Chapter III. in his "Darwiniana" (1876). See "Life and Letters," II.,
page 338. The article referred to in the present letter is that in the
August number.)
Down, September 10th [1860].
I send by this post a review by Asa Gray, so good that I should like you
to see it; I must beg for its return. I want to ask, also, your opinion
about getting it reprinted in England. I thought of sending it to the
Editor of the "Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist." in which two hostile
reviews have appeared (although I suppose the "Annals" have a very poor
circulation), and asking them in the spirit of fair play to print this,
with Asa Gray's name, which I will take the responsibility of adding.
Also, as it is long, I would offer to pay expenses.
It is very good, in addition, as bringing in Pictet so largely.
(111/2. Pictet (1809-72) wrote a "perfectly fair" review opposed to the
"Origin." See "Life and Letters," II., page 297.) Tell me briefly what
you think.
What an astonishing expedition this is of Hooker's to Syria! God knows
whether it is wise.
How are you and all yours? I hope you are not working too hard. For
Heaven's sake, think that you may become such a beast as I am. How goes
on the "Nat. Hist. Review?" Talking of reviews, I damned with a good
grace the review in the "Athenaeum" (111/3. Review of "The Glaciers of
the Alps" ("Athenaeum," September 1, 1860, page 280).) on Tyndall with a
mean, scurvy allusion to you. It is disgraceful about Tyndall,--in fact,
doubting his veracity.
I am very tired, and hate nearly the whole world. So good-night, and
take care of your digestion, which means brain.
LETTER 112. TO C. LYELL. 15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, 26th [September
1860].
It has just occurred to me that I took no notice of your questions on
extinction in St. Helena. I am nearly sure that Hooker has information
on the extinction of plants (112/1. "Principles of Geology," Volume II.
(Edition X., 1868), page 453. Facts are quoted from Hooker illustrating
the extermination of plants in St. Helena.), but I cannot remember
where I have seen it. One may confidently assume that many insects were
exterminated.
By the way, I heard lately from Wollaston, who told me that he had just
received eminently Madeira and Canary Island insect forms from the Cape
of Good Hope, to which trifling distance, if he is logical, he will have
to extend his Atlantis! I have just received your letter, and am very
much pleased that you approve. But I am utterly disgusted and ashamed
about the dingo. I cannot think how I could have misunderstood the paper
so grossly. I hope I have not blundered likewise in its co-existence
with extinct species: what horrid blundering! I am grieved to hear that
you think I must work in the notes in the text; but you are so much
better a judge that I will obey. I am sorry that you had the trouble of
returning the Dog MS., which I suppose I shall receive to-morrow.
I mean to give good woodcuts of all the chief races of pigeons. (112/2.
"The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," 1868.)
Except the C. oenas (112/3. The Columba oenas of Europe roosts on trees
and builds its nest in holes, either in trees or the ground ("Var.
of Animals," Volume I., page 183).) (which is partly, indeed almost
entirely, a wood pigeon), there is no other rock pigeon with which
our domestic pigeon would cross--that is, if several exceedingly close
geographical races of C. livia, which hardly any ornithologist looks at
as true species, be all grouped under C. livia. (112/4. Columba livia,
the Rock-pigeon. "We may conclude with confidence that all the domestic
races, notwithstanding their great amount of difference, are descended
from the Columba livia, including under this name certain wild races"
(op. cit., Volume I., page 223).)
I am writing higgledy-piggledy, as I re-read your letter. I thought that
my letter had been much wilder than yours. I quite feel the comfort of
writing when one may "alter one's speculations the day after." It is
beyond my knowledge to weigh ranks of birds and monotremes; in the
respiratory and circulatory system and muscular energy I believe birds
are ahead of all mammals.
I knew that you must have known about New Guinea; but in writing to you
I never make myself civil!
After treating some half-dozen or dozen domestic animals in the same
manner as I treat dogs, I intended to have a chapter of conclusions.
But Heaven knows when I shall finish: I get on very slowly. You would be
surprised how long it took me to pick out what seemed useful about dogs
out of multitudes of details.
I see the force of your remark about more isolated races of man in old
times, and therefore more in number. It seems to me difficult to weigh
probabilities. Perhaps so, if you refer to very slight differences in
the races: to make great differences much time would be required, and
then, even at the earliest period I should have expected one race to
have spread, conquered, and exterminated the others.
With respect to Falconer's series of Elephants (112/5. In 1837 Dr.
Falconer and Sir Proby Cautley collected a large number of fossil
remains from the Siwalik Hills. Falconer and Cautley, "Fauna Antiqua
Sivalensis," 1845-49.), I think the case could be answered better than
I have done in the "Origin," page 334. (112/6. "Origin of Species,"
Edition I., page 334. "It is no real objection to the truth of
the statement that the fauna of each period as a whole is nearly
intermediate in character between the preceding and succeeding faunas,
that certain genera offer exceptions to the rule. For instance,
mastodons and elephants, when arranged by Dr. Falconer in two series,
first according to their mutual affinities and then according to their
periods of existence, do not accord in arrangement. The species extreme
in character are not the oldest, or the most recent; nor are those which
are intermediate in character intermediate in age. But supposing for
an instant, in this and other such cases, that the record of the first
appearance and disappearance of the species was perfect, we have no
reason to believe that forms successively produced necessarily
endure for corresponding lengths of time. A very ancient form might
occasionally last much longer than a form elsewhere subsequently
produced, especially in the case of terrestrial productions inhabiting
separated districts" (pages 334-5). The same words occur in the
later edition of the "Origin" (Edition VI., page 306.) All these new
discoveries show how imperfect the discovered series is, which Falconer
thought years ago was nearly perfect.
I will send to-day or to-morrow two articles by Asa Gray. The longer
one (now not finally corrected) will come out in the October "Atlantic
Monthly," and they can be got at Trubner's. Hearty thanks for all your
kindness.
Do not hurry over Asa Gray. He strikes me as one of the best reasoners
and writers I ever read. He knows my book as well as I do myself.
LETTER 113. TO C. LYELL. 15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, October 3rd
[1860].
Your last letter has interested me much in many ways.
I enclose a letter of Wyman's which touches on brains. Wyman is mistaken
in supposing that I did not know that the Cave-rat was an American form;
I made special enquiries. He does not know that the eye of the Tucotuco
was carefully dissected.
With respect to reviews by A. Gray. I thought of sending the Dialogue
to the "Saturday Review" in a week's time or so, as they have lately
discussed Design. (113/1. "Discussion between two Readers of Darwin's
Treatise on the Origin of Species, upon its Natural Theology" ("Amer.
Journ. Sci." Volume XXX, page 226, 1860). Reprinted in "Darwiniana,"
1876, page 62. The article begins with the following question: "First
Reader--Is Darwin's theory atheistic or pantheistic? Or does it tend to
atheism or pantheism?" The discussion is closed by the Second Reader,
who thus sums up his views: "Wherefore we may insist that, for all
that yet appears, the argument for design, as presented by the natural
theologians, is just as good now, if we accept Darwin's theory, as it
was before the theory was promulgated; and that the sceptical juryman,
who was about to join the other eleven in an unanimous verdict in favour
of design, finds no good excuse for keeping the Court longer waiting.")
I have sent the second, or August, "Atlantic" article to the "Annals and
Mag. of Nat. History." (113/2. "Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume VI.,
pages 373-86, 1860. (From the "Atlantic Monthly," August, 1860.)) The
copy which you have I want to send to Pictet, as I told A. Gray I
would, thinking from what he said he would like this to be done. I doubt
whether it would be possible to get the October number reprinted in this
country; so that I am in no hurry at all for this.
I had a letter a few weeks ago from Symonds on the imperfection of the
Geological Record, less clear and forcible than I expected. I answered
him at length and very civilly, though I could hardly make out what
he was driving at. He spoke about you in a way which it did me good to
read.
I am extremely glad that you like A. Gray's reviews. How generous and
unselfish he has been in all his labour! Are you not struck by his
metaphors and similes? I have told him he is a poet and not a lawyer.
I should altogether doubt on turtles being converted into land tortoises
on any one island. Remember how closely similar tortoises are on all
continents, as well as islands; they must have all descended from one
ancient progenitor, including the gigantic tortoise of the Himalaya.
I think you must be cautious in not running the convenient doctrine that
only one species out of very many ever varies. Reflect on such cases as
the fauna and flora of Europe, North America, and Japan, which are so
similar, and yet which have a great majority of their species either
specifically distinct, or forming well-marked races. We must in such
cases incline to the belief that a multitude of species were once
identically the same in all the three countries when under a warmer
climate and more in connection; and have varied in all the three
countries. I am inclined to believe that almost every species (as we
see with nearly all our domestic productions) varies sufficiently for
Natural Selection to pick out and accumulate new specific differences,
under new organic and inorganic conditions of life, whenever a place is
open in the polity of nature. But looking to a long lapse of time and to
the whole world, or to large parts of the world, I believe only one or
a few species of each large genus ultimately becomes victorious, and
leaves modified descendants. To give an imaginary instance: the jay has
become modified in the three countries into (I believe) three or four
species; but the jay genus is not, apparently, so dominant a group
as the crows; and in the long run probably all the jays will be
exterminated and be replaced perhaps by some modified crows.
I merely give this illustration to show what seems to me probable.
But oh! what work there is before we shall understand the genealogy of
organic beings!
With respect to the Apteryx, I know not enough of anatomy; but ask Dr.
F. whether the clavicle, etc., do not give attachment to some of the
muscles of respiration. If my views are at all correct, the wing of the
Apteryx (113/3. "Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 140.) cannot be
(page 452 of the "Origin") a nascent organ, as these wings are useless.
I dare not trust to memory, but I know I found the whole sternum always
reduced in size in all the fancy and confined pigeons relatively to the
same bones in the wild Rock-pigeon: the keel was generally still further
reduced relatively to the reduced length of the sternum; but in some
breeds it was in a most anomalous manner more prominent. I have got a
lot of facts on the reduction of the organs of flight in the pigeon,
which took me weeks to work out, and which Huxley thought curious.
I am utterly ashamed, and groan over my handwriting. It was "Natural
Preservation." Natural persecution is what the author ought to suffer.
It rejoices me that you do not object to the term. Hooker made the same
remark that it ought to have been "Variation and Natural Selection."
Yet with domestic productions, when selection is spoken of, variation is
always implied. But I entirely agree with your and Hooker's remark.
Have you begun regularly to write your book on the antiquity of man?
(113/4. Published in 1863.)
I do NOT agree with your remark that I make Natural Selection do too
much work. You will perhaps reply that every man rides his hobby-horse
to death; and that I am in the galloping state.
LETTER 114. TO C. LYELL. 15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, Friday 5th
[October, 1860].
I have two notes to thank you for, and I return Wollaston. It has always
seemed to me rather strange that Forbes, Wollaston and Co. should argue,
from the presence of allied, and not identical species in islands, for
the former continuity of land.
They argue, I suppose, from the species being allied in different
regions of the same continent, though specifically distinct. But I think
one might on the creative doctrine argue with equal force in a directly
reverse manner, and say that, as species are so often markedly distinct,
yet allied, on islands, all our continents existed as islands first, and
their inhabitants were first created on these islands, and since became
mingled together, so as not to be so distinct as they now generally are
on islands.
LETTER 115. TO H.G. BRONN. Down, October 5th [1860].
I ought to apologise for troubling you, but I have at last carefully
read your excellent criticisms on my book. (115/1. Bronn added critical
remarks to his German translation of the "Origin": see "Life and
Letters," II., page 279.) I agree with much of them, and wholly with
your final sentence. The objections and difficulties which may be urged
against my view are indeed heavy enough almost to break my back, but it
is not yet broken! You put very well and very fairly that I can in
no one instance explain the course of modification in any particular
instance. I could make some sort of answer to your case of the two rats;
and might I not turn round and ask him who believes in the separate
creation of each species, why one rat has a longer tail or shorter ears
than another? I presume that most people would say that these characters
were of some use, or stood in some connection with other parts; and if
so, Natural Selection would act on them. But as you put the case,
it tells well against me. You argue most justly against my question,
whether the many species were created as eggs (115/2. See Letter 110.)
or as mature, etc. I certainly had no right to ask that question.
I fully agree that there might have been as well a hundred thousand
creations as eight or ten, or only one. But then, on the view of eight
or ten creations (i.e. as many as there are distinct types of structure)
we can on my view understand the homological and embryological
resemblance of all the organisms of each type, and on this ground almost
alone I disbelieve in the innumerable acts of creation. There are only
two points on which I think you have misunderstood me. I refer only to
one Glacial period as affecting the distribution of organic beings; I
did not wish even to allude to the doubtful evidence of glacial action
in the Permian and Carboniferous periods. Secondly, I do not believe
that the process of development has always been carried on at the same
rate in all different parts of the world. Australia is opposed to such
belief. The nearly contemporaneous equal development in past periods I
attribute to the slow migration of the higher and more dominant forms
over the whole world, and not to independent acts of development in
different parts. Lastly, permit me to add that I cannot see the force
of your objection, that nothing is effected until the origin of life is
explained: surely it is worth while to attempt to follow out the action
of electricity, though we know not what electricity is.
If you should at any time do me the favour of writing to me, I should
be very much obliged if you would inform me whether you have yourself
examined Brehm's subspecies of birds; for I have looked through some of
his writings, but have never met an ornithologist who believed in his
[illegible]. Are these subspecies really characteristic of certain
different regions of Germany?
Should you write, I should much like to know how the German edition
sells.
LETTER 116. TO J.S. HENSLOW. October 26th [1860].
