilised as much mentally as the dog has been from
the wolf. I suppose that you do not doubt that the intellectual powers are
as important for the welfare of each being as corporeal structure; if so, I
can see no difficulty in the most intellectual individuals of a species
being continually selected; and the intellect of the new species thus
improved, aided probably by effects of inherited mental exercise. I look
at this process as now going on with the races of man; the less
intellectual races being exterminated. But there is not space to discuss
this point. If I understand you, the turning-point in our difference must
be, that you think it impossible that the intellectual powers of a species
should be much improved by the continued natural selection of the most
intellectual individuals. To show how minds graduate, just reflect how
impossible every one has yet found it, to define the difference in mind of
man and the lower animals; the latter seem to have the very same attributes
in a much lower stage of perfection than the lowest savage. I would give
absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires
miraculous additions at any one stage of descent. I think Embryology,
Homology, Classification, etc., etc., show us that all vertebrata have
descended from one parent; how that parent appeared we know not. If you
admit in ever so little a degree, the explanation which I have given of
Embryology, Homology and Classification, you will find it difficult to say:
thus far the explanation holds good, but no further; here we must call in
"the addition of new creative forces." I think you will be driven to
reject all or admit all: I fear by your letter it will be the former
alternative; and in that case I shall feel sure it is my fault, and not the
theory's fault, and this will certainly comfort me. With regard to the
descent of the great Kingdoms (as Vertebrata, Articulata, etc.) from one
parent, I have said in the conclusion, that mere analogy makes me think it
probable; my arguments and facts are sound in my judgment only for each
separate kingdom.

THE FORMS WHICH ARE BEATEN INHERITING SOME INFERIORITY IN COMMON.

I dare say I have not been guarded enough, but might not the term
inferiority include less perfect adaptation to physical conditions?

My remarks apply not to single species, but to groups or genera; the
species of most genera are adapted at least to rather hotter, and rather
less hot, to rather damper and dryer climates; and when the several species
of a group are beaten and exterminated by the several species of another
group, it will not, I think, generally be from EACH new species being
adapted to the climate, but from all the new species having some common
advantage in obtaining sustenance, or escaping enemies. As groups are
concerned, a fairer illustration than negro and white in Liberia would be
the almost certain future extinction of the genus ourang by the genus man,
not owing to man being better fitted for the climate, but owing to the
inherited intellectual inferiority of the Ourang-genus to Man-genus, by his
intellect, inventing fire-arms and cutting down forests. I believe from
reasons given in my discussion, that acclimatisation is readily effected
under nature. It has taken me so many years to disabuse my mind of the TOO
great importance of climate--its important influence being so conspicuous,
whilst that of a struggle between creature and creature is so hidden--that
I am inclined to swear at the North Pole, and, as Sydney Smith said, even
to speak disrespectfully of the Equator. I beg you often to reflect (I
have found NOTHING so instructive) on the case of thousands of plants in
the middle point of their respective ranges, and which, as we positively
know, can perfectly well withstand a little more heat and cold, a little
more damp and dry, but which in the metropolis of their range do not exist
in vast numbers, although if many of the other inhabitants were destroyed
[they] would cover the ground. We thus clearly see that their numbers are
kept down, in almost every case, not by climate, but by the struggle with
other organisms. All this you will perhaps think very obvious; but, until
I repeated it to myself thousands of times, I took, as I believe, a wholly
wrong view of the whole economy of nature...

HYBRIDISM.

I am so much pleased that you approve of this chapter; you would be
astonished at the labour this cost me; so often was I, on what I believe
was, the wrong scent.

RUDIMENTARY ORGANS.

On the theory of Natural Selection there is a wide distinction between
Rudimentary Organs and what you call germs of organs, and what I call in my
bigger book "nascent" organs. An organ should not be called rudimentary
unless it be useless--as teeth which never cut through the gums--the
papillae, representing the pistil in male flowers, wing of Apteryx, or
better, the little wings under soldered elytra. These organs are now
plainly useless, and a fortiori, they would be useless in a less developed
state. Natural Selection acts exclusively by preserving successive slight,
USEFUL modifications. Hence Natural Selection cannot possibly make a
useless or rudimentary organ. Such organs are solely due to inheritance
(as explained in my discussion), and plainly bespeak an ancestor having the
organ in a useful condition. They may be, and often have been, worked in
for other purposes, and then they are only rudimentary for the original
function, which is sometimes plainly apparent. A nascent organ, though
little developed, as it has to be developed must be useful in every stage
of development. As we cannot prophesy, we cannot tell what organs are now
nascent; and nascent organs will rarely have been handed down by certain
members of a class from a remote period to the present day, for beings with
any important organ but little developed, will generally have been
supplanted by their descendants with the organ well developed. The mammary
glands in Ornithorhynchus may, perhaps, be considered as nascent compared
with the udders of a cow--Ovigerous frena, in certain cirripedes, are
nascent branchiae--in [illegible] the swim bladder is almost rudimentary
for this purpose, and is nascent as a lung. The small wing of penguin,
used only as a fin, might be nascent as a wing; not that I think so; for
the whole structure of the bird is adapted for flight, and a penguin so
closely resembles other birds, that we may infer that its wings have
probably been modified, and reduced by natural selection, in accordance
with its sub-aquatic habits. Analogy thus often serves as a guide in
distinguishing whether an organ is rudimentary or nascent. I believe the
Os coccyx gives attachment to certain muscles, but I can not doubt that it
is a rudimentary tail. The bastard wing of birds is a rudimentary digit;
and I believe that if fossil birds are found very low down in the series,
they will be seen to have a double or bifurcated wing. Here is a bold
prophecy!

To admit prophetic germs, is tantamount to rejecting the theory of Natural
Selection.

I am very glad you think it worth while to run through my book again, as
much, or more, for the subject's sake as for my own sake. But I look at
your keeping the subject for some little time before your mind--raising
your own difficulties and solving them--as far more important than reading
my book. If you think enough, I expect you will be perverted, and if you
ever are, I shall know that the theory of Natural Selection, is, in the
main, safe; that it includes, as now put forth, many errors, is almost
certain, though I cannot see them. Do not, of course, think of answering
this; but if you have other OCCASION to write again, just say whether I
have, in ever so slight a degree, shaken any of your objections. Farewell.
With my cordial thanks for your long letters and valuable remarks,

Believe me, yours most truly,
C. DARWIN.

P.S.--You often allude to Lamarck's work; I do not know what you think
about it, but it appeared to me extremely poor; I got not a fact or idea
from it.


CHARLES DARWIN TO L. AGASSIZ. (Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, born at
Mortier, on the lake of Morat in Switzerland, on May 28, 1807. He
emigrated to America in 1846, where he spent the rest of his life, and died
December 14, 1873. His 'Life,' written by his widow, was published in
1885. The following extract from a letter to Agassiz (1850) is worth
giving, as showing how my father regarded him, and it may be added that his
cordial feelings towards the great American naturalist remained strong to
the end of his life:--

"I have seldom been more deeply gratified than by receiving your most kind
present of 'Lake Superior.' I had heard of it, and had much wished to read
it, but I confess that it was the very great honour of having in my
possession a work with your autograph as a presentation copy that has given
me such lively and sincere pleasure. I cordially thank you for it. I have
begun to read it with uncommon interest, which I see will increase as I go
on.")
Down, November 11th [1859].

My dear Sir,

I have ventured to send you a copy of my book (as yet only an abstract) on
the 'Origin of Species.' As the conclusions at which I have arrived on
several points differ so widely from yours, I have thought (should you at
any time read my volume) that you might think that I had sent it to you out
of a spirit of defiance or bravado; but I assure you that I act under a
wholly different frame of mind. I hope that you will at least give me
credit, however erroneous you may think my conclusions, for having
earnestly endeavoured to arrive at the truth. With sincere respect, I beg
leave to remain,

Yours, very faithfully,
CHARLES DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
Down, November 11th [1859].

Dear Sir,

I have thought that you would permit me to send you (by Messrs. Williams
and Norgate, booksellers) a copy of my work (as yet only an abstract) on
the 'Origin of Species.' I wish to do this, as the only, though quite
inadequate manner, by which I can testify to you the extreme interest which
I have felt, and the great advantage which I have derived, from studying
your grand and noble work on Geographical Distribution. Should you be
induced to read my volume, I venture to remark that it will be intelligible
only by reading the whole straight through, as it is very much condensed.
It would be a high gratification to me if any portion interested you. But
I am perfectly well aware that you will entirely disagree with the
conclusion at which I have arrived.

You will probably have quite forgotten me; but many years ago you did me
the honour of dining at my house in London to meet M. and Madame Sismondi
(Jessie Allen, sister of Mrs. Josiah Wedgwood of Maer.), the uncle and aunt
of my wife. With sincere respect, I beg to remain,

Yours, very faithfully,
CHARLES DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO HUGH FALCONER.
Down, November 11th [1859].

