LETTER 71. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, April 6th, 1859.
I this morning received your pleasant and friendly note of November 30th. The first part of my MS. is in Murray's hands to see if he likes to publish it. There is no preface, but a short introduction, which must be read by every one who reads my The second paragraph in the introduction (71/1. "Origin of Species," Edition I., 1859, pages 1 and 2.) I have had copied verbatim from my foul copy, and you will, I hope, think that I have fairly noticed your paper in the "Linn. Journal." (71/2. "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties, and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection." By Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace. Communicated by Sir Charles Lyell and J.D. Hooker. "Journ. Linn. Soc." Volume III., page 45, 1859. (Read July 1st, 1858.)) You must remember that I am now publishing only an abstract, and I give no references. I shall, of course, allude to your paper on distribution (71/3. "On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species" (A.R. Wallace). "Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XVI., page 184, 1855. The law alluded to is thus stated by Wallace: "Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species" (loc. cit., page 186).); and I have added that I know from correspondence that your explanation of your law is the same as that which I offer. You are right, that I came to the conclusion that selection was the principle of change from the study of domesticated productions; and then, reading Malthus, I saw at once how to apply this principle. Geographical distribution and geological relations of extinct to recent inhabitants of South America first led me to the subject: especially the case of the Galapagos Islands. I hope to go to press in the early part of next month. It will be a small volume of about five hundred pages or so. I will of course send you a copy. I forget whether I told you that Hooker, who is our best British botanist and perhaps the best in the world, is a full convert, and is now going immediately to publish his confession of faith; and I expect daily to see proof-sheets. (71/4. "The Flora of Australia, etc., an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania." London 1859.) Huxley is changed, and believes in mutation of species: whether a convert to us, I do not quite know. We shall live to see all the younger men converts. My neighbour and an excellent naturalist, J. Lubbock, is an enthusiastic convert. I see that you are doing great work in the Archipelago; and most heartily do I sympathise with you. For God's sake take care of your health. There have been few such noble labourers in the cause of Natural Science as you are.
P.S. You cannot tell how I admire your spirit, in the manner in which you have taken all that was done about publishing all our papers. I had actually written a letter to you, stating that I would not publish anything before you had published. I had not sent that letter to the post when I received one from Lyell and Hooker, urging me to send some MS. to them, and allow them to act as they thought fair and honestly to both of us; and I did so.
(71/5. The following is the passage from the Introduction to the "Origin of Species," referred to in the first paragraph of the above letter.)
"My work is now nearly finished; but as it will take me two or three years more to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this Abstract. I have more especially been induced to do this, as Mr. Wallace, who is now studying the Natural History of the Malay Archipelago, has arrived at almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have on the origin of species. Last year he sent to me a memoir on this subject, with a request that I would forward it to Sir Charles Lyell, who sent it to the Linnean Society, and it is published in the third volume of the Journal of that Society. Sir C. Lyell and Dr. Hooker, who both knew of my work—the latter having read my sketch of 1844—honoured me by thinking it advisable to publish, with Mr. Wallace's excellent memoir, some brief extracts from my manuscripts."
LETTER 72. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, May 3rd, 1859.
With respect to reversion, I have been raking up vague recollections of vague facts; and the impression on my mind is rather more in favour of reversion than it was when you were here.
In my abstract (72/1. "The Origin of Species.") I give only a paragraph on the general case of reversion, though I enter in detail on some cases of reversion of a special character. I have not as yet put all my facts on this subject in mass, so can come to no definite conclusion. But as single characters may revert, I must say that I see no improbability in several reverting. As I do not believe any well-founded experiments or facts are known, each must form his opinion from vague generalities. I think you confound two rather distinct considerations; a variation arises from any cause, and reversion is not opposed to this, but solely to its inheritance. Not but what I believe what we must call perhaps a dozen distinct laws are all struggling against each other in every variation which ever arises. To give my impression, if I were forced to bet whether or not, after a hundred generations of growth in a poor sandy soil, a cauliflower and red cabbage would or would not revert to the same form, I must say I would rather stake my money that they would. But in such a case the conditions of life are changed (and here comes the question of direct influence of condition), and there is to be no selection, the comparatively sudden effect of man's selection are left to the free play of reversion.
In short, I dare not come to any conclusion without comparing all facts which I have collected, and I do not think there are many.
Please do not say to any one that I thought my on species would be fairly popular and have a fairly remunerative sale (which was the height of my ambition), for if it prove a dead failure it would make me the more ridiculous.
LETTER 73. TO W.H. MILLER. Down, June 5th {1859}.
I thank you much for your letter. Had I seen the interest of my remark I would have made many more measurements, though I did make several. I stated the facts merely to give the general reader an idea of the thickness of the walls. (73/1. The walls of bees' cells: see Letter 173.)
Especially if I had seen that the fact had any general bearing, I should have stated that as far as I could measure, the walls are by no means perfectly of the same thickness. Also I should have stated that the chief difference is when the thickness of walls of the upper part of the hexagon and of the pyramidal basal plates are contrasted. Will you oblige me by looking with a strong lens at the bit of comb, brushing off with a knife the upper thickened edges, and then compare, by eye alone, the thickness of the walls there with the thickness of the basal plates, as seen in any cross section. I should very much like to hear whether, even in this way, the difference is not perceptible. It is generally thus perceptible by comparing the thickness of the walls of the hexagon (if not taken very close to the angle) near to the basal plates, where the comparison by eye is of course easier. Your letter actually turned me sick with panic; from not seeing any great importance {in the} fact, till I looked at my notes, I did not remember that I made several measurements. I have now repeated the same measurements, roughly with the same general results, but the difference, I think, is hardly double.
I should not have mentioned the thickness of the basal plates at all, had I not thought it would give an unfair notion of the thickness of the walls to state the lesser measurements alone.
LETTER 74. TO W.H. MILLER. {1859}
I had no thought that you would measure the thickness of the walls of the cells; but if you will, and allow me to give your measurements, it will be an immense advantage. As it is no trouble, I send more specimens. If you measure, please observe that I measured the thickness of the walls of the hexagonal prisms not very near the base; but from your very interesting remarks the lower part of the walls ought to be measured.
Thank you for the suggestion about how bees judge of angles and distances. I will keep it in mind. It is a complete perplexity to me, and yet certainly insects can rudely somehow judge of distance. There are special difficulties on account of the gradation in size between the worker-scells and the larger drone-cells. I am trying to test the case practically by getting combs of different species, and of our own bee from different climates. I have lately had some from the W. Indies of our common bee, but the cells SEEM certainly to be larger; but they have not yet been carefully measured. I will keep your suggestion in mind whenever I return to experiments on living bees; but that will not be soon.
As you have been considering my little discussion in relation to Lord Brougham (74/1. Lord Brougham's paper on "The Mathematical Structure of Bees' Cells," read before the National Institute of France in May, 1858.), and as I have been more vituperated for this part than for almost any other, I should like just to tell you how I think the case stands. The discussion viewed by itself is worth little more than the paper on which it is printed, except in so far as it contains three or four certainly new facts. But to those who are inclined to believe the general truth of the conclusion that species and their instincts are slowly modified by what I call Natural Selection, I think my discussion nearly removes a very great difficulty. I believe in its truth chiefly from the existence of the Melipona, which makes a comb so intermediate in structure between that of the humble and hive-bee, and especially from the new and curious fact of the bees making smooth cups or saucers when they excavated in a thick piece of wax, which saucers stood so close that hexagons were built on their intersecting edges. And, lastly, because when they excavated on a thin slip of wax, the excavation on both sides of similar smooth basins was stopped, and flat planes left between the nearly opposed basins. If my view were wholly false these cases would, I think, never have occurred. Sedgwick and Co. may abuse me to their hearts' content, but I shall as yet continue to think that mine is a rational explanation (as far as it goes) of their method of work.
LETTER 75. TO W.H. MILLER.
Down, December 1st {1859}.