Many thanks for your note and for all the trouble about the seeds, which
will be most useful to me next spring. On my return home I will send the
shillings. (116/1. Shillings for the little girls in Henslow's parish
who collected seeds for Darwin.) I concluded that Dr. Bree had blundered
about the Celts. I care not for his dull, unvarying abuse of me,
and singular misrepresentation. But at page 244 he in fact doubts my
deliberate word, and that is the act of a man who has not the soul of a
gentleman in him. Kingsley is "the celebrated author and divine"
(116/2. "Species not Transmutable," by C.R. Bree. After quoting from the
"Origin," Edition II., page 481, the words in which a celebrated author
and divine confesses that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is
just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few
original forms, etc.," Dr. Bree goes on: "I think we ought to have had
the name of this divine given with this remarkable statement. I confess
that I have not yet fully made up my mind that any divine could have
ever penned lines so fatal to the truths he is called upon to
teach.") whose striking sentence I give in the second edition with his
permission. I did not choose to ask him to let me use his name, and as
he did not volunteer, I had of course no choice. (116/3. We are indebted
to Mr. G.W. Prothero for calling our attention to the following striking
passage from the works of a divine of this period:--"Just a similar
scepticism has been evinced by nearly all the first physiologists of the
day, who have joined in rejecting the development theories of Lamarck
and the 'Vestiges'...Yet it is now acknowledged under the high sanction
of the name of Owen that 'creation' is only another name for our
ignorance of the mode of production...while a work has now appeared by
a naturalist of the most acknowledged authority, Mr. Darwin's masterly
volume on the 'Origin of Species,' by the law of 'natural selection,'
which now substantiates on undeniable grounds the very principle so long
denounced by the first naturalists--the origination of new species by
natural causes: a work which must soon bring about an entire revolution
of opinion in favour of the grand principle of the self-evolving
powers of nature."--Prof. Baden Powell's "Study of the Evidences of
Christianity," "Essays and Reviews," 7th edition, 1861 (pages 138,
139).)
Dr. Freke has sent me his paper, which is far beyond my scope--something
like the capital quiz in the "Anti-Jacobin" on my grandfather, which was
quoted in the "Quarterly Review."
LETTER 117. TO D.T. ANSTED.
(117/1. The following letter was published in Professor Meldola's
presidential address to the Entomological Society, 1897, and to him we
are indebted for a copy.)
15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, October 27th [1860].
As I am away from home on account of my daughter's health, I do not
know your address, and fly this at random, and it is of very little
consequence if it never reaches you.
I have just been reading the greater part of your "Geological Gossip,"
and have found part very interesting; but I want to express my
admiration at the clear and correct manner in which you have given a
sketch of Natural Selection. You will think this very slight praise;
but I declare that the majority of readers seem utterly incapable
of comprehending my long argument. Some of the reviewers, who have
servilely stuck to my illustrations and almost to my words, have been
correct, but extraordinarily few others have succeeded. I can see
plainly, by your new illustrations and manner and order of putting the
case, that you thoroughly comprehend the subject. I assure you this is
most gratifying to me, and it is the sole way in which the public can
be indoctrinated. I am often in despair in making the generality of
NATURALISTS even comprehend me. Intelligent men who are not naturalists
and have not a bigoted idea of the term species, show more clearness
of mind. I think that you have done the subject a real service, and I
sincerely thank you. No doubt there will be much error found in my book,
but I have great confidence that the main view will be, in time, found
correct; for I find, without exception, that those naturalists who went
at first one inch with me now go a foot or yard with me.
This note obviously requires no answer.
LETTER 118. TO H.W. BATES. Down, November 22nd [1860].
I thank you sincerely for writing to me and for your very interesting
letter. Your name has for very long been familiar to me, and I have
heard of your zealous exertions in the cause of Natural History. But
I did not know that you had worked with high philosophical questions
before your mind. I have an old belief that a good observer really means
a good theorist (118/1. For an opposite opinion, see Letter 13.), and I
fully expect to find your observations most valuable. I am very sorry to
hear that your health is shattered; but I trust under a healthy climate
it may be restored. I can sympathise with you fully on this score, for
I have had bad health for many years, and fear I shall ever remain a
confirmed invalid. I am delighted to hear that you, with all your large
practical knowledge of Natural History, anticipated me in many respects
and concur with me. As you say, I have been thoroughly well attacked and
reviled (especially by entomologists--Westwood, Wollaston, and A. Murray
have all reviewed and sneered at me to their hearts' content), but I
care nothing about their attacks; several really good judges go a long
way with me, and I observe that all those who go some little way tend
to go somewhat further. What a fine philosophical mind your friend Mr.
Wallace has, and he has acted, in relation to me, like a true man with
a noble spirit. I see by your letter that you have grappled with
several of the most difficult problems, as it seems to me, in Natural
History--such as the distinctions between the different kinds of
varieties, representative species, etc. Perhaps I shall find some facts
in your paper on intermediate varieties in intermediate regions, on
which subject I have found remarkably little information. I cannot tell
you how glad I am to hear that you have attended to the curious point
of equatorial refrigeration. I quite agree that it must have been small;
yet the more I go into that question the more convinced I feel that
there was during the Glacial period some migration from north to south.
The sketch in the "Origin" gives a very meagre account of my fuller MS.
essay on this subject.
I shall be particularly obliged for a copy of your paper when published
(118/2. Probably a paper by Bates entitled "Contributions to an Insect
Fauna of the Amazon Valley" ("Trans. Entomol. Soc." Volume V., page 335,
1858-61).); and if any suggestions occur to me (not that you require
any) or questions, I will write and ask.
I have at once to prepare a new edition of the "Origin," (118/3. Third
Edition, March, 1861.), and I will do myself the pleasure of sending you
a copy; but it will be only very slightly altered.
Cases of neuter ants, divided into castes, with intermediate gradations
(which I imagine are rare) interest me much. See "Origin" on the
driver-ant, page 241 (please look at the passage.)
LETTER 119. TO T.H. HUXLEY.
(119/1. This refers to the first number of the new series of the
"Natural History Review," 1861, a periodical which Huxley was largely
instrumental in founding, and of which he was an editor (see Letter
107). The first series was published in Dublin, and ran to seven volumes
between 1854 and 1860. The new series came to an end in 1865.)
Down, January, 3rd [1861].
I have just finished No. 1 of the "Natural History Review," and must
congratulate you, as chiefly concerned, on its excellence. The whole
seems to me admirable,--so admirable that it is impossible that other
numbers should be so good, but it would be foolish to expect it. I am
rather a croaker, and I do rather fear that the merit of the articles
will be above the run of common readers and subscribers. I have been
much interested by your brain article. (119/2. The "Brain article" of
Huxley bore the title "On the Zoological Relations of Man with the
Lower Animals," and appeared in No. 1, January 1861, page 67. It was Mr.
Huxley's vindication of the unqualified contradiction given by him
at the Oxford meeting of the British Association to Professor Owen's
assertions as to the difference between the brains of man and the higher
apes. The sentence omitted by Owen in his lecture before the University
of Cambridge was a footnote on the close structural resemblance between
Homo and Pithecus, which occurs in his paper on the characters of the
class Mammalia in the "Linn. Soc. Journal," Volume II., 1857, page 20.
According to Huxley the lecture, or "Essay on the Classification of the
Mammalia," was, with this omission, a reprint of the Linnean paper. In
"Man's Place in Nature," page 110, note, Huxley remarks: "Surely it is
a little singular that the 'anatomist,' who finds it 'difficult' to
'determine the difference' between Homo and Pithecus, should yet range
them, on anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes.") What a complete
and awful smasher (and done like a "buttered angel") it is for Owen!
What a humbug he is to have left out the sentence in the lecture before
the orthodox Cambridge dons! I like Lubbock's paper very much: how well
he writes. (119/3. Sir John Lubbock's paper was a review of Leydig on
the Daphniidae. M'Donnell's was "On the Homologies of the Electric Organ
of the Torpedo," afterwards used in the "Origin" (see Edition VI., page
150).) M'Donnell, of course, pleases me greatly. But I am very curious
to know who wrote the Protozoa article: I shall hear, if it be not a
secret, from Lubbock. It strikes me as very good, and, by Jove, how Owen
is shown up--"this great and sound reasoner"! By the way, this reminds
me of a passage which I have just observed in Owen's address at Leeds,
which a clever reviewer might turn into good fun. He defines (page xc)
and further on amplifies his definition that creation means "a process
he knows not what." And in a previous sentence he says facts shake his
confidence that the Apteryx in New Zealand and Red Grouse in England are
"distinct creations." So that he has no confidence that these birds
were produced by "processes he knows not what!" To what miserable
inconsistencies and rubbish this truckling to opposite opinions leads
the great generaliser! (119/4. In the "Historical Sketch," which forms
part of the later editions of the "Origin," Mr. Darwin made use of
Owen's Leeds Address in the manner sketched above. See "Origin," Edition
VI., page xvii.)
Farewell: I heartily rejoice in the clear merit of this number. I hope
Mrs. Huxley goes on well. Etty keeps much the same, but has not got up
to the same pitch as when you were here. Farewell.
LETTER 120. TO JAMES LAMONT. Down, February 25th [1861].
I am extremely much obliged for your very kind present of your beautiful
work, "Seasons with the Sea-Horses;" and I have no doubt that I shall
find much interesting from so careful and acute an observer as yourself.
(120/1. "Seasons with the Sea-Horses; or, Sporting Adventures in the
Northern Seas." London, 1861. Mr. Lamont (loc. cit., page 273) writes:
"The polar bear seems to me to be nothing more than a variety of the
bears inhabiting Northern Europe, Asia, and America; and it surely
requires no very great stretch of the imagination to suppose that
this variety was originally created, not as we see him now, but by
individuals of Ursus arctos in Siberia, who, finding their means of
subsistence running short, and pressed by hunger, ventured on the ice
and caught some seals. These individuals would find that they could
make a subsistence in this way, and would take up their residence on the
shore and gradually take to a life on the ice...Then it stands to reason
that those individuals who might happen to be palest in colour would
have the best chance of succeeding in surprising seals...The process
of Natural Selection would do the rest, and Ursus arctos would in the
course of a few thousands, or a few millions of years, be transformed
into the variety at present known as Ursus maritimus." The author adds
the following footnote (op. cit., page 275): "It will be obvious to
any one that I follow Mr. Darwin in these remarks; and, although the
substance of this chapter was written in Spitzbergen, before "The Origin
of Species" was published, I do not claim any originality for my views;
and I also cheerfully acknowledge that, but for the publication of that
work in connection with the name of so distinguished a naturalist, I
never would have ventured to give to the world my own humble opinions on
the subject.")
P.S. I have just been cutting the leaves of your book, and have been
very much pleased and surprised at your note about what you wrote in
Spitzbergen. As you thought it out independently, it is no wonder
that you so clearly understand Natural Selection, which so few of my
reviewers do or pretend not to do.
I never expected to see any one so heroically bold as to defend my
bear illustration. (120/2. "In North America the black bear was seen by
Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, almost
like a whale, insects in the water."--"Origin," Edition VI., page 141.
See Letter 110.) But a man who has done all that you have done must be
bold! It is laughable how often I have been attacked and misrepresented
about this bear. I am much pleased with your remarks, and thank you
cordially for coming to the rescue.
LETTER 121. TO W.B. TEGETMEIER.
(121/1. Mr. Darwin's letters to Mr. Tegetmeier, taken as a whole, give a
striking picture of the amount of assistance which Darwin received from
him during many years. Some citations from these letters given in "Life
and Letters," II., pages 52, 53, show how freely and generously Mr.
Tegetmeier gave his help, and how much his co-operation was valued.
The following letter is given as an example of the questions on which
Darwin sought Mr. Tegetmeier's opinion and guidance.)
Down, March 22 [1861].
I ought to have answered your last note sooner; but I have been very
busy. How wonderfully successful you have been in breeding Pouters! You
have a good right to be proud of your accuracy of eye and judgment. I
am in the thick of poultry, having just commenced, and shall be truly
grateful for the skulls, if you can send them by any conveyance to the
Nag's Head next Thursday.
You ask about vermilion wax: positively it was not in the state of comb,
but in solid bits and cakes, which were thrown with other rubbish not
far from my hives. You can make any use of the fact you like. Combs
could be concentrically and variously coloured and dates recorded by
giving for a few days wax darkly coloured with vermilion and indigo,
and I daresay other substances. You ask about my crossed fowls, and this
leads me to make a proposition to you, which I hope cannot be offensive
to you. I trust you know me too well to think that I would propose
anything objectionable to the best of my judgment. The case is this: for
my object of treating poultry I must give a sketch of several breeds,
with remarks on various points. I do not feel strong on the subject.
Now, when my MS. is fairly copied in an excellent handwriting, would
you read it over, which would take you at most an hour or two, and make
comments in pencil on it; and accept, like a barrister, a fee, we will
say, of a couple of guineas. This would be a great assistance to me,
specially if you would allow me to put a note, stating that you, a
distinguished judge and fancier, had read it over. I would state that
you doubted or concurred, as each case might be, of course striking out
what you were sure was incorrect. There would be little new in my MS. to
you; but if by chance you used any of my facts or conclusions before I
published, I should wish you to state that they were on my authority;
otherwise I shall be accused of stealing from you. There will be little
new, except that perhaps I have consulted some out-of-the-way books, and
have corresponded with some good authorities. Tell me frankly what you
think of this; but unless you will oblige me by accepting remuneration,
I cannot and will not give you such trouble. I have little doubt that
several points will arise which will require investigation, as I care
for many points disregarded by fanciers; and according to any time thus
spent, you will, I trust, allow me to make remuneration. I hope that
you will grant me this favour. There is one assistance which I will now
venture to beg of you--viz., to get me, if you can, another specimen
of an old white Angora rabbit. I want it dead for the skeleton; and not
knocked on the head. Secondly, I see in the "Cottage Gardener" (March
19th, page 375) there are impure half-lops with one ear quite upright
and shorter than the other lopped ear. I much want a dead one. Baker
cannot get one. Baily is looking out; but I want two specimens. Can you
assist me, if you meet any rabbit-fancier? I have had rabbits with
one ear more lopped than the other; but I want one with one ear quite
upright and shorter, and the other quite long and lopped.
LETTER 122. TO H.W. BATES. Down, March 26th [1861].
I have read your papers with extreme interest, and I have carefully read
every word of them. (122/1. "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the
Amazon Valley." (Read March 5th and November 24th, 1860). "Entomological
Soc. Trans." V., pages 223 and 335).) They seem to me to be far richer
in facts of variation, and especially on the distribution of varieties
and subspecies, than anything which I have read. Hereafter I shall
re-read them, and hope in my future work to profit by them and make use
of them. The amount of variation has much surprised me. The analogous
variation of distinct species in the same regions strikes me as
particularly curious. The greater variability of the female sex is new
to me. Your Guiana case seems in some degree analogous, as far as plants
are concerned, with the modern plains of La Plata, which seem to
have been colonised from the north, but the species have been hardly
modified. (122/2. Mr. Bates (page 349) gives reason to believe that the
Guiana region should be considered "a perfectly independent province,"
and that it has formed a centre "whence radiated the species which now
people the low lands on its borders.")