My dear Falconer,

I have told Murray to send you a copy of my book on the 'Origin of
Species,' which as yet is only an abstract.

If you read it, you must read it straight through, otherwise from its
extremely condensed state it will be unintelligible.

Lord, how savage you will be, if you read it, and how you will long to
crucify me alive! I fear it will produce no other effect on you; but if it
should stagger you in ever so slight a degree, in this case, I am fully
convinced that you will become, year after year, less fixed in your belief
in the immutability of species. With this audacious and presumptuous
conviction,

I remain, my dear Falconer,
Yours most truly,
CHARLES DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY.
Down, November 11th [1859].

My dear Gray,

I have directed a copy of my book (as yet only an abstract) on the 'Origin
of Species' to be sent you. I know how you are pressed for time; but if
you can read it, I shall be infinitely gratified...If ever you do read it,
and can screw out time to send me (as I value your opinion so highly),
however short a note, telling me what you think its weakest and best parts,
I should be extremely grateful. As you are not a geologist, you will
excuse my conceit in telling you that Lyell highly approves of the two
Geological chapters, and thinks that on the Imperfection of the Geological
Record not exaggerated. He is nearly a convert to my views...

Let me add I fully admit that there are very many difficulties not
satisfactorily explained by my theory of descent with modification, but I
cannot possibly believe that a false theory would explain so many classes
of facts as I think it certainly does explain. On these grounds I drop my
anchor, and believe that the difficulties will slowly disappear...


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.S. HENSLOW.
Down, November 11th, 1859.

My dear Henslow,

I have told Murray to send a copy of my book on Species to you, my dear old
master in Natural History; I fear, however, that you will not approve of
your pupil in this case. The book in its present state does not show the
amount of labour which I have bestowed on the subject.

If you have time to read it carefully, and would take the trouble to point
out what parts seem weakest to you and what best, it would be a most
material aid to me in writing my bigger book, which I hope to commence in a
few months. You know also how highly I value your judgment. But I am not
so unreasonable as to wish or expect you to write detailed and lengthy
criticisms, but merely a few general remarks, pointing out the weakest
parts.

If you are IN EVEN SO SLIGHT A DEGREE staggered (which I hardly expect) on
the immutability of species, then I am convinced with further reflection
you will become more and more staggered, for this has been the process
through which my mind has gone. My dear Henslow,

Yours affectionately and gratefully,
C. DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. (The present Sir John Lubbock.)
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
Saturday [November 12th, 1859].

...Thank you much for asking me to Brighton. I hope much that you will
enjoy your holiday. I have told Murray to send a copy for you to Mansion
House Street, and I am surprised that you have not received it. There are
so many valid and weighty arguments against my notions, that you, or any
one, if you wish on the other side, will easily persuade yourself that I am
wholly in error, and no doubt I am in part in error, perhaps wholly so,
though I cannot see the blindness of my ways. I dare say when thunder and
lightning were first proved to be due to secondary causes, some regretted
to give up the idea that each flash was caused by the direct hand of God.

Farewell, I am feeling very unwell to-day, so no more.

Yours very truly,
C. DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK.
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
Tuesday [November 15th, 1859].

My dear Lubbock,

I beg pardon for troubling you again. I do not know how I blundered in
expressing myself in making you believe that we accepted your kind
invitation to Brighton. I meant merely to thank you sincerely for wishing
to see such a worn-out old dog as myself. I hardly know when we leave this
place,--not under a fortnight, and then we shall wish to rest under our own
roof-tree.

I do not think I hardly ever admired a book more than Paley's 'Natural
Theology.' I could almost formerly have said it by heart.

I am glad you have got my book, but I fear that you value it far too
highly. I should be grateful for any criticisms. I care not for Reviews;
but for the opinion of men like you and Hooker and Huxley and Lyell, etc.

Farewell, with our joint thanks to Mrs. Lubbock and yourself. Adios.

C. DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO L. JENYNS. (Now Rev. L. Blomefield.)
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
November 13th, 1859.

My dear Jenyns,

I must thank you for your very kind note forwarded to me from Down. I have
been much out of health this summer, and have been hydropathising here for
the last six weeks with very little good as yet. I shall stay here for
another fortnight at least. Please remember that my book is only an
abstract, and very much condensed, and, to be at all intelligible, must be
carefully read. I shall be very grateful for any criticisms. But I know
perfectly well that you will not at all agree with the lengths which I go.
It took long years to convert me. I may, of course, be egregiously wrong;
but I cannot persuade myself that a theory which explains (as I think it
certainly does) several large classes of facts, can be wholly wrong;
notwithstanding the several difficulties which have to be surmounted
somehow, and which stagger me even to this day.

I wish that my health had allowed me to publish in extenso; if ever I get
strong enough I will do so, as the greater part is written out, and of
which MS. the present volume is an abstract.

I fear this note will be almost illegible; but I am poorly, and can hardly
sit up. Farewell; with thanks for your kind note and pleasant remembrance
of good old days.

Yours very sincerely,
C. DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE.
Ilkley, November 13th, 1859.

My dear Sir,

I have told Murray to send you by post (if possible) a copy of my book, and
I hope that you will receive it at nearly the same time with this note.
(N.B. I have got a bad finger, which makes me write extra badly.) If you
are so inclined, I should very much like to hear your general impression of
the book, as you have thought so profoundly on the subject, and in so
nearly the same channel with myself. I hope there will be some little new
to you, but I fear not much. Remember it is only an abstract, and very
much condensed. God knows what the public will think. No one has read it,
except Lyell, with whom I have had much correspondence. Hooker thinks him
a complete convert, but he does not seem so in his letters to me; but is
evidently deeply interested in the subject. I do not think your share in
the theory will be overlooked by the real judges, as Hooker, Lyell, Asa
Gray, etc. I have heard from Mr. Slater that your paper on the Malay
Archipelago has been read at the Linnean Society, and that he was EXTREMELY
much interested by it.

I have not seen one naturalist for six or nine months, owing to the state
of my health, and therefore I really have no news to tell you. I am
writing this at Ilkley Wells, where I have been with my family for the last
six weeks, and shall stay for some few weeks longer. As yet I have
profited very little. God knows when I shall have strength for my bigger
book.

I sincerely hope that you keep your health; I suppose that you will be
thinking of returning (Mr. Wallace was in the Malay Archipelago.) soon with
your magnificent collections, and still grander mental materials. You will
be puzzled how to publish. The Royal Society fund will be worth your
consideration. With every good wish, pray believe me,

Yours very sincerely,
CHARLES DARWIN.

P.S. I think that I told you before that Hooker is a complete convert. If
I can convert Huxley I shall be content.


CHARLES DARWIN TO W.D. FOX.
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
Wednesday [November 16th, 1859].

...I like the place very much, and the children have enjoyed it much, and
it has done my wife good. It did H. good at first, but she has gone back
again. I have had a series of calamities; first a sprained ankle, and then
a badly swollen whole leg and face, much rash, and a frightful succession
of boils--four or five at once. I have felt quite ill, and have little
faith in this "unique crisis," as the doctor calls it, doing me much
good...You will probably have received, or will very soon receive, my
weariful book on species, I naturally believe it mainly includes the truth,
but you will not at all agree with me. Dr. Hooker, whom I consider one of
the best judges in Europe, is a complete convert, and he thinks Lyell is
likewise; certainly, judging from Lyell's letters to me on the subject, he
is deeply staggered. Farewell. If the spirit moves you, let me have a
line...


CHARLES DARWIN TO W.B. CARPENTER.
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
November 18th [1859].

My dear Carpenter,

I must thank you for your letter on my own account, and if I know myself,
still more warmly for the subject's sake. As you seem to have understood
my last chapter without reading the previous chapters, you must have
maturely and most profoundly self-thought out the subject; for I have found
the most extraordinary difficulty in making even able men understand at
what I was driving. There will be strong opposition to my views. If I am
in the main right (of course including partial errors unseen by me), the
admission in my views will depend far more on men, like yourself, with
well-established reputations, than on my own writings. Therefore, on the
supposition that when you have read my volume you think the view in the
main true, I thank and honour you for being willing to run the chance of
unpopularity by advocating the view. I know not in the least whether any
one will review me in any of the Reviews. I do not see how an author could
enquire or interfere; but if you are willing to review me anywhere, I am
sure from the admiration which I have long felt and expressed for your
'Comparative Physiology,' that your review will be excellently done, and
will do good service in the cause for which I think I am not selfishly
deeply interested. I am feeling very unwell to-day, and this note is
badly, perhaps hardly intelligibly, expressed; but you must excuse me, for
I could not let a post pass, without thanking you for your note. You will
have a tough job even to shake in the slightest degree Sir H. Holland. I
do not think (privately I say it) that the great man has knowledge enough
to enter on the subject. Pray believe me with sincerity, Yours truly
obliged,

C. DARWIN.

P.S.--As you are not a practical geologist, let me add that Lyell thinks
the chapter on the Imperfection of the Geological Record NOT exaggerated.


