Volume VII., page 69, 1864.), and so I do not doubt your memory is right

about L. trigynum: the functional difference in the two forms of Linum

is really wonderful. I assure you I quite long to see you and a few

others in London; it is not so much the eczema which has taken the

epidermis a dozen times clean off; but I have been knocked up of late

with extraordinary facility, and when I shall be able to come up I know

not. I particularly wish to hear about the wondrous bird: the case has

delighted me, because no group is so isolated as Birds. I much wish to

hear when we meet which digits are developed; when examining birds two

or three years ago, I distinctly remember writing to Lyell that some

day a fossil bird would be found with the end of wing cloven, i.e.

the bastard-wing and other part, both well developed. Thanks for Von

Martius, returned by this post, which I was glad to see. Poor old

Wagner (Probably Johann Andreas Wagner, author of "Zur Feststellung des

Artbegriffes, mit besonderer Bezugnahme auf die Ansichten von Nathusius,

Darwin, Is. Geoffroy and Agassiz," "Munchen Sitzungsb." (1861),

page 301, and of numerous papers on zoological and palaeozoological

subjects.) always attacked me in a proper spirit, and sent me two or

three little brochures, and I thanked him cordially. The Germans seem

much stirred up on the subject. I received by the same post almost a

little volume on the "Origin."

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

with me.

P.S. 2nd.--I have worked like a slave and been baffled like a slave in

trying to make out the meaning of two very different sets of stamens in

some Melastomaceae. (155/9. Several letters on the Melastomaceae occur

in our Botanical section.) I must tell you one fact. I counted 9,000

seeds, one by one, from my artificially fertilised pods. There is

something very odd, but I am as yet beaten. Plants from two pollens grow

at different rates! Now, what I want to know is, whether in individuals

of the same species, growing together, you have ever noticed any

difference in the position of the pistil or in the size and colour of

the stamens?

LETTER 156. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 18th [1862].

I have read Nos. IV, and V. (156/1. "On our Knowledge of the Causes

of the Phenomena of Organic Nature," being six Lectures to Working Men

delivered at the Museum of Practical Geology by Prof. Huxley, 1863.

These lectures, which were given once a week from November 10th, 1862,

onwards, were printed from the notes of Mr. J.A. Mays, a shorthand

writer, who asked permission to publish them on his own account; Mr.

Huxley stating in a prefatory "Notice" that he had no leisure to

revise the lectures.) They are simply perfect. They ought to be largely

advertised; but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down No.

IV. with this reflection, "What is the good of writing a thundering big

book, when everything is in this green little book, so despicable for

its size?" In the name of all that is good and bad, I may as well shut

up shop altogether. You put capitally and most simply and clearly the

relation of animals and plants to each other at page 122.

Be careful about Fantails: their tail-feathers are fixed in a radiating

position, but they can depress and elevate them. I remember in a

pigeon-book seeing withering contempt expressed at some naturalist for

not knowing this important point! Page 111 (156/2. The reference is

to the original little green paper books in which the lectures first

appeared; the paging in the bound volume dated 1863 is slightly

different. The passage here is, "...If you couple a male and female

hybrid...the result is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you

will get no offspring at all." Darwin maintains elsewhere that Huxley,

from not knowing the botanical evidence, made too much of this point.

See "Life and Letters," II., page 384.) seems a little too strong--viz.,

ninety-nine out of a hundred, unless you except plants.

Page 118: You say the answer to varieties when crossed being at all

sterile is "absolutely a negative." (156/3. Huxley, page 112: "Can we

find any approximation to this [sterility of hybrids] in the different

races known to be produced by selective breeding from a common stock? Up

to the present time the answer to that question is absolutely a negative

one.") Do you mean to say that Gartner lied, after experiments by the

hundred (and he a hostile witness), when he showed that this was the

case with Verbascum and with maize (and here you have selected races):

does Kolreuter lie when he speaks about the varieties of tobacco? My

God, is not the case difficult enough, without its being, as I must

think, falsely made more difficult? I believe it is my own fault--my

d--d candour: I ought to have made ten times more fuss about these most

careful experiments. I did put it stronger in the third edition of the

"Origin." If you have a new edition, do consider your second geological

section: I do not dispute the truth of your statement; but I maintain

that in almost every case the gravel would graduate into the mud; that

there would not be a hard, straight line between the mass of gravel and

mud; that the gravel, in crawling inland, would be separated from the

underlying beds by oblique lines of stratification. A nice idea of the

difficulty of Geology your section would give to a working man! Do show

your section to Ramsay, and tell him what I say; and if he thinks it

a fair section for a beginner I am shut up, and "will for ever hold my

tongue." Good-night.