Some months ago you were so kind as to say you would measure the thickness of the walls of the basal and side plates of the cell of the bee. Could you find time to do so soon? Why I want it soon, is that I have lately heard from Murray that he sold at his sale far more copies than he has of the "Origin of Species," and that I must immediately prepare a new edition, which I am now correcting. By the way, I hear from Murray that all the attacks heaped on my do not seem to have at all injured the sale, which will make poor dear old Sedgwick groan. If the basal plates and walls do differ considerably in thickness, as they certainly did in the one or two cells which I measured without particular care (as I never thought the point of any importance), will you tell me the bearing of the fact as simply as you can, for the chance of one so stupid as I am in geometry being able to understand?
Would the greater thickness of the basal plates and of the rim of the hexagons be a good adaptation to carry the vertical weight of the cells filled with honey and supporting clusters of living bees?
Will you endeavour to screw out time and grant me this favour?
P.S. If the result of your measurement of the thickness of the walls turns out at all what I have asserted, would it not be worth while to write a little bit of a paper on the subject of your former note; and "pluck" the bees if they deserve this degradation? Many mathematicians seem to have thought the subject worthy of attention. When the cells are full of honey and hang vertically they have to support a great weight. Can the thicker basal plates be a contrivance to give strength to the whole comb, with less consumption of wax, than if all the sides of the hexagons were thickened?
This crude notion formerly crossed my mind; but of course it is beyond me even to conjecture how the case would be.
A mathematician, Mr. Wright, has been writing on the geometry of bee-cells in the United States in consequence of my but I can hardly understand his paper. (75/1. Chauncey Wright, "Remarks on the Architecture of Bees" ("Amer. Acad. Proc." IV., 1857-60, page 432.)
LETTER 76. TO T.H. HUXLEY.
(76/1. The date of this letter is unfortunately doubtful, otherwise it would prove that at an early date he was acquainted with Erasmus Darwin's views on evolution, a fact which has not always been recognised. We can hardly doubt that it was written in 1859, for at this time Mr. Huxley was collecting facts about breeding for his lecture given at the Royal Institution on February 10th, 1860, on "Species and Races and their Origin." See "Life and Letters," II., page 281.)
Down {June?} 9 {1859?}.
If on the 11th you have half an hour to spare, you might like to see a very good show of pigeons, and the enclosed card will admit you.
The history of error is quite unimportant, but it is curious to observe how exactly and accurately my grandfather (in "Zoonomia," Volume I., page 504, 1794) gives Lamarck's theory. I will quote one sentence. Speaking of birds' beaks, he says: "All which seem to have been gradually produced during many generations by the perpetual endeavour of the creatures to supply the want of food, and to have been delivered to their posterity with constant improvement of them for the purposes required." Lamarck published "Hist. Zoolog." in 1809. The "Zoonomia" was translated into many languages.
LETTER 77. TO C. LYELL. Down, 28 {June 1859}.
It is not worth while troubling you, but my conscience is uneasy at having forgotten to thank you for your "Etna" (77/1. "On the Structure of Lavas which have been consolidated on Steep Slopes, with remarks on the Mode of Origin of Mount Etna, and on the Theory of 'Craters of Elevation'" ("Phil. Trans. R. Soc." Volume CXLVIII., 1858, page 703).), which seems to me a magnificent contribution to volcanic geology, and I should think you might now rest on your oars in this department.
As soon as ever I can get a copy of my (77/2. "The Origin of Species," London, 1859.) ready, in some six weeks' or two months' time, it shall be sent you; and if you approve of it, even to a moderate extent, it will be the highest satisfaction which I shall ever receive for an amount of labour which no one will ever appreciate.
LETTER 78. TO J.D. HOOKER.
(78/1. The reference in the following letter is to the proofs of Hooker's "Australian Flora.")
Down, 28 {July 1859}.
The returned sheet is chiefly that which I received in MS. Parts seem to me (though perhaps it may be forgetfulness) much improved, and I retain my former impression that the whole discussion on the Australian flora is admirably good and original. I know you will understand and not object to my thus expressing my opinion (for one must form one) so presumptuously. I have no criticisms, except perhaps I should like you somewhere to say, when you refer to me, that you refer only to the notice in the "Linnean Journal;" not that, on my deliberate word of honour, I expect that you will think more favourably of the whole than of the suggestion in the "Journal." I am far more than satisfied at what you say of my work; yet it would be as well to avoid the appearance of your remarks being a criticism on my fuller work.
I am very sorry to hear you are so hard-worked. I also get on very slowly, and have hardly as yet finished half my volume...I returned on last Tuesday from a week's hydropathy.
Take warning by me, and do not work too hard. For God's sake, think of this.
It is dreadfully uphill work with me getting my confounded volume finished.
I wish you well through all your labours. Adios.
LETTER 79. TO ASA GRAY. Down, November 29th {1859}.
This shall be such an extraordinary note as you have never received from me, for it shall not contain one single question or request. I thank you for your impression on my views. Every criticism from a good man is of value to me. What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work will be grievously hypothetical, and large parts by no means worthy of being called induction, my commonest error being probably induction from too few facts. I had not thought of your objection of my using the term "natural selection" as an agent. I use it much as a geologist does the word denudation—for an agent, expressing the result of several combined actions. I will take care to explain, not merely by inference, what I mean by the term; for I must use it, otherwise I should incessantly have to expand it into some such (here miserably expressed) formula as the following: "The tendency to the preservation (owing to the severe struggle for life to which all organic beings at some time or generation are exposed) of any, the slightest, variation in any part, which is of the slightest use or favourable to the life of the individual which has thus varied; together with the tendency to its inheritance." Any variation, which was of no use whatever to the individual, would not be preserved by this process of "natural selection." But I will not weary you by going on, as I do not suppose I could make my meaning clearer without large expansion. I will only add one other sentence: several varieties of sheep have been turned out together on the Cumberland mountains, and one particular breed is found to succeed so much better than all the others that it fairly starves the others to death. I should here say that natural selection picks out this breed, and would tend to improve it, or aboriginally to have formed it...
You speak of species not having any material base to rest on, but is this any greater hardship than deciding what deserves to be called a variety, and be designated by a Greek letter? When I was at systematic work, I know I longed to have no other difficulty (great enough) than deciding whether the form was distinct enough to deserve a name, and not to be haunted with undefined and unanswerable questions whether it was a true species. What a jump it is from a well-marked variety, produced by natural cause, to a species produced by the separate act of the hand of God! But I am running on foolishly. By the way, I met the other day Phillips, the palaeontologist, and he asked me, "How do you define a species?" I answered, "I cannot." Whereupon he said, "at last I have found out the only true definition,—any form which has ever had a specific name!"...
LETTER 80. TO C. LYELL. Ilkley, October 31st {1859}.
That you may not misunderstand how far I go with Pallas and his many disciples I should like to add that, though I believe that our domestic dogs have descended from several wild forms, and though I must think that the sterility, which they would probably have evinced, if crossed before being domesticated, has been eliminated, yet I go but a very little way with Pallas Co. in their belief in the importance of the crossing and blending of the aboriginal stocks. (80/1. "With our domesticated animals, the various races when crossed together are quite fertile; yet in many cases they are descended from two or more wild species. From this fact we must conclude either that the aboriginal parent-species at first produced perfectly fertile hybrids, or that the hybrids subsequently reared under domestication became quite fertile. This latter alternative, which was first propounded by Pallas, seems by far the most probable, and can, indeed, hardly be doubted" ("Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 240).) You will see this briefly put in the first chapter. Generally, with respect to crossing, the effects may be diametrically opposite. If you cross two very distinct races, you may make (not that I believe such has often been made) a third and new intermediate race; but if you cross two exceedingly close races, or two slightly different individuals of the same race, then in fact you annul and obliterate the difference. In this latter way I believe crossing is all-important, and now for twenty years I have been working at flowers and insects under this point of view. I do not like Hooker's terms, centripetal and centrifugal (80/2. Hooker's "Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania," pages viii. and ix.): they remind me of Forbes' bad term of Polarity. (80/3. Forbes, "On the Manifestation of Polarity in the Distribution of Organised Beings in Time."—"R. Institution Proc." I., 1851-54.)