CHARLES DARWIN TO W.B. CARPENTER.
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
November 19th [1859].

My dear Carpenter,

I beg pardon for troubling you again. If, after reading my book, you are
able to come to a conclusion in any degree definite, will you think me very
unreasonable in asking you to let me hear from you. I do not ask for a
long discussion, but merely for a brief idea of your general impression.
From your widely extended knowledge, habit of investigating the truth, and
abilities, I should value your opinion in the very highest rank. Though I,
of course, believe in the truth of my own doctrine, I suspect that no
belief is vivid until shared by others. As yet I know only one believer,
but I look at him as of the greatest authority, viz., Hooker. When I think
of the many cases of men who have studied one subject for years, and have
persuaded themselves of the truth of the foolishest doctrines, I feel
sometimes a little frightened, whether I may not be one of these mono-
maniacs.

Again pray excuse this, I fear, unreasonable request. A short note would
suffice, and I could bear a hostile verdict, and shall have to bear many a
one.

Yours very sincerely,
C. DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
Sunday [November 1859].

My dear Hooker,

I have just read a review on my book in the "Athenaeum" (November 19,
1859.), and it excites my curiosity much who is the author. If you should
hear who writes in the "Athenaeum" I wish you would tell me. It seems to
me well done, but the reviewer gives no new objections, and, being hostile,
passes over every single argument in favour of the doctrine,...I fear from
the tone of the review, that I have written in a conceited and cocksure
style (The Reviewer speaks of the author's "evident self-satisfaction," and
of his disposing of all difficulties "more or less confidently."), which
shames me a little. There is another review of which I should like to know
the author, viz., of H.C. Watson in the "Gardener's Chronicle". Some of
the remarks are like yours, and he does deserve punishment; but surely the
review is too severe. Don't you think so?

I hope you got the three copies for Foreign Botanists in time for your
parcel, and your own copy. I have heard from Carpenter, who, I think, is
likely to be a convert. Also from Quatrefages, who is inclined to go a
long way with us. He says that he exhibited in his lecture a diagram
closely like mine!

I shall stay here one fortnight more, and then go to Down, staying on the
road at Shrewsbury a week. I have been very unfortunate: out of seven
weeks I have been confined for five to the house. This has been bad for
me, as I have not been able to help thinking to a foolish extent about my
book. If some four or five GOOD men came round nearly to our view, I shall
not fear ultimate success. I long to learn what Huxley thinks. Is your
introduction (Introduction to the 'Flora of Australia.') published? I
suppose that you will sell it separately. Please answer this, for I want
an extra copy to send away to Wallace. I am very bothersome, farewell.

Yours affectionately,
C. DARWIN.

I was very glad to see the Royal Medal for Mr. Bentham.


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, December 21st, 1859.

My dear Hooker,

Pray give my thanks to Mrs. Hooker for her extremely kind note, which has
pleased me much. We are very sorry she cannot come here, but shall be
delighted to see you and W. (our boys will be at home) here in the 2nd week
of January, or any other time. I shall much enjoy discussing any points in
my book with you...

I hate to hear you abuse your own work. I, on the contrary, so sincerely
value all that you have written. It is an old and firm conviction of mine,
that the Naturalists who accumulate facts and make many partial
generalisations are the REAL benefactors of science. Those who merely
accumulate facts I cannot very much respect.

I had hoped to have come up for the Club to-morrow, but very much doubt
whether I shall be able. Ilkley seems to have done me no essential good.
I attended the Bench on Monday, and was detained in adjudicating some
troublesome cases 1 1/2 hours longer than usual, and came home utterly
knocked up, and cannot rally. I am not worth an old button...Many thanks
for your pleasant note.

Ever yours,
C. DARWIN.

P.S.--I feel confident that for the future progress of the subject of the
origin and manner of formation of species, the assent and arguments and
facts of working naturalists, like yourself, are far more important than my
own book; so for God's sake do not abuse your Introduction.


H.C. WATSON TO CHARLES DARWIN.
Thames Ditton, November 21st [1859].

My dear Sir,

Once commenced to read the 'Origin,' I could not rest till I had galloped
through the whole. I shall now begin to re-read it more deliberately.
Meantime I am tempted to write you the first impressions, not doubting that
they will, in the main, be the permanent impressions:--

1st. Your leading idea will assuredly become recognised as an established
truth in science, i.e. "Natural Selection." It has the characteristics of
all great natural truths, clarifying what was obscure, simplifying what was
intricate, adding greatly to previous knowledge. You are the greatest
revolutionist in natural history of this century, if not of all centuries.

2nd. You will perhaps need, in some degree, to limit or modify, possibly
in some degree also to extend, your present applications of the principle
of natural selection. Without going to matters of more detail, it strikes
me that there is one considerable primary inconsistency, by one failure in
the analogy between varieties and species; another by a sort of barrier
assumed for nature on insufficient grounds and arising from "divergence."
These may, however, be faults in my own mind, attributable to yet
incomplete perception of your views. And I had better not trouble you
about them before again reading the volume.

3rd. Now these novel views are brought fairly before the scientific
public, it seems truly remarkable how so many of them could have failed to
see their right road sooner. How could Sir C. Lyell, for instance, for
thirty years read, write, and think, on the subject of species AND THEIR
SUCCESSION, and yet constantly look down the wrong road!

A quarter of a century ago, you and I must have been in something like the
same state of mind on the main question, but you were able to see and work
out the quo modo of the succession, the all-important thing, while I failed
to grasp it. I send by this post a little controversial pamphlet of old
date--Combe and Scott. If you will take the trouble to glance at the
passages scored on the margin, you will see that, a quarter of a century
ago, I was also one of the few who then doubted the absolute distinctness
of species, and special creations of them. Yet I, like the rest, failed to
detect the quo modo which was reserved for your penetration to DISCOVER,
and your discernment to APPLY.

You answered my query about the hiatus between Satyrus and Homo as was
expected. The obvious explanation really never occurred to me till some
months after I had read the papers in the 'Linnean Proceedings.' The first
species of Fere-homo ("Almost-man.") would soon make direct and
exterminating war upon his Infra-homo cousins. The gap would thus be made,
and then go on increasing, into the present enormous and still widening
hiatus. But how greatly this, with your chronology of animal life, will
shock the ideas of many men!

Very sincerely,
HEWETT C. WATSON.


J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN.
Athenaeum, Monday [November 21st, 1859].

My dear Darwin,

I am a sinner not to have written you ere this, if only to thank you for
your glorious book--what a mass of close reasoning on curious facts and
fresh phenomena--it is capitally written, and will be very successful. I
say this on the strength of two or three plunges into as many chapters, for
I have not yet attempted to read it. Lyell, with whom we are staying, is
perfectly enchanted, and is absolutely gloating over it. I must accept
your compliment to me, and acknowledgment of supposed assistance from me,
as the warm tribute of affection from an honest (though deluded) man, and
furthermore accept it as very pleasing to my vanity; but, my dear fellow,
neither my name nor my judgment nor my assistance deserved any such
compliments, and if I am dishonest enough to be pleased with what I don't
deserve, it must just pass. How different the BOOK reads from the MS. I
see I shall have much to talk over with you. Those lazy printers have not
finished my luckless Essay; which, beside your book, will look like a
ragged handkerchief beside a Royal Standard...

All well, ever yours affectionately,
JOS. D. HOOKER.


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Ilkley, Yorkshire [November 1859].

My dear Hooker,

I cannot help it, I must thank you for your affectionate and most kind
note. My head will be turned. By Jove, I must try and get a bit modest.
I was a little chagrined by the review. (This refers to the review in the
"Athenaeum", November 19, 1859, where the reviewer, after touching on the
theological aspects of the book, leaves the author to "the mercies of the
Divinity Hall, the College, the Lecture Room, and the Museum.") I hope it
was NOT --. As advocate, he might think himself justified in giving the
argument only on one side. But the manner in which he drags in
immortality, and sets the priests at me, and leaves me to their mercies, is
base. He would, on no account, burn me, but he will get the wood ready,
and tell the black beasts how to catch me...It would be unspeakably grand
if Huxley were to lecture on the subject, but I can see this is a mere
chance; Faraday might think it too unorthodox.

...I had a letter from [Huxley] with such tremendous praise of my book,
that modesty (as I am trying to cultivate that difficult herb) prevents me
sending it to you, which I should have liked to have done, as he is very
modest about himself.

You have cockered me up to that extent, that I now feel I can face a score
of savage reviewers. I suppose you are still with the Lyells. Give my
kindest remembrance to them. I triumph to hear that he continues to
approve.

Believe me, your would-be modest friend,
C.D.


CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Ilkley Wells, Yorkshire,
November 23 [1859].