LETTER 157. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, [January] 10th [1863].

You will be weary of notes from me about the little book of yours. It is

lucky for me that I expressed, before reading No. VI. (157/1. "Lectures

to Working Men," No. VI., is a critical examination of the position

of the "Origin of Species" in relation to the complete theory of

the "causes of the phenomena of organic nature."), my opinion of its

absolute excellence, and of its being well worth wide distribution

and worth correction (not that I see where you could improve), if you

thought it worth your valuable time. Had I read No. VI., even a rudiment

of modesty would, or ought to, have stopped me saying so much. Though I

have been well abused, yet I have had so much praise, that I have become

a gourmand, both as to capacity and taste; and I really did not think

that mortal man could have tickled my palate in the exquisite manner

with which you have done the job. So I am an old ass, and nothing more

need be said about this. I agree entirely with all your reservations

about accepting the doctrine, and you might have gone further with

further safety and truth. Of course I do not wholly agree about

sterility. I hate beyond all things finding myself in disagreement with

any capable judge, when the premises are the same; and yet this will

occasionally happen. Thinking over my former letter to you, I fancied

(but I now doubt) that I had partly found out the cause of our

disagreement, and I attributed it to your naturally thinking most

about animals, with which the sterility of the hybrids is much more

conspicuous than the lessened fertility of the first cross. Indeed,

this could hardly be ascertained with mammals, except by comparing the

products of [their] whole life; and, as far as I know, this has only

been ascertained in the case of the horse and ass, which do produce

fewer offspring in [their] lifetime than in pure breeding. In plants the

test of first cross seems as fair as test of sterility of hybrids. And

this latter test applies, I will maintain to the death, to the crossing

of varieties of Verbascum, and varieties, selected varieties, of Zea.

(157/2. See Letter 156.) You will say Go to the Devil and hold your

tongue. No, I will not hold my tongue; for I must add that after going,

for my present book, all through domestic animals, I have come to the

conclusion that there are almost certainly several cases of two or three

or more species blended together and now perfectly fertile together.

Hence I conclude that there must be something in domestication,--perhaps

the less stable conditions, the very cause which induces so much

variability,--which eliminates the natural sterility of species when

crossed. If so, we can see how unlikely that sterility should arise

between domestic races. Now I will hold my tongue. Page 143: ought

not "Sanscrit" to be "Aryan"? What a capital number the last "Natural

History Review" is! That is a grand paper by Falconer. I cannot say how

indignant Owen's conduct about E. Columbi has made me. I believe I hate

him more than you do, even perhaps more than good old Falconer does. But

I have bubbled over to one or two correspondents on this head, and will

say no more. I have sent Lubbock a little review of Bates' paper in

"Linn. Transact." (157/3. The unsigned review of Mr. Bates' work on

mimetic butterflies appeared in the "Nat. Hist. Review" (1863), page

219.) which L. seems to think will do for your "Review." Do inaugurate a

great improvement, and have pages cut, like the Yankees do; I will heap

blessings on your head. Do not waste your time in answering this.

LETTER 158. TO JOHN LUBBOCK [LORD AVEBURY]. Down, January 23rd [1863].

I have no criticism, except one sentence not perfectly smooth. I think

your introductory remarks very striking, interesting, and novel. (158/1.

"On the Development of Chloeon (Ephemera) dimidiatum, Part I. By John

Lubbock. "Trans. Linn. Soc." Volume XXIV., pages 61-78, 1864 [Read

January 15th, 1863].) They interested me the more, because the vaguest

thoughts of the same kind had passed through my head; but I had no idea

that they could be so well developed, nor did I know of exceptions.

Sitaris and Meloe (158/2. Sitaris and Meloe, two genera of coleopterous

insects, are referred to by Lubbock (op. cit., pages 63-64) as

"perhaps...the most remarkable cases...among the Coleoptera" of curious

and complicated metamorphoses.) seem very good. You have put the whole

case of metamorphosis in a new light; I dare say what you remark about

poverty of fresh-water is very true. (158/3. "We cannot but be struck

by the poverty of the fresh-water fauna when compared with that of

the ocean" (op. cit., page 64).) I think you might write a memoir

on fresh-water productions. I suggest that the key-note is that

land-productions are higher and have advantage in general over marine;

and consequently land-productions have generally been modified into

fresh-water productions, instead of marine productions being directly

changed into fresh-water productions, as at first seems more probable,

as the chance of immigration is always open from sea to rivers and

ponds.