I daresay selection by man would generally work quicker than Natural Selection; but the important distinction between them is, that man can scarcely select except external and visible characters, and secondly, he selects for his own good; whereas under nature, characters of all kinds are selected exclusively for each creature's own good, and are well exercised; but you will find all this in Chapter IV.
Although the hound, greyhound, and bull-dog may possibly have descended from three distinct stocks, I am convinced that their present great amount of difference is mainly due to the same causes which have made the breeds of pigeons so different from each other, though these breeds of pigeons have all descended from one wild stock; so that the Pallasian doctrine I look at as but of quite secondary importance.
In my bigger I have explained my meaning fully; whether I have in the Abstract I cannot remember.
LETTER 81. TO C. LYELL. {December 5th, 1859.}
I forget whether you take in the "Times;" for the chance of your not doing so, I send the enclosed rich letter. (81/1. See the "Times," December 1st and December 5th, 1859: two letters signed "Senex," dealing with "Works of Art in the Drift.") It is, I am sure, by Fitz-Roy...It is a pity he did not add his theory of the extinction of Mastodon, etc., from the door of the Ark being made too small. (81/2. A postscript to this letter, here omitted, is published in the "Life and Letters," II., page 240.)
LETTER 82. FRANCIS GALTON TO CHARLES DARWIN. 42, Rutland Gate, London, S.W., December 9th, 1859.
Pray let me add a word of congratulation on the completion of your wonderful volume, to those which I am sure you will have received from every side. I have laid it down in the full enjoyment of a feeling that one rarely experiences after boyish days, of having been initiated into an entirely new province of knowledge, which, nevertheless, connects itself with other things in a thousand ways. I hear you are engaged on a second edition. There is a trivial error in page 68, about rhinoceroses (82/1. Down (loc. cit.) says that neither the elephant nor the rhinoceros is destroyed by beasts of prey. Mr. Galton wrote that the wild dogs hunt the young rhinoceros and "exhaust them to death; they pursue them all day long, tearing at their ears, the only part their teeth can fasten on." The reference to the rhinoceros is omitted in later editions of the "Origin."), which I thought I might as well point out, and have taken advantage of the same opportunity to scrawl down half a dozen other notes, which may, or may not, be worthless to you.
(83/1. The three next letters refer to Huxley's lecture on Evolution, given at the Royal Institution on February 10th, 1860, of which the peroration is given in "Life and Letters," II., page 282, together with some letters on the subject.)
LETTER 83. TO T.H. HUXLEY. November 25th {1859}.
I rejoice beyond measure at the lecture. I shall be at home in a fortnight, when I could send you splendid folio coloured drawings of pigeons. Would this be in time? If not, I think I could write to my servants and have them sent to you. If I do NOT hear I shall understand that about fifteen or sixteen days will be in time.
I have had a kind yet slashing letter against me from poor dear old Sedgwick, "who has laughed till his sides ached at my "
Phillips is cautious, but decidedly, I fear, hostile. Hurrah for the Lecture—it is grand!
LETTER 84. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 13th {1859}.
I have got fine large drawings (84/1. For Mr. Huxley's R.I. lecture.) of the Pouter, Carrier, and Tumbler; I have only drawings in of Fantails, Barbs, and Scanderoon Runts. If you had them, you would have a grand display of extremes of diversity. Will they pay at the Royal Institution for copying on a large size drawings of these birds? I could lend skulls of a Carrier and a Tumbler (to show the great difference) for the same purpose, but it would not probably be worth while.
I have been looking at my MS. What you want I believe is about hybridism and breeding. The chapter on hybridism is in a pretty good state—about 150 folio pages with notes and references on the back. My first chapter on breeding is in too bad and imperfect a state to send; but my discussion on pigeons (in about 100 folio pages) is in a pretty good state. I am perfectly convinced that you would never have patience to read such volumes of MS. I speak now in the palace of truth, and pray do you: if you think you would read them I will send them willingly up by my servant, or bring them myself next week. But I have no copy, and I never could possibly replace them; and without you really thought that you would use them, I had rather not risk them. But I repeat I will willingly bring them, if you think you would have the vast patience to use them. Please let me hear on this subject, and whether I shall send the with small drawings of three other breeds or skulls. I have heard a rumour that Busk is on our side in regard to species. Is this so? It would be very good.
LETTER 85. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 16th {1859}.
I thank you for your very pleasant and amusing note and invitation to dinner, which I am sorry to say I cannot accept. I shall come up (stomach willing) on Thursday for Phil. Club dinner, and return on Saturday, and I am engaged to my brother for Friday. But I should very much like to call at the Museum on Friday or Saturday morning and see you. Would you let me have one line either here or at 57, Queen Anne Street, to say at what hour you generally come to the Museum, and whether you will be probably there on Friday or Saturday? Even if you are at the Club, it will be a mere chance if we sit near each other.
I will bring up the articles on Thursday afternoon, and leave them under charge of the porter at the Museum. They will consist of large drawings of a Pouter, a Carrier, and rather smaller drawings of some sub-varieties (which breed nearly true) of short-faced Tumblers. Also a small drawing of Scanderoon, a kind of Runt, and a very remarkable breed. Also a with very moderately good drawings of Fantail and Barb, but I very much doubt whether worth the trouble of enlarging.
Also a box (for Heaven's sake, take care!) with a skull of Carrier and short-faced Tumbler; also lower jaws (largest size) of Runt, middle size of Rock-pigeon, and the brone of Barb. The form of ramus of jaw differs curiously in these jaws.
Also MS. of hybridism and pigeons, which will just weary you to death. I will call myself for or send a servant for the MS. and bones whenever you have done with them; but do not hurry.
You have hit on the exact plan, which, on the advice of Lyell, Murray, etc., I mean to follow—viz., bring out separate volumes in detail—and I shall begin with domestic productions; but I am determined to try and {work} very slowly, so that, if possible, I may keep in a somewhat better state of health. I had not thought of illustrations; that is capital advice. Farewell, my good and admirable agent for the promulgation of damnable heresies!
LETTER 86. TO L. HORNER. Down, December 23rd {1859}.
I must have the pleasure of thanking you for your extremely kind letter. I am very much pleased that you approve of my and that you are going to pay me the extraordinary compliment of reading it twice. I fear that it is tough reading, but it is beyond my powers to make the subject clearer. Lyell would have done it admirably.
You must enjoy being a gentlemen at your ease, and I hear that you have returned with ardour to work at the Geological Society. We hope in the course of the winter to persuade Mrs. Horner and yourself and daughters to pay us a visit. Ilkley did me extraordinary good during the latter part of my stay and during my first week at home; but I have gone back latterly to my bad ways, and fear I shall never be decently well and strong.
P.S.—When any of your party write to Mildenhall I should be much obliged if you would say to Bunbury that I hope he will not forget, whenever he reads my his promise to let me know what he thinks about it; for his knowledge is so great and accurate that every one must value his opinions highly. I shall be quite contented if his belief in the immutability of species is at all staggered.
LETTER 87. TO C. LYELL.
(87/1. In the "Origin of Species" a section of Chapter X. is devoted to "The succession of the same types within the same areas, during the late Tertiary period" (Edition I., page 339). Mr. Darwin wrote as follows: "Mr. Clift many years ago showed that the fossil mammals from the Australian caves were closely allied to the living marsupials of that continent." After citing other instances illustrating the same agreement between fossil and recent types, Mr. Darwin continues: "I was so much impressed with these facts that I strongly insisted, in 1839 and 1845, on this 'law of the succession of types,' on 'this wonderful relationship in the same continent between the dead and the living.' Professor Owen has subsequently extended the same generalisation to the mammals of the Old World.")
Down, {December} 27th {1859}.