My dear Lyell,

You seemed to have worked admirably on the species question; there could
not have been a better plan than reading up on the opposite side. I
rejoice profoundly that you intend admitting the doctrine of modification
in your new edition (It appears from Sir Charles Lyell's published letters
that he intended to admit the doctrine of evolution in a new edition of the
'Manual,' but this was not published till 1865. He was, however, at work
on the 'Antiquity of Man' in 1860, and had already determined to discuss
the 'Origin' at the end of the book.); nothing, I am convinced, could be
more important for its success. I honour you most sincerely. To have
maintained in the position of a master, one side of a question for thirty
years, and then deliberately give it up, is a fact to which I much doubt
whether the records of science offer a parallel. For myself, also, I
rejoice profoundly; for, thinking of so many cases of men pursuing an
illusion for years, often and often a cold shudder has run through me, and
I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted my life to a phantasy.
Now I look at it as morally impossible that investigators of truth, like
you and Hooker, can be wholly wrong, and therefore I rest in peace. Thank
you for criticisms, which, if there be a second edition, I will attend to.
I have been thinking that if I am much execrated as an atheist, etc.,
whether the admission of the doctrine of natural selection could injure
your works; but I hope and think not, for as far as I can remember, the
virulence of bigotry is expended on the first offender, and those who adopt
his views are only pitied as deluded, by the wise and cheerful bigots.

I cannot help thinking that you overrate the importance of the multiple
origin of dogs. The only difference is, that in the case of single
origins, all difference of the races has originated since man domesticated
the species. In the case of multiple origins part of the difference was
produced under natural conditions. I should INFINITELY prefer the theory
of single origin in all cases, if facts would permit its reception. But
there seems to me some a priori improbability (seeing how fond savages are
of taming animals), that throughout all times, and throughout all the
world, that man should have domesticated one single species alone, of the
widely distributed genus Canis. Besides this, the close resemblance of at
least three kinds of American domestic dogs to wild species still
inhabiting the countries where they are now domesticated, seem to almost
compel admission that more than one wild Canis has been domesticated by
man.

I thank you cordially for all the generous zeal and interest you have shown
about my book, and I remain, my dear Lyell,

Your affectionate friend and disciple,
CHARLES DARWIN.

Sir J. Herschel, to whom I sent a copy, is going to read my book. He says
he leans to the side opposed to me. If you should meet him after he has
read me, pray find out what he thinks, for, of course, he will not write;
and I should excessively like to hear whether I produce any effect on such
a mind.


T.H. HUXLEY TO CHARLES DARWIN.
Jermyn Street W.,
November 23rd, 1859.

My dear Darwin,

I finished your book yesterday, a lucky examination having furnished me
with a few hours of continuous leisure.

Since I read Von Baer's (Karl Ernst von Baer, born 1792, died at Dorpat
1876--one of the most distinguished biologists of the century. He
practically founded the modern science of embryology.) essays, nine years
ago, no work on Natural History Science I have met with has made so great
an impression upon me, and I do most heartily thank you for the great store
of new views you have given me. Nothing, I think, can be better than the
tone of the book, it impresses those who know nothing about the subject.
As for your doctrine, I am prepared to go to the stake, if requisite, in
support of Chapter IX., and most parts of Chapters X., XI., XII., and
Chapter XIII. contains much that is most admirable, but on one or two
points I enter a caveat until I can see further into all sides of the
question.

As to the first four chapters, I agree thoroughly and fully with all the
principles laid down in them. I think you have demonstrated a true cause
for the production of species, and have thrown the onus probandi that
species did not arise in the way you suppose, on your adversaries.

But I feel that I have not yet by any means fully realized the bearings of
those most remarkable and original Chapters III., IV. and V., and I will
write no more about them just now.

The only objections that have occurred to me are, 1st that you have loaded
yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum
so unreservedly...And 2nd, it is not clear to me why, if continual physical
conditions are of so little moment as you suppose, variation should occur
at all.

However, I must read the book two or three times more before I presume to
begin picking holes.

I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed
by the considerable abuse and misrepresentation which, unless I greatly
mistake, is in store for you. Depend upon it you have earned the lasting
gratitude of all thoughtful men. And as to the curs which will bark and
yelp, you must recollect that some of your friends, at any rate, are
endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often and
justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead.

I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness.

Looking back over my letter, it really expresses so feebly all I think
about you and your noble book that I am half ashamed of it; but you will
understand that, like the parrot in the story, "I think the more."

Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. HUXLEY.


CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY.
Ilkley, November 25th [1859].

My dear Huxley,

Your letter has been forwarded to me from Down. Like a good Catholic who
has received extreme unction, I can now sing "nunc dimittis." I should
have been more than contented with one quarter of what you have said.
Exactly fifteen months ago, when I put pen to paper for this volume, I had
awful misgivings; and thought perhaps I had deluded myself, like so many
have done, and I then fixed in my mind three judges, on whose decision I
determined mentally to abide. The judges were Lyell, Hooker, and yourself.
It was this which made me so excessively anxious for your verdict. I am
now contented, and can sing my nunc dimittis. What a joke it would be if I
pat you on the back when you attack some immovable creationist! You have
most cleverly hit on one point, which has greatly troubled me; if, as I
must think, external conditions produce little DIRECT effect, what the
devil determines each particular variation? What makes a tuft of feathers
come on a cock's head, or moss on a moss-rose? I shall much like to talk
over this with you...

My dear Huxley, I thank you cordially for your letter.

Yours very sincerely,
C. DARWIN.

P.S.--Hereafter I shall be particularly curious to hear what you think of
my explanation of Embryological similarity. On classification I fear we
shall split. Did you perceive the argumentum ad hominem Huxley about
kangaroo and bear?


ERASMUS DARWIN (His brother.) TO CHARLES DARWIN.
November 23rd [1859].

Dear Charles,

I am so much weaker in the head, that I hardly know if I can write, but at
all events I will jot down a few things that the Dr. (Dr., afterwards Sir
Henry Holland.) has said. He has not read much above half, so as he says
he can give no definite conclusion, and it is my private belief he wishes
to remain in that state...He is evidently in a dreadful state of
indecision, and keeps stating that he is not tied down to either view, and
that he has always left an escape by the way he has spoken of varieties. I
happened to speak of the eye before he had read that part, and it took away
his breath--utterly impossible--structure, function, etc., etc., etc., but
when he had read it he hummed and hawed, and perhaps it was partly
conceivable, and then he fell back on the bones of the ear, which were
beyond all probability or conceivability. He mentioned a slight blot,
which I also observed, that in speaking of the slave-ants carrying one
another, you change the species without giving notice first, and it makes
one turn back...

...For myself I really think it is the most interesting book I ever read,
and can only compare it to the first knowledge of chemistry, getting into a
new world or rather behind the scenes. To me the geographical
distribution, I mean the relation of islands to continents, is the most
convincing of the proofs, and the relation of the oldest forms to the
existing species. I dare say I don't feel enough the absence of varieties,
but then I don't in the least know if everything now living were fossilized
whether the paleontologists could distinguish them. In fact the a priori
reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in,
why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling. My ague has left me in
such a state of torpidity that I wish I had gone through the process of
natural selection.

Yours affectionately,
E.A.D.


CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Ilkley, November [24th, 1859].

My dear Lyell,

Again I have to thank you for a most valuable lot of criticisms in a letter
dated 22nd.

This morning I heard also from Murray that he sold the whole edition (First
edition, 1250 copies.) the first day to the trade. He wants a new edition
instantly, and this utterly confounds me. Now, under water-cure, with all
nervous power directed to the skin, I cannot possibly do head-work, and I
must make only actually necessary corrections. But I will, as far as I can
without my manuscript, take advantage of your suggestions: I must not
attempt much. Will you send me one line to say whether I must strike out
about the secondary whale (The passage was omitted in the second edition.),
it goes to my heart. About the rattle-snake, look to my Journal, under
Trigonocephalus, and you will see the probable origin of the rattle, and
generally in transitions it is the premier pas qui coute.

Madame Belloc wants to translate my book into French; I have offered to
look over proofs for SCIENTIFIC errors. Did you ever hear of her? I
believe Murray has agreed at my urgent advice, but I fear I have been rash
and premature. Quatrefages has written to me, saying he agrees largely
with my views. He is an excellent naturalist. I am pressed for time.
Will you give us one line about the whales? Again I thank you for never-
tiring advice and assistance; I do in truth reverence your unselfish and
pure love of truth.

My dear Lyell, ever yours,
C. DARWIN.


[With regard to a French translation, he wrote to Mr. Murray in November
1859: "I am EXTREMELY anxious, for the subject's sake (and God knows not
for mere fame), to have my book translated; and indirectly its being known
abroad will do good to the English sale. If it depended on me, I should
agree without payment, and instantly send a copy, and only beg that she
[Mme. Belloc] would get some scientific man to look over the
translation...You might say that, though I am a very poor French scholar, I
could detect any scientific mistake, and would read over the French
proofs."

