Volume I Part 29 (2/2)

”You speak about homoeopathy, which is a subject which makes me more wrath, even than does Clairvoyance Clairvoyance so transcends belief, that one's ordinary faculties are put out of the question, but in homoeopathy common sense and coo to the dogs, if the infinitesimal doses have any effect whatever How true is a remark I saw the other day by Quetelet, in respect to evidence of curative processes, viz, that no one knows in disease what is the si done, as a standard hich to cos It is a sad flaw, I cannot but think, inWhen Miss -- was very ill, he had a clairvoyant girl to report on internal changes, a mesmerist to put her to sleep--an homoeopathist, viz Dr --, and hiirl recovered”

A passage out of an earlier letter to Fox (December, 1884) shows that he was equally sceptical on the subject of mesmerism: ”With respect to mesmerism, the whole country resounds onderful facts or talesI have just heard of a child, three or four years old (whose parents and self I well knew) mesered ood evidence of ani put to stupor; of course the impossibility would not prove mesmerism false; but it is the only clear experimentum crucis, and I am astonished it has not been systeated, like a science, this could not have been left till the present day to be DONE SATISFACTORILY, as it has been I believe left

Keep soet some mesmeriser to attempt it One man told ue, and as was likely from a man who said cats were more easily done than other animals, because they were so electrical!”]

CHARLES DARWIN TO C LYELL Down, December 4th [1849]

My dear Lyell,

This letter requires no answer, and I write froy of the United States Expedition, and I have just read the Coral part To begin with a modest speech, I AM ASTONISHED AT MY OWN ACCURACY!! If I were to rewrite now my Coral book there is hardly a sentence I should have to alter, except that I ought to have attributed rowth of coral When I say all this I ought to add that the CONSEQUENCES of the theory on areas of subsidence are treated in a separate chapter to which I have not come, and in this, I suspect, we shall differwith my theory IN MOST POINTS; I can find out not one in which he differs Considering how infinitely more he saw of Coral Reefs than I did, this is wonderfully satisfactory to me He treats me most courteously There now, my vanity is pretty well satisfied

CHARLES DARWIN TO JD HOOKER Malvern, April 9th, 1849

My dear Hooker,

The very nextmy last letter (I think on 23rd of March), I received your two interesting gossipaceous and geological letters; and the latter I have since exchanged with Lyell for his I rite higglety-pigglety just as subjects occur I saw the Review in the 'Athenaeum,' it ritten in an ill-natured spirit; but the whole virus consisted in saying that there was not novelty enough in your remarks for publication No one, nowadays, cares for reviews I ot some REAL GOOD abuse, ”presu that the volume appeared ”made up of the scraps and rubbish of the author's portfolio” I most truly enter into what you say, and quite believe you that you care only for the revieith respect to your father; and that this ALONE would make you like to see extracts from your letters more properly noticed in this sament whether any portion of your present letters are adapted for the 'Athenaeu even NOTICED ical volumes which I had sent to them), and I have come to the conclusion it is better not to send the all the circumstances, that without you took pains and wrote WITH CARE, a condensed and finished sketch of so feature in your travels, it is better not to send anything These two letters are, ical for the 'Athenaeum,' and almost require woodcuts

On the other hand, there are hardly enough details for a coical Society I have not the SMALLEST DOUBT that your facts are of the highest interest with regard to glacial action in the Himalaya; but it struck both Lyell and iven more distinctly

I have written so lately that I have nothing to say about ainst ”ers I showed reed with our, I would not have shohite feather, [and] with aid of half-a-dozen really good Naturalists, I believe sorading passion ofIn your letter you wonder what ”Ornamental Poultry” has to do with Barnacles; but do not flatter yourself that I shall not yet live to finish the Barnacles, and then make a fool of myself on the subject of species, under which head orna

CHARLES DARWIN TO C LYELL The Lodge, Malvern [June, 1849]