Owen wrote to me to ask for the reference to Clift. As my own notes for the late chapters are all in chaos, I bethought me who was the most trustworthy man of all others to look for references, and I answered myself, "Of course Lyell." In the {"Principles of Geology"}, edition of 1833, Volume III., chapter xi., page 144, you will find the reference to Clift in the "Edinburgh New Phil Journal," No. XX., page 394. (87/2. The correct reference to Clift's "Report" on fossil bones from New Holland is "Edinburgh New Phil. Journal," 1831, page 394.) You will also find that you were greatly struck with the fact itself (87/3. This refers to the discovery of recent and fossil species of animals in an Australian cave-breccia. Mr. Clift is quoted as having identified one of the bones, which was much larger than the rest, as that of a hippopotamus.), which I had quite forgotten. I copied the passage, and sent it to Owen. Why I gave in some detail references to my own work is that Owen (not the first occasion with respect to myself and others) quietly ignores my having ever generalised on the subject, and makes a great fuss on more than one occasion at having discovered the law of succession. In fact, this law, with the Galapagos distribution, first turned my mind on the origin of species. My own references are {to the "Naturalist's Voyage"}:
Large 8vo, Murray,
Edition 1839 Edition 1845
Page 210 Page 173 On succession.
Page 153 Pages 131-32 On splitting up of old
geographical provinces.
Long before Owen published I had in MS. worked out the succession of types in the Old World (as I remember telling Sedgwick, who of course disbelieved it).
Since receiving your last letter on Hooker, I have read his introduction as far as page xxiv (87/4. "On the Flora of Australia, etc.; being an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania": London, 1859.), where the Australian flora begins, and this latter part I liked most in the proofs. It is a magnificent essay. I doubt slightly about some assertions, or rather should have liked more facts—as, for instance, in regard to species varying most on the confines of their range. Naturally I doubt a little his remarks about divergence (87/5. "Variation is effected by graduated changes; and the tendency of varieties, both in nature and under cultivation, when further varying, is rather to depart more and more widely from the original type than to revert to it." On the margin Darwin wrote: "Without selection doubtful" (loc. cit., page viii).), and about domestic races being produced under nature without selection. It would take much to persuade me that a Pouter Pigeon, or a Carrier, etc., could have been produced by the mere laws of variation without long continued selection, though each little enlargement of crop and beak are due to variation. I demur greatly to his comparison of the products of sinking and rising islands (87/6. "I venture to anticipate that a study of the vegetation of the islands with reference to the peculiarities of the generic types on the one hand, and of the geological conditions (whether as rising or sinking) on the other, may, in the present state of our knowledge, advance other subjects of distribution and variation considerably" (loc. cit., page xv).); in the Indian Ocean he compares exclusively many rising volcanic and sinking coral islands. The latter have a most peculiar soil, and are excessively small in area, and are tenanted by very few species; moreover, such low coral islands have probably been often, during their subsidence, utterly submerged, and restocked by plants from other islands. In the Pacific Ocean the floras of all the best cases are unknown. The comparison ought to have been exclusively between rising and fringed volcanic islands, and sinking and encircled volcanic islands. I have read Naudin (87/7. Naudin, "Revue Horticole," 1852?.), and Hooker agrees that he does not even touch on my views.
LETTER 88. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. {1859 or 1860.}
I have had another talk with Bentham, who is greatly agitated by your evidently the stern, keen intellect is aroused, and he finds that it is too late to halt between two opinions. How it will go we shall see. I am intensely interested in what we shall come to, and never broach the subject to him. I finished the geological evidence chapters yesterday; they are very fine and very striking, but I cannot see they are such forcible objections as you still hold them to be. I would say that you still in your secret soul underrate the imperfection of the Geological Record, though no language can be stronger or arguments fairer and sounder against it. Of course I am influenced by Botany, and the conviction that we have not in a fossilised condition a fraction of the plants that have existed, and that not a fraction of those we have are recognisable specifically. I never saw so clearly put the fact that it is not intermediates between existing species we want, but between these and the unknown tertium quid.
You certainly make a hobby of Natural Selection, and probably ride it too hard; that is a necessity of your case. If the improvement of the creation-by-variation doctrine is conceivable, it will be by unburthening your theory of Natural Selection, which at first sight seems overstrained—i.e., to account for too much. I think, too, that some of your difficulties which you override by Natural Selection may give way before other explanations. But, oh Lord! how little we do know and have known to be so advanced in knowledge by one theory. If we thought ourselves knowing dogs before you revealed Natural Selection, what d—d ignorant ones we must surely be now we do know that law.
I hear you may be at the Club on Thursday. I hope so. Huxley will not be there, so do not come on that ground.
LETTER 89. TO T.H. HUXLEY. January 1st {1860}.
I write one line merely to thank you for your pleasant note, and to say that I will keep your secret. I will shake my head as mysteriously as Lord Burleigh. Several persons have asked me who wrote that "most remarkable article" in the "Times." (89/1. The "Times," December 26th, 1859, page 8. The opening paragraphs were by one of the staff of the "Times." See "Life and Letters," II., page 255, for Mr. Huxley's interesting account of his share in the matter.) As a cat may look at a king, so I have said that I strongly suspected you. X was so sharp that the first sentence revealed the authorship. The Z's (God save the mark) thought it was Owen's! You may rely on it that it has made a deep impression, and I am heartily glad that the subject and I owe you this further obligation. But for God's sake, take care of your health; remember that the brain takes years to rest, whilst the muscles take only hours. There is poor Dana, to whom I used to preach by letter, writes to me that my prophecies are come true: he is in Florence quite done up, can read nothing and write nothing, and cannot talk for half an hour. I noticed the "naughty sentence" (89/2. Mr. Huxley, after speaking of the rudimental teeth of the whale, of rudimental jaws in insects which never bite, and rudimental eyes in blind animals, goes on: "And we would remind those who, ignorant of the facts, must be moved by authority, that no one has asserted the incompetence of the doctrine of final causes, in its application to physiology and anatomy, more strongly than our own eminent anatomist, Professor Owen, who, speaking of such cases, says ("On the Nature of Limbs," pages 39, 40), 'I think it will be obvious that the principle of final adaptations fails to satisfy all the conditions of the problem.'"—"The Times," December 26th, 1859.) about Owen, though my wife saw its bearing first. Farewell you best and worst of men!
That sentence about the bird and the fish dinners charmed us. Lyell wrote to me—style like yours.
Have you seen the slashing article of December 26th in the "Daily News," against my stealing from my "master," the author of the "Vestiges?"
LETTER 90. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES. {Undated}
How I should like to know whether Milne Edwards has read the copy which I sent him, and whether he thinks I have made a pretty good case on our side of the question. There is no naturalist in the world for whose opinion I have so profound a respect. Of course I am not so silly as to expect to change his opinion.
LETTER 91. TO C. LYELL.
(91/1. The date of this letter is doubtful; but as it evidently refers to the 2nd edition of the "Origin," which appeared on January 7th, 1860, we believe that December 9th, 1859, is right. The letter of Sedgwick's is doubtless that given in the "Life and Letters," II., page 247; it is there dated December 24th, 1859, but from other evidence it was probably written on November 24th)
{December?} 9th {1859}.
I send Sedgwick's letter; it is terribly muddled, and really the first page seems almost childish.
I am sadly over-worked, so will not write to you. I have worked in a number of your invaluable corrections—indeed, all as far as time permits. I infer from a letter from Huxley that Ramsay (91/2. See a letter to Huxley, November 27th, 1859, "Life and Letters," II., page 282.) is a convert, and I am extremely glad to get pure geologists, as they will be very few. Many thanks for your very pleasant note. What pleasure you have given me. I believe I should have been miserable had it not been for you and a few others, for I hear threatening of attacks which I daresay will be severe enough. But I am sure that I can now bear them.
LETTER 92. TO T.H. HUXLEY.
(92/1. The point here discussed is one to which Mr. Huxley attached great, in our opinion too great, importance.)
Down, January 11th {1860?}.