The proposed translation was not made, and a second plan fell through in
the following year. He wrote to M. de Quatrefages: "The gentleman who
wished to translate my 'Origin of Species' has failed in getting a
publisher. Balliere, Masson, and Hachette all rejected it with contempt.
It was foolish and presumptuous in me, hoping to appear in a French dress;
but the idea would not have entered my head had it not been suggested to
me. It is a great loss. I must console myself with the German edition
which Prof. Bronn is bringing out." (See letters to Bronn, page 70.)

A sentence in another letter to M. de Quatrefages shows how anxious he was
to convert one of the greatest of contemporary Zoologists: "How I should
like to know whether Milne Edwards had read the copy which I sent him, and
whether he thinks I have made a pretty good case on our side of the
question. There is no naturalist in the world for whose opinion I have so
profound a respect. Of course I am not so silly as to expect to change his
opinion."]


CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Ilkley, [November 26th, 1859].

My dear Lyell,

I have received your letter of the 24th. It is no use trying to thank you;
your kindness is beyond thanks. I will certainly leave out the whale and
bear...

The edition was 1250 copies. When I was in spirits, I sometimes fancied
that my book would be successful, but I never even built a castle in the
air of such success as it has met with; I do not mean the sale, but the
impression it has made on you (whom I have always looked at as chief judge)
and Hooker and Huxley. The whole has infinitely exceeded my wildest hopes.

Farewell, I am tired, for I have been going over the sheets.

My kind friend, farewell, yours,
C. DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
December 2nd [1859].

My dear Lyell,

Every note which you have sent me has interested me much. Pray thank Lady
Lyell for her remark. In the chapters she refers to, I was unable to
modify the passage in accordance with your suggestion; but in the final
chapter I have modified three or four. Kingsley, in a note (The letter is
given below) to me, had a capital paragraph on such notions as mine being
NOT opposed to a high conception of the Deity. I have inserted it as an
extract from a letter to me from a celebrated author and divine. I have
put in about nascent organs. I had the greatest difficulty in partially
making out Sedgwick's letter, and I dare say I did greatly underrate its
clearness. Do what I could, I fear I shall be greatly abused. In answer
to Sedgwick's remark that my book would be "mischievous," I asked him
whether truth can be known except by being victorious over all attacks.
But it is no use. H.C. Watson tells me that one zoologist says he will
read my book, "but I will never believe it." What a spirit to read any
book in! Crawford writes to me that his notice (John Crawford,
orientalist, ethnologist, etc., 1783-1868. The review appeared in the
"Examiner", and, though hostile, is free from bigotry, as the following
citation will show: "We cannot help saying that piety must be fastidious
indeed that objects to a theory the tendency of which is to show that all
organic beings, man included, are in a perpetual progress of amelioration,
and that is expounded in the reverential language which we have quoted.")
will be hostile, but that "he will not calumniate the author." He says he
has read my book, "at least such parts as he could understand." He sent me
some notes and suggestions (quite unimportant), and they show me that I
have unavoidably done harm to the subject, by publishing an abstract. He
is a real Pallasian; nearly all our domestic races descended from a
multitude of wild species now commingled. I expected Murchison to be
outrageous. How little he could ever have grappled with the subject of
denudation! How singular so great a geologist should have so
unphilosophical a mind! I have had several notes from --, very civil and
less decided. Says he shall not pronounce against me without much
reflection, PERHAPS WILL SAY NOTHING on the subject. X. says -- will go to
that part of hell, which Dante tells us is appointed for those who are
neither on God's side nor on that of the devil.

I fully believe that I owe the comfort of the next few years of my life to
your generous support, and that of a very few others. I do not think I am
brave enough to have stood being odious without support; now I feel as bold
as a lion. But there is one thing I can see I must learn, viz., to think
less of myself and my book. Farewell, with cordial thanks.

Yours most truly,
C. DARWIN.

I return home on the 7th, and shall sleep at Erasmus's. I will call on you
about ten o'clock, on Thursday, the 8th, and sit with you, as I have so
often sat, during your breakfast.

I wish there was any chance of Prestwich being shaken; but I fear he is too
much of a catastrophist.


[In December there appeared in 'Macmillan's Magazine' an article, "Time and
Life," by Professor Huxley. It is mainly occupied by an analysis of the
argument of the 'Origin,' but it also gives the substance of a lecture
delivered at the Royal Institution before that book was published.
Professor Huxley spoke strongly in favour of evolution in his Lecture, and
explains that in so doing he was to a great extent resting on a knowledge
of "the general tenor of the researches in which Mr. Darwin had been so
long engaged," and was supported in so doing by his perfect confidence in
his knowledge, perseverance, and "high-minded love of truth." My father
was evidently deeply pleased by Mr. Huxley's words, and wrote:

"I must thank you for your extremely kind notice of my book in 'Macmillan.'
No one could receive a more delightful and honourable compliment. I had
not heard of your Lecture, owing to my retired life. You attribute much
too much to me from our mutual friendship. You have explained my leading
idea with admirable clearness. What a gift you have of writing (or more
properly) thinking clearly."]


CHARLES DARWIN TO W.B. CARPENTER.
Ilkley, Yorkshire,
December 3rd [1859].

My dear Carpenter,

I am perfectly delighted at your letter. It is a great thing to have got a
great physiologist on our side. I say "our" for we are now a good and
compact body of really good men, and mostly not old men. In the long run
we shall conquer. I do not like being abused, but I feel that I can now
bear it; and, as I told Lyell, I am well convinced that it is the first
offender who reaps the rich harvest of abuse. You have done an essential
kindness in checking the odium theologicum in the E.R. (This must refer to
Carpenter's critique which would now have been ready to appear in the
January number of the "Edinburgh Review", 1860, and in which the odium
theologicum is referred to.) It much pains all one's female relations and
injures the cause.

I look at it as immaterial whether we go quite the same lengths; and I
suspect, judging from myself, that you will go further, by thinking of a
population of forms like Ornithorhyncus, and by thinking of the common
homological and embryological structure of the several vertebrate orders.
But this is immaterial. I quite agree that the principle is everything.
In my fuller MS. I have discussed a good many instincts; but there will
surely be more unfilled gaps here than with corporeal structure, for we
have no fossil instincts, and know scarcely any except of European animals.
When I reflect how very slowly I came round myself, I am in truth
astonished at the candour shown by Lyell, Hooker, Huxley, and yourself. In
my opinion it is grand. I thank you cordially for taking the trouble of
writing a review for the 'National.' God knows I shall have few enough in
any degree favourable. (See a letter to Dr. Carpenter below.)


CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Saturday [December 5th, 1859].

...I have had a letter from Carpenter this morning. He reviews me in the
'National.' He is a convert, but does not go quite so far as I, but quite
far enough, for he admits that all birds are from one progenitor, and
probably all fishes and reptiles from another parent. But the last
mouthful chokes him. He can hardly admit all vertebrates from one parent.
He will surely come to this from Homology and Embryology. I look at it as
grand having brought round a great physiologist, for great I think he
certainly is in that line. How curious I shall be to know what line Owen
will take; dead against us, I fear; but he wrote me a most liberal note on
the reception of my book, and said he was quite prepared to consider fairly
and without prejudice my line of argument.


J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN.
Kew, Monday.

Dear Darwin,

You have, I know, been drenched with letters since the publication of your
book, and I have hence forborne to add my mite. I hope now that you are
well through Edition II., and I have heard that you were flourishing in
London. I have not yet got half-through the book, not from want of will,
but of time--for it is the very hardest book to read, to full profits, that
I ever tried--it is so cram-full of matter and reasoning. I am all the
more glad that you have published in this form, for the three volumes,
unprefaced by this, would have choked any Naturalist of the nineteenth
century, and certainly have softened my brain in the operation of
assimilating their contents. I am perfectly tired of marvelling at the
wonderful amount of facts you have brought to bear, and your skill in
marshalling them and throwing them on the enemy; it is also extremely clear
as far as I have gone, but very hard to fully appreciate. Somehow it reads
very different from the MS., and I often fancy I must have been very stupid
not to have more fully followed it in MS. Lyell told me of his criticisms.
I did not appreciate them all, and there are many little matters I hope one
day to talk over with you. I saw a highly flattering notice in the
'English Churchman,' short and not at all entering into discussion, but
praising you and your book, and talking patronizingly of the
doctrine!...Bentham and Henslow will still shake their heads I fancy...

Ever yours affectionately,
JOS. D. HOOKER.


CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Down, Saturday [December 12th, 1859].

...I had very long interviews with --, which perhaps you would like to hear
about...I infer from several expressions that, at bottom, he goes an
immense way with us...