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

LETTER 159. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 13th [1863].

I send a very imperfect answer to [your] question, which I have written

on foreign paper to save you copying, and you can send when you write

to Thomson in Calcutta. Hereafter I shall be able to answer better your

question about qualities induced in individuals being inherited; gout

in man--loss of wool in sheep (which begins in the first generation and

takes two or three to complete); probably obesity (for it is rare with

poor); probably obesity and early maturity in short-horn cattle, etc.,

etc.

LETTER 160. TO A. DE CANDOLLE. Down, January 14th [1863].

I thank you most sincerely for sending me your Memoir. (160/1. Etude

sur l'Espece a l'occasion d'une revision de la Famille des Cupuliferes.

"Biblioth. Univ. (Arch. des Sc. Phys. et Nat.)," Novembre 1862.) I have

read it with the liveliest interest, as is natural for me; but you have

the art of making subjects, which might be dry, run easily. I have been

fairly astonished at the amount of individual variability in the oaks.

I never saw before the subject in any department of nature worked out so

carefully. What labour it must have cost you! You spoke in one letter

of advancing years; but I am very sure that no one would have suspected

that you felt this. I have been interested with every part; though I am

so unfortunate as to differ from most of my contemporaries in thinking

that the vast continental extensions (160/2. See Letters 47, 48.)

of Forbes, Heer, and others are not only advanced without sufficient

evidence, but are opposed to much weighty evidence. You refer to my work

in the kindest and most generous spirit. I am fully satisfied at the

length in belief to which you go, and not at all surprised at the

prudent reservations which you make. I remember well how many years it

cost me to go round from old beliefs. It is encouraging to me to observe

that everyone who has gone an inch with me, after a period goes a few

more inches or even feet. But the great point, as it seems to me, is to

give up the immutability of specific forms; as long as they are thought

immutable, there can be no real progress in "Epiontology." (160/3. See

De Candolle, loc. cit., page 67: he defines "Epiontologie" as the study

of the distribution and succession of organised beings from their origin

up to the present time. At present Epiontology is divided into geography

and palaeontology, "mais cette division trop inegale et a limites bien

vagues disparaitra probablement.") It matters very little to any one

except myself, whether I am a little more or less wrong on this or that

point; in fact, I am sure to be proved wrong in many points. But the

subject will have, I am convinced, a grand future. Considering that

birds are the most isolated group in the animal kingdom, what a splendid

case is this Solenhofen bird-creature with its long tail and fingers to

its wings! I have lately been daily and hourly using and quoting your

"Geographical Botany" in my book on "Variation under Domestication."

LETTER 161. TO HORACE DOBELL. Down, February 16th [1863].

Absence from home and consequent idleness are the causes that I have not

sooner thanked you for your very kind present of your Lectures. (161/1.

"On the Germs and Vestiges of Disease," (London) 1861.) Your reasoning

seems quite satisfactory (though the subject is rather beyond my limit

of thought and knowledge) on the V.M.F. not being "a given quantity."

(161/2. "It has been too common to consider the force exhibited in

the operations of life (the V.M.F.) as a given quantity, to which no

accessions can be made, but which is apportioned to each living being in

quantity sufficient for its necessities, according to some hidden law"

(op. cit., page 41.) And I can see that the conditions of life must play

a most important part in allowing this quantity to increase, as in the

budding of a tree, etc. How far these conditions act on "the forms of

organic life" (page 46) I do not see clearly. In fact, no part of my

subject has so completely puzzled me as to determine what effect to

attribute to (what I vaguely call) the direct action of the conditions

of life. I shall before long come to this subject, and must endeavour to

come to some conclusion when I have got the mass of collected facts

in some sort of order in my mind. My present impression is that I

have underrated this action in the "Origin." I have no doubt when I go

through your volume I shall find other points of interest and value to

me. I have already stumbled on one case (about which I want to consult

Mr. Paget)--namely, on the re-growth of supernumerary digits. (161/3.

See Letters 178, 270.) You refer to "White on Regeneration, etc., 1785."