I fully agree that the difficulty is great, and might be made much of by a mere advocate. Will you oblige me by reading again slowly from pages 267 to 272. (92/2. The reference is to the "Origin," Edition I.: the section on "The Fertility of Varieties when crossed, and of their Mongrel Offspring" occupies pages 267-72.) I may add to what is there said, that it seems to me quite hopeless to attempt to explain why varieties are not sterile, until we know the precise cause of sterility in species.
Reflect for a moment on how small and on what very peculiar causes the unequal reciprocity of fertility in the same two species must depend. Reflect on the curious case of species more fertile with foreign pollen than their own. Reflect on many cases which could be given, and shall be given in my larger (independently of hybridity) of very slight changes of conditions causing one species to be quite sterile and not affecting a closely allied species. How profoundly ignorant we are on the intimate relation between conditions of life and impaired fertility in pure species!
The only point which I might add to my short discussion on this subject, is that I think it probable that the want of adaptation to uniform conditions of life in our domestic varieties has played an important part in preventing their acquiring sterility when crossed. For the want of uniformity, and changes in the conditions of life, seem the only cause of the elimination of sterility (when crossed) under domestication. (92/3. The meaning which we attach to this obscure sentence is as follows: Species in a state of nature are closely adapted to definite conditions of life, so that the sexual constitution of species A is attuned, as it were, to a condition different from that to which B is attuned, and this leads to sterility. But domestic varieties are not strictly adapted by Natural Selection to definite conditions, and thus have less specialised sexual constitutions.) This elimination, though admitted by many authors, rests on very slight evidence, yet I think is very probably true, as may be inferred from the case of dogs. Under nature it seems improbable that the differences in the reproductive constitution, on which the sterility of any two species when crossed depends, can be acquired directly by Natural Selection; for it is of no advantage to the species. Such differences in reproductive constitution must stand in correlation with some other differences; but how impossible to conjecture what these are! Reflect on the case of the variations of Verbascum, which differ in no other respect whatever besides the fluctuating element of the colour of the flower, and yet it is impossible to resist Gartner's evidence, that this difference in the colour does affect the mutual fertility of the varieties.
The whole case seems to me far too mysterious to rest (92/4. The word "rest" seems to be used in place of "to serve as a foundation for.") a valid attack on the theory of modification of species, though, as you say, it offers excellent ground for a mere advocate.
I am surprised, considering how ignorant we are on very many points, {that} more weak parts in my have not as yet been pointed out to me. No doubt many will be. H.C. Watson founds his objection in MS. on there being no limit to infinite diversification of species: I have answered this, I think, satisfactorily, and have sent attack and answer to Lyell and Hooker. If this seems to you a good objection, I would send papers to you. Andrew Murray "disposes of" the whole theory by an ingenious difficulty from the distribution of blind cave insects (92/5. See "Life and Letters, Volume II., page 265. The reference here is to Murray's address before the Botanical Society, Edinburgh. Mr. Darwin seems to have read Murray's views only in a separate copy reprinted from the "Proc. R. Soc. Edin." There is some confusion about the date of the paper; the separate copy is dated January 16th, while in the volume of the "Proc. R. Soc." it is February 20th. In the "Life and Letters," II., page 261 it is erroneously stated that these are two different papers.); but it can, I think, be fairly answered.
LETTER 93. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, {February} 2nd {1860}.
I have had this morning a letter from old Bronn (93/1. See "Life and Letters, II., page 277.) (who, to my astonishment, seems slightly staggered by Natural Selection), and he says a publisher in Stuttgart is willing to publish a translation, and that he, Bronn, will to a certain extent superintend. Have you written to Kolliker? if not, perhaps I had better close with this proposal—what do you think? If you have written, I must wait, and in this case will you kindly let me hear as soon as you hear from Kolliker?
My poor dear friend, you will curse the day when you took up the "general agency" line; but really after this I will not give you any more trouble.
Do not forget the three tickets for us for your lecture, and the ticket for Baily, the poulterer.
Old Bronn has published in the "Year-for Mineralogy" a notice of the "Origin" (93/2. "Neues Jahrb. fur Min." 1860, page 112.); and says he has himself published elsewhere a foreboding of the theory!
LETTER 94. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 14th {1860}.
I succeeded in persuading myself for twenty-four hours that Huxley's lecture was a success. (94/1. At the Royal Institution. See "Life and Letters," II., page 282.) Parts were eloquent and good, and all very bold; and I heard strangers say, "What a good lecture!" I told Huxley so; but I demurred much to the time wasted in introductory remarks, especially to his making it appear that sterility was a clear and manifest distinction of species, and to his not having even alluded to the more important parts of the subject. He said that he had much more written out, but time failed. After conversation with others and more reflection, I must confess that as an exposition of the doctrine the lecture seems to me an entire failure. I thank God I did not think so when I saw Huxley; for he spoke so kindly and magnificently of me, that I could hardly have endured to say what I now think. He gave no just idea of Natural Selection. I have always looked at the doctrine of Natural Selection as an hypothesis, which, if it explained several large classes of facts, would deserve to be ranked as a theory deserving acceptance; and this, of course, is my own opinion. But, as Huxley has never alluded to my explanation of classification, morphology, embryology, etc., I thought he was thoroughly dissatisfied with all this part of my But to my joy I find it is not so, and that he agrees with my manner of looking at the subject; only that he rates higher than I do the necessity of Natural Selection being shown to be a vera causa always in action. He tells me he is writing a long review in the "Westminster." It was really provoking how he wasted time over the idea of a species as exemplified in the horse, and over Sir J. Hall's old experiment on marble. Murchison was very civil to me over my after the lecture, in which he was disappointed. I have quite made up my mind to a savage onslaught; but with Lyell, you, and Huxley, I feel confident we are right, and in the long run shall prevail. I do not think Asa Gray has quite done you justice in the beginning of the review of me. (94/2. "Review of Darwin's Theory on the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection," by "A.G." ("Amer. Jour. Sci." Volume XXIX., page 153, 1860). In a letter to Asa Gray on February 18th, 1860, Darwin writes: "Your review seems to me admirable; by far the best which I have read." ("Life and Letters," II., 1887, page 286.) The review seemed to me very good, but I read it very hastily.
LETTER 95. TO C. LYELL. Down, {February} 18th {1860}.
I send by this post Asa Gray, which seems to me very good, with the stamp of originality on it. Also Bronn's "Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie." (95/1. See Letter 93.)
The united intellect of my family has vainly tried to make it out. I never tried such confoundedly hard german; nor does it seem worth the labour. He sticks to Priestley's Green Matter, and seems to think that till it can be shown how life arises it is no good showing how the forms of life arise. This seems to me about as logical (comparing very great things with little) as to say it was no use in Newton showing the laws of attraction of gravity and the consequent movement of the planets, because he could not show what the attraction of gravity is.
The expression "Wahl der Lebens-Weise" (95/2. "Die fruchtbarste und allgemeinste Ursache der Varietaten-Bildung ist jedoch die Wahl der Lebens-Weise" (loc. cit., page 112).) makes me doubt whether B. understands what I mean by Natural Selection, as I have told him. He says (if I understand him) that you ought to be on the same side with me.
P.S. Sunday afternoon.—I have kept back this to thank you for your letter, with much news, received this morning. My conscience is uneasy at the time you waste in amusing and interesting me. I was very curious to hear about Phillips. The review in the "Annals" is, as I was convinced, by Wollaston, for I have had a very cordial letter from him this morning. (95/3. A bibliographical Notice "On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection; or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." ("Annals and Mag." Volume V., pages 132-43, 1860). The notice is not signed. Referring to the article, in a letter to Lyell, February 15th, 1860, Darwin writes: "I am perfectly convinced...that the review in the "Annals" is by Wollaston; no one else in the world would have used so many parentheses" ("Life and Letters," II., page 284).)
