Volume Ii Part 5 (1/2)

(loc. cit., page 124).) would have awfully laborious work, and I doubt whether you could ever get efficient workers. As it is, there is much concealment of insanity and wickedness in families; and there would be more if there was a register. But the greatest difficulty, I think, would be in deciding who deserved to be on the register. How few are above mediocrity in health, strength, morals and intellect; and how difficult to judge on these latter heads. As far as I see, within the same large superior family, only a few of the children would deserve to be on the register; and these would naturally stick to their own families, so that the superior children of distinct families would have no good chance of a.s.sociating much and forming a caste. Though I see so much difficulty, the object seems a grand one; and you have pointed out the sole feasible, yet I fear utopian, plan of procedure in improving the human race. I should be inclined to trust more (and this is part of your plan) to disseminating and insisting on the importance of the all-important principle of inheritance. I will make one or two minor criticisms. Is it not possible that the inhabitants of malarious countries owe their degraded and miserable appearance to the bad atmosphere, though this does not kill them, rather than to ”economy of structure”? I do not see that an orthognathous face would cost more than a prognathous face; or a good morale than a bad one. That is a fine simile (page 119) about the chip of a statue (412/4. ”...The life of the individual is treated as of absolutely no importance, while the race is as everything; Nature being wholly careless of the former except as a contributor to the maintenance and evolution of the latter. Myriads of inchoate lives are produced in what, to our best judgment, seems a wasteful and reckless manner, in order that a few selected specimens may survive, and be the parents of the next generation. It is as though individual lives were of no more consideration than are the senseless chips which fall from the chisel of the artist who is elaborating some ideal form from a rude block” (loc. cit., page 119).); but surely Nature does not more carefully regard races than individuals, as (I believe I have misunderstood what you mean) evidenced by the mult.i.tude of races and species which have become extinct. Would it not be truer to say that Nature cares only for the superior individuals and then makes her new and better races? But we ought both to shudder in using so freely the word ”Nature” (412/5. See Letter 190, Volume I.) after what De Candolle has said. Again let me thank you for the interest received in reading your essay.

Many thanks about the rabbits; your letter has been sent to Balfour: he is a very clever young man, and I believe owes his cleverness to Salisbury blood. This letter will not be worth your deciphering. I have almost finished Greg's ”Enigmas.” (412/6. ”The Enigmas of Life,” 1872.) It is grand poetry--but too Utopian and too full of faith for me; so that I have been rather disappointed. What do you think about it? He must be a delightful man.

I doubt whether you have made clear how the families on the Register are to be kept pure or superior, and how they are to be in course of time still further improved.

LETTER 413. TO MAX MULLER. Down, July 3rd, 1873.

(413/1. In June, 1873, Professor Max Muller sent to Mr. Darwin a copy of the sixth edition of his ”Lectures on the Science of Language” (413/2.

A reference to the first edition occurs in ”Life and Letters,” II., page 390.), with a letter concluding with these words: ”I venture to send you my three lectures, trusting that, though I differ from some of your conclusions, you will believe me to be one of your diligent readers and sincere admirers.”)

I am much obliged for your kind note and present of your lectures. I am extremely glad to have received them from you, and I had intended ordering them.

I feel quite sure from what I have read in your works that you would never say anything of an honest adversary to which he would have any just right to object; and as for myself, you have often spoken highly of me--perhaps more highly than I deserve.

As far as language is concerned I am not worthy to be your adversary, as I know extremely little about it, and that little learnt from very few books. I should have been glad to have avoided the whole subject, but was compelled to take it up as well as I could. He who is fully convinced, as I am, that man is descended from some lower animal, is almost forced to believe a priori that articulate language has been developed from inarticulate cries (413/3. ”Descent of Man” (1901), page 133.); and he is therefore hardly a fair judge of the arguments opposed to this belief.

(413/4. In October, 1875, Mr. Darwin again wrote cordially to Professor Max Muller on receipt of a pamphlet ent.i.tled ”In Self-Defence” (413/5.