Would you kindly answer me two or three questions if in your power? When
species A becomes modified in another region into a well-marked form C,
but is connected with it by one (or more) gradational forms B inhabiting
an intermediate region; does this form B generally exist in equal
numbers with A and C, OR INHABIT AN EQUALLY LARGE AREA? The probability
is that you cannot answer this question, though one of your cases seems
to bear on it...
You will, I think, be glad to hear that I now often hear of naturalists
accepting my views more or less fully; but some are curiously cautious
in running the risk of any small odium in expressing their belief.
LETTER 123. TO H.W. BATES. Down, April 4th [1861].
I have been unwell, so have delayed thanking you for your admirable
letter. I hope you will not think me presumptuous in saying how much
I have been struck with your varied knowledge, and with the decisive
manner in which you bring it to bear on each point,--a rare and most
high quality, as far as my experience goes. I earnestly hope you will
find time to publish largely: before the Linnean Society you might bring
boldly out your views on species. Have you ever thought of publishing
your travels, and working in them the less abstruse parts of your
Natural History? I believe it would sell, and be a very valuable
contribution to Natural History. You must also have seen a good deal of
the natives. I know well it would be quite unreasonable to ask for any
further information from you; but I will just mention that I am now, and
shall be for a long time, writing on domestic varieties of all animals.
Any facts would be useful, especially any showing that savages take any
care in breeding their animals, or in rejecting the bad and preserving
the good; or any fancies which they may have that one coloured or marked
dog, etc., is better than another. I have already collected much on this
head, but am greedy for facts. You will at once see their bearing on
variation under domestication.
Hardly anything in your letter has pleased me more than about sexual
selection. In my larger MS. (and indeed in the "Origin" with respect
to the tuft of hairs on the breast of the cock-turkey) I have guarded
myself against going too far; but I did not at all know that male and
female butterflies haunted rather different sites. If I had to cut up
myself in a review I would have [worried?] and quizzed sexual selection;
therefore, though I am fully convinced that it is largely true, you may
imagine how pleased I am at what you say on your belief. This part
of your letter to me is a quintessence of richness. The fact about
butterflies attracted by coloured sepals is another good fact, worth its
weight in gold. It would have delighted the heart of old Christian C.
Sprengel--now many years in his grave.
I am glad to hear that you have specially attended to "mimetic"
analogies--a most curious subject; I hope you publish on it. I have
for a long time wished to know whether what Dr. Collingwood asserts
is true--that the most striking cases generally occur between insects
inhabiting the same country.
LETTER 124. TO F.W. HUTTON. Down, April 20th [1861].
I hope that you will permit me to thank you for sending me a copy of
your paper in "The Geologist" (124/1. In a letter to Hooker (April
23rd?, 1861) Darwin refers to Hutton's review as "very original," and
adds that Hutton is "one of the very few who see that the change of
species cannot be directly proved..." ("Life and Letters," II., page
362). The review appeared in "The Geologist" (afterwards known as "The
Geological Magazine") for 1861, pages 132-6 and 183-8. A letter on
"Difficulties of Darwinism" is published in the same volume of "The
Geologist," page 286.), and at the same time to express my opinion
that you have done the subject a real service by the highly original,
striking, and condensed manner with which you have put the case. I am
actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce direct
evidence of one species changing into another, but that I believe that
this view in the main is correct, because so many phenomena can be thus
grouped together and explained. But it is generally of no use; I cannot
make persons see this. I generally throw in their teeth the universally
admitted theory of the undulation of light,--neither the undulation nor
the very existence of ether being proved, yet admitted because the view
explains so much. You are one of the very few who have seen this, and
have now put it most forcibly and clearly. I am much pleased to see
how carefully you have read my book, and, what is far more important,
reflected on so many points with an independent spirit. As I am deeply
interested in the subject (and I hope not exclusively under a personal
point of view) I could not resist venturing to thank you for the right
good service which you have done.
I need hardly say that this note requires no answer.
LETTER 125. TO J.D. HOOKER.
(125/1. Parts of this letter are published in "Life and Letters," II.,
page 362.)
Down, [April] 23rd, [1861].
I have been much interested by Bentham's paper in the "Natural History
Review," but it would not, of course, from familiarity, strike you as
it did me. (125/2. This refers to Bentham's paper "On the Species and
Genera of Plants, etc." "Nat. Hist. Review," April, 1861, page 133,
which is founded on, or extracted from, a paper read before the Linn.
Soc., November 15th, 1858. It had been originally set down to be read
on July 1st, 1858, but gave way to the papers of Darwin and Wallace.
Mr. Bentham has described ("Life and Letters," II., page 294) how he
reluctantly cancelled the parts urging "original fixity" of specific
type, and the remainder seems not to have been published except in the
above-quoted paper in the "Nat. Hist. Review.") I liked the whole--all
the facts on the nature of close and varying species. Good Heavens! to
think of the British botanists turning up their noses and saying that
he knows nothing of British plants! I was also pleased at his remarks on
classification, because it showed me that I wrote truly on this subject
in the "Origin." I saw Bentham at the Linnean Society, and had some talk
with him and Lubbock and Edgeworth, Wallich, and several others. I asked
Bentham to give us his ideas of species; whether partially with us or
dead against us, he would write excellent matter. He made no answer, but
his manner made me think he might do so if urged--so do you attack him.
Every one was speaking with affection and anxiety of Henslow. I dined
with Bell at the Linnean Club, and liked my dinner...dining-out is such
a novelty to me that I enjoyed it. Bell has a real good heart. I
liked Rolleston's paper, but I never read anything so obscure and not
self-evident as his "canons." (125/3. See "Nat. Hist. Review," 1861,
page 206. The paper is "On the Brain of the Orang Utang," and forms part
of the bitter controversy of this period to which reference occurs in
letters to Huxley and elsewhere in these volumes. Rolleston's work is
quoted by Huxley ("Man's Place in Nature," page 117) as part of the
crushing refutation of Owen's position. Mr. Huxley's letter referred to
above is no doubt that in the "Athenaeum," April 13th, 1861, page 498;
it is certainly severe, but to those who know Mr. Huxley's "Succinct
History of the Controversy," etc. ("Man's Place in Nature," page 113),
it will not seem too severe.) I had a dim perception of the truth of
your profound remark--that he wrote in fear and trembling "of God, man,
and monkeys," but I would alter it into "God, man, Owen, and monkeys."
Huxley's letter was truculent, and I see that every one thinks it
too truculent; but in simple truth I am become quite demoniacal about
Owen--worse than Huxley; and I told Huxley that I should put myself
under his care to be rendered milder. But I mean to try and get more
angelic in my feelings; yet I never shall forget his cordial shake of
the hand, when he was writing as spitefully as he possibly could against
me. But I have always thought that you have more cause than I to be
demoniacally inclined towards him. Bell told me that Owen says that the
editor mutilated his article in the "Edinburgh Review" (125/4. This is
the only instance, with which we are acquainted, of Owen's acknowledging
the authorship of the "Edinburgh Review" article.), and Bell seemed to
think it was rendered more spiteful by the Editor; perhaps the opposite
view is as probable. Oh, dear! this does not look like becoming more
angelic in my temper!
I had a splendid long talk with Lyell (you may guess how splendid, for
he was many times on his knees, with elbows on the sofa) (125/5. Mr.
Darwin often spoke of Sir Charles Lyell's tendency to take curious
attitudes when excited.) on his work in France: he seems to have done
capital work in making out the age of the celt-bearing beds, but the
case gets more and more complicated. All, however, tends to greater and
greater antiquity of man. The shingle beds seem to be estuary deposits.
I called on R. Chambers at his very nice house in St. John's Wood, and
had a very pleasant half-hour's talk--he is really a capital fellow. He
made one good remark and chuckled over it: that the laymen universally
had treated the controversy on the "Essays and Reviews" as a merely
professional subject, and had not joined in it but had left it to the
clergy. I shall be anxious for your next letter about Henslow. Farewell,
with sincere sympathy, my old friend.
P.S.--We are very much obliged for "London Review." We like reading much
of it, and the science is incomparably better than in the "Athenaeum."
You shall not go on very long sending it, as you will be ruined by
pennies and trouble; but I am under a horrid spell to the "Athenaeum"
and "Gardeners' Chronicle," both of which are intolerably dull, but I
have taken them in for so many years that I cannot give them up.
The "Cottage Gardener," for my purpose, is now far better than the
"Gardeners' Chronicle."
LETTER 126. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES. Down, April 25 [1861].
I received this morning your "Unite de l'Espece Humaine" [published
in 1861], and most sincerely do I thank you for this your very kind
present. I had heard of and been recommended to read your articles, but,
not knowing that they were separately published, did not know how to get
them. So your present is most acceptable, and I am very anxious to
see your views on the whole subject of species and variation; and I am
certain to derive much benefit from your work. In cutting the pages I
observe that you have most kindly mentioned my work several times. My
views spread slowly in England and America; and I am much surprised to
find them most commonly accepted by geologists, next by botanists, and
least by zoologists. I am much pleased that the younger and middle-aged
geologists are coming round, for the arguments from Geology have always
seemed strongest against me. Not one of the older geologists (except
Lyell) has been even shaken in his views of the eternal immutability of
species. But so many of the younger men are turning round with zeal
that I look to the future with some confidence. I am now at work on
"Variation under Domestication," but make slow progress--it is such
tedious work comparing skeletons.
With very sincere thanks for the kind sympathy which you have always
shown me, and with much respect,...
P.S.--I have lately read M. Naudin's paper (126/1. Naudin's paper
("Revue Horticole," 1852) is mentioned in the "Historical Sketch"
prefixed to the later editions of the "Origin" (Edition VI., page xix).
Naudin insisted that species are formed in a manner analogous to the
production of varieties by cultivators, i.e., by selection, "but he does
not show how selection acts under nature." In the "Life and Letters,"
II., page 246, Darwin, speaking of Naudin's work, says: "Decaisne seems
to think he gives my whole theory."), but it does not seem to me to
anticipate me, as he does not show how selection could be applied under
nature; but an obscure writer (126/2. The obscure writer is Patrick
Matthew (see the "Historical Sketch" in the "Origin.") on forest
trees, in 1830, in Scotland, most expressly and clearly anticipated
my views--though he put the case so briefly that no single person ever
noticed the scattered passages in his book.
LETTER 127. TO L. HINDMARSH.
(127/1. The following letter was in reply to one from Mr. Hindmarsh, to
whom Mr. Darwin had written asking for information on the average number
of animals killed each year in the Chillingham herd. The object of the
request was to obtain information which might throw light on the rate
of increase of the cattle relatively to those on the pampas of South
America. Mr. Hindmarsh had contributed a paper "On the Wild Cattle of
Chillingham Park" to the "Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume II., page
274, 1839.)
Down, May 12th [1861].
I thank you sincerely for your prompt and great kindness, and return
the letter, which I have been very glad to see and have had copied.
The increase is more rapid than I anticipated, but it seems rather
conjectural; I had hoped that in so interesting a case some exact record
had been kept. The number of births, or of calves reared till they
followed their mothers, would perhaps have been the best datum. From
Mr. Hardy's letter I infer that ten must be annually born to make up the
deaths from various causes. In Paraguay, Azara states that in a herd of
4,000, from 1,000 to 1,300 are reared; but then, though they do not kill
calves, but castrate the young bulls, no doubt the oxen would be killed
earlier than the cows, so that the herd would contain probably more of
the female sex than the herd at Chillingham. There is not apparently
any record whether more young bulls are killed than cows. I am surprised
that Lord Tankerville does not have an exact record kept of deaths
and sexes and births: after a dozen years it would be an interesting
statistical record to the naturalist and agriculturist.
(PLATE: PROFESSOR HENSLOW.)
LETTER 128. TO J.D. HOOKER.
(128/1. The death of Professor Henslow (who was Sir J.D. Hooker's
father-in-law) occurred on May 16th, 1861.)
Down, May 24th [1861].
Thanks for your two notes. I am glad that the burial is over, and
sincerely sympathise and can most fully understand your feelings at your
loss.
I grieve to think how little I saw of Henslow for many years. With
respect to a biography of Henslow, I cannot help feeling rather
doubtful, on the principle that a biography could not do him justice.
His letters were generally written in a hurry, and I fear he did not
keep any journal or diary. If there were any vivid materials to describe
his life as parish priest, and manner of managing the poor, it would be
very good.
I am never very sanguine on literary projects. I cannot help fearing
his Life might turn out flat. There can hardly be marked incidents to
describe. I sincerely hope that I take a wrong and gloomy view, but
I cannot help fearing--I would rather see no Life than one that would
interest very few. It will be a pleasure and duty in me to consider what
I can recollect; but at present I can think of scarcely anything. The
equability and perfection of Henslow's whole character, I should think,
would make it very difficult for any one to pourtray him. I have been
thinking about Henslow all day a good deal, but the more I think the
less I can think of to write down. It is quite a new style for me to
set about, but I will continue to think what I could say to give any,
however imperfect, notion of him in the old Cambridge days.
Pray give my kindest remembrances to L. Jenyns (128/2. The Rev. Leonard
Jenyns (afterwards Blomefield) undertook the "Life" of Henslow, to which
Darwin contributed a characteristic and delightful sketch. See Letter
17.), who is often associated with my recollection of those old happy
days.
LETTER 129. HENRY FAWCETT TO CHARLES DARWIN.
(129/1. It was in reply to the following letter that Darwin wrote to
Fawcett: "You could not possibly have told me anything which would have
given me more satisfaction than what you say about Mr. Mill's opinion.
Until your review appeared I began to think that perhaps I did not
understand at all how to reason scientifically." ("Life of Henry
Fawcett," by Leslie Stephen, 1885, page 100.)
Bodenham, Salisbury, July 16th [1861].
I feel that I ought not to have so long delayed writing to thank you
for your very kind letter to me about my article on your book in
"Macmillan's Magazine."
I was particularly anxious to point out that the method of investigation
pursued was in every respect philosophically correct. I was spending an
evening last week with my friend Mr. John Stuart Mill, and I am sure you
will be pleased to hear from such an authority that he considers that
your reasoning throughout is in the most exact accordance with the
strict principles of logic. He also says the method of investigation you
have followed is the only one proper to such a subject.
It is easy for an antagonistic reviewer, when he finds it difficult
to answer your arguments, to attempt to dispose of the whole matter by
uttering some such commonplace as "This is not a Baconian induction."
I expect shortly to be spending a few days in your neighbourhood, and if
I should not be intruding upon you, I should esteem it a great favour if
you will allow me to call on you, and have half an hour's conversation
with you.