I send by this post an attack in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" by Harvey (a first-rate botanist, as you probably know). (95/4. In the "Gardeners' Chronicle" of February 18th, 1860, W.H. Harvey described a case of monstrosity in Begonia frigida, which he argued was hostile to the theory of Natural Selection. The passage about Harvey's attack was published in the "Life and Letters," II., page 275.) It seems to me rather strange; he assumes the permanence of monsters, whereas monsters are generally sterile, and not often inheritable. But grant his case, it comes {to this}, that I have been too cautious in not admitting great and sudden variations. Here again comes in the mischief of my abstract. In fuller MS. I have discussed the parallel case of a normal fish like a monstrous gold-fish.
I end my discussion by doubting, because all cases of monstrosities which resemble normal structures which I could find were not in allied groups. Trees like Aspicarpa (95/5. Aspicarpa, an American genus of Malpighiaceae, is quoted in the "Origin" (Edition VI., page 367) as an illustration of Linnaeus' aphorism that the characters do not give the genus, but the genus gives the characters. During several years' cultivation in France Aspicarpa produced only degraded flowers, which differed in many of the most important points of structure from the proper type of the order; but it was recognised by M. Richard that the genus should be retained among the Malpighiaceae. "This case," adds Darwin, "well illustrates the spirit of our classification."), with flowers of two kinds (in the "Origin"), led me also to speculate on the same subject; but I could find only one doubtfully analogous case of species having flowers like the degraded or monstrous flowers. Harvey does not see that if only a few (as he supposes) of the seedlings inherited being monstrosities, Natural Selection would be necessary to select and preserve them. You had better return the "Gardeners' Chronicle," etc., to my brother's. The case of Begonia (95/6. Harvey's criticism was answered by Sir J.D. Hooker in the following number of the "Gardeners' Chronicle" (February 25th, 1860, page 170).) in itself is very curious; I am tempted to answer the notice, but I will refrain, for there would be no end to answers.
With respect to your objection of a multitude of still living simple forms, I have not discussed it anywhere in the "Origin," though I have often thought it over. What you say about progress being only occasional and retrogression not uncommon, I agree to; only that in the animal kingdom I greatly doubt about retrogression being common. I have always put it to myself—What advantage can we see in an infusory animal, or an intestinal worm, or coral polypus, or earthworm being highly developed? If no advantage, they would not become highly developed: not but what all these animals have very complex structures (except infusoria), and they may well be higher than the animals which occupied similar places in the economy of nature before the Silurian epoch. There is a blind snake with the appearances and, in some respects, habits of earthworms; but this blind snake does not tend, as far as we can see, to replace and drive out worms. I think I must in a future edition discuss a few more such points, and will introduce this and H.C. Watson's objection about the infinite number of species and the general rise in organisation. But there is a directly opposite objection to yours which is very difficult to answer—viz. how at the first start of life, when there were only the simplest organisms, how did any complication of organisation profit them? I can only answer that we have not facts enough to guide any speculation on the subject.
With respect to Lepidosiren, Ganoid fishes, perhaps Ornithorhynchus, I suspect, as stated in the "Origin," (95/7. "Origin of Species" (Edition VI.), page 83.), that they have been preserved, from inhabiting fresh-water and isolated parts of the world, in which there has been less competition and less rapid progress in Natural Selection, owing to the fewness of individuals which can inhabit small areas; and where there are few individuals variation at most must be slower. There are several allusions to this notion in the "Origin," as under Amblyopsis, the blind cave-fish (95/8. "Origin," page 112.), and under Heer (95/9. "Origin," page 83.) about Madeira plants resembling the fossil and extinct plants of Europe.
LETTER 96. TO JAMES LAMONT. Down, March 5th {1860?}.
I am much obliged for your long and interesting letter. You have indeed good right to speak confidently about the habits of wild birds and animals; for I should think no one beside yourself has ever sported in Spitzbergen and Southern Africa. It is very curious and interesting that you should have arrived at the conclusion that so-called "Natural Selection" had been efficient in giving their peculiar colours to our grouse. I shall probably use your authority on the similar habits of our grouse and the Norwegian species.
I am particularly obliged for your very curious fact of the effect produced by the introduction of the lowland grouse on the wildness of the grouse in your neighbourhood. It is a very striking instance of what crossing will do in affecting the character of a breed. Have you ever seen it stated in any sporting work that game has become wilder in this country? I wish I could get any sort of proof of the fact, for your explanation seems to me equally ingenious and probable. I have myself witnessed in South America a nearly parallel {case} with that which you mention in regard to the reindeer in Spitzbergen, with the Cervus campestris of La Plata. It feared neither man nor the sound of shot of a rifle, but was terrified at the sight of a man on horseback; every one in that country always riding. As you are so great a sportsman, perhaps you will kindly look to one very trifling point for me, as my neighbours here think it too absurd to notice—namely, whether the feet of birds are dirty, whether a few grains of dirt do not adhere occasionally to their feet. I especially want to know how this is in the case of birds like herons and waders, which stalk in the mud. You will guess that this relates to dispersal of seeds, which is one of my greatest difficulties. My health is very indifferent, and I am seldom able to attend the scientific meetings, but I sincerely hope that I may some time have the pleasure of meeting you.
Pray accept my cordial thanks for your very kind letter.
LETTER 97. TO G.H.K. THWAITES. Down, March 21st {1860}.
I thank you very sincerely for your letter, and am much pleased that you go a little way with me. You will think it presumptuous, but I am well convinced from my own mental experience that if you keep the subject at all before your mind you will ultimately go further. The present volume is a mere abstract, and there are great omissions. One main one, which I have rectified in the foreign editions, is an explanation (which has satisfied Lyell, who made the same objection with you) why many forms do not progress or advance (and I quite agree about some retrograding). I have also a MS. discussion on beauty; but do you really suppose that for instance Diatomaceae were created beautiful that man, after millions of generations, should admire them through the microscope? (97/1. Thwaites (1811-82) published several papers on the Diatomaceae ("On Conjugation in the Diatomaceae," "Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XX., 1847, pages 9-11, 343-4; "Further Observations on the Diatomaceae," loc. cit., 1848, page 161). See "Life and Letters" II., page 292.) I should attribute most of such structures to quite unknown laws of growth; and mere repetition of parts is to our eyes one main element of beauty. When any structure is of use (and I can show what curiously minute particulars are often of highest use), I can see with my prejudiced eyes no limit to the perfection of the cptations which could be effected by Natural Selection. I rather doubt whether you see how far, as it seems to me, the argument for homology and embryology may be carried. I do not look at this as mere analogy. I would as soon believe that fossil shells were mere mockeries of real shells as that the same bones in the foot of a dog and wing of a bat, or the similar embryo of mammal and bird, had not a direct signification, and that the signification can be unity of descent or nothing. But I venture to repeat how much pleased I am that you go some little way with me. I find a number of naturalists do the same, and as their halting-places are various, and I must think arbitrary, I believe they will all go further. As for changing at once one's opinion, I would not value the opinion of a man who could do so; it must be a slow process. (97/2. Darwin wrote to Woodward in regard to the "Origin": "It may be a vain and silly thing to say, but I believe my must be read twice carefully to be fully understood. You will perhaps think it by no means worth the labour.") Thank you for telling me about the Lantana (97/3. An exotic species of Lantana (Verbenaceae) grows vigorously in Ceylon, and is described as frequently making its appearance after the firing of the low-country forests (see H.H.W. Pearson, "The Botany of the Ceylon Patanas," "Journal Linn. Soc." Volume XXXIV., page 317, 1899). No doubt Thwaites' letter to Darwin referred to the spreading of the introduced Lantana, comparable to that of the cardoon in La Plata and of other plants mentioned by Darwin in the "Origin of Species" (Edition VI., page 51).), and I should at any time be most grateful for any information which you think would be of use to me. I hope that you will publish a list of all naturalised plants in Ceylon, as far as known, carefully distinguishing those confined to cultivated soils alone. I feel sure that this most important subject has been greatly undervalued.
LETTER 98. TO T.H. HUXLEY.