I have been to the libraries of the Royal and the Linnean Societies, and

to the British Museum, where the librarians got out your volume and made

a special hunt, and could discover no trace of such a book. Will you

grant me the favour of giving me any clue, where I could see the book?

Have you it? if so, and the case is given briefly, would you have the

great kindness to copy it? I much want to know all particulars. One

case has been given me, but with hardly minute enough details, of a

supernumerary little finger which has already been twice cut off, and

now the operation will soon have to be done for the third time. I am

extremely much obliged for the genealogical table; the fact of the two

cousins not, as far as yet appears, transmitting the peculiarity is

extraordinary, and must be given by me.

LETTER 162. TO C. LYELL. [February 17th, 1863.]

The same post that brought the enclosed brought Dana's pamphlet on

the same subject. (162/1. The pamphlet referred to was published in

"Silliman's Journal," Volume XXV., 1863, pages 65 and 71, also in the

"Annals and Magazine of Natural History," Volume XI., pages 207-14,

1863: "On the Higher Subdivisions in the Classification of Mammals." In

this paper Dana maintains the view that "Man's title to a position by

himself, separate from the other mammals in classification, appears

to be fixed on structural as well as physical grounds" (page 210). His

description is as follows:--

I. ARCHONTIA (vel DIPODA) Man (alone).

II. MEGASTHENA. III. MICROSTHENA.

Quadrumana. Cheiroptera.

Carnivora. Insectivora.

Herbivora. Rodentia.

Mutilata. Bruta (Edentata).

IV. OOTICOIDEA.

Marsupialia.

Monotremata.)

The whole seems to me utterly wild. If there had not been the foregone

wish to separate men, I can never believe that Dana or any one would

have relied on so small a distinction as grown man not using fore-limbs

for locomotion, seeing that monkeys use their limbs in all other

respects for the same purpose as man. To carry on analogous principles

(for they are not identical, in crustacea the cephalic limbs are brought

close to mouth) from crustacea to the classification of mammals seems

to me madness. Who would dream of making a fundamental distinction in

birds, from fore-limbs not being used at all in [some] birds, or used as

fins in the penguin, and for flight in other birds?

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

ends and letters.

LETTER 163. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(163/1. The following extract refers to Owen's paper in the "Linn. Soc.

Journal," June, 1857, in which the classification of the Mammalia by

cerebral characters was proposed. In spite of the fact that men and apes

are placed in distinct Sub-Classes, Owen speaks (in the foot-note of

which Huxley made such telling effect) of the determination of the

difference between Homo and Pithecus as the anatomist's difficulty. (See

Letter 119.))

July 5th, 1857.

What a capital number of the "Linnean Journal!" Owen's is a grand paper;

but I cannot swallow Man making a division as distinct from a chimpanzee

as an Ornithorhynchus from a horse; I wonder what a chimpanzee would say

to this? (163/2. According to Owen the sub-class Archencephala contains

only the genus Homo: the Gyrencephala contains both chimpanzee and

horse, the Lyencephala contains Ornithorhynchus.)

LETTER 164. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down [February?] 26th, 1863.

I have just finished with very great interest "Man's Place." (164/1.

"Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," 1863 (preface dated January

1863).) I never fail to admire the clearness and condensed vigour of

your style, as one calls it, but really of your thought. I have no

criticisms; nor is it likely that I could have. But I think you could

have added some interesting matter on the character or disposition of

the young ourangs which have been kept in France and England. I should

have thought you might have enlarged a little on the later embryological

changes in man and on his rudimentary structure, tail as compared with

tail of higher monkeys, intermaxillary bone, false ribs, and I daresay

other points, such as muscles of ears, etc., etc. I was very much

struck with admiration at the opening pages of Part II. (and oh! what a

delicious sneer, as good as a dessert, at page 106) (164/2. Huxley, op.

cit., page 106. After saying that "there is but one hypothesis regarding

the origin of species of animals in general which has any scientific

existence--that propounded by Mr. Darwin," and after a few words on

Lamarck, he goes on: "And though I have heard of the announcement of a

formula touching 'the ordained continuous becoming of organic forms,' it

is obvious that it is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible,

and that a qua-qua-versal proposition of this kind, which may be read

backwards or forwards, or sideways, with exactly the same amount of

significance, does not really exist, though it may seem to do so." The

"formula" in question is Owen's.): but my admiration is unbounded at

pages 109 to 112. I declare I never in my life read anything grander.