As far as I am personally concerned, I am sure I ought to be grateful to
you, for since my accident nothing has given me so much pleasure as the
perusal of your book. Such studies are now a great resource to me.
LETTER 130. TO C. LYELL. 2, Hesketh Terrace, Torquay [August 2nd, 1861].
I declare that you read the reviews on the "Origin" more carefully than
I do. I agree with all your remarks. The point of correlation struck me
as well put, and on varieties growing together; but I have already begun
to put things in train for information on this latter head, on which
Bronn also enlarges. With respect to sexuality, I have often speculated
on it, and have always concluded that we are too ignorant to speculate:
no physiologist can conjecture why the two elements go to form a new
being, and, more than that, why nature strives at uniting the two
elements from two individuals. What I am now working at in my orchids is
an admirable illustration of the law. I should certainly conclude that
all sexuality had descended from one prototype. Do you not underrate the
degree of lowness of organisation in which sexuality occurs--viz., in
Hydra, and still lower in some of the one-celled free confervae which
"conjugate," which good judges (Thwaites) believe is the simplest form
of true sexual generation? (130/1. See Letter 97.) But the whole case is
a mystery.
There is another point on which I have occasionally wished to say a few
words. I believe you think with Asa Gray that I have not allowed enough
for the stream of variation having been guided by a higher power. I have
had lately a good deal of correspondence on this head. Herschel, in his
"Physical Geography" (130/2. "Physical Geography of the Globe," by Sir
John F.W. Herschel, Edinburgh, 1861. On page 12 Herschel writes of
the revelations of Geology pointing to successive submersions and
reconstructions of the continents and fresh races of animals and plants.
He refers to a "great law of change" which has not operated either by
a gradually progressing variation of species, nor by a sudden and
total abolition of one race...The following footnote on page 12 of
the "Physical Geography" was added in January, 1861: "This was written
previous to the publication of Mr. Darwin's work on the "Origin of
Species," a work which, whatever its merit or ingenuity, we cannot,
however, consider as having disproved the view taken in the text. We
can no more accept the principle of arbitrary and casual variation
and natural selection as a sufficient account, per se, of the past
and present organic world, than we can receive the Laputan method of
composing books (pushed a outrance) as a sufficient one of Shakespeare
and the "Principia." Equally in either case an intelligence, guided by
a purpose, must be continually in action to bias the directions of the
steps of change--to regulate their amount, to limit their divergence,
and to continue them in a definite course. We do not believe that Mr.
Darwin means to deny the necessity of such intelligent direction. But it
does not, so far as we can see, enter into the formula of this law, and
without it we are unable to conceive how far the law can have led to
the results. On the other hand, we do not mean to deny that such
intelligence may act according to a law (that is to say, on a
preconceived and definite plan). Such law, stated in words, would be
no other than the actual observed law of organic succession; a one more
general, taking that form when applied to our own planet, and including
all the links of the chain which have disappeared. BUT THE ONE LAW IS A
NECESSARY SUPPLEMENT TO THE OTHER, AND OUGHT, IN ALL LOGICAL PROPRIETY,
TO FORM A PART OF ITS ENUNCIATION. Granting this, and with some demur
as to the genesis of man, we are far from disposed to repudiate the view
taken of this mysterious subject in Mr. Darwin's book." The sentence
in italics is no doubt the one referred to in the letter to Lyell. See
Letter 243.), has a sentence with respect to the "Origin," something to
the effect that the higher law of Providential Arrangement should always
be stated. But astronomers do not state that God directs the course
of each comet and planet. The view that each variation has been
providentially arranged seems to me to make Natural Selection entirely
superfluous, and indeed takes the whole case of the appearance of new
species out of the range of science. But what makes me most object to
Asa Gray's view is the study of the extreme variability of domestic
animals. He who does not suppose that each variation in the pigeon was
providentially caused, by accumulating which variations, man made
a Fantail, cannot, I think, logically argue that the tail of the
woodpecker was formed by variations providentially ordained. It seems
to me that variations in the domestic and wild conditions are due to
unknown causes, and are without purpose, and in so far accidental; and
that they become purposeful only when they are selected by man for his
pleasure, or by what we call Natural Selection in the struggle for life,
and under changing conditions. I do not wish to say that God did not
foresee everything which would ensue; but here comes very nearly the
same sort of wretched imbroglio as between freewill and preordained
necessity. I doubt whether I have made what I think clear; but certainly
A. Gray's notion of the courses of variation having been led like a
stream of water by gravity, seems to me to smash the whole affair. It
reminds me of a Spaniard whom I told I was trying to make out how the
Cordillera was formed; and he answered me that it was useless, for "God
made them." It may be said that God foresaw how they would be made.
I wonder whether Herschel would say that you ought always to give the
higher providential law, and declare that God had ordered all certain
changes of level, that certain mountains should arise. I must think
that such views of Asa Gray and Herschel merely show that the subject in
their minds is in Comte's theological stage of science...
Of course I do not want any answer to my quasi-theological discussion,
but only for you to think of my notions, if you understand them.
I hope to Heaven your long and great labours on your new edition are
drawing to a close.
LETTER 131. TO C. LYELL. Torquay, [August 13th, 1861].
Very many thanks for the orchids, which have proved extremely useful to
me in two ways I did not anticipate, but were too monstrous (yet of some
use) for my special purpose.
When you come to "Deification" (131/1. See Letter 105, note.), ask
yourself honestly whether what you are thinking applies to the endless
variations of domestic productions, which man accumulates for his mere
fancy or use. No doubt these are all caused by some unknown law, but
I cannot believe they were ordained for any purpose, and if not so
ordained under domesticity, I can see no reason to believe that they
were ordained in a state of nature. Of course it may be said, when you
kick a stone, or a leaf falls from a tree, that it was ordained, before
the foundations of the world were laid, exactly where that stone or leaf
should lie. In this sense the subject has no interest for me.
Once again, many thanks for the orchids; you must let me repay you what
you paid the collector.
LETTER 132. TO C. LYELL.
(132/1. The first paragraph probably refers to the proof-sheets of
Lyell's "Antiquity of Man," but the passage referred to seems not to
occur in the book.)
Torquay, August 21st [1861].
...I have really no criticism, except a trifling one in pencil near the
end, which I have inserted on account of dominant and important species
generally varying most. You speak of "their views" rather as if you were
a thousand miles away from such wretches, but your concluding paragraph
shows that you are one of the wretches.
I am pleased that you approve of Hutton's review. (132/2. "Some Remarks
on Mr. Darwin's Theory," by F.W. Hutton. "Geologist," Volume IV.,
page 132 (1861). See Letter 124.) It seemed to me to take a more
philosophical view of the manner of judging the question than any other
review. The sentence you quote from it seems very true, but I do not
agree with the theological conclusion. I think he quotes from Asa Gray,
certainly not from me; but I have neither A. Gray nor "Origin" with me.
Indeed, I have over and over again said in the "Origin" that Natural
Selection does nothing without variability; I have given a whole chapter
on laws, and used the strongest language how ignorant we are on these
laws. But I agree that I have somehow (Hooker says it is owing to
my title) not made the great and manifest importance of previous
variability plain enough. Breeders constantly speak of Selection as
the one great means of improvement; but of course they imply individual
differences, and this I should have thought would have been obvious to
all in Natural Selection; but it has not been so.
I have just said that I cannot agree with "which variations are the
effects of an unknown law, ordained and guided without doubt by an
intelligent cause on a preconceived and definite plan." Will you
honestly tell me (and I should be really much obliged) whether you
believe that the shape of my nose (eheu!) was ordained and "guided by
an intelligent cause?" (132/3. It should be remembered that the shape
of his nose nearly determined Fitz-Roy to reject Darwin as naturalist to
H.M.S. "Beagle" ("Life and Letters," I., page 60).) By the selection of
analogous and less differences fanciers make almost generic differences
in their pigeons; and can you see any good reason why the Natural
Selection of analogous individual differences should not make new
species? If you say that God ordained that at some time and place a
dozen slight variations should arise, and that one of them alone should
be preserved in the struggle for life and the other eleven should perish
in the first or few first generations, then the saying seems to me
mere verbiage. It comes to merely saying that everything that is, is
ordained.
Let me add another sentence. Why should you or I speak of variation
as having been ordained and guided, more than does an astronomer, in
discussing the fall of a meteoric stone? He would simply say that it was
drawn to our earth by the attraction of gravity, having been displaced
in its course by the action of some quite unknown laws. Would you have
him say that its fall at some particular place and time was "ordained
and guided without doubt by an intelligent cause on a preconceived and
definite plan"? Would you not call this theological pedantry or display?
I believe it is not pedantry in the case of species, simply because
their formation has hitherto been viewed as beyond law; in fact, this
branch of science is still with most people under its theological phase
of development. The conclusion which I always come to after thinking of
such questions is that they are beyond the human intellect; and the less
one thinks on them the better. You may say, Then why trouble me? But I
should very much like to know clearly what you think.
LETTER 133. TO HENRY FAWCETT.
(133/1. The following letter was published in the "Life" of Mr. Fawcett
(1885); we are indebted to Mrs. Fawcett and Messrs. Smith & Elder for
permission to reprint it. See Letter 129.)
September 18th [1861].
I wondered who had so kindly sent me the newspaper (133/2. The newspaper
sent was the "Manchester Examiner" for September 9th, 1861, containing
a report of Mr. Fawcett's address given before Section D of the British
Association, "On the method of Mr. Darwin in his treatise on the
origin of species," in which the speaker showed that the "method of
investigation pursued by Mr. Darwin in his treatise on the origin of
species is in strict accordance with the principles of logic." The "A"
of the letter (as published in Fawcett's Life) is the late Professor
Williamson, who is reported to have said that "while he would not say
that Mr. Darwin's book had caused him a loss of reputation, he was sure
that it had not caused a gain." The reference to "B" is explained by the
report of the late Dr. Lankester's speech in which he said, "The facts
brought forward in support of the hypothesis had a very different value
indeed from that of the hypothesis...A great naturalist, who was still a
friend of Mr. Darwin, once said to him (Dr. Lankester), 'The mistake is,
that Darwin has dealt with origin. Why did he not put his facts before
us, and let them rest?'" Another speaker, the Rt. Hon. J.R. Napier,
remarked: "I am going to speak closely to the question. If the
hypothesis is put forward to contradict facts, and the averments are
contrary to the Word of God, I say that it is not a logical argument."
At this point the chairman, Professor Babington, wisely interfered, on
the ground that the meeting was a scientific one.), which I was very
glad to see; and now I have to thank you sincerely for allowing me to
see your MS. It seems to me very good and sound; though I am certainly
not an impartial judge. You will have done good service in calling the
attention of scientific men to means and laws of philosophising. As far
as I could judge by the papers, your opponents were unworthy of you. How
miserably A. talked of my reputation, as if that had anything to do with
it!...How profoundly ignorant B must be of the very soul of observation!
About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only
to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at
this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles
and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that
all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any
service!
I have returned only lately from a two months' visit to Torquay,
which did my health at the time good; but I am one of those miserable
creatures who are never comfortable for twenty-four hours; and it is
clear to me that I ought to be exterminated. I have been rather idle of
late, or, speaking more strictly, working at some miscellaneous papers,
which, however, have some direct bearing on the subject of species; yet
I feel guilty at having neglected my larger book. But, to me, observing
is much better sport than writing. I fear that I shall have wearied you
with this long note.
Pray believe that I feel sincerely grateful that you have taken up the
cudgels in defence of the line of argument in the "Origin;" you will
have benefited the subject.
Many are so fearful of speaking out. A German naturalist came here the
other day; and he tells me that there are many in Germany on our side,
but that all seem fearful of speaking out, and waiting for some one to
speak, and then many will follow. The naturalists seem as timid as
young ladies should be, about their scientific reputation. There is much
discussion on the subject on the Continent, even in quiet Holland; and I
had a pamphlet from Moscow the other day by a man who sticks up famously
for the imperfection of the "Geological Record," but complains that I
have sadly understated the variability of the old fossilised animals!
But I must not run on.
LETTER 134. TO H.W. BATES. Down, September 25th [1861].
Now for a few words on science. Many thanks for facts on neuters. You
cannot tell how I rejoice that you do not think what I have said on the
subject absurd. Only two persons have even noticed it to me--viz.,
the bitter sneer of Owen in the "Edinburgh Review" (134/1. "Edinburgh
Review," April, 1860, page 525.), and my good friend and supporter,
Sir C. Lyell, who could only screw up courage to say, "Well, you have
manfully faced the difficulty."
What a wonderful case of Volucella of which I had never heard. (134/2.
Volucella is a fly--one of the Syrphidae--supposed to supply a case of
mimicry; this was doubtless the point of interest with Bates. Dr. Sharp
says ["Insects," Part II. (in the Camb. Nat. Hist. series), 1899, page
500]: "It was formerly assumed that the Volucella larvae lived on
the larvae of the bees, and that the parent flies were providentially
endowed with a bee-like appearance that they might obtain entrance into
the bees' nests without being detected." Dr. Sharp goes on to say
that what little is known on the subject supports the belief that the
"presence of the Volucella in the nests is advantageous to both fly and
bee.") I had no idea such a case occurred in nature; I must get and see
specimens in British Museum. I hope and suppose you will give a
good deal of Natural History in your Travels; every one cares about
ants--more notice has been taken about slave-ants in the "Origin" than
of any other passage.
I fully expect to delight in your Travels. Keep to simple style, as in
your excellent letters,--but I beg pardon, I am again advising.
What a capital paper yours will be on mimetic resemblances! You will
make quite a new subject of it. I had thought of such cases as a
difficulty; and once, when corresponding with Dr. Collingwood, I thought
of your explanation; but I drove it from my mind, for I felt that I had
not knowledge to judge one way or the other. Dr C., I think, states that
the mimetic forms inhabit the same country, but I did not know whether
to believe him. What wonderful cases yours seem to be! Could you not
give a few woodcuts in your Travels to illustrate this? I am tired with
a hard day's work, so no more, except to give my sincere thanks and
hearty wishes for the success of your Travels.
LETTER 135. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, March 18th [1862].