Printed in ”Chips from a German Workshop,” Volume IV., 1875, page 473.), which is a reply to Professor Whitney's ”Darwinism and Language” in the ”North American Review,” July 1874. This essay had been brought before the ”general reader” in England by an article of Mr. G. Darwin's in the ”Contemporary Review,” November, 1874, page 894, ent.i.tled, ”Professor Whitney on the Origin of Language.” The article was followed by ”My reply to Mr. Darwin,” contributed by Professor Muller to the ”Contemporary Review,” January, 1875, page 305.)

LETTER 414. G. ROLLESTON TO CHARLES DARWIN. British a.s.sociation, Bristol, August 30th, 1875.

(414/1. In the first edition of the ”Descent of Man” Mr. Darwin wrote: ”It is a more curious fact that savages did not formerly waste away, as Mr. Bagehot has remarked, before the cla.s.sical nations, as they now do before modern civilised nations...”(414/2. Bagehot, ”Physics and Politics,” ”Fortnightly Review,” April, 1868, page 455.) In the second edition (page 183) the statement remains, but a ma.s.s of evidence (pages 183-92) is added, to which reference occurs in the reply to the following letter.)

At pages 4-5 of the enclosed Address (414/3. ”British a.s.sociation Reports,” 1875, page 142.) you will find that I have controverted Mr.

Bagehot's view as to the extinction of the barbarians in the times of cla.s.sical antiquity, as also the view of Poppig as to there being some occult influence exercised by civilisation to the disadvantage of savagery when the two come into contact.

I write to say that I took up this subject without any wish to impugn any views of yours as such, but with the desire of having my say upon certain anti-sanitarian transactions and malfeasance of which I had had a painful experience.

On reading however what I said, and had written somewhat hastily, it has struck me that what I have said might bear the former interpretation in the eyes of persons who might not read other papers of mine, and indeed other parts of the same Address, in which my adhesion, whatever it is worth, to your views in general is plainly enough implied. I have ventured to write this explanation to you for several reasons.

LETTER 415. TO G. ROLLESTON. Ba.s.sett, Southampton, September 2nd [1875].

I am much obliged to you for having sent me your Address, which has interested me greatly. I quite subscribe to what you say about Mr.

Bagehot's striking remark, and wish I had not quoted it. I can perceive no sort of reflection or blame on anything which I have written, and I know well that I deserve many a good slap on the face. The decrease of savage populations interests me much, and I should like you some time to look at a discussion on this subject which I have introduced in the second edition of the ”Descent of Man,” and which you can find (for I have no copy here) in the list of additions. The facts have convinced me that lessened fertility and the poor const.i.tution of the children is one chief cause of such decrease; and that the case is strictly parallel to the sterility of many wild animals when made captive, the civilisation of savages and the captivity of wild animals leading to the same result.

LETTER 416. TO ERNST KRAUSE. Down, June 30th, 1877.

I have been much interested by your able argument against the belief that the sense of colour has been recently acquired by man. (416/1.

See ”Kosmos,” June 1877, page 264, a review of Dr. Hugo Magnus' ”Die Geschichtliche Entwickelung des Farbensinnes,” 1877. The first part is chiefly an account of the author's views; Dr. Krause's argument begins at page 269. The interest felt by Mr. Darwin is recorded by the numerous pencil-marks on the margin of his copy.) The following observation bears on this subject.

I attended carefully to the mental development of my young children, and with two, or as I believe three of them, soon after they had come to the age when they knew the names of all common objects, I was startled by observing that they seemed quite incapable of affixing the right names to the colours in coloured engravings, although I tried repeatedly to teach them. I distinctly remember declaring that they were colour-blind, but this afterwards proved a groundless fear.

On communicating this fact to another person he told me that he had observed a nearly similar case. Therefore the difficulty which young children experience either in distinguis.h.i.+ng, or more probably in naming colours, seems to deserve further investigation. I will add that it formerly appeared to me that the gustatory sense, at least in the case of my own infants, and very young children, differed from that of grown-up persons. This was shown by their not disliking rhubarb mixed with a little sugar and milk, which is to us abominably nauseous; and in their strong taste for the sourest and most austere fruits, such as unripe gooseberries and crabapples.

(PLATE: G.J. ROMANES, 1891. Elliott & Fry, photo. Walker and c.o.c.kerell, ph. sc.)