Bacon himself could not have charged a few paragraphs with more

condensed and cutting sense than you have done. It is truly grand. I

regret extremely that you could not, or did not, end your book (not that

I mean to say a word against the Geological History) with these pages.

With a book, as with a fine day, one likes it to end with a glorious

sunset. I congratulate you on its publication; but do not be

disappointed if it does not sell largely: parts are highly scientific,

and I have often remarked that the best books frequently do not get soon

appreciated: certainly large sale is no proof of the highest merit. But

I hope it may be widely distributed; and I am rejoiced to see in your

note to Miss Rhadamanthus (164/3. This refers to Mr. Darwin's daughter

(now Mrs. Litchfield), whom Mr. Huxley used to laugh at for the severity

of her criticisms.) that a second thousand is called for of the little

book. What a letter that is of Owen's in the "Athenaeum" (164/4. A

letter by Owen in the "Athenaeum," February 21st, 1863, replying to

strictures on his treatment of the brain question, which had appeared

in Lyell's "Antiquity of Man."); how cleverly he will utterly muddle and

confound the public. Indeed he quite muddled me, till I read again your

"concise statement" (164/5. This refers to a section (pages 113-18) in

"Man's Place in Nature," headed "A succinct History of the Controversy

respecting the Cerebral Structure of Man and the Apes." Huxley follows

the question from Owen's attempt to classify the mammalia by cerebral

characters, published by the "Linn. Soc." in 1857, up to his revival of

the subject at the Cambridge meeting of the British Association in 1862.

It is a tremendous indictment of Owen, and seems to us to conclude

not unfittingly with a citation from Huxley's article in the "Medical

Times," October 11th, 1862. Huxley here points out that special

investigations have been made into the question at issue "during the

last two years" by Allen Thomson, Rolleston, Marshall, Flower, Schroeder

van der Kolk and Vrolik, and that "all these able and conscientious

observers" have testified to the accuracy of his statements, "while not

a single anatomist, great or small, has supported Professor Owen." He

sums up the case once more, and concludes: "The question has thus become

one of personal veracity. For myself I will accept no other issue than

this, grave as it is, to the present controversy.") (which is capitally

clear), and then I saw that my suspicion was true that he has entirely

changed his ground to size of Brain. How candid he shows himself to have

taken the slipped Brain! (164/6. Owen in the "Athenaeum," February 21st,

1863, admits that in the brain which he used in illustration of his

statements "the cerebral hemispheres had glided forward and apart behind

so as to expose a portion of the cerebellum.") I am intensely curious

to see whether Lyell will answer. (164/7. Lyell's answer was in the

"Athenaeum" March 7th, 1863.) Lyell has been, I fear, rather rash to

enter on a subject on which he of course knows nothing by himself. By

heavens, Owen will shake himself, when he sees what an antagonist he has

made for himself in you. With hearty admiration, Farewell.

I am fearfully disappointed at Lyell's excessive caution (164/8. In the

"Antiquity of Man": see "Life and Letters," III., page 8.) in expressing

any judgment on Species or [on the] origin of Man.

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

I thank you for your criticisms on the "Origin," and which I have not

time to discuss; but I cannot help doubting, from your expression of

an "INNATE...selective principle," whether you fully comprehend what

is meant by Natural Selection. Certainly when you speak of weaker (i.e.

less well adapted) forms crossing with the stronger, you take a widely

different view from what I do on the struggle for existence; for such

weaker forms could not exist except by the rarest chance. With respect

to utility, reflect that 99/100ths part of the structure of each being

is due to inheritance of formerly useful structures. Pray read what I

have said on "correlation." Orchids ought to show us how ignorant we are

of what is useful. No doubt hundreds of cases could be advanced of

which no explanation could be offered; but I must stop. Your letter has

interested me much. I am very far from strong, and have great fear that

I must stop all work for a couple of months for entire rest, and leave

home. It will be ruin to all my work.

LETTER 166. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, April 23rd [1863].

The more I think of Falconer's letter (166/1. Published in the

"Athenaeum" April 4th, 1863, page 459. The writer asserts that Lyell did

not make it clear that certain material made use of in the "Antiquity

of Man" was supplied by the original work of Mr. Prestwich and himself.