Your letter discusses lots of interesting subjects, and I am very glad
you have sent for your letter to Bates. (135/1. Published in Mr. Clodd's
memoir of Bates in the "Naturalist on the Amazons," 1892, page l.) What
do you mean by "individual plants"? (135/2. In a letter to Mr. Darwin
dated March 17th, 1862, Sir J.D. Hooker had discussed a supposed
difference between animals and plants, "inasmuch as the individual
animal is certainly changed materially by external conditions, the
latter (I think) never, except in such a coarse way as stunting or
enlarging--e.g. no increase of cold on the spot, or change of individual
plant from hot to cold, will induce said individual plant to get more
woolly covering; but I suppose a series of cold seasons would bring
about such a change in an individual quadruped, just as rowing will
harden hands, etc.") I fancied a bud lived only a year, and you could
hardly expect any change in that time; but if you call a tree or plant
an individual, you have sporting buds. Perhaps you mean that the
whole tree does not change. Tulips, in "breaking," change. Fruit seems
certainly affected by the stock. I think I have (135/3. See note, Letter
16.) got cases of slight change in alpine plants transplanted. All these
subjects have rather gone out of my head owing to orchids, but I shall
soon have to enter on them in earnest when I come again to my volume on
variation under domestication.
...In the lifetime of an animal you would, I think, find it very
difficult to show effects of external condition on animals more than
shade and light, good and bad soil, produce on a plant.
You speak of "an inherent tendency to vary wholly independent of
physical conditions"! This is a very simple way of putting the case (as
Dr. Prosper Lucas also puts it) (135/4. Prosper Lucas, the author of
"Traite philosophique et physiologique de l'heredite naturelle dans
les etats de sante et de maladie du systeme nerveux": 2 volumes,
Paris, 1847-50.): but two great classes of facts make me think that all
variability is due to change in the conditions of life: firstly, that
there is more variability and more monstrosities (and these graduate
into each other) under unnatural domestic conditions than under nature;
and, secondly, that changed conditions affect in an especial manner the
reproductive organs--those organs which are to produce a new being. But
why one seedling out of thousands presents some new character transcends
the wildest powers of conjecture. It was in this sense that I spoke of
"climate," etc., possibly producing without selection a hooked seed,
or any not great variation. (135/5. This statement probably occurs in a
letter, and not in Darwin's published works.)
I have for years and years been fighting with myself not to attribute
too much to Natural Selection--to attribute something to direct action
of conditions; and perhaps I have too much conquered my tendency to lay
hardly any stress on conditions of life.
I am not shaken about "saltus" (135/6. Sir Joseph had written, March
17th, 1862: "Huxley is rather disposed to think you have overlooked
saltus, but I am not sure that he is right--saltus quoad individuals is
not saltus quoad species--as I pointed out in the Begonia case, though
perhaps that was rather special pleading in the present state of
science." For the Begonia case, see "Life and Letters," II., page
275, also letter 110, page 166.), I did not write without going pretty
carefully into all the cases of normal structure in animals resembling
monstrosities which appear per saltus.
LETTER 136. TO J.D. HOOKER. 26th [March, 1862].
Thanks also for your own (136/1. See note in Letter 135.) and Bates'
letter now returned. They are both excellent; you have, I think, said
all that can be said against direct effects of conditions, and capitally
put. But I still stick to my own and Bates' side. Nevertheless I am
pleased to attribute little to conditions, and I wish I had done what
you suggest--started on the fundamental principle of variation being
an innate principle, and afterwards made a few remarks showing that
hereafter, perhaps, this principle would be explicable. Whenever my
book on poultry, pigeons, ducks, and rabbits is published, with all the
measurements and weighings of bones, I think you will see that "use
and disuse" at least have some effect. I do not believe in perfect
reversion. I rather demur to your doctrine of "centrifugal variation."
(136/2. The "doctrine of centrifugal variation" is given in Sir J.D.
Hooker's "Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania" (Part III. of the
Botany of the Antarctic Expedition), 1859, page viii. In paragraph 10
the author writes: "The tendency of varieties, both in nature and under
cultivation...is rather to depart more and more widely from the original
type than to revert to it." In Sir Joseph's letter to Bates (loc. cit.,
page lii) he wrote: "Darwin also believes in some reversion to type
which is opposed to my view of variation." It may be noted in this
connection that Mr. Galton has shown reason to believe in a centripetal
tendency in variation (to use Hooker's phraseology) which is not
identical with the reversion of cultivated plants to their ancestors,
the case to which Hooker apparently refers. See "Natural Inheritance,"
by F. Galton, 1889.) I suppose you do not agree with or do not remember
my doctrine of the good of diversification (136/3. Darwin usually used
the word "divergence" in this connection.); this seems to me amply to
account for variation being centrifugal--if you forget it, look at
this discussion (page 117 of 3rd edition), it was the best point which,
according to my notions, I made out, and it has always pleased me. It is
really curiously satisfactory to me to see so able a man as Bates (and
yourself) believing more fully in Natural Selection than I think I even
do myself. (136/4. This refers to a very interesting passage in Hooker's
letter to Bates (loc. cit., page liii): "I am sure that with you, as
with me, the more you think the less occasion you will see for anything
but time and natural selection to effect change; and that this view
is the simplest and clearest in the present state of science is one
advantage, at any rate. Indeed, I think that it is, in the present state
of the inquiry, the legitimate position to take up; it is time enough to
bother our heads with the secondary cause when there is some evidence of
it or some demand for it--at present I do not see one or the other, and
so feel inclined to renounce any other for the present.") By the way, I
always boast to you, and so I think Owen will be wrong that my book will
be forgotten in ten years, for a French edition is now going through the
press and a second German edition wanted. Your long letter to Bates has
set my head working, and makes me repent of the nine months spent on
orchids; though I know not why I should not have amused myself on them
as well as slaving on bones of ducks and pigeons, etc. The orchids have
been splendid sport, though at present I am fearfully sick of them.
I enclose a waste copy of woodcut of Mormodes ignea; I wish you had a
plant at Kew, for I am sure its wonderful mechanism and structure would
amuse you. Is it not curious the way the labellum sits on the top of the
column?--here insects alight and are beautifully shot, when they touch a
certain sensitive point, by the pollinia.
How kindly you have helped me in my work! Farewell, my dear old fellow.
LETTER 137. TO H.W. BATES. Down, May 4th [1862].
Hearty thanks for your most interesting letter and three very valuable
extracts. I am very glad that you have been looking at the South
Temperate insects. I wish that the materials in the British Museum had
been richer; but I should think the case of the South American Carabi,
supported by some other case, would be worth a paper. To us who theorise
I am sure the case is very important. Do the South American Carabi
differ more from the other species than do, for instance, the Siberian
and European and North American and Himalayan (if the genus exists
there)? If they do, I entirely agree with you that the difference would
be too great to account for by the recent Glacial period. I agree, also,
with you in utterly rejecting an independent origin for these Carabi.
There is a difficulty, as far as I know, in our ignorance whether
insects change quickly in time; you could judge of this by knowing how
far closely allied coleoptera generally have much restricted ranges,
for this almost implies rapid change. What a curious case is offered by
land-shells, which become modified in every sub-district, and have yet
retained the same general structure from very remote geological periods!
When working at the Glacial period, I remember feeling much surprised
how few birds, no mammals, and very few sea-mollusca seemed to have
crossed, or deeply entered, the inter-tropical regions during the cold
period. Insects, from all you say, seem to come under the same category.
Plants seem to migrate more readily than animals. Do not underrate the
length of Glacial period: Forbes used to argue that it was equivalent to
the whole of the Pleistocene period in the warmer latitudes. I believe,
with you, that we shall be driven to an older Glacial period.
I am very sorry to hear about the British Museum; it would be hopeless
to contend against any one supported by Owen. Perhaps another chance
might occur before very long. How would it be to speak to Owen as soon
as your own mind is made up? From what I have heard, since talking to
you, I fear the strongest personal interest with a Minister is requisite
for a pension.
Farewell, and may success attend the acerrimo pro-pugnatori.
P.S. I deeply wish you could find some situation in which you could
give your time to science; it would be a great thing for science and for
yourself.
LETTER 138. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES. Down, July 11th [1862].
I thank you cordially for so kindly and promptly answering my questions.
I will quote some of your remarks. The case seems to me of some
importance with reference to my heretical notions, for it shows how
larvae might be modified. I shall not publish, I daresay, for a year,
for much time is expended in experiments. If within this time you should
acquire any fresh information on the similarity of the moths of distinct
races, and would allow me to quote any facts on your authority, I should
feel very grateful.
I thank you for your great kindness with respect to the translation of
the "Origin;" it is very liberal in you, as we differ to a considerable
degree. I have been atrociously abused by my religious countrymen; but
as I live an independent life in the country, it does not in the least
hurt me in any way, except indeed when the abuse comes from an old
friend like Professor Owen, who abuses me and then advances the doctrine
that all birds are probably descended from one parent.
I wish the translator (138/1. Mdlle. Royer, who translated the first
French edition of the "Origin.') had known more of Natural History; she
must be a clever but singular lady, but I never heard of her till she
proposed to translate my book.
LETTER 139. TO ASA GRAY. Down, July 23rd [1862].
I received several days ago two large packets, but have as yet read only
your letter; for we have been in fearful distress, and I could attend
to nothing. Our poor boy had the rare case of second rash and sore
throat...; and, as if this was not enough, a most serious attack of
erysipelas, with typhoid symptoms. I despaired of his life; but this
evening he has eaten one mouthful, and I think has passed the crisis. He
has lived on port wine every three-quarters of an hour, day and night.
This evening, to our astonishment, he asked whether his stamps were
safe, and I told him of one sent by you, and that he should see it
to-morrow. He answered, "I should awfully like to see it now"; so with
difficulty he opened his eyelids and glanced at it, and, with a sigh of
satisfaction, said, "All right." Children are one's greatest happiness,
but often and often a still greater misery. A man of science ought to
have none--perhaps not a wife; for then there would be nothing in
this wide world worth caring for, and a man might (whether he could is
another question) work away like a Trojan. I hope in a few days to get
my brains in order, and then I will pick out all your orchid letters,
and return them in hopes of your making use of them...
Of all the carpenters for knocking the right nail on the head, you are
the very best; no one else has perceived that my chief interest in my
orchid book has been that it was a "flank movement" on the enemy. I
live in such solitude that I hear nothing, and have no idea to what you
allude about Bentham and the orchids and species. But I must enquire.
By the way, one of my chief enemies (the sole one who has annoyed me),
namely Owen, I hear has been lecturing on birds; and admits that all
have descended from one, and advances as his own idea that the oceanic
wingless birds have lost their wings by gradual disuse. He never alludes
to me, or only with bitter sneers, and coupled with Buffon and the
"Vestiges."
Well, it has been an amusement to me this first evening, scribbling as
egotistically as usual about myself and my doings; so you must forgive
me, as I know well your kind heart will do. I have managed to skim the
newspaper, but had not heart to read all the bloody details. Good God!
What will the end be? Perhaps we are too despondent here; but I must
think you are too hopeful on your side of the water. I never believed
the "canards" of the army of the Potomac having capitulated. My good
dear wife and self are come to wish for peace at any price. Good night,
my good friend. I will scribble on no more.
One more word. I should like to hear what you think about what I say
in the last chapter of the orchid book on the meaning and cause of the
endless diversity of means for the same general purpose. It bears on
design, that endless question. Good night, good night!
LETTER 140. TO C. LYELL. 1, Carlton Terrace, Southampton, August 22nd
[1862].
You say that the Bishop and Owen will be down on you (140/1. This refers
to the "Antiquity of Man," which was published in 1863.): the latter
hardly can, for I was assured that Owen, in his lectures this spring,
advanced as a new idea that wingless birds had lost their wings by
disuse. (140/2. The first paragraph of this letter was published in
"Life and Letters," II., pages 387, 388.) Also that magpies stole
spoons, etc., from a remnant of some instinct like that of the
bower-bird, which ornaments its playing passage with pretty feathers.
Indeed, I am told that he hinted plainly that all birds are descended
from one. What an unblushing man he must be to lecture thus after
abusing me so, and never to have openly retracted, or alluded to my
book!
LETTER 141. TO JOHN LUBBOCK (LORD AVEBURY). Cliff Cottage, Bournemouth,
September 5th [1862].
Many thanks for your pleasant note in return for all my stupid trouble.
I did not fully appreciate your insect-diving case (141/1. "On two
Aquatic Hymenoptera, one of which uses its Wings in Swimming." By John
Lubbock. "Trans. Linn. Soc." Volume XXIV., 1864, pages 135-42.) [Read
May 7th, 1863.] In this paper Lubbock describes a new species of
Polynema--P. natans--which swims by means of its wings, and is capable
of living under water for several hours; the other species, referred to
a new genus Prestwichia, lives under water, holds its wings motionless
and uses its legs as oars.) before your last note, nor had I any idea
that the fact was new, though new to me. It is really very interesting.
Of course you will publish an account of it. You will then say whether
the insect can fly well through the air. (141/2. In describing the
habits of Polynema, Lubbock writes, "I was unfortunately unable to
ascertain whether they could fly" (loc. cit., page 137).) My wife
asked, "How did he find that it stayed four hours under water without
breathing?" I answered at once: "Mrs. Lubbock sat four hours watching."
I wonder whether I am right.
I long to be at home and at steady work, and I hope we may be in another
month. I fear it is hopeless my coming to you, for I am squashier than
ever, but hope two shower-baths a day will give me a little strength, so
that you will, I hope, come to us. It is an age since I have seen you or
any scientific friend.
I heard from Lyell the other day in the Isle of Wight, and from
Hooker in Scotland. About Huxley I know nothing, but I hope his book
progresses, for I shall be very curious to see it. (141/3. "Man's Place
in Nature." London, 1863.)
I do nothing here except occasionally look at a few flowers, and there
are very few here, for the country is wonderfully barren.
See what it is to be well trained. Horace said to me yesterday, "If
every one would kill adders they would come to sting less." I
answered: "Of course they would, for there would be fewer." He replied
indignantly: "I did not mean that; but the timid adders which run away
would be saved, and in time would never sting at all." Natural selection
of cowards!
LETTER 142. H. FALCONER TO CHARLES DARWIN.
(142/1. This refers to the MS. of Falconer's paper "On the American
Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi,
Falc.)," published in the "Natural History Review," January, 1863, page
43. The section dealing with the bearing of his facts on Darwin's views
is at page 77. He insists strongly (page 78) on the "persistence and
uniformity of the characters of the molar teeth in the earliest known
mammoth, and his most modern successor." Nevertheless, he adds that
the "inferences I draw from these facts are not opposed to one of the
leading propositions of Darwin's theory." These admissions were the
more satisfactory since, as Falconer points out (page 77), "I have been
included by him in the category of those who have vehemently maintained
the persistence of specific characters.")
21, Park Crescent, Portland Place, N.W., September 24th [1862].
