Volume II Part 7 (2/2)
The princ.i.p.al part of your letter was high laudation of Darwin's book.
Well, the book has reached me, and I finished its careful perusal four days ago; and I freely say that your laudation is not out of place.
It is done in a MASTERLY MANNER. It might well have taken twenty years to produce it. It is crammed full of most interesting matter--thoroughly digested--well expressed--close, cogent, and taken as a system it makes out a better case than I had supposed possible...
Aga.s.siz, when I saw him last, had read but a part of it. He says it is POOR--VERY POOR!! (entre nous). The fact [is] he is very much annoyed by it,... and I do not wonder at it. To bring all IDEAL systems within the domain of science, and give good physical or natural explanations of all his capital points, is as bad as to have Forbes take the glacier materials... and give scientific explanation of all the phenomena.
Tell Darwin all this. I will write to him when I get a chance. As I have promised, he and you shall have fair-play here... I must myself write a review of Darwin's book for 'Silliman's Journal' (the more so that I suspect Aga.s.siz means to come out upon it) for the next (March) No., and I am now setting about it (when I ought to be every moment working the Expl[oring] Expedition Compositae, which I know far more about). And really it is no easy job, as you may well imagine.
I doubt if I shall please you altogether. I know I shall not please Aga.s.siz at all. I hear another reprint is in the Press, and the book will excite much attention here, and some controversy...
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, January 28th [1860].
My dear Gray,
Hooker has forwarded to me your letter to him; and I cannot express how deeply it has gratified me. To receive the approval of a man whom one has long sincerely respected. And whose judgment and knowledge are most universally admitted, is the highest reward an author can possibly wish for; and I thank you heartily for your most kind expressions.
I have been absent from home for a few days, and so could not earlier answer your letter to me of the 10th of January. You have been extremely kind to take so much trouble and interest about the edition. It has been a mistake of my publisher not thinking of sending over the sheets. I had entirely and utterly forgotten your offer of receiving the sheets as printed off. But I must not blame my publisher, for had I remembered your most kind offer I feel pretty sure I should not have taken advantage of it; for I never dreamed of my book being so successful with general readers; I believe I should have laughed at the idea of sending the sheets to America. (In a letter to Mr. Murray, 1860, my father wrote:--”I am amused by Asa Gray's account of the excitement my book has made amongst naturalists in the United States. Aga.s.siz has denounced it in a newspaper, but yet in such terms that it is in fact a fine advertis.e.m.e.nt!” This seems to refer to a lecture given before the Mercantile Library a.s.sociation.)
After much consideration, and on the strong advice of Lyell and others, I have resolved to leave the present book as it is (excepting correcting errors, or here and there inserting short sentences) and to use all my strength, WHICH IS BUT LITTLE, to bring out the first part (forming a separate volume with index, etc.) of the three volumes which will make my bigger work; so that I am very unwilling to take up time in making corrections for an American edition. I enclose a list of a few corrections in the second reprint, which you will have received by this time complete, and I could send four or five corrections or additions of equally small importance, or rather of equal brevity. I also intend to write a SHORT preface with a brief history of the subject. These I will set about, as they must some day be done, and I will send them to you in a short time--the few corrections first, and the preface afterwards, unless I hear that you have given up all idea of a separate edition. You will then be able to judge whether it is worth having the new edition with YOUR REVIEW PREFIXED. Whatever be the nature of your review, I a.s.sure you I should feel it a GREAT honour to have my book thus preceded...
ASA GRAY TO CHARLES DARWIN. Cambridge, January 23rd, 1860.
My dear Darwin,
You have my hurried letter telling you of the arrival of the remainder of the sheets of the reprint, and of the stir I had made for a reprint in Boston. Well, all looked pretty well, when, lo, we found that a second New York publis.h.i.+ng house had announced a reprint also! I wrote then to both New York publishers, asking them to give way to the AUTHOR and his reprint of a revised edition. I got an answer from the Harpers that they withdraw --from the Appletons that they had got the book OUT (and the next day I saw a copy); but that, ”if the work should have any considerable sale, we certainly shall be disposed to pay the author reasonably and liberally.”
The Appletons being thus out with their reprint, the Boston house declined to go on. So I wrote to the Appletons taking them at their word, offering to aid their reprint, to give them the use of the alterations in the London reprint, as soon as I find out what they are, etc. etc. And I sent them the first leaf, and asked them to insert in their future issue the additional matter from Butler (A quotation from Butler's 'a.n.a.logy,' on the use of the word natural, which in the second edition is placed with the pa.s.sages from Whewell and Bacon on page ii, opposite the t.i.tle-page.), which tells just right. So there the matter stands. If you furnish any matter in advance of the London third edition, I will make them pay for it.
I may get something for you. All got is clear gain; but it will not be very much, I suppose.
Such little notices in the papers here as have yet appeared are quite handsome and considerate.
I hope next week to get printed sheets of my review from New Haven, and send [them] to you, and will ask you to pa.s.s them on to Dr. Hooker.
To fulfil your request, I ought to tell you what I think the weakest, and what the best, part of your book. But this is not easy, nor to be done in a word or two. The BEST PART, I think, is the WHOLE, i.e., its PLAN and TREATMENT, the vast amount of facts and acute inferences handled as if you had a perfect mastery of them. I do not think twenty years too much time to produce such a book in.
Style clear and good, but now and then wants revision for little matters (page 97, self-fertilises ITSELF, etc.).
Then your candour is worth everything to your cause. It is refres.h.i.+ng to find a person with a new theory who frankly confesses that he finds difficulties, insurmountable, at least for the present. I know some people who never have any difficulties to speak of.
The moment I understood your premisses, I felt sure you had a real foundation to hold on. Well, if one admits your premisses, I do not see how he is to stop short of your conclusions, as a probable hypothesis at least.
It naturally happens that my review of your book does not exhibit anything like the full force of the impression the book has made upon me. Under the circ.u.mstances I suppose I do your theory more good here, by bespeaking for it a fair and favourable consideration, and by standing non-committed as to its full conclusions, than I should if I announced myself a convert; nor could I say the latter, with truth.
Well, what seems to me the weakest point in the book is the attempt to account for the formation of organs, the making of eyes, etc., by natural selection. Some of this reads quite Lamarckian.
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