Volume I Part 29 (1/2)

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 t.i.tle, 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.

CHAPTER 1.IV.--EVOLUTION, 1864-1869.

LETTER 173. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, January 1st, 1864.

I am still unable to write otherwise than by dictation. In a letter received two or three weeks ago from Asa Gray he writes: ”I read lately with gusto Wallace's expose of the Dublin man on Bees' cells, etc.”

(173/1. ”Remarks on the Rev. S. Haughton's paper on the Bee's Cell and on the Origin of Species” (”Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.” XII., 1863, page 303). Prof. Haughton's paper was read before the Natural History Society of Dublin, November 21st, 1862, and reprinted in the ”Ann. and Mag.

Nat. Hist.” XI., 1863, page 415. See Letters 73, 74, 75.) Now, though I cannot read at present, I much want to know where this is published, that I may procure a copy. Further on, Asa Gray says (after speaking of Aga.s.siz's paper on Glaciers in the ”Atlantic Magazine” and his recent book ent.i.tled ”Method of Study”): ”Pray set Wallace upon these articles.” So Asa Gray seems to think much of your powers of reviewing, and I mention this as it a.s.suredly is laudari a laudato. I hope you are hard at work, and if you are inclined to tell me, I should much like to know what you are doing. It will be many months, I fear, before I shall do anything.

LETTER 174. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREf.a.gES. Down, March 27th [1864?].

I had heard that your work was to be translated, and I heard it with pleasure; but I can take no share of credit, for I am not an active, only an honorary member of the Society. Since writing I have finished with extreme interest to the end your admirable work on metamorphosis.

(174/1. Probably ”Metamorphoses of Man and the Lower Animals.”

Translated by H. Lawson, 1864.) How well you are acquainted with the works of English naturalists, and how generously you bestow honour on them! Mr. Lubbock is my neighbour, and I have known him since he was a little boy; he is in every way a thoroughly good man; as is my friend Huxley. It gave me real pleasure to see you notice their works as you have done.

LETTER 175. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, April 11th [1864].

I am very much obliged for your present of your ”Comp. Anatomy.” (175/1.

”Lectures on the Elements of Comparative Anatomy,” 1864.) When strong enough I am sure I shall read it with greatest interest. I could not resist the last chapter, of which I have read a part, and have been much interested about the ”inspired idiot.” (175/2. In reference to Oken (op. cit., page 282) Huxley says: ”I must confess I never read his works without thinking of the epithet of 'inspired idiot' applied to our own Goldsmith.”) If Owen wrote the article ”Oken” (175/3. The article on Oken in the eighth edition of the ”Encyclopaedia Britannica” is signed ”R.O.”: Huxley wrote to Darwin (April 18th, 1864), ”There is not the smallest question that Owen wrote both the article 'Oken' and the 'Archetype' Book” (Huxley's ”Life,” I., page 250). Mr. Huxley's statements amount to this: (1) Prof. Owen accuses Goethe of having in 1820 appropriated Oken's theory of the skull, and of having given an apocryphal account of how the idea occurred to himself in 1790. (2) in the same article, page 502, Owen stated it to be questionable whether the discoverer of the true theory of the segmental const.i.tution of the skull (i.e. himself) was excited to his labours, or ”in any way influenced by the a priori guesses of Oken.” On this Huxley writes, page 288: ”But if he himself had not been in any way influenced by Oken, and if the 'Programm' [of Oken] is a mere ma.s.s of 'a priori guesses,' how comes it that only three years before Mr. Owen could write thus? 'Oken, ce genie profond et penetrant, fut le premier qui entrevit la verite, guide par l'heureuse idee de l'arrangement des os craniens en segments, comme ceux du rachis, appeles vertebres...'” Later on Owen wrote: ”Cela servira pour exemple d'une examen scrupuleux des faits, d'une appreciation philosophique de leurs relations et a.n.a.logies, etc.” (From ”Principes d'Osteologie comparee, ou Recherches sur l'Archetype,” etc., pages 155, 1855). (3) Finally Huxley says, page 289, plainly: ”The fact is that, so far from not having been 'in any way influenced' by Oken, Prof. Owen's own contributions to this question are the merest Okenism, remanie.”) and the French work on the Archetype (points you do not put quite clearly), he never did a baser act...You are so good a Christian that you will hardly understand how I chuckle over this bit of baseness.

I hope you keep well and hearty; I honour your wisdom at giving up at present Society for Science. But, on the other hand, I feel it in myself possible to get to care too much for Natural Science and too little for other things. I am getting better, I almost dare to hope permanently; for my sickness is decidedly less--for twenty-seven days consecutively I was sick many times daily, and lately I was five days free. I long to do a little work again. The magnificent (by far the most magnificent, and too magnificent) compliment which you paid me at the end of your ”Origin of Species” (175/4. A t.i.tle applied to the ”Lectures to Working Men,”

that ”green little book” referred to in Letter 156. Speaking of Mr.

Darwin's work he says (page 156): ”I believe that if you strip it of its theoretical part, it still remains one of the greatest encyclopaedias of biological doctrine that any one man ever brought forth; and I believe that, if you take it as the embodiment of an hypothesis, it is destined to be the guide of biological and psychological speculation for the next three or four generations.') I have met with reprinted from you two or three times lately.

LETTER 175A. TO ERASMUS DARWIN. Down, June 30th, 1864.

(175A.1. The preceding letter contains a reference to the prolonged period of ill-health which Darwin suffered in 1863 and 1864, and in this connection the present letter is of interest.

The Copley Medal was given to him in 1864.)