Do not be frightened at the enclosure. I wish to set myself right by you
before I go to press. I am bringing out a heavy memoir on elephants--an
omnium gatherum affair, with observations on the fossil and recent
species. One section is devoted to the persistence in time of the
specific characters of the mammoth. I trace him from before the Glacial
period, through it and after it, unchangeable and unchanged as far as
the organs of digestion (teeth) and locomotion are concerned. Now, the
Glacial period was no joke: it would have made ducks and drakes of your
dear pigeons and doves.
With all my shortcomings, I have such a sincere and affectionate regard
for you and such admiration of your work, that I should be pained to
find that I had expressed my honest convictions in a way that would be
open to any objection by you. The reasoning may be very stupid, but I
believe that the observation is sound. Will you, therefore, look over
the few pages which I have sent, and tell me whether you find any flaw,
or whether you think I should change the form of expression? You have
been so unhandsomely and uncandidly dealt with by a friend of yours
and mine that I should be sorry to find myself in the position of an
opponent to you, and more particularly with the chance of making a fool
of myself.
I met your brother yesterday, who tells me you are coming to town. I
hope you will give me a hail. I long for a jaw with you, and have much
to speak to you about.
You will have seen the eclaircissement about the Eocene monkeys
of England. By a touch of the conjuring wand they have been
metamorphosed--a la Darwin--into Hyracotherian pigs. (142/2. "On the
Hyracotherian Character of the Lower Molars of the supposed Macacus from
the Eocene Sand of Kyson, Suffolk." "Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume X.,
1862, page 240. In this note Owen stated that the teeth which he had
named Macacus ("Ann. Mag." 1840, page 191) most probably belonged to
Hyracotherium cuniculus. See "A Catalogue of British Fossil Vertebrata,"
A.S. Woodward and C.D. Sherborn, 1890, under Hyracotherium, page 356;
also Zittel's "Handbuch der Palaeontologie" Abth. I., Bd. IV., Leipzig,
1891-93, page 703.) Would you believe it? This even is a gross blunder.
They are not pigs.
LETTER 143. TO HUGH FALCONER. Down, October 1st [1862].
On my return home yesterday I found your letter and MS., which I have
read with extreme interest. Your note and every word in your paper are
expressed with the same kind feeling which I have experienced from you
ever since I have had the happiness of knowing you. I value scientific
praise, but I value incomparably higher such kind feeling as yours.
There is not a single word in your paper to which I could possibly
object: I should be mad to do so; its only fault is perhaps its too
great kindness. Your case seems the most striking one which I have met
with of the persistence of specific characters. It is very much the more
striking as it relates to the molar teeth, which differ so much in the
species of the genus, and in which consequently I should have expected
variation. As I read on I felt not a little dumbfounded, and thought to
myself that whenever I came to this subject I should have to be savage
against myself; and I wondered how savage you would be. I trembled a
little. My only hope was that something could be made out of the bog
N. American forms, which you rank as a geographical race; and possibly
hereafter out of the Sicilian species. Guess, then, my satisfaction when
I found that you yourself made a loophole (143/1. This perhaps refers
to a passage ("N.H. Review," 1863, page 79) in which Falconer allows the
existence of intermediate forms along certain possible lines of descent.
Falconer's reference to the Sicilian elephants is in a note on page 78;
the bog-elephant is mentioned on page 79.), which I never, of course,
could have guessed at; and imagine my still greater satisfaction at
your expressing yourself as an unbeliever in the eternal immutability of
species. Your final remarks on my work are too generous, but have given
me not a little pleasure. As for criticisms, I have only small ones.
When you speak of "moderate range of variation" I cannot but think that
you ought to remind your readers (though I daresay previously done) what
the amount is, including the case of the American bog-mammoth. You speak
of these animals as having been exposed to a vast range of climatal
changes from before to after the Glacial period. I should have thought,
from analogy of sea-shells, that by migration (or local extinction when
migration not possible) these animals might and would have kept under
nearly the same climate.
A rather more important consideration, as it seems to me, is that the
whole proboscidean group may, I presume, be looked at as verging towards
extinction: anyhow, the extinction has been complete as far as Europe
and America are concerned. Numerous considerations and facts have led
me in the "Origin" to conclude that it is the flourishing or dominant
members of each order which generally give rise to new races,
sub-species, and species; and under this point of view I am not at all
surprised at the constancy of your species. This leads me to remark that
the sentence at the bottom of page [80] is not applicable to my
views (143/2. See Falconer at the bottom of page 80: it is the old
difficulty--how can variability co-exist with persistence of type? In
our copy of the letter the passage is given as occurring on page 60,
a slip of the pen for page 80.), though quite applicable to those who
attribute modification to the direct action of the conditions of life.
An elephant might be more individually variable than any known quadruped
(from the effects of the conditions of life or other innate unknown
causes), but if these variations did not aid the animal in better
resisting all hostile influences, and therefore making it increase in
numbers, there would be no tendency to the preservation and accumulation
of such variations--i.e. to the formation of a new race. As the
proboscidean group seems to be from utterly unknown causes a failing
group in many parts of the world, I should not have anticipated the
formation of new races.
You make important remarks versus Natural Selection, and you will
perhaps be surprised that I do to a large extent agree with you. I could
show you many passages, written as strongly as I could in the "Origin,"
declaring that Natural Selection can do nothing without previous
variability; and I have tried to put equally strongly that variability
is governed by many laws, mostly quite unknown. My title deceives
people, and I wish I had made it rather different. Your phyllotaxis
(143/3. Falconer, page 80: "The law of Phyllotaxis...is nearly as
constant in its manifestation as any of the physical laws connected with
the material world.") will serve as example, for I quite agree that the
spiral arrangement of a certain number of whorls of leaves (however that
may have primordially arisen, and whether quite as invariable as you
state), governs the limits of variability, and therefore governs what
Natural Selection can do. Let me explain how it arose that I laid so
much stress on Natural Selection, and I still think justly. I came to
think from geographical distribution, etc., etc., that species probably
change; but for years I was stopped dead by my utter incapability of
seeing how every part of each creature (a woodpecker or swallow, for
instance) had become adapted to its conditions of life. This seemed
to me, and does still seem, the problem to solve; and I think Natural
Selection solves it, as artificial selection solves the adaptation of
domestic races for man's use. But I suspect that you mean something
further,--that there is some unknown law of evolution by which species
necessarily change; and if this be so, I cannot agree. This, however,
is too large a question even for so unreasonably long a letter as
this. Nevertheless, just to explain by mere valueless conjectures how I
imagine the teeth of your elephants change, I should look at the change
as indirectly resulting from changes in the form of the jaws, or from
the development of tusks, or in the case of the primigenius even from
correlation with the woolly covering; in all cases Natural Selection
checking the variation. If, indeed, an elephant would succeed better by
feeding on some new kinds of food, then any variation of any kind in the
teeth which favoured their grinding power would be preserved. Now, I can
fancy you holding up your hands and crying out what bosh! To return
to your concluding sentence: far from being surprised, I look at it
as absolutely certain that very much in the "Origin" will be proved
rubbish; but I expect and hope that the framework will stand. (143/4.
Falconer, page 80: "He [Darwin] has laid the foundations of a great
edifice: but he need not be surprised if, in the progress of erection,
the superstructure is altered by his successors...")
I had hoped to have called on you on Monday evening, but was quite
knocked up. I saw Lyell yesterday morning. He was very curious about
your views, and as I had to write to him this morning I could not help
telling him a few words on your views. I suppose you are tired of the
"Origin," and will never read it again; otherwise I should like you to
have the third edition, and would gladly send it rather than you should
look at the first or second edition. With cordial thanks for your
generous kindness.
LETTER 144. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. Royal Gardens, Kew, November
7th, 1862.
I am greatly relieved by your letter this morning about my Arctic essay,
for I had been conjuring up some egregious blunder (like the granitic
plains of Patagonia).. Certes, after what you have told me of Dawson,
he will not like the letter I wrote to him days ago, in which I told
him that it was impossible to entertain a strong opinion against the
Darwinian hypothesis without its giving rise to a mental twist when
viewing matters in which that hypothesis was or might be involved. I
told him I felt that this was so with me when I opposed you, and that
all minds are subject to such obliquities!--the Lord help me, and this
to an LL.D. and Principal of a College! I proceeded to discuss his
Geology with the effrontery of a novice; and, thank God, I urged the
very argument of your letter about evidence of subsidence--viz., not all
submerged at once, and glacial action being subaerial and not oceanic.
Your letter hence was a relief, for I felt I was hardly strong enough to
have launched out as I did to a professed geologist.
(144/1. [On the subject of the above letter, see one of earlier date by
Sir J.D. Hooker (November 2nd, 1862) given in the present work (Letter
354) with Darwin's reply (Letter 355).])
LETTER 145. TO HUGH FALCONER. Down, November 14th [1862].
I have read your paper (145/1. "On the disputed Affinity of the
Mammalian Genus Plagiaulax, from the Purbeck beds."--"Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc." Volume XVIII., page 348, 1862.) with extreme interest, and I
thank you for sending it, though I should certainly have carefully
read it, or anything with your name, in the Journal. It seems to me a
masterpiece of close reasoning: although, of course, not a judge of
such subjects, I cannot feel any doubt that it is conclusive. Will Owen
answer you? I expect that from his arrogant view of his own position he
will not answer. Your paper is dreadfully severe on him, but perfectly
courteous, and polished as the finest dagger. How kind you are towards
me: your first sentence (145/2. "One of the most accurate observers and
original thinkers of our time has discoursed with emphatic eloquence on
the Imperfection of the Geological Record.") has pleased me more than
perhaps it ought to do, if I had any modesty in my composition. By the
way, after reading the first whole paragraph, I re-read it, not for
matter, but for style; and then it suddenly occurred to me that a
certain man once said to me, when I urged him to publish some of his
miscellaneous wealth of knowledge, "Oh, he could not write,--he hated
it," etc. You false man, never say that to me again. Your incidental
remark on the remarkable specialisation of Plagiaulax (145/3. "If
Plagiaulax be regarded through the medium of the view advocated with
such power by Darwin, through what a number of intermediate forms must
not the genus have passed before it attained the specialised condition
in which the fossils come before us!") (which has stuck in my gizzard
ever since I read your first paper) as bearing on the number of
preceding forms, is quite new to me, and, of course, is in accordance to
my notions a most impressive argument. I was also glad to be reminded of
teeth of camel and tarsal bones. (145/4. Op. cit. page 353. A reference
to Cuvier's instance "of the secret relation between the upper
canine-shaped incisors of the camel and the bones of the tarsus.")
Descent from an intermediate form, Ahem!
Well, all I can say is that I have not been for a long time more
interested with a paper than with yours. It gives me a demoniacal
chuckle to think of Owen's pleasant countenance when he reads it.
I have not been in London since the end of September; when I do come I
will beat up your quarters if I possibly can; but I do not know what
has come over me. I am worse than ever in bearing any excitement. Even
talking of an evening for less than two hours has twice recently brought
on such violent vomiting and trembling that I dread coming up to London.
I hear that you came out strong at Cambridge (145/5. Prof. Owen, in a
communication to the British Association at Cambridge (1862) "On a tooth
of Mastodon from the Tertiary marls, near Shanghai," brought forward
the case of the Australian Mastodon as a proof of the remarkable
geographical distribution of the Proboscidia. In a subsequent discussion
he frankly abandoned it, in consequence of the doubts then urged
regarding its authenticity. (See footnote, page 101, in Falconer's paper
"On the American Fossil Elephant," "Nat. Hist. Review," 1863.)), and am
heartily glad you attacked the Australian Mastodon. I never did or could
believe in him. I wish you would read my little Primula paper in the
"Linnean Journal," Volume VI. Botany (No. 22), page 77 (I have no copy
which I can spare), as I think there is a good chance that you may have
observed similar cases. This is my real hobby-horse at present. I have
re-tested this summer the functional difference of the two forms in
Primula, and find all strictly accurate. If you should know of any cases
analogous, pray inform me. Farewell, my good and kind friend.
LETTER 146. TO J.D. HOOKER.
(146/1. The following letter is interesting in connection with a letter
addressed to Sir J.D. Hooker, March 26th, 1862, No. 136, where the
value of Natural Selection is stated more strongly by Sir Joseph than by
Darwin. It is unfortunate that Sir Joseph's letter, to which this is a
reply, has not been found.)
Down, November 20th [1862].
Your last letter has interested me to an extraordinary degree, and your
truly parsonic advice, "some other wise and discreet person," etc.,
etc., amused us not a little. I will put a concrete case to show what
I think A. Gray believes about crossing and what I believe. If 1,000
pigeons were bred together in a cage for 10,000 years their number
not being allowed to increase by chance killing, then from mutual
intercrossing no varieties would arise; but, if each pigeon were a
self-fertilising hermaphrodite, a multitude of varieties would
arise. This, I believe, is the common effect of crossing, viz., the
obliteration of incipient varieties. I do not deny that when two marked
varieties have been produced, their crossing will produce a third
or more intermediate varieties. Possibly, or probably, with domestic
varieties, with a strong tendency to vary, the act of crossing tends
to give rise to new characters; and thus a third or more races, not
strictly intermediate, may be produced. But there is heavy evidence
against new characters arising from crossing wild forms; only
intermediate races are then produced. Now, do you agree thus far? if
not, it is no use arguing; we must come to swearing, and I am convinced
I can swear harder than you, therefore I am right. Q.E.D.
If the number of 1,000 pigeons were prevented increasing not by chance
killing, but by, say, all the shorter-beaked birds being killed, then
the WHOLE body would come to have longer beaks. Do you agree?
Thirdly, if 1,000 pigeons were kept in a hot country, and another
1,000 in a cold country, and fed on different food, and confined in
different-size aviary, and kept constant in number by chance killing,
then I should expect as rather probable that after 10,000 years the two
bodies would differ slightly in size, colour, and perhaps other trifling
characters; this I should call the direct action of physical conditions.
By this action I wish to imply that the innate vital forces are somehow
led to act rather differently in the two cases, just as heat will
allow or cause two elements to combine, which otherwise would not have
combined. I should be especially obliged if you would tell me what you
think on this head.