(98/1. The reference here is to the review on the "Origin of Species" generally believed to be by the late Sir R. Owen, and published in the April number of the "Edinburgh Review," 1860. Owen's biographer is silent on the subject, and prints, without comment, the following passage in an undated letter from Sedgwick to Owen: "Do you know who was the author of the article in the "Edinburgh" on the subject of Darwin's theory? On the whole, I think it very good. I once suspected that you must have had a hand in it, and I then abandoned that thought. I have not read it with any care" (Owen's "Life," Volume II., page 96).
April 9th {1860}.
I never saw such an amount of misrepresentation. At page 530 (98/2. "Lasting and fruitful conclusions have, indeed, hitherto been based only on the possession of knowledge; now we are called upon to accept an hypothesis on the plea of want of knowledge. The geological record, it is averred, is so imperfect!"—"Edinburgh Review," CXI., 1860, page 530.) he says we are called on to accept the hypothesis on the plea of ignorance, whereas I think I could not have made it clearer that I admit the imperfection of the Geological Record as a great difficulty.
The quotation (98/3. "We are appealed to, or at least 'the young and rising naturalists with plastic minds,* {On the Nature of the Limbs, page 482} are adjured." It will be seen that the inverted comma after "naturalists" is omitted; the asterisk referring, in a footnote (here placed in square brackets), to page 482 of the "Origin," seems to have been incorrectly assumed by Mr. Darwin to show the close of the quotation.—Ibid., page 512.) on page 512 of the "Review" about "young and rising naturalists with plastic minds," attributed to "nature of limbs," is a false quotation, as I do not use the words "plastic minds."
At page 501 (98/4. The passage ("Origin," Edition I., page 483) begins, "But do they really believe...," and shows clearly that the author considers such a belief all but impossible.) the quotation is garbled, for I only ask whether naturalists believe about elemental atoms flashing, etc., and he changes it into that I state that they do believe.
At page 500 (98/5. "All who have brought the transmutation speculation to the test of observed facts and ascertained powers in organic life, and have published the results, usually adverse to such speculations, are set down by Mr. Darwin as 'curiously illustrating the blindness of preconceived opinion.'" The passage in the "Origin," page 482, begins by expressing surprise at the point of view of some naturalists: "They admit that a multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves thought were special creations,...have been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend the same view to other and very slightly different forms...They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion.") it is very false to say that I imply by "blindness of preconceived opinion" the simple belief of creation. And so on in other cases. But I beg pardon for troubling you. I am heartily sorry that in your unselfish endeavours to spread what you believe to be truth, you should have incurred so brutal an attack. (98/6. The "Edinburgh" Reviewer, referring to Huxley's Royal Institution Lecture given February 10th, 1860, "On Species and Races and their Origin," says (page 521), "We gazed with amazement at the audacity of the dispenser of the hour's intellectual amusement, who, availing himself of the technical ignorance of the majority of his auditors, sought to blind them as to the frail foundations of 'natural selection' by such illustrations as the subjoined": And then follows a critique of the lecturer's comparison of the supposed descent of the horse from the Palaeothere with that of various kinds of domestic pigeons from the Rock-pigeon.) And now I will not think any more of this false and malignant attack.
LETTER 99. TO MAXWELL MASTERS. Down, April 13th {1860}.
I thank you very sincerely for your two kind notes. The next time you write to your father I beg you to give him from me my best thanks, but I am sorry that he should have had the trouble of writing when ill. I have been much interested by the facts given by him. If you think he would in the least care to hear the result of an artificial cross of two sweet peas, you can send the enclosed; if it will only trouble him, tear it up. There seems to be so much parallelism in the kind of variation from my experiment, which was certainly a cross, and what Mr. Masters has observed, that I cannot help suspecting that his peas were crossed by bees, which I have seen well dusted with the pollen of the sweet pea; but then I wish this, and how hard it is to prevent one's wish biassing one's judgment!
I was struck with your remark about the Compositae, etc. I do not see that it bears much against me, and whether it does or not is of course of not the slightest importance. Although I fully agree that no definition can be drawn between monstrosities and slight variations (such as my theory requires), yet I suspect there is some distinction. Some facts lead me to think that monstrosities supervene generally at an early age; and after attending to the subject I have great doubts whether species in a state of nature ever become modified by such sudden jumps as would result from the Natural Selection of monstrosities. You cannot do me a greater service than by pointing out errors. I sincerely hope that your work on monstrosities (99/1. "Vegetable Teratology," London, 1869 (Ray Soc.).) will soon appear, for I am sure it will be highly instructive.
Now for your notes, for which let me again thank you.
1. Your conclusion about parts developed (99/2. See "Origin of Species," Edition I., page 153, on the variability of parts "developed in an extraordinary manner in any one species, compared with the other species of the same genus." See "Life and Letters," II., pages 97, 98, also Letter 33.) not being extra variable agrees with Hooker's. You will see that I have stated that the rule apparently does not hold with plants, though it ought, if true, to hold good with them.
2. I cannot now remember in what work I saw the statement about Peloria affecting the axis, but I know it was one which I thought might be trusted. I consulted also Dr. Falconer, and I think that he agreed to the truth of it; but I cannot now tell where to look for my notes. I had been much struck with finding a Laburnum tree with the terminal flowers alone in each raceme peloric, though not perfectly regular. The Pelargonium case in the "Origin" seems to point in the same direction. (99/3. "Origin of Species," Edition I., page 145.)
3. Thanks for the correction about furze: I found the seedlings just sprouting, and was so much surprised and their appearance that I sent them to Hooker; but I never plainly asked myself whether they were cotyledons or first leaves. (99/4. The trifoliate leaves of furze seedlings are not cotyledons, but early leaves: see Lubbock's "Seedlings," I., page 410.)
4. That is a curious fact about the seeds of the furze, the more curious as I found with Leguminosae that immersion in plain cold water for a very few days killed some kinds.
If at any time anything should occur to you illustrating or opposing my notions, and you have leisure to inform me, I should be truly grateful, for I can plainly see that you have wealth of knowledge.
With respect to advancement or retrogression in organisation in monstrosities of the Compositae, etc., do you not find it very difficult to define which is which?
Anyhow, most botanists seem to differ as widely as possible on this head.
LETTER 100. TO J.S. HENSLOW. Down, May 8th {1860}.
Very many thanks about the Elodea, which case interests me much. I wrote to Mr. Marshall (100/1. W. Marshall was the author of "Anacharis alsinastrum, a new water-weed": four letters to the "Cambridge Independent Press," reprinted as a pamphlet, 1852.) at Ely, and in due time he says he will send me whatever information he can procure.
Owen is indeed very spiteful. (100/2. Owen was believed to be the author of the article in the "Edinburgh Review," April, 1860. See Letter 98.) He misrepresents and alters what I say very unfairly. But I think his conduct towards Hooker most ungenerous: viz., to allude to his essay (Australian Flora), and not to notice the magnificent results on geographical distribution. The Londoners say he is mad with envy because my has been talked about; what a strange man to be envious of a naturalist like myself, immeasurably his inferior! From one conversation with him I really suspect he goes at the bottom of his hidden soul as far as I do.