He said to the effect that my explanation was the best ever published of
the manner of formation of species. I said I was very glad to hear it. He
took me up short: "You must not at all suppose that I agree with you in
all respects." I said I thought it no more likely that I should be right
in nearly all points, than that I should toss up a penny and get heads
twenty times running. I asked him what he thought the weakest part. He
said he had no particular objection to any part. He added:--

"If I must criticise, I should say, 'we do not want to know what Darwin
believes and is convinced of, but what he can prove.'" I agreed most fully
and truly that I have probably greatly sinned in this line, and defended my
general line of argument of inventing a theory and seeing how many classes
of facts the theory would explain. I added that I would endeavour to
modify the "believes" and "convinceds." He took me up short: "You will
then spoil your book, the charm of (!) it is that it is Darwin himself."
He added another objection, that the book was too teres atque rotundus---
that it explained everything, and that it was improbable in the highest
degree that I should succeed in this. I quite agree with this rather queer
objection, and it comes to this that my book must be very bad or very
good...

I have heard, by roundabout channel, that Herschel says my book "is the law
of higgledy-piggledy." What this exactly means I do not know, but it is
evidently very contemptuous. If true this is a great blow and
discouragement.


CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK.
December 14th [1859].

...The latter part of my stay at Ilkley did me much good, but I suppose I
never shall be strong, for the work I have had since I came back has
knocked me up a little more than once. I have been busy in getting a
reprint (with a very few corrections) through the press.

My book has been as yet VERY MUCH more successful than I ever dreamed of:
Murray is now printing 3000 copies. Have you finished it? If so, pray
tell me whether you are with me on the GENERAL issue, or against me. If
you are against me, I know well how honourable, fair, and candid an
opponent I shall have, and which is a good deal more than I can say of all
my opponents...

Pray tell me what you have been doing. Have you had time for any Natural
History?...

P.S.--I have got--I wish and hope I might say that WE have got--a fair
number of excellent men on our side of the question on the mutability of
species.


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, December 14th [1859].

My dear Hooker,

Your approval of my book, for many reasons, gives me intense satisfaction;
but I must make some allowance for your kindness and sympathy. Any one
with ordinary faculties, if he had PATIENCE enough and plenty of time,
could have written my book. You do not know how I admire your and Lyell's
generous and unselfish sympathy, I do not believe either of you would have
cared so much about your own work. My book, as yet, has been far more
successful than I ever even formerly ventured in the wildest day-dreams to
anticipate. We shall soon be a good body of working men, and shall have, I
am convinced, all young and rising naturalists on our side. I shall be
intensely interested to hear whether my book produces any effect on A.
Gray; from what I heard at Lyell's, I fancy your correspondence has brought
him some way already. I fear that there is no chance of Bentham being
staggered. Will he read my book? Has he a copy? I would send him one of
the reprints if he has not. Old J.E. Gray (John Edward Gray (1800-1875),
was the son of S.F. Gray, author of the 'Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia.'
In 1821 he published in his father's name 'The Natural Arrangement of
British Plants,' one of the earliest works in English on the natural
method. In 1824 he became connected with the Natural History Department of
the British Museum, and was appointed Keeper of the Zoological collections
in 1840. He was the author of 'Illustrations of Indian Zoology,' 'The
Knowsley Menagerie,' etc., and of innumerable descriptive Zoological
papers.), at the British Museum, attacked me in fine style: "You have just
reproduced Lamarck's doctrine and nothing else, and here Lyell and others
have been attacking him for twenty years, and because YOU (with a sneer and
laugh) say the very same thing, they are all coming round; it is the most
ridiculous inconsistency, etc., etc."

You must be very glad to be settled in your house, and I hope all the
improvements satisfy you. As far as my experience goes, improvements are
never perfection. I am very sorry to hear that you are still so very busy,
and have so much work. And now for the main purport of my note, which is
to ask and beg you and Mrs. Hooker (whom it is really an age since I have
seen), and all your children, if you like, to come and spend a week here.
It would be a great pleasure to me and to my wife...As far as we can see,
we shall be at home all the winter; and all times probably would be equally
convenient; but if you can, do not put it off very late, as it may slip
through. Think of this and persuade Mrs. Hooker, and be a good man and
come.

Farewell, my kind and dear friend,
Yours affectionately,
C. DARWIN.

P.S.--I shall be very curious to hear what you think of my discussion on
Classification in Chapter XIII.; I believe Huxley demurs to the whole, and
says he has nailed his colours to the mast, and I would sooner die than
give up; so that we are in as fine a frame of mind to discuss the point as
any two religionists.

Embryology is my pet bit in my book, and, confound my friends, not one has
noticed this to me.


CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY.
Down, December 21st [1859].

My dear Gray,

I have just received your most kind, long, and valuable letter. I will
write again in a few days, for I am at present unwell and much pressed with
business: to-day's note is merely personal. I should, for several
reasons, be very glad of an American Edition. I have made up my mind to be
well abused; but I think it of importance that my notions should be read by
intelligent men, accustomed to scientific argument, though NOT naturalists.
It may seem absurd, but I think such men will drag after them those
naturalists who have too firmly fixed in their heads that a species is an
entity. The first edition of 1250 copies was sold on the first day, and
now my publisher is printing off, as RAPIDLY AS POSSIBLE, 3000 more copies.
I mention this solely because it renders probable a remunerative sale in
America. I should be infinitely obliged if you could aid an American
reprint; and could make, for my sake and the publisher's, any arrangement
for any profit. The new edition is only a reprint, yet I have made a FEW
important corrections. I will have the clean sheets sent over in a few
days of as many sheets as are printed off, and the remainder afterwards,
and you can do anything you like,--if nothing, there is no harm done. I
should be glad for the new edition to be reprinted and not the old.--In
great haste, and with hearty thanks,

Yours very sincerely,
C. DARWIN.

I will write soon again.


CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
Down, 22nd [December, 1859].

My dear Lyell,
Thanks about "Bears" (See 'Origin,' edition i., page 184.), a word of ill-
omen to me.

I am too unwell to leave home, so shall not see you.

I am very glad of your remarks on Hooker. (Sir C. Lyell wrote to Sir J.D.
Hooker, December 19, 1859 ('Life,' ii. page 327): "I have just finished
the reading of your splendid Essay [the 'Flora of Australia'] on the origin
of species, as illustrated by your wide botanical experience, and think it
goes very far to raise the variety-making hypothesis to the rank of a
theory, as accounting for the manner in which new species enter the
world.") I have not yet got the essay. The parts which I read in sheets
seemed to me grand, especially the generalization about the Australian
flora itself. How superior to Robert Brown's celebrated essay! I have not
seen Naudin's paper ('Revue Horticole,' 1852. See historical Sketch in the
later editions of the 'Origin of Species.'), and shall not be able till I
hunt the libraries. I am very anxious to see it. Decaisne seems to think
he gives my whole theory. I do not know when I shall have time and
strength to grapple with Hooker...

P.S.--I have heard from Sir W. Jardine (Jardine, Sir William, Bart., 1800-
1874, was the son of Sir A. Jardine of Applegarth, Dumfriesshire. He was
educated at Edinburgh, and succeeded to the title on his father's decease
in 1821. He published, jointly with Mr. Prideaux, J. Selby, Sir Stamford
Raffles, Dr. Horsfield, and other ornithologists, 'Illustrations of
Ornithology,' and edited the 'Naturalist's Library,' in 40 volumes, which
included the four branches: Mammalia, Ornithology, Ichnology, and
Entomology. Of these 40 volumes 14 were written by himself. In 1836 he
became editor of the 'Magazine of Zoology and Botany,' which, two years
later, was transformed into 'Annals of Natural History,' but remained under
his direction. For Bohn's Standard Library he edited White's 'Natural
History of Selborne.' Sir W. Jardine was also joint editor of the
'Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,' and was author of 'British Salmonidae,'
'Ichthyology of Annandale,' 'Memoirs of the late Hugh Strickland,'
'Contributions to Ornithology,' 'Ornithological Synonyms,' etc.--(Taken
from Ward, 'Men of the Reign,' and Cates, 'Dictionary of General
Biography.'): his criticisms are quite unimportant; some of the Galapagos
so-called species ought to be called varieties, which I fully expected;
some of the sub-genera, thought to be wholly endemic, have been found on
the Continent (not that he gives his authority), but I do not make out that
the species are the same. His letter is brief and vague, but he says he
will write again.


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down [23rd December, 1859].

My dear Hooker,

I received last night your 'Introduction,' for which very many thanks; I am
surprised to see how big it is: I shall not be able to read it very soon.
It was very good of you to send Naudin, for I was very curious to see it.
I am surprised that Decaisne should say it was the same as mine. Naudin
gives artificial selection, as well as a score of English writers, and when
he says species were formed in the same manner, I thought the paper would
certainly prove exactly the same as mine. But I cannot find one word like
the struggle for existence and natural selection. On the contrary, he
brings in his principle (page 103) of finality (which I do not understand),
which, he says, with some authors is fatality, with others providence, and
which adapts the forms of every being, and harmonises them all throughout
nature.