I have got your book ('A Second Visit to the United States'), and have read all the first and a s is the hardest work allowed here), and greatly I have been interested by it Itto be a Yankee E desires loated” over the truth of your reht to think how you will disgust soots and educational dons As yet there has not been MUCH Geology or Natural History, for which I hope you feel a little ashamed Your remarks on all social subjects strike me as worthy of the author of the 'Principles' And yet (I know it is prejudice and pride) if I had written the Principles, I never would have written any travels; but I believe I alory of the Principles than you are yourself

CHARLES DARWIN TO C LYELL Septeo on with ain health and strength Against all rules, I dined at Chevening with Lord Mahon, who didon uess I was charht have been proud at the pieces of agreeableness which came from her beautiful lips with respect to you I like old Lord Stanhope very y heartily ”To suppose that the Omnipotent God made a world, found it a failure, and broke it up, and then ists say, is all fiddle faddle Describing Species of birds and shells, etc, is all fiddle faddle”

I aham, as I trust we shall, if my health will but keep up I work now every day at the Cirripedia for 2 1/2 hours, and so get on a little, but very slowly I so described perhaps only two species, agree mentally with Lord Stanhope, that it is all fiddle faddle; however, the other day I got a curious case of a unisexual, instead of hermaphrodite cirripede, in which the female had the common cirripedial character, and in two valves of her shell had two little pockets, in EACH of which she kept a little husband; I do not know of any other case where a female invariably has two husbands I have one still odder fact, coh they are hermaphrodite, they have small additional, or as I shall call them, complemental males, one specimen itself hermaphrodite had no less than SEVEN, of these complemental males attached to it Truly the sche on as badly about roan to think that probably I shall never again have the exquisite pleasure of ht out of soion

So I must make the best of my Cirripedia

CHARLES DARWIN TO JD HOOKER Down, October 12th, 1849

By the way, one of the pleasantest parts of the British association was ham with Mrs Sabine, Mrs Reeve, and the Colonel; also Col Sykes and Porter Mrs Sabine and reed wonderfully on many points, and in none more sincerely than about you

We spoke about your letters froreed with me, that you and the AUTHOR (Sir J Hooker wrote the spirited description of cattle hunting in Sir J Ross's 'Voyage of Discovery in the Southern Regions,' 1847, vol ii, page 245), of the description of the cattle hunting in the Falklands, would have ether! A very nice wohah I had ood deal of the Lyells and Horners and Robinsons (the President); but the place was dis to Warwick, though that, ie, the party, by all accounts, onderfully inferior to Blenheiets weary of all the spouting

You ask abouton very well, and ahts mend o on through all the winter, frost or no frost My treatment now is lamp five times per week, and shallow bath for five minutes afterwards; douche daily for fivesheet daily The treatment is wonderfully tonic, and I have had more better consecutive days this month than on any previous onesI am allowed to work noo and a half hours daily, and I find it as ether with three short walks, is curiously exhausting; and I aht o'clock coht, and eat immensely, and am never oppressed withof the s, etc--black spots before eyes, etc Dr Gully thinks he shall quite cure reatest bore, which I find in the water-cure, is the having been co, except the newspapers; for my daily two and a half hours at the Barnacles is fully aswhich occupies the mind; I am consequently terribly behind in all scientific books I have of late been at work at , which is much more difficult than I expected, and has much the same sort of interest as a puzzle has; but I confess I often feel wearied with the work, and cannot help so a week or fortnight in ascertaining that certain just perceptible differences blend together and constitute varieties and not species As long as I a, horrid, cui bono, inquiring, hu for priority of naeneric, and twenty-four specific names! My chief comfort is, that the work must be sometime done, and I iven upto send to you, so you must see it, if you care to do so, on your return By-the-way, you say in your letter that you care more for my species work than for the Barnacles; now this is too bad of you, for I declare your decided approval of reat influence in deciding o on with the for letter refers to the death of his little daughter, which took place at Malvern on April 24, 1851:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO WD FOX Down, April 29th [1851]