(See "Life and Letters," III., page 19.)) the more grieved I am; he and

Prestwich (the latter at least must owe much to the "Principles") assume

an absurdly unwarrantable position with respect to Lyell. It is too

bad to treat an old hero in science thus. I can see from a note from

Falconer (about a wonderful fossil Brazilian Mammal, well called Meso-

or Typo-therium) that he expects no sympathy from me. He will end, I

hope, by being sorry. Lyell lays himself open to a slap by saying that

he would come to show his original observations, and then not distinctly

doing so; he had better only have laid claim, on this one point of man,

to verification and compilation.

Altogether, I much like Lyell's letter. But all this squabbling will

greatly sink scientific men. I have seen a sneer already in the "Times."

LETTER 167. TO H.W. BATES. At Rev. C. Langton, Hartfield, Tunbridge

Wells, April 30th [1863].

You will have received before this the note which I addressed to

Leicester, after finishing Volume I., and you will have received copies

of my little review (167/1. "Nat. Hist. Review," 1863, page 219. A

review of Bates' paper on Mimetic Butterflies.) of your paper...I have

now finished Volume II., and my opinion remains the same--that you have

written a truly admirable work (167/2. "The Naturalist on the Amazons,"

1863.), with capital original remarks, first-rate descriptions, and the

whole in a style which could not be improved. My family are now reading

the book, and admire it extremely; and, as my wife remarks, it has so

strong an air of truthfulness. I had a letter from a person the other

day, unknown to you, full of praise of the book. I do hope it may get

extensively heard of and circulated; but to a certain extent this, I

think, always depends on chance.

I suppose the clicking noise of surprise made by the Indian is that

which the end of the tongue, applied to the palate of the mouth and

suddenly withdrawn, makes?

I have not written since receiving your note of April 20th, in which

you confided in me and told me your prospects. I heartily wish they were

better, and especially more certain; but with your abilities and powers

of writing it will be strange if you cannot add what little you require

for your income. I am glad that you have got a retired and semi-rural

situation. What a grand ending you give to your book, contrasting

civilisation and wild life! I quite regret that I have finished it:

every evening it was a real treat to me to have my half-hour in the

grand Amazonian forest, and picture to myself your vivid descriptions.

There are heaps of facts of value to me in a natural history point

of view. It was a great misfortune that you were prevented giving the

discussion on species. But you will, I hope, be able to give your views

and facts somewhere else.

LETTER 168. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, May 15th [1863].

Your letter received this morning interested me more than even most of

your letters, and that is saying a good deal. I must scribble a little

on several points. About Lyell and species--you put the whole case, I

do believe, when you say that he is "half-hearted and whole-headed."

(168/1. Darwin's disappointment with the cautious point of view taken

up by Lyell in the "Antiquity of Man" is illustrated in the "Life and

Letters," III., pages 11, 13. See also Letter 164, page 239.) I wrote

to A. Gray that, when I saw such men as Lyell and he refuse to judge,

it put me in despair, and that I sometimes thought I should prefer that

Lyell had judged against modification of species rather than profess

inability to decide; and I left him to apply this to himself. I am

heartily rejoiced to hear that you intend to try to bring L. and F.

(168/2. Falconer claimed that Lyell had not "done justice to the part he

took in resuscitating the cave question." See "Life and Letters," III.,

page 14.) together again; but had you not better wait till they are a

little cooled? You will do Science a real good service. Falconer never

forgave Lyell for taking the Purbeck bones from him and handing them

over to Owen.

With respect to island floras, if I understand rightly, we differ almost

solely how plants first got there. I suppose that at long intervals,

from as far back as later Tertiary periods to the present time, plants

occasionally arrived (in some cases, perhaps, aided by different

currents from existing currents and by former islands), and that these

old arrivals have survived little modified on the islands, but have

become greatly modified or become extinct on the continent. If I

understand, you believe that all islands were formerly united to

continents, and then received all their plants and none since; and that

on the islands they have undergone less extinction and modification than

on the continent. The number of animal forms on islands, very closely

allied to those on continents, with a few extremely distinct and

anomalous, does not seem to me well to harmonise with your supposed view

of all having formerly arrived or rather having been left together on

the island.

LETTER 169. TO ASA GRAY. Down, May 31st [1863?].

I was very glad to receive your review (169/1. The review on De

Candolle's work on the Oaks (A. Gray's "Scientific Papers," I., page

130).) of De Candolle a week ago. It seems to me excellent, and you

speak out, I think, more plainly in favour of derivation of species than

hitherto, though doubtfully about Natural Selection. Grant the first,

I am easy about the second. Do you not consider such cases as all the

orchids next thing to a demonstration against Heer's view of species

arising suddenly by monstrosities?--it is impossible to imagine so many

co-adaptations being formed all by a chance blow. Of course creationists

would cut the enigma.