He assumes like old geologists (who assumed that the forces of nature were
formerly greater), that species were at first more plastic. His simile of
tree and classification is like mine (and others), but he cannot, I think,
have reflected much on the subject, otherwise he would see that genealogy
by itself does not give classification; I declare I cannot see a MUCH
closer approach to Wallace and me in Naudin than in Lamarck--we all agree
in modification and descent. If I do not hear from you I will return the
'Revue' in a few days (with the cover). I dare say Lyell would be glad to
see it. By the way, I will retain the volume till I hear whether I shall
or not send it to Lyell. I should rather like Lyell to see this note,
though it is foolish work sticking up for independence or priority.

Ever yours,
C. DARWIN.


A. SEDGWICK (Rev. Adam Sedgwick, 1785-1873, Woodwardian Professor of
Geology in the University of Cambridge.) TO CHARLES DARWIN.
Cambridge, December 24th, [1859].

My dear Darwin,

I write to thank you for your work on the 'Origin of Species.' It came, I
think, in the latter part of last week; but it MAY have come a few days
sooner, and been overlooked among my book-parcels, which often remain
unopened when I am lazy or busy with any work before me. So soon as I
opened it I began to read it, and I finished it, after many interruptions,
on Tuesday. Yesterday I was employed--1st, in preparing for my lecture;
2ndly, in attending a meeting of my brother Fellows to discuss the final
propositions of the Parliamentary Commissioners; 3rdly, in lecturing;
4thly, in hearing the conclusion of the discussion and the College reply,
whereby, in conformity with my own wishes, we accepted the scheme of the
Commissioners; 5thly, in dining with an old friend at Clare College; 6thly,
in adjourning to the weekly meeting of the Ray Club, from which I returned
at 10 P.M., dog-tired, and hardly able to climb my staircase. Lastly, in
looking through the "Times" to see what was going on in the busy world.

I do not state this to fill space (though I believe that Nature does abhor
a vacuum), but to prove that my reply and my thanks are sent to you by the
earliest leisure I have, though that is but a very contracted opportunity.
If I did not think you a good-tempered and truth-loving man, I should not
tell you that (spite of the great knowledge, store of facts, capital views
of the correlation of the various parts of organic nature, admirable hints
about the diffusion, through wide regions of many related organic beings,
etc., etc.) I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of
it I admired greatly, parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore;
other parts I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false
and grievously mischievous. You have DESERTED--after a start in that tram-
road of all solid physical truth--the true method of induction, and started
us in machinery as wild, I think, as Bishop Wilkins's locomotive that was
to sail with us to the moon. Many of your wide conclusions are based upon
assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved, why then express
them in the language and arrangement of philosophical induction? As to
your grand principle--NATURAL SELECTION--what is it but a secondary
consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts! Development is a better
word, because more close to the cause of the fact? For you do not deny
causation. I call (in the abstract) causation the will of God; and I can
prove that He acts for the good of His creatures. He also acts by laws
which we can study and comprehend. Acting by law, and under what is called
final causes, comprehends, I think, your whole principle. You write of
"natural selection" as if it were done curiously by the selecting agent.
'Tis but a consequence of the presupposed development, and the subsequent
battle for life. This view of nature you have stated admirably, though
admitted by all naturalists and denied by no one of common sense. We all
admit development as a fact of history: but how came it about? Here, in
language, and still more in logic, we are point-blank at issue. There is a
moral or metaphysical part of nature as well a physical. A man who denies
this is deep in the mire of folly. 'Tis the crown and glory of organic
science that it DOES through FINAL CAUSE, link material and moral; and yet
DOES NOT allow us to mingle them in our first conception of laws, and our
classification of such laws, whether we consider one side of nature or the
other. You have ignored this link; and, if I do not mistake your meaning,
you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it
possible (which, thank God, it is not) to break it, humanity, in my mind,
would suffer a damage that might brutalize it, and sink the human race into
a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its
written records tell us of its history. Take the case of the bee-cells.
If your development produced the successive modification of the bee and its
cells (which no mortal can prove), final cause would stand good as the
directing cause under which the successive generations acted and gradually
improved. Passages in your book, like that to which I have alluded (and
there are others almost as bad), greatly shocked my moral taste. I think,
in speculating on organic descent, you OVER-state the evidence of geology;
and that you UNDER-state it while you are talking of the broken links of
your natural pedigree: but my paper is nearly done, and I must go to my
lecture-room. Lastly, then, I greatly dislike the concluding chapter--not
as a summary, for in that light it appears good--but I dislike it from the
tone of triumphant confidence in which you appeal to the rising generation
(in a tone I condemned in the author of the 'Vestiges') and prophesy of
things not yet in the womb of time, nor (if we are to trust the accumulated
experience of human sense and the inferences of its logic) ever likely to
be found anywhere but in the fertile womb of man's imagination. And now to
say a word about a son of a monkey and an old friend of yours: I am
better, far better, than I was last year. I have been lecturing three days
a week (formerly I gave six a week) without much fatigue, but I find by the
loss of activity and memory, and of all productive powers, that my bodily
frame is sinking slowly towards the earth. But I have visions of the
future. They are as much a part of myself as my stomach and my heart, and
these visions are to have their antitype in solid fruition of what is best
and greatest. But on one condition only--that I humbly accept God's
revelation of Himself both in his works and in His word, and do my best to
act in conformity with that knowledge which He only can give me, and He
only can sustain me in doing. If you and I do all this we shall meet in
heaven.

I have written in a hurry, and in a spirit of brotherly love, therefore
forgive any sentence you happen to dislike; and believe me, spite of any
disagreement in some points of the deepest moral interest, your true-
hearted old friend,

A. SEDGWICK.


CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY.
Down, December 25th [1859].

My dear Huxley,

One part of your note has pleased me so much that I must thank you for it.
Not only Sir H.H. [Holland], but several others, have attacked me about
analogy leading to belief in one primordial CREATED form. ('Origin,'
edition i. page 484.--"Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably
all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended
from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.") (By
which I mean only that we know nothing as yet [of] how life originates.) I
thought I was universally condemned on this head. But I answered that
though perhaps it would have been more prudent not to have put it in, I
would not strike it out, as it seemed to me probable, and I give it on no
other grounds. You will see in your mind the kind of arguments which made
me think it probable, and no one fact had so great an effect on me as your
most curious remarks on the apparent homologies of the head of Vertebrata
and Articulata.

You have done a real good turn in the Agency business ("My General Agent"
was a sobriquet applied at this time by my father to Mr. Huxley.) (I never
before heard of a hard-working, unpaid agent besides yourself), in talking
with Sir H.H., for he will have great influence over many. He floored me
from my ignorance about the bones of the ear, and I made a mental note to
ask you what the facts were.

With hearty thanks and real admiration for your generous zeal for the
subject.

Yours most truly,
C. DARWIN.

You may smile about the care and precautions I have taken about my ugly MS.
(Manuscript left with Mr. Huxley for his perusal.); it is not so much the
value I set on them, but the remembrance of the intolerable labour--for
instance, in tracing the history of the breeds of pigeons.


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, 25th [December, 1859].

...I shall not write to Decaisne (With regard to Naudin's paper in the
'Revue Horticole,' 1852.); I have always had a strong feeling that no one
had better defend his own priority. I cannot say that I am as indifferent
to the subject as I ought to be, but one can avoid doing anything in
consequence.

I do not believe one iota about your having assimilated any of my notions
unconsciously. You have always done me more than justice. But I do think
I did you a bad turn by getting you to read the old MS., as it must have
checked your own original thoughts. There is one thing I am fully
convinced of, that the future progress (which is the really important
point) of the subject will have depended on really good and well-known
workers, like yourself, Lyell, and Huxley, having taken up the subject,
than on my own work. I see plainly it is this that strikes my non-
scientific friends.

Last night I said to myself, I would just cut your Introduction, but would
not begin to read, but I broke down, and had a good hour's read.

Farewell, yours affectionately,
C. DARWIN.


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
December 28th, 1859.

...Have you seen the splendid essay and notice of my book in the "Times"?
(December 26th.) I cannot avoid a strong suspicion that it is by Huxley;
but I never heard that he wrote in the "Times". It will do grand
service,...


C. DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY.
Down, December 28th [1859].

My dear Huxley,

Yesterday evening, when I read the "Times" of a previous day, I was amazed
to find a splendid essay and review of me. Who can the author be? I am
intensely curious. It included an eulogium of me which quite touched me,
though I am not vain enough to think it all deserved. The author is a
literary man, and German scholar. He has read my book very attentively;
but, what is very remarkable, it seems that he is a profound naturalist.
He knows my Barnacle-book, and appreciates it too highly. Lastly, he
writes and thinks with quite uncommon force and clearness; and what is even
still rarer, his writing is seasoned with most pleasant wit. We all
laughed heartily over some of the sentences. I was charmed with those
unreasonable mortals, who know anything, all thinking fit to range
themselves on one side. (The reviewer proposes to pass by the orthodox
view, according to which the phenomena of the organic world are "the
immediate product of a creative fiat, and consequently are out of the
domain of science altogether." And he does so "with less hesitation, as it
so happens that those persons who are practically conversant with the facts
of the case (plainly a considerable advantage) have always thought fit to
range themselves" in the category of those holding "views which profess to
rest on a scientific basis only, and therefore admit of being argued to
their consequences.") Who can it be? Certainly I should have said that
there was only one man in England who could have written this essay, and
that YOU were the man. But I suppose I am wrong, and that there is some
hidden genius of great calibre. For how could you influence Jupiter
Olympius and make him give three and a half columns to pure science? The
old fogies will think the world will come to an end. Well, whoever the man
is, he has done great service to the cause, far more than by a dozen
reviews in common periodicals. The grand way he soars above common
religious prejudices, and the admission of such views into the "Times", I
look at as of the highest importance, quite independently of the mere
question of species. If you should happen to be ACQUAINTED with the
author, for Heaven-sake tell me who he is?