But the part of your letter which fairly pitched me head over heels with
astonishment, is that where you state that every single difference which
we see might have occurred without any selection. I do and have always
fully agreed; but you have got right round the subject, and viewed it
from an entirely opposite and new side, and when you took me there I was
astounded. When I say I agree, I must make the proviso, that under
your view, as now, each form long remains adapted to certain fixed
conditions, and that the conditions of life are in the long run
changeable; and second, which is more important, that each individual
form is a self-fertilising hermaphrodite, so that each hair-breadth
variation is not lost by intercrossing. Your manner of putting the case
would be even more striking than it is if the mind could grapple with
such numbers--it is grappling with eternity--think of each of a thousand
seeds bringing forth its plant, and then each a thousand. A globe
stretching to the furthest fixed star would very soon be covered. I
cannot even grapple with the idea, even with races of dogs, cattle,
pigeons, or fowls; and here all admit and see the accurate strictness of
your illustration.
Such men as you and Lyell thinking that I make too much of a Deus of
Natural Selection is a conclusive argument against me. Yet I hardly know
how I could have put in, in all parts of my book, stronger sentences.
The title, as you once pointed out, might have been better. No one ever
objects to agriculturalists using the strongest language about their
selection, yet every breeder knows that he does not produce the
modification which he selects. My enormous difficulty for years was to
understand adaptation, and this made me, I cannot but think, rightly,
insist so much on Natural Selection. God forgive me for writing at such
length; but you cannot tell how much your letter has interested me, and
how important it is for me with my present book in hand to try and get
clear ideas. Do think a bit about what is meant by direct action of
physical conditions. I do not mean whether they act; my facts will throw
some light on this. I am collecting all cases of bud-variations, in
contradistinction to seed-variations (do you like this term, for what
some gardeners call "sports"?); these eliminate all effects of crossing.
Pray remember how much I value your opinion as the clearest and most
original I ever get.
I see plainly that Welwitschia (146/2. Sir Joseph's great paper on
Welwitschia mirabilis was published in the "Linn. Soc. Trans." 1863.)
will be a case of Barnacles.
I have another plant to beg, but I write on separate paper as more
convenient for you to keep. I meant to have said before, as an excuse
for asking for so much from Kew, that I have now lost TWO seasons, by
accursed nurserymen not having right plants, and sending me the wrong
instead of saying that they did not possess.
LETTER 147. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 24th [November, 1862].
I have just received enclosed for you, and I have thought that you
would like to read the latter half of A. Gray's letter to me, as it is
political and nearly as mad as ever in our English eyes. You will see
how the loss of the power of bullying is in fact the sore loss to the
men of the North from disunion.
I return with thanks Bates' letter, which I was glad to see. It was
very good of you writing to him, for he is evidently a man who wants
encouragement. I have now finished his paper (but have read nothing
else in the volume); it seems to me admirable. To my mind the act of
segregation of varieties into species was never so plainly brought
forward, and there are heaps of capital miscellaneous observations.
I hardly know why I am a little sorry, but my present work is leading
me to believe rather more in the direct action of physical conditions. I
presume I regret it, because it lessens the glory of Natural Selection,
and is so confoundedly doubtful. Perhaps I shall change again when I get
all my facts under one point of view, and a pretty hard job this will
be. (147/1. This paragraph was published in "Life and Letters," II.,
page 390. It is not clear why a belief in "direct action" should
diminish the glory of Natural Selection, since the changes so produced
must, like any other variations, pass through the ordeal of the survival
of the fittest. On the whole question of direct action see Mr. Adam
Sedgwick's "Presidential Address to the Zoological Section of the
British Association," 1899.)
LETTER 148. TO H.W. BATES. Down, November 25th [1862?].
I should think it was not necessary to get a written agreement. (148/1.
Mr. Bates' book, "A Naturalist on the Amazons," was published in 1863.)
I have never had one from Murray. I suppose you have a letter with
terms; if not, I should think you had better ask for one to prevent
misunderstandings. I think Sir C. Lyell told me he had not any formal
agreements. I am heartily glad to hear that your book is progressing.
Could you find me some place, even a footnote (though these are in nine
cases out of ten objectionable), where you could state, as fully as your
materials permit, all the facts about similar varieties pairing,--at a
guess how many you caught, and how many now in your collection? I look
at this fact as very important; if not in your book, put it somewhere
else, or let me have cases.
I entirely agree with you on the enormous advantage of thoroughly
studying one group.
I really have no criticism to make. (148/2. Mr. Bates' paper on mimetic
butterflies was read before the Linnean Society, November 21st, 1861,
and published in the "Linn. Soc. Trans." XXIII., 1862, page 495, under
the title of "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley.")
Style seems to me very good and clear; but I much regret that in the
title or opening passage you did not blow a loud trumpet about what
you were going to show. Perhaps the paper would have been better more
divided into sections with headings. Perhaps you might have given
somewhere rather more of a summary on the progress of segregation
of varieties, and not referred your readers to the descriptive part,
excepting such readers as wanted minute detail. But these are trifles:
I consider your paper as a most admirable production in every way.
Whenever I come to variation under natural conditions (my head for
months has been exclusively occupied with domestic varieties), I shall
have to study and re-study your paper, and no doubt shall then have to
plague you with questions. I am heartily glad to hear that you are well.
I have been compelled to write in a hurry; so excuse me.
LETTER 149. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 7th [1862].
I was on the point of adding to an order to Williams & Norgate for your
Lectures (149/1. "A Course of Six Lectures to Working Men," published in
six pamphlets by Hardwicke, and later as a book. See Letter 156.) when
they arrived, and much obliged I am. I have read them with interest, and
they seem to me very good for this purpose and capitally written, as is
everything which you write. I suppose every book nowadays requires some
pushing, so that if you do not wish these lectures to be extensively
circulated, I suppose they will not; otherwise I should think they would
do good and spread a taste for the natural sciences. Anyhow, I have
liked them; but I get more and more, I am sorry to say, to care for
nothing but Natural History; and chiefly, as you once said, for the mere
species question. I think I liked No. III. the best of all. I have often
said and thought that the process of scientific discovery was identical
with everyday thought, only with more care; but I never succeeded in
putting the case to myself with one-tenth of the clearness with which
you have done. I think your second geological section will puzzle your
non-scientific readers; anyhow, it has puzzled me, and with the strong
middle line, which must represent either a line of stratification or
some great mineralogical change, I cannot conceive how your statement
can hold good.
I am very glad to hear of your "three-year-old" vigour [?]; but I fear,
with all your multifarious work, that your book on Man will necessarily
be delayed. You bad man; you say not a word about Mrs. Huxley, of whom
my wife and self are always truly anxious to hear.
P.S. I see in the "Cornhill Magazine" a notice of a work by Cohn, which
apparently is important, on the contractile tissue of plants. (149/2.
"Ueber contractile Gewebe im Pflanzenreiche." "Abhand. der Schlesischen
Gesellschaft fur vaterlandische Cultur," Heft I., 1861.) You ought to
have it reviewed. I have ordered it, and must try and make out, if
I can, some of the accursed german, for I am much interested in the
subject, and experimented a little on it this summer, and came to
the conclusion that plants must contain some substance most closely
analogous to the supposed diffused nervous matter in the lower animals;
or as, I presume, it would be more accurate to say with Cohn, that they
have contractile tissue.
Lecture VI., page 151, line 7 from top--wetting FEET or bodies? (Miss
Henrietta Darwin's criticism.) (149/3. Lecture VI., page 151: Lamarck
"said, for example, that the short-legged birds, which live on fish, had
been converted into the long-legged waders by desiring to get the fish
without wetting their feet."
Their criticisms on Lectures IV. and VI. are on a separate piece of
undated paper, and must belong to a letter of later date; only three
lectures were published by December 7th, 1862.)
Lecture IV., page 89--Atavism.
You here and there use atavism = inheritance. Duchesne, who, I believe,
invented the word, in his Strawberry book confined it, as every one has
since done, to resemblance to grandfather or more remote ancestor, in
contradistinction to resemblance to parents.
LETTER 150. TO JOHN SCOTT.
(150/1. The following is the first of a series of letters addressed to
the late John Scott, of which the major part is given in our Botanical
chapters. We have been tempted to give this correspondence fully not
only because of its intrinsic scientific interest, but also because they
are almost the only letters which show Darwin in personal relation with
a younger man engaged in research under his supervision.)
[1862?]
To the best of my judgment, no subject is so important in relation to
theoretical natural science, in several respects, and likewise in
itself deserving investigation, as the effects of changed or unnatural
conditions, or of changed structure on the reproductive system. Under
this point of view the relation of well-marked but undoubted varieties
in fertilising each other requires far more experiments than have been
tried. See in the "Origin" the brief abstract of Gartner on Verbascum
and Zea. Mr. W. Crocker, lately foreman at Kew and a very good observer,
is going at my suggestion to work varieties of hollyhock. (150/2.
Altheae species. These experiments seem not to have been carried out.)
The climate would be too cold, I suppose, for varieties of tobacco. I
began on cabbages, but immediately stopped from early shedding of their
pollen causing too much trouble. Your knowledge would suggest some
[plants]. On the same principle it would be well to test peloric flowers
with their own pollen, and with pollen of regular flowers, and try
pollen of peloric on regular flowers--seeds being counted in each case.
I have now got one seedling from many crosses of a peloric Pelargonium
by peloric pollen; I have two or three seedlings from a peloric flower
by pollen of regular flower. I have ordered a peloric Antirrhinum
(150/3. See "Variation of Animals and Plants," Edition I., Volume II.,
page 70.) and the peloric Gloxinia, but I much fear I shall never have
time to try them. The Passiflora cases are truly wonderful, like the
Crinum cases (see "Origin"). (150/4. "Origin," Edition VI., page 238.)
I have read in a German paper that some varieties of potatoes (name not
given) cannot be fertilised by [their] own pollen, but can by pollen
of other varieties: well worth trying. Again, fertility of any monster
flower, which is pretty regularly produced; I have got the wonderful
Begonia frigida (150/5. The species on which Sir J.D. Hooker wrote in
the "Gardeners' Chronicle," February 25th, 1860. See "Life and Letters,"
II., page 275.) from Kew, but doubt whether I have heat to set its
seeds. If an unmodified Celosia could be got, it would be well to
test with the modified cockscomb. There is a variation of columbine
[Aquilegia] with simple petals without nectaries, etc., etc. I never
could think what to try; but if one could get hold of a long-cultivated
plant which crossed with a distinct species and yielded a very small
number of seeds, then it would be highly good to test comparatively the
wild parent-form and its varying offspring with this third species: for
instance, if a polyanthus would cross with some species of Primula, then
to try a wild cowslip with it. I believe hardly any primulas have ever
been crossed. If we knew and could get the parent of the carnation
(150/6. Dianthus caryophyllus, garden variety.), it would be very good
for this end. Any member of the Lythraceae raised from seed ought to be
well looked after for dimorphism. I have wonderful facts, the result of
experiment, on Lythrum salicaria.
LETTER 151. TO JOHN SCOTT. Down, December 11th [1862].
I have read your paper with much interest. (151/1. "On the Nature and
Peculiarities of the Fern-spore." "Bot. Soc. Edin." Read June 12th,
1862.) You ask for remarks on the matter, which is alone really
important. Shall you think me impertinent (I am sure I do not mean to be
so) if I hazard a remark on the style, which is of more importance than
some think? In my opinion (whether or no worth much) your paper would
have been much better if written more simply and less elaborated--more
like your letters. It is a golden rule always to use, if possible, a
short old Saxon word. Such a sentence as "so purely dependent is the
incipient plant on the specific morphological tendency" does not sound
to my ears like good mother-English--it wants translating. Here and
there you might, I think, have condensed some sentences. I go on the
plan of thinking every single word which can be omitted without actual
loss of sense as a decided gain. Now perhaps you will think me a
meddling intruder: anyhow, it is the advice of an old hackneyed
writer who sincerely wishes you well. Your remark on the two sexes
counteracting variability in product of the one is new to me. (151/2.
Scott (op. cit., page 214): "The reproductive organs of phoenogams,
as is well-known, are always products of two morphologically distinct
organs, the stamens producing the pollen, the carpels producing the
ovules...The embryo being in this case the modified resultant of two
originally distinct organs, there will necessarily be a greater tendency
to efface any individual peculiarities of these than would have been
the case had the embryo been the product of a single organ." A different
idea seems to have occurred to Mr. Darwin, for in an undated letter
to Scott he wrote: "I hardly know what to say on your view of male and
female organs and variability. I must think more over it. But I was
amused by finding the other day in my portfolio devoted to bud-variation
a slip of paper dated June, 1860, with some such words as these, 'May
not permanence of grafted buds be due to the two sexual elements
derived from different parts not having come into play?' I had utterly
forgotten, when I read your paper that any analogous notion had ever
passed through my mind--nor can I now remember, but the slip shows me
that it had." It is interesting that Huxley also came to a conclusion
differing from Scott's; and, curiously enough, Darwin confused the two
views, for he wrote to Scott (December 19th): "By an odd chance, reading
last night some short lectures just published by Prof. Huxley, I find
your observation, independently arrived at by him, on the confluence of
the two sexes causing variability." Professor Huxley's remarks are in
his "Lectures to Working Men on our Knowledge, etc." No. 4, page 90:
"And, indeed, I think that a certain amount of variation from the
primitive stock is the necessary result of the method of sexual
propagation itself; for inasmuch as the thing propagated proceeds from
two organisms of different sexes and different makes and temperaments,
and, as the offspring is to be either of one sex or the other, it is
quite clear that it cannot be an exact diagonal of the two, or it would
be of no sex at all; it cannot be an exact intermediate form between
that of each of its parents--it must deviate to one side or the other.")
But I cannot avoid thinking that there is something unknown and deeper
in seminal generation. Reflect on the long succession of embryological
changes in every animal. Does a bud ever produce cotyledons or embryonic
leaves? I have been much interested by your remark on inheritance at
corresponding ages; I hope you will, as you say, continue to attend to
this. Is it true that female Primula plants always produce females
by parthenogenesis? (151/3. It seems probable that Darwin here means
vegetative reproduction.) If you can answer this I should be glad;
it bears on my Primula work. I thought on the subject, but gave
up investigating what had been observed, because the female bee by
parthenogenesis produces males alone. Your paper has told me much that
in my ignorance was quite new to me. Thanks about P. scotica. If any
important criticisms are made on the Primula to the Botanical Society,
I should be glad to hear them. If you think fit, you may state that I
repeated the crossing experiments on P. sinensis and cowslip with the
same result this spring as last year--indeed, with rather more marked
difference in fertility of the two crosses. In fact, had I then proved
the Linum case, I would not have wasted time in repetition. I am
determined I will at once publish on Linum...