LETTER 170. TO T.H. HUXLEY. June 27th [1863?]

What are you doing now? I have never yet got hold of the "Edinburgh

Review," in which I hear you are well abused. By the way, I heard

lately from Asa Gray that Wyman was delighted at "Man's Place." (170/1.

"Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," by T.H. Huxley, 1863.) I

wonder who it is who pitches weakly, but virulently into you, in the

"Anthropological Review." How quiet Owen seems! I do at last begin to

believe that he will ultimately fall in public estimation. What nonsense

he wrote in the "Athenaeum" (170/2. "Athenaeum," March 28th, 1863. See

"Life and Letters," III., page 17.) on Heterogeny! I saw in his Aye-Aye

(170/3. See Owen in the "Trans. Zool. Soc." Volume V. The sentence

referred to seems to be the following (page 95): "We know of no changes

in progress in the Island of Madagascar, necessitating a special quest

of wood-boring larvae by small quadrupeds of the Lemurine or Sciurine

types of organisation.') paper (I think) that he sneers at the manner in

which he supposes that we should account for the structure of its

limbs; and asks how we know that certain insects had increased in the

Madagascar forests. Would it not be a good rebuff to ask him how he

knows there were trees at all on the leafless plains of La Plata for his

Mylodons to tear down? But I must stop, for if I once begin about [him]

there will be no end. I was disappointed in the part about species in

Lyell. (170/4. Lyell's "Antiquity of Man." See "Life and Letters," III.,

page 11.) You and Hooker are the only two bold men. I have had a bad

spring and summer, almost constantly very unwell; but I am crawling on

in my book on "Variation under Domestication.")

LETTER 171. TO C. LYELL. Down, August 14th [1863].

Have you seen Bentham's remarks on species in his address to the Linnean

Society? (171/1. Presidential address before the Linnean Society by G.

Bentham ("Journ. Proc. Linn. Soc." Volume VII., page xi., 1864).) they

have pleased me more than anything I have read for some time. I have no

news, for I have not seen a soul for months, and have had a bad

spring and summer, but have managed to do a good deal of work. Emma is

threatening me to take me to Malvern, and perhaps I shall be compelled,

but it is a horrid waste of time; you must have enjoyed North Wales, I

should think, it is to me a most glorious country...

If you have not read Bates' book (171/2. Henry Walter Bates, "The

Naturalist on the River Amazons," 2 volumes, London, 1863. In a letter

to Bates, April 18th, 1863, Darwin writes, "It is the best work of

natural history travels ever published in England" ("Life and Letters,"

II., page 381.), I think it would interest you. He is second only to

Humboldt in describing a tropical forest. (171/3. Quoted in "Life and

Letters," II., page 381.). Talking of reading, I have never got the

"Edinburgh" (171/4. The "Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of

Man," by Sir Charles Lyell, and works by other authors reviewed in the

"Edinburgh Review." Volume CXVIII., July 1863. The writer sums up his

criticism as follows: "Glancing at the work of Sir Charles Lyell as a

whole, it leaves the impression on our minds that we have been reading

an ingenious academical thesis, rather than a work of demonstration by

an original writer...There is no argument in it, and only a few facts

which have not been stated elsewhere by Sir C. Lyell himself or by

others" (loc. cit., page 294).), in which, I suppose, you are cut up.

LETTER 172. TO H. FALCONER. December 26th [1863].

Thank you for telling me about the Pliocene mammal, which is very

remarkable; but has not Owen stated that the Pliocene badger is

identical with the recent? Such a case does indeed well show the

stupendous duration of the same form. I have not heard of Suess'

pamphlet (172/1. Probably Suess's paper "Ueber die Verschiedenheit und

die Aufeinanderfolge der tertiaren Land-faunen in der Niederung von

Wien." "Sitz.-Ber. Wien Akad." XLVII., page 306, 1863.), and should much

like to learn the title, if it can be procured; but I am on different

subjects just at present. I should rather like to see it rendered

highly probable that the process of formation of a new species was short

compared to its duration--that is, if the process was allowed to be

slow and long; the idea is new to me. Heer's view that new species are

suddenly formed like monsters, I feel a conviction from many reasons is

false.