My dear Huxley, yours most sincerely,
C. DARWIN.


[It is impossible to give in a short space an adequate idea of Mr. Huxley's
article in the "Times" of December 26. It is admirably planned, so as to
claim for the 'Origin' a respectful hearing, and it abstains from anything
like dogmatism in asserting the truth of the doctrines therein upheld. A
few passages may be quoted:--"That this most ingenious hypothesis enables
us to give a reason for many apparent anomalies in the distribution of
living beings in time and space, and that it is not contradicted by the
main phenomena of life and organisation, appear to us to be
unquestionable." Mr. Huxley goes on to recommend to the readers of the
'Origin' a condition of "thatige Skepsis"--a state of "doubt which so loves
truth that it neither dares rest in doubting, nor extinguish itself by
unjustified belief." The final paragraph is in a strong contrast to
Professor Sedgwick and his "ropes of bubbles" (see below). Mr. Huxley
writes: "Mr. Darwin abhors mere speculation as nature abhors a vacuum. He
is as greedy of cases and precedents as any constitutional lawyer, and all
the principles he lays down are capable of being brought to the test of
observation and experiment. The path he bids us follow professes to be not
a mere airy track, fabricated of ideal cobwebs, but a solid and broad
bridge of facts. If it be so, it will carry us safely over many a chasm in
our knowledge, and lead us to a region free from the snares of those
fascinating but barren virgins, the Final Causes, against whom a high
authority has so justly warned us."

There can be no doubt that this powerful essay, appearing as it did in the
leading daily Journal, must have had a strong influence on the reading
public. Mr. Huxley allows me to quote from a letter an account of the
happy chance that threw into his hands the opportunity of writing it.

"The 'Origin' was sent to Mr. Lucas, one of the staff of the "Times"
writers at that day, in what I suppose was the ordinary course of business.
Mr. Lucas, though an excellent journalist, and, at a later period, editor
of 'Once a Week,' was as innocent of any knowledge of science as a babe,
and bewailed himself to an acquaintance on having to deal with such a book.
Whereupon he was recommended to ask me to get him out of his difficulty,
and he applied to me accordingly, explaining, however, that it would be
necessary for him formally to adopt anything I might be disposed to write,
by prefacing it with two or three paragraphs of his own.

"I was too anxious to seize upon the opportunity thus offered of giving the
book a fair chance with the multitudinous readers of the "Times" to make
any difficulty about conditions; and being then very full of the subject, I
wrote the article faster, I think, than I ever wrote anything in my life,
and sent it to Mr. Lucas, who duly prefixed his opening sentences.

"When the article appeared, there was much speculation as to its
authorship. The secret leaked out in time, as all secrets will, but not by
my aid; and then I used to derive a good deal of innocent amusement from
the vehement assertions of some of my more acute friends, that they knew it
was mine from the first paragraph!

"As the "Times" some years since, referred to my connection with the
review, I suppose there will be no breach of confidence in the publication
of this little history, if you think it worth the space it will occupy."]


CHAPTER 2.II.

THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES' (continued).

1860.

[I extract a few entries from my father's Diary:--

"January 7th. The second edition, 3000 copies, of 'Origin' was published."

"May 22nd. The first edition of 'Origin' in the United States was 2500
copies."

My father has here noted down the sums received for the 'Origin.'

First Edition......180 pounds
Second Edition.....636 pounds 13 shillings 4 pence

Total..............816 pounds 13 shillings 4 pence.

After the publication of the second edition he began at once, on January
9th, looking over his materials for the 'Variation of Animals and Plants;'
the only other work of the year was on Drosera.

He was at Down during the whole of this year, except for a visit to Dr.
Lane's Water-cure Establishment at Sudbrooke, and in June, and for visits
to Miss Elizabeth Wedgwood's house at Hartfield, in Sussex (July), and to
Eastbourne, September 22 to November 16.]


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, January 3rd [1860].

My dear Hooker,

I have finished your Essay. ('Australian Flora.') As probably you would
like to hear my opinion, though a non-botanist, I will give it without any
exaggeration. To my judgment it is by far the grandest and most
interesting essay, on subjects of the nature discussed, I have ever read.
You know how I admired your former essays, but this seems to me far
grander. I like all the part after page xxvi better than the first part,
probably because newer to me. I dare say you will demur to this, for I
think every author likes the most speculative parts of his own productions.
How superior your essay is to the famous one of Brown (here will be sneer
1st from you). You have made all your conclusions so admirably clear, that
it would be no use at all to be a botanist (sneer No. 2). By Jove, it
would do harm to affix any idea to the long names of outlandish orders.
One can look at your conclusions with the philosophic abstraction with
which a mathematician looks at his a times x + the square root of z
squared, etc. etc. I hardly know which parts have interested me most; for
over and over again I exclaimed, "this beats all." The general comparison
of the Flora of Australia with the rest of the world, strikes me (as
before) as extremely original, good, and suggestive of many reflections.

...The invading Indian Flora is very interesting, but I think the fact you
mention towards the close of the essay--that the Indian vegetation, in
contradistinction to the Malayan vegetation, is found in low and level
parts of the Malay Islands, GREATLY lessens the difficulty which at first
(page 1) seemed so great. There is nothing like one's own hobby-horse. I
suspect it is the same case as of glacial migration, and of naturalised
production--of production of greater area conquering those of lesser; of
course the Indian forms would have a greater difficulty in seizing on the
cool parts of Australia. I demur to your remarks (page 1), as not
"conceiving anything in soil, climate, or vegetation of India," which could
stop the introduction of Australian plants. Towards the close of the essay
(page civ), you have admirable remarks on our profound ignorance of the
cause of possible naturalisation or introduction; I would answer page 1, by
a later page, viz. page civ.

Your contrast of the south-west and south-east corners is one of the most
wonderful cases I ever heard of...You show the case with wonderful force.
Your discussion on mixed invaders of the south-east corner (and of New
Zealand) is as curious and intricate a problem as of the races of men in
Britain. Your remark on mixed invading Flora keeping down or destroying an
original Flora, which was richer in number of species, strikes me as
EMINENTLY NEW AND IMPORTANT. I am not sure whether to me the discussion on
the New Zealand Flora is not even more instructive. I cannot too much
admire both. But it will require a long time to suck in all the facts.
Your case of the largest Australian orders having none, or very few,
species in New Zealand, is truly marvellous. Anyhow, you have now
DEMONSTRATED (together with no mammals in New Zealand) (bitter sneer No.
3), that New Zealand has never been continuously, or even nearly
continuously, united by land to Australia!! At page lxxxix, is the only
sentence (on this subject) in the whole essay at which I am much inclined
to quarrel, viz. that no theory of trans-oceanic migration can explain,
etc. etc. Now I maintain against all the world, that no man knows anything
about the power of trans-oceanic migration. You do not know whether or not
the absent orders have seeds which are killed by sea-water, like almost all
Leguminosae, and like another order which I forget. Birds do not migrate
from Australia to New Zealand, and therefore floatation SEEMS the only
possible means; but yet I maintain that we do not know enough to argue on
the question, especially as we do not know the main fact whether the seeds
of Australian orders are killed by sea-water.

The discussion on European Genera is profoundly interesting; but here alone
I earnestly beg for more information, viz. to know which of these genera
are absent in the Tropics of the world, i.e. confined to temperate regions.
I excessively wish to know, ON THE NOTION OF GLACIAL MIGRATION, how much
modification has taken place in Australia. I had better explain when we
meet, and get you to go over and mark the list.

...The list of naturalised plants is extremely interesting, but why at the
end, in the name of all that is good and bad, do you not sum up and comment
on your facts? Come, I will have a sneer at you in return for the many
which you will have launched at this letter. Should you have remarked on
the number of plants naturalised in Australia and the United States UNDER
EXTREMELY DIFFERENT CLIMATES, as showing that climate is so important, and
[on] the considerable sprinkling of plants from India, North America, and
South Africa, as showing that the frequent introduction of seeds is so
important? With respect to "abundance of unoccupied ground in Australia,"
do you believe that European plants introduced by man now grow on spots in
Australia which were absolutely bare? But I am an impudent dog, one must
defend one's own fancy theories against such cruel men as you. I dare say


 


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