I was right to be cautious in supposing you in error about Siphocampylus
(no flowers were enclosed). I hope that you will make out whether the
pistil presents two definite lengths; I shall be astounded if it does. I
do not fully understand your objections to Natural Selection; if I do,
I presume they would apply with full force to, for instance, birds.
Reflect on modification of Arab-Turk horse into our English racehorse. I
have had the satisfaction to tell my publisher to send my "Journal" and
"Origin" to your address. I suspect, with your fertile mind, you
will find it far better to experiment on your own choice; but if, on
reflection, you would like to try some which interest me, I should be
truly delighted, and in this case would write in some detail. If
you have the means to repeat Gartner's experiments on variations of
Verbascum or on maize (see the "Origin"), such experiments would be
pre-eminently important. I could never get variations of Verbascum.
I could suggest an experiment on potatoes analogous with the case of
Passiflora; even the case of Passiflora, often as it has been repeated,
might be with advantage repeated. I have worked like a slave (having
counted about nine thousand seeds) on Melastoma, on the meaning of the
two sets of very different stamens, and as yet have been shamefully
beaten, and I now cry for aid. I could suggest what I believe a
very good scheme (at least, Dr. Hooker thought so) for systematic
degeneration of culinary plants, and so find out their origin; but this
would be laborious and the work of years.
LETTER 152. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 12th [December, 1862].
My good old Friend--
How kind you have been to give me so much of your time! Your letter
is of real use, and has been and shall be well considered. I am much
pleased to find that we do not differ as much as I feared. I begin my
book with saying that my chief object is to show the inordinate scale
of variation; I have especially studied all sorts of variations of the
individual. On crossing I cannot change; the more I think, the more
reason I have to believe that my conclusion would be agreed to by
all practised breeders. I also greatly doubt about variability and
domestication being at all necessarily correlative, but I have touched
on this in "Origin." Plants being identical under very different
conditions has always seemed to me a very heavy argument against what
I call direct action. I think perhaps I will take the case of 1,000
pigeons (152/1. See Letter 146.) to sum up my volume; I will not discuss
other points, but, as I have said, I shall recur to your letter. But
I must just say that if sterility be allowed to come into play, if
long-beaked be in the least degree sterile with short-beaked, my whole
case is altered. By the way, my notions on hybridity are becoming
considerably altered by my dimorphic work. I am now strongly inclined to
believe that sterility is at first a selected quality to keep incipient
species distinct. If you have looked at Lythrum you will see how pollen
can be modified merely to favour crossing; with equal readiness it could
be modified to prevent crossing.
It is this which makes me so much interested with dimorphism, etc.
(152/2. This gives a narrow impression of Darwin's interest in
dimorphism. The importance of his work was (briefly put) the proof that
sterility has no necessary connection with specific difference, but
depends on sexual differentiation independent of racial differences. See
"Life and Letters," III., page 296. His point of view that sterility
is a selected quality is again given in a letter to Huxley ("Life and
Letters," II., page 384), but was not upheld in his later writings (see
"Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 245). The idea of sterility being
a selected quality is interesting in connection with Romanes' theory of
physiological selection. (See Letters 209-214.))
One word more. When you pitched me head over heels by your new way of
looking at the back side of variation, I received assurance and strength
by considering monsters--due to law: horribly strange as they are, the
monsters were alive till at least when born. They differ at least as
much from the parent as any one mammal from another.
I have just finished a long, weary chapter on simple facts of variation
of cultivated plants, and am now refreshing myself with a paper on Linum
for the Linnean Society.
LETTER 153. TO W.B. TEGETMEIER.
(153/1. The following letter also bears on the question of the
artificial production of sterility.)
Down, 27th [December, 1862].
The present plan is to try whether any existing breeds happen to
have acquired accidentally any degree of sterility; but to this point
hereafter. The enclosed MS. will show what I have done and know on the
subject. Please at some future time carefully return the MS. to me. If I
were going to try again, I would prefer Turbit with Carrier or Dragon.
I will suggest an analogous experiment, which I have had for two years
in my experimental book with "be sure and try," but which, as my health
gets yearly weaker and weaker and my other work increases, I suppose
I shall never try. Permit me to add that if 5 pounds would cover the
expenses of the experiment, I should be delighted to give it, and you
could publish the result if there be any result. I crossed the Spanish
cock (your bird) and white Silk hen and got plenty of eggs and chickens;
but two of them seemed to be quite sterile. I was then sadly overdone
with work, but have ever since much reproached myself that I did not
preserve and carefully test the procreative power of these hens. Now, if
you are inclined to get a Spanish cock and a couple of white Silk hens,
I shall be most grateful to hear whether the offspring breed well: they
will prove, I think, not hardy; if they should prove sterile, which I
can hardly believe, they will anyhow do for the pot. If you do try this,
how would it do to put a Silk cock to your curious silky Cochin hen, so
as to get a big silk breed; it would be curious if you could get silky
fowl with bright colours. I believe a Silk hen crossed by any other
breed never gives silky feathers. A cross from Silk cock and Cochin Silk
hen ought to give silky feathers and probably bright colours.
I have been led lately from experiments (not published) on dimorphism
to reflect much on sterility from hybridism, and partially to change
the opinion given in "Origin." I have now letters out enquiring on the
following point, implied in the experiment, which seems to me well worth
trying, but too laborious ever to be attempted. I would ask every pigeon
and fowl fancier whether they have ever observed, in the same breed, a
cock A paired to a hen B which did not produce young. Then I would get
cock A and match it to a hen of its nearest blood; and hen B to its
nearest blood. I would then match the offspring of A (viz., a, b, c, d,
e) to the offspring of B (viz., f, g, h, i, j), and all those children
which were fertile together should be destroyed until I found one--say
a, which was not quite fertile with--say, i. Then a and i should be
preserved and paired with their parents A and B, so as to try and get
two families which would not unite together; but the members WITHIN each
family being fertile together. This would probably be quite hopeless;
but he who could effect this would, I believe, solve the problem of
sterility from hybridism. If you should ever hear of individual fowls or
pigeons which are sterile together, I should be very grateful to hear of
the case. It is a parallel case to those recorded of a man not impotent
long living with a woman who remained childless; the husband died, and
the woman married again and had plenty of children. Apparently (by
no means certainly) this first man and woman were dissimilar in their
sexual organisation. I conceive it possible that their offspring
(if both had married again and both had children) would be sexually
dissimilar, like their parents, or sterile together. Pray forgive my
dreadful writing; I have been very unwell all day, and have no strength
to re-write this scrawl. I am working slowly on, and I suppose in three
or four months shall be ready.
I am sure I do not know whether any human being could understand or read
this shameful scrawl.
LETTER 154. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December, 28th [1862].
I return enclosed: if you write, thank Mr. Kingsley for thinking
of letting me see the sound sense of an Eastern potentate. (154/1.
Kingsley's letter to Huxley, dated December 20th, 1862, contains a story
or parable of a heathen Khan in Tartary who was visited by a pair of
proselytising Moollahs. The first Moollah said: "Oh! Khan, worship my
God. He is so wise that he made all things." But Moollah No. 2 won the
day by pointing out that his God is "so wise that he makes all things
make themselves.") All that I said about the little book (154/2. The six
"Lectures to Working Men," published in six pamphlets and in book-form
in 1863. Mr. Huxley considered that Mr. Darwin's argument required
the production by man's selection of breeds which should be mutually
infertile, and thus resemble distinct species physiologically as well as
morphologically.) is strictly my opinion; it is in every way excellent,
and cannot fail to do good the wider it is circulated. Whether it is
worth your while to give up time to it is another question for you alone
to decide; that it will do good for the subject is beyond all question.
I do not think a dunce exists who could not understand it, and that is
a bold saying after the extent to which I have been misunderstood. I did
not understand what you required about sterility: assuredly the facts
given do not go nearly so far. We differ so much that it is no use
arguing. To get the degree of sterility you expect in recently formed
varieties seems to me simply hopeless. It seems to me almost like those
naturalists who declare they will never believe that one species turns
into another till they see every stage in process.
I have heard from Tegetmeier, and have given him the result of my
crosses of the birds which he proposes to try, and have told him how
alone I think the experiment could be tried with the faintest hope of
success--namely, to get, if possible, a case of two birds which when
paired were unproductive, yet neither impotent. For instance, I had this
morning a letter with a case of a Hereford heifer, which seemed to be,
after repeated trials, sterile with one particular and far from impotent
bull, but not with another bull. But it is too long a story--it is to
attempt to make two strains, both fertile, and yet sterile when one
of one strain is crossed with one of the other strain. But the
difficulty...would be beyond calculation. As far as I see, Tegetmeier's
plan would simply test whether two existing breeds are now in any
slight degree sterile; which has already been largely tested: not that I
dispute the good of re-testing.
LETTER 155. TO HUGH FALCONER.
(155/1. The original letter is dated "December 10th," but this must, we
think, be a slip of the pen for January 10th. It contains a reference to
No. VI. of the "Lectures to Working Men" which, as Mr. Leonard Huxley
is good enough to inform us, was not delivered until December 15th, and
therefore could not have been seen by Mr. Darwin on December 10th. The
change of date makes comprehensible the reference to Falconer's paper
"On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of
Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.)," which appeared in the January number of the
"Natural History Review." It is true that he had seen advanced sheets of
Falconer's paper ("Life and Letters," II., page 389), but the reference
here is to the complete paper.
In the present volume we have thought it right to give some expression
to the attitude of Darwin towards Owen. Professor Owen's biographer has
clearly felt the difficulty of making a statement on Owen's attitude
towards Darwinism, and has ("Life of Sir Richard Owen," Volume II., page
92) been driven to adopt the severe indictment contained in the "Origin
of Species," Edition VI., page xviii. Darwin was by no means alone in
his distrust of Owen; and to omit altogether a reference to the conduct
which led up to the isolation of Owen among his former friends and
colleagues would be to omit a part of the history of science of the
day. And since we cannot omit to notice Darwin's point of view, it seems
right to give the facts of a typical case illustrating the feeling
with which he regarded Owen. This is all the more necessary since the
recently published biography of Sir R. Owen gives no hint, as far as we
are aware, of even a difference of opinion with other scientific men.
The account which Falconer gives in the above-mentioned paper in the
"Nat. Hist. Review" (January, 1863) would be amusing if the matter were
less serious. In 1857 Falconer described ("Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc."
XIII.) a new species of fossil elephant from America, to which he gave
the name Elephas Columbi, a designation which was recognised and adopted
by Continental writers. In 1858 (Brit. Assoc. Leeds) Owen made use of
the name "Elephas texianus," Blake" for the species which Falconer
had previously named E. Columbi, but without referring to Falconer's
determination; he gave no authority, "thus by the established usage in
zoology producing it as his own." In 1861 Owen in his Palaeontology,
2nd edition, 1861, describes the elephant as E. texianus, Blake. To
Mr. Blake's name is appended an asterisk which refers to a footnote
to Bollaert's "Antiquities of S. America," 2nd edition. According to
Falconer (page 46) no second edition of Bollaert had appeared at the
time of writing (August, 1862), and in the first edition (1860) he
was "unable to detect the occurrence of the name even, of E. texianus,
anywhere throughout the volume"; though Bollaert mentions the fact that
he had deposited, in the British Museum, the tooth of a fossil elephant
from Texas.
In November, 1861, Blake wrote a paper in the "Geologist" in which the
new elephant no longer bears his own name as authority, but is described
as "Elephas texianus, Owen, E. Columbi, Falconer." Finally, in another
paper the name of Owen is dropped and the elephant is once more his own.
As Falconer remarks, "the usage of science does not countenance such
accommodating arrangements, when the result is to prejudice a prior
right."
It may be said, no doubt, that the question who first described a given
species is a petty one; but this view has a double edge, and
applies most strongly to those who neglect the just claims of their
predecessors.
Down, January 5th [1863].
I finished your Elephant paper last night, and you must let me express
my admiration at it. (155/2. "On the American Fossil Elephant of the
Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.), etc." "Nat.
Hist. Rev." 1863, page 81. (Cf. Letter to Lyell. "Life and Letters,"
II., page 389; also "Origin," Edition VI., page 306.) See Letter 143.)
All the points strike me as admirably worked out, and very many
most interesting. I was particularly struck with your remarks on the
character of the ancient Mammalian Fauna of N. America (155/3. Falconer,
page 62. This passage is marked in Darwin's copy.); it agrees with all I
fancied was the case, namely a temporary irruption of S. American forms
into N. America, and conversely, I chuckled a little over the specimen
of M. Andium "hesitating" between the two groups. (155/4. In speaking of
the characters of Mastodon Andium, Falconer refers to a former paper
by himself ("Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume XIII. 1857, page 313),
in which he called attention "to the exceptional character of
certain specimens of M. Andium, as if hesitating between [the groups]
Tetralophodon and Trilophodon" (ibid., page 100).) I have been assured
by Mr. Wallace that abundant Mastodon remains have been found at Timor,
and that is rather close to Australia. I rejoice that you have smashed
that case. (155/5. In the paper in the "Nat. Hist. Review" (loc. cit.)
Falconer writes: "It seems more probable that some unintentional error
has got mixed up with the history of this remarkable fossil; and until
further confirmatory evidence is adduced, of an unimpeachable character,
faith cannot be reposed in the reality of the asserted Australian
Mastodon" (page 101).) It is indeed a grand paper. I will say nothing
more about your allusions to me, except that they have pleased me quite
as much in print as in MS. You must have worked very hard; the labour
must have been extreme, but I do hope that you will have health and
strength to go on. You would laugh if you could see how indignant all
Owen's mean conduct about E. Columbi made me. (155/6. See Letter 157.) I
did not get to sleep till past 3 o'clock. How well you lash him, firmly
and severely, with unruffled temper, as if you were performing a simple
duty. The case is come to such a pass, that I think every man of science
is bound to show his feelings by some overt act, and I shall watch for a
fitting opportunity.
P.S.--I have kept back for a day the enclosed owing to the arrival of
your most interesting letter. I knew it was a mere chance whether you
could inform me on the points required; but no one other person has so
often responded to my miscellaneous queries. I believe I have now in my
greenhouse L. trigynum (155/7. Linum trigynum.), which came up from seed
purchased as L. flavum, from which it is wholly different in foliage. I
have just sent in a paper on Dimorphism of Linum to the Linnean Society
(155/8. "On the Existence of the Forms, and on their reciprocal Sexual
Relation, in several species of the genus Linum.--"Journ. Linn. Soc."