Volume I Part 22 (2/2)
During these years he worked inter constantly interrupted by ill health Thus he speaks of ”recoain in the October of the same year, and once more in July 1841, ”after more than thirteen months' interval”
His other scientific work consisted of a contribution to the Geological Society ('Geol Soc Proc' iii 1842, and 'Geol Soc Trans' vi), on the boulders and ”till” of South Aical subjects He also worked busily at the ornithological part of the Zoology of the ”Beagle”, ie the notice of the habits and ranges of the birds which were described by Gould]
CHARLES DARWIN TO C LYELL Wednesday[February 1840]
My dear Lyell,
Many thanks for your kind note I will send for the ”Scotsman” Dr
Holland thinks he has found out what is theagain Is it not , it is now nine weeks since I have done a whole day's work, and not h it is hard work to prevent doing so Since receiving your note I have read over my chapter on Coral, and find I a; it is ht I had setmy volume completed before your new edition, but not, younew in it (for there is very little besides details), but you are the one hish argument I should be always most anxious to hear My MS is in such confusion, otherwise I aly if it had been worth your while, have looked at any part you choose
[In a letter to Fox (January 1841) he shows that his ”Species work” was still occupying his mind:--
”If you attend at all to Natural History I send you this PS as a memento, that I continue to collect all kinds of facts about 'Varieties and Species,' for my some-day work to be so entitled; the smallest contributions thankfully accepted; descriptions of offspring of all crosses between all dos, cats, etc, etc, very valuable Don't forget, if your half-bred African cat should die that I should be very ed for its carcase sent up in a little haeons, fowl, duck, etc, etc, will be more acceptable than the finest haunch of venison, or the finest turtle”
Later in the year (September) he writes to Fox about his health, and also with reference to his plan of aining ground, and really believe now I shall so I write daily for a couple of hours on row very tired in the evenings, and ao out at that time, or hardly to receive my nearest relations; butWe are taking steps to leave London, and live about twenty miles from it on some railway”]
1842
[The record of work includes his volume on 'Coral Reefs' (A notice of the Coral Reef work appeared in the Geograph Soc Journal, xii, page 115), the manuscript of which was at last sent to the printers in January of this year, and the last proof corrected in May He thus writes of the work in his diary:--
”I coo Out of this period about twenty e) has been spent on it, and besides it, I have only coy; Appendix to Journal, paper on Boulders, and corrected papers on Glen Roy and earthquakes, reading on species, and rest all lost by illness”
In May and June he was at Shrewsbury and Maer, whence he went on to make the little tour in Wales, of which he spoke in his 'Recollections,' and of which the results were published as ”Notes on the effects produced by the ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshi+re, and on the Boulders transported by floating Ice” ('Philosophical Magazine,' 1842, page 352)
Mr Archibald Geikie speaks of this paper as standing ”allish contributions to the history of the Ice Age” (Charles Darwin, 'Nature' Series, page 23)
The latter part of this year belongs to the period including the settlement at Down, and is therefore dealt with in another chapter]
CHAPTER 1VIII -- RELIGION
[The history of this part of ious views For although, as he points out, he did not give continuous systeious questions, yet we know from his oords that about this time (1836-39) the subject was much before his mind]
In his published works he was reticent on the ion, and what he has left on the subject was not written with a view to publication (As an exception may be mentioned, a feords of concurrence with Dr Abbot's 'Truths for the Times,' which my father allowed to be published in the ”Index”)
I believe that his reticence arose froion is an essentially privatehi extract from a letter of 1879:--(Addressed to Mr J Fordyce, and published by him in his 'Aspects of Scepticism,' 1883)
”What my own views may be is a question of no consequence to any one but ment often fluctuatesIn my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God I think that generally (and nostic would be the more correct description ofthe sensibilities of others in religious matters, and he was also influenced by the consciousness that a iven special and continuous thought That he felt this caution to apply to hiion is shown in a letter to Dr FE
Abbot, of Ca that the weakness arising fro ”equal to deep reflection, on the deepest subject which can fill a man's mind,”