Volume II Part 9 (1/2)
CHARLES DARWIN TO H.G. BRONN. Down, July 14 [1860].
Dear and honoured Sir,
On my return home, after an absence of some time, I found the translation of the third part (The German translation was published in three pamphle-like numbers.) of the 'Origin,' and I have been delighted to see a final chapter of criticisms by yourself. I have read the first few paragraphs and final paragraph, and am perfectly contented, indeed more than contented, with the generous and candid spirit with which you have considered my views. You speak with too much praise of my work.
I shall, of course, carefully read the whole chapter; but though I can read descriptive books like Gaertner's pretty easily, when any reasoning comes in, I find German excessively difficult to understand. At some FUTURE time I should very much like to hear how my book has been received in Germany, and I most sincerely hope M. Schweitzerbart will not lose money by the publication. Most of the reviews have been bitterly opposed to me in England, yet I have made some converts, and SEVERAL naturalists who would not believe in a word of it, are now coming slightly round, and admit that natural selection may have done something. This gives me hope that more will ultimately come round to a certain extent to my views.
I shall ever consider myself deeply indebted to you for the immense service and honour which you have conferred on me in making the excellent translation of my book. Pray believe me, with most sincere respect,
Dear Sir, yours gratefully, CHARLES DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, [February 12th, 1860].
... I think it was a great pity that Huxley wasted so much time in the lecture on the preliminary remarks;... but his lecture seemed to me very fine and very bold. I have remonstrated (and he agrees) against the impression that he would leave, that sterility was a universal and infallible criterion of species.
You will, I am sure, make a grand discussion on man. I am so glad to hear that you and Lady Lyell will come here. Pray fix your own time; and if it did not suit us we would say so. We could then discuss man well...
How much I owe to you and Hooker! I do not suppose I should hardly ever have published had it not been for you.
[The lecture referred to in the last letter was given at the Royal Inst.i.tution, February 10, 1860. The following letter was written in reply to Mr. Huxley's request for information about breeding, hybridisation, etc. It is of interest as giving a vivid retrospect of the writer's experience on the subject.]
CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Ilkley, Yorks, November 27 [1859].
My dear Huxley,
Gartner grand, Kolreuter grand, but papers scattered through many volumes and very lengthy. I had to make an abstract of the whole.
Herbert's volume on Amaryllidaceae very good, and two excellent papers in the 'Horticultural Journal.' For animals, no resume to be trusted at all; facts are to be collected from all original sources. (This caution is exemplified in the following extract from an earlier letter to Professor Huxley:--”The inaccuracy of the blessed gang (of which I am one) of compilers pa.s.ses all bounds. MONSTERS have frequently been described as hybrids without a t.i.ttle of evidence. I must give one other case to show how we jolly fellows work. A Belgian Baron (I forget his name at this moment) crossed two distinct geese and got SEVEN hybrids, which he proved subsequently to be quite sterile; well, compiler the first, Chevreul, says that the hybrids were propagated for SEVEN generations inter se. Compiler second (Morton) mistakes the French name, and gives Latin names for two more distinct geese, and says CHEVREUL himself propagated them inter se for seven generations; and the latter statement is copied from book to book.”) I fear my MS. for the bigger book (twice or thrice as long as in present book), with all references, would be illegible, but it would save you infinite labour; of course I would gladly lend it, but I have no copy, so care would have to be taken of it. But my accursed handwriting would be fatal, I fear.
About breeding, I know of no one book. I did not think well of Lowe, but I can name none better. Youatt I look at as a far better and MORE PRACTICAL authority; but then his views and facts are scattered through three or four thick volumes. I have picked up most by reading really numberless special treatises and ALL agricultural and horticultural journals; but it is a work of long years. THE DIFFICULTY IS TO KNOW WHAT TO TRUST. No one or two statements are worth a farthing; the facts are so complicated. I hope and think I have been really cautious in what I state on this subject, although all that I have given, as yet, is FAR too briefly. I have found it very important a.s.sociating with fanciers and breeders. For instance, I sat one evening in a gin palace in the Borough amongst a set of pigeon fanciers, when it was hinted that Mr.
Bull had crossed his Pouters with Runts to gain size; and if you had seen the solemn, the mysterious, and awful shakes of the head which all the fanciers gave at this scandalous proceeding, you would have recognised how little crossing has had to do with improving breeds, and how dangerous for endless generations the process was. All this was brought home far more vividly than by pages of mere statements, etc.
But I am scribbling foolishly. I really do not know how to advise about getting up facts on breeding and improving breeds. Go to Shows is one way. Read ALL treatises on any ONE domestic animal, and believe nothing without largely confirmed. For your lectures I can give you a few amusing anecdotes and sentences, if you want to make the audience laugh.
I thank you particularly for telling me what naturalists think. If we can once make a compact set of believers we shall in time conquer. I am EMINENTLY glad Ramsey is on our side, for he is, in my opinion, a firs-rate geologist. I sent him a copy. I hope he got it. I shall be very curious to hear whether any effect has been produced on Prestwich; I sent him a copy, not as a friend, but owing to a sentence or two in some paper, which made me suspect he was doubting.
Rev. C. Kingsley has a mind to come round. Quatref.a.ges writes that he goes some long way with me; says he exhibited diagrams like mine. With most hearty thanks,
Yours very tired, C. DARWIN.
[I give the conclusion of Professor Huxley's lecture, as being one of the earliest, as well as one of the most eloquent of his utterances in support of the 'Origin of Species']:
”I have said that the man of science is the sworn interpreter of nature in the high court of reason. But of what avail is his honest speech, if ignorance is the a.s.sessor of the judge, and prejudice the foreman of the jury? I hardly know of a great physical truth, whose universal reception has not been preceded by an epoch in which most estimable persons have maintained that the phenomena investigated were directly dependent on the Divine Will, and that the attempt to investigate them was not only futile, but blasphemous. And there is a wonderful tenacity of life about this sort of opposition to physical science. Crushed and maimed in every battle, it yet seems never to be slain; and after a hundred defeats it is at this day as rampant, though happily not so mischievous, as in the time of Galileo.
”But to those whose life is spent, to use Newton's n.o.ble words, in picking up here a pebble and there a pebble on the sh.o.r.es of the great ocean of truth--who watch, day by day, the slow but sure advance of that mighty tide, bearing on its bosom the thousand treasures wherewith man enn.o.bles and beautifies his life--it would be laughable, if it were not so sad, to see the little Canutes of the hour enthroned in solemn state, bidding that great wave to stay, and threatening to check its beneficent progress. The wave rises and they fly; but, unlike the brave old Dane, they learn no lesson of humility: the throne is pitched at what seems a safe distance, and the folly is repeated.
”Surely it is the duty of the public to discourage anything of this kind, to discredit these foolish meddlers who think they do the Almighty a service by preventing a thorough study of His works.
”The Origin of Species is not the first, and it will not be the last, of the great questions born of science, which will demand settlement from this generation. The general mind is seething strangely, and to those who watch the signs of the times, it seems plain that this nineteenth century will see revolutions of thought and practice as great as those which the sixteenth witnessed. Through what trials and sore contests the civilised world will have to pa.s.s in the course of this new reformation, who can tell?
”But I verily believe that come what will, the part which England may play in the battle is a grand and a n.o.ble one. She may prove to the world that, for one people, at any rate, despotism and demagogy are not the necessary alternatives of government; that freedom and order are not incompatible; that reverence is the handmaid of knowledge; that free discussion is the life of truth, and of true unity in a nation.