I wonder whether Sedgwick noticed in the "Edinburgh Review" about the "Sacerdotal revilers,"—so the revilers are tearing each other to pieces. I suppose Sedgwick will be very fierce against me at the Philosophical Society. (100/3. The meeting of the "Cambridge Phil. Soc." was held on May 7th, 1860, and fully reported in the "Cambridge Chronicle," May 19th. Sedgwick is reported to have said that "Darwin's theory is not inductive—is not based on a series of acknowledged facts, leading to a general conclusion evolved, logically out of the facts...The only facts he pretends to adduce, as true elements of proof, are the varieties produced by domestication and the artifices of crossbreeding." Sedgwick went on to speak of the vexatious multiplication of supposed species, and adds, "In this respect Darwin's theory may help to simplify our classifications, and thereby do good service to modern science. But he has not undermined any grand truth in the constancy of natural laws, and the continuity of true species.") Judging from his notice in the "Spectator," (100/4. March 24th, 1860; see "Life and Letters," II., page 297.) he will misrepresent me, but it will certainly be unintentionally done. In a letter to me, and in the above notice, he talks much about my departing from the spirit of inductive philosophy. I wish, if you ever talk on the subject to him, you would ask him whether it was not allowable (and a great step) to invent the undulatory theory of light, i.e. hypothetical undulations, in a hypothetical substance, the ether. And if this be so, why may I not invent the hypothesis of Natural Selection (which from the analogy of domestic productions, and from what we know of the struggle for existence and of the variability of organic beings, is, in some very slight degree, in itself probable) and try whether this hypothesis of Natural Selection does not explain (as I think it does) a large number of facts in geographical distribution—geological succession, classification, morphology, embryology, etc. I should really much like to know why such an hypothesis as the undulation of the ether may be invented, and why I may not invent (not that I did invent it, for I was led to it by studying domestic varieties) any hypothesis, such as Natural Selection.
Pray forgive me and my pen for running away with me, and scribbling on at such length.
I can perfectly understand Sedgwick (100/5. See "Life and Letters," II., page 247; the letter is there dated December 24th, but must, we think, have been written in November at latest.) or any one saying that Natural Selection does not explain large classes of facts; but that is very different from saying that I depart from right principles of scientific investigation.
LETTER 101. TO J.S. HENSLOW. Down, May 14th {1860}.
I have been greatly interested by your letter to Hooker, and I must thank you from my heart for so generously defending me, as far as you could, against my powerful attackers. Nothing which persons say hurts me for long, for I have an entire conviction that I have not been influenced by bad feelings in the conclusions at which I have arrived. Nor have I published my conclusions without long deliberation, and they were arrived at after far more study than the public will ever know of, or believe in. I am certain to have erred in many points, but I do not believe so much as Sedgwick and Co. think.
Is there any Abstract or Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society published? (101/1. Henslow's remarks are not given in the above-mentioned report in the "Cambridge Chronicle.") If so, and you could get me a copy, I should like to have one.
Believe me, my dear Henslow, I feel grateful to you on this occasion, and for the multitude of kindnesses you have done me from my earliest days at Cambridge.
LETTER 102. TO C. LYELL. Down, May 22nd {1860}.
Hooker has sent me a letter of Thwaites (102/1. See Letter 97.), of Ceylon, who makes exactly the same objections which you did at first about the necessity of all forms advancing, and therefore the difficulty of simple forms still existing. There was no worse omission than this in my and I had the discussion all ready.
I am extremely glad to hear that you intend adding new arguments about the imperfection of the Geological Record. I always feel this acutely, and am surprised that such men as Ramsay and Jukes do not feel it more.
I quite agree on insufficient evidence about mummy wheat. (102/2. See notes appended to a letter to Lyell, September 1843 (Botany).
When you can spare it, I should like (but out of mere curiosity) to see Binney on Coal marine marshes.
I once made Hooker very savage by saying that I believed the Coal plants grew in the sea, like mangroves. (102/3. See "Life and Letters," I., page 356.)
LETTER 103. TO J.D. HOOKER.
(103/1. This letter is of interest as containing a strong expression upon the overwhelming importance of selection.)
Down {1860}.
Many thanks for Harvey's letter (103/2. W.H. Harvey had been corresponding with Sir J.D. Hooker on the "Origin of Species."), which I will keep a little longer and then return. I will write to him and try to make clear from analogy of domestic productions the part which I believe selection has played. I have been reworking my pigeons and other domestic animals, and I am sure that any one is right in saying that selection is the efficient cause, though, as you truly say, variation is the base of all. Why I do not believe so much as you do in physical agencies is that I see in almost every organism (though far more clearly in animals than in plants) adaptation, and this except in rare instances, must, I should think, be due to selection.
Do not forget the Pyrola when in flower. (103/3. In a letter to Hooker, May 22nd, 1860, Darwin wrote: "Have you Pyrola at Kew? if so, for heaven's sake observe the curvature of the pistil towards the gangway to the nectary." The fact of the stigma in insect-visited flowers being so placed that the visitor must touch it on its way to the nectar, was a point which early attracted Darwin's attention and strongly impressed him.) My blessed little Scaevola has come into flower, and I will try artificial fertilisation on it.
I have looked over Harvey's letter, and have assumed (I hope rightly) that he could not object to knowing that you had forwarded it to me.
LETTER 104. TO ASA GRAY. Down, June 8th {1860}.
I have to thank you for two notes, one through Hooker, and one with some letters to be posted, which was done. I anticipated your request by making a few remarks on Owen's review. (104/1. "The Edinburgh Review," April, 1860.) Hooker is so weary of reviews that I do not think you will get any hints from him. I have lately had many more "kicks than halfpence." A review in the last Dublin "Nat. Hist. Review" is the most unfair thing which has appeared,—one mass of misrepresentation. It is evidently by Haughton, the geologist, chemist and mathematician. It shows immeasurable conceit and contempt of all who are not mathematicians. He discusses bees' cells, and puts a series which I have never alluded to, and wholly ignores the intermediate comb of Melipona, which alone led me to my notions. The article is a curiosity of unfairness and arrogance; but, as he sneers at Malthus, I am content, for it is clear he cannot reason. He is a friend of Harvey, with whom I have had some correspondence. Your article has clearly, as he admits, influenced him. He admits to a certain extent Natural Selection, yet I am sure does not understand me. It is strange that very few do, and I am become quite convinced that I must be an extremely bad explainer. To recur for a moment to Owen: he grossly misrepresents and is very unfair to Huxley. You say that you think the article must be by a pupil of Owen; but no one fact tells so strongly against Owen, considering his former position at the College of Surgeons, as that he has never reared one pupil or follower. In the number just out of "Fraser's Magazine" (104/2. See "Life and Letters," II., page 314.) there is an article or review on Lamarck and me by W. Hopkins, the mathematician, who, like Haughton, despises the reasoning power of all naturalists. Personally he is extremely kind towards me; but he evidently in the following number means to blow me into atoms. He does not in the least appreciate the difference in my views and Lamarck's, as explaining adaptation, the principle of divergence, the increase of dominant groups, and the almost necessary extinction of the less dominant and smaller groups, etc.
LETTER 105. TO C. LYELL. Down, June 17th {1860}.
One word more upon the Deification (105/1. "If we confound 'Variation' or 'Natural Selection' with such creational laws, we deify secondary causes or immeasurably exaggerate their influence" (Lyell, "The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks on Theories on the Origin of Species by Variation," page 469, London, 1863). See Letter 131.) of Natural Selection: attributing so much weight to it does not exclude still more general laws, i.e. the ordering of the whole universe. I have said that Natural Selection is to the structure of organised beings what the human architect is to a building. The very existence of the human architect shows the existence of more general laws; but no one, in giving credit for a building to the human architect, thinks it necessary to refer to the laws by which man has appeared.
No astronomer, in showing how the movements of planets are due to gravity, thinks it necessary to say that the law of gravity was designed that the planets should pursue the courses which they pursue. I cannot believe that there is a bit more interference by the Creator in the construction of each species than in the course of the planets. It is only owing to Paley and Co., I believe, that this more special interference is thought necessary with living bodies. But we shall never agree, so do not trouble yourself to answer.
I should think your remarks were very just about mathematicians not being better enabled to judge of probabilities than other men of common-sense.
I have just got more returns about the gestation of hounds. The period differs at least from sixty-one to seventy-four days, just as I expected.
I was thinking of sending the "Gardeners' Chronicle" to you, on account of a paper by me on the fertilisation of orchids by insects (105/2. "Fertilisation of British Orchids by Insect Agency." This article in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" of June 9th, 1860, page 528, begins with a request that observations should be made on the manner of fertilisation in the bee-and in the fly-orchis.), as it involves a curious point, and as you cared about my paper on kidney beans; but as you are so busy, I will not.
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