Volume II Part 23 (1/2)
to-morrow, I will add my impression of Owen's letter.
... The Lyells are coming here on Sunday evening to stay till Wednesday.
I dread it, but I must say how much disappointed I am that he has not spoken out on species, still less on man. And the best of the joke is that he thinks he has acted with the courage of a martyr of old. I hope I may have taken an exaggerated view of his timidity, and shall PARTICULARLY be glad of your opinion on this head. (On this subject my father wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker: ”Cordial thanks for your deeply interesting letters about Lyell, Owen, and Co. I cannot say how glad I am to hear that I have not been unjust about the species-question towards Lyell. I feared I had been unreasonable.”) When I got his book I turned over the pages, and saw he had discussed the subject of species, and said that I thought he would do more to convert the public than all of us, and now (which makes the case worse for me) I must, in common honesty, retract. I wish to Heaven he had said not a word on the subject.
WEDNESDAY MORNING:
I have read the ”Athenaeum”. I do not think Lyell will be nearly so much annoyed as you expect. The concluding sentence is no doubt very stinging. No one but a good anatomist could unravel Owen's letter; at least it is quite beyond me.
... Lyell's memory plays him false when he says all anatomists were astonished at Owen's paper (”On the Characters, etc., of the Cla.s.s Mammalia.” 'Linn. Soc. Journal,' ii, 1858.); it was often quoted with approbation. I WELL remember Lyell's admiration at this new cla.s.sification! (Do not repeat this.) I remember it, because, though I knew nothing whatever about the brain, I felt a conviction that a cla.s.sification thus founded on a single character would break down, and it seemed to me a great error not to separate more completely the Marsupialia...
What an accursed evil it is that there should be all this quarrelling within, what ought to be, the peaceful realms of science. I will go to my own present subject of inheritance and forget it all for a time.
Farewell, my dear old friend,
C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, February 23 [1863].
... If you have time to read you will be interested by parts of Lyell's book on man; but I fear that the best part, about the Glacial period, may be too geological for any one except a regular geologist. He quotes you at the end with gusto. By the way, he told me the other day how pleased some had been by hearing that they could purchase your pamphlet.
The ”Parthenon” also speaks of it as the ablest contribution to the literature of the subject. It delights me when I see your work appreciated.
The Lyells come here this day week, and I shall grumble at his excessive caution... The public may well say, if such a man dare not or will not speak out his mind, how can we who are ignorant form even a guess on the subject? Lyell was pleased when I told him lately that you thought that language might be used as an excellent ill.u.s.tration of derivation of species; you will see that he has an ADMIRABLE chapter on this...
I read Cairns's excellent Lecture (Prof. J.E. Cairns, 'The Slave Power, etc.: an attempt to explain the real issues involved in the American contest.' 1862.), which shows so well how your quarrel arose from Slavery. It made me for a time wish honestly for the North; but I could never help, though I tried, all the time thinking how we should be bullied and forced into a war by you, when you were triumphant. But I do most truly think it dreadful that the South, with its accursed slavery, should triumph, and spread the evil. I think if I had power, which thank G.o.d, I have not, I would let you conquer the border States, and all west of the Mississippi, and then force you to acknowledge the cotton States.
For do you not now begin to doubt whether you can conquer and hold them?
I have inflicted a long tirade on you.
”The Times” is getting more detestable (but that is too weak a word) than ever. My good wife wishes to give it up, but I tell her that is a pitch of heroism to which only a woman is equal. To give up the ”b.l.o.o.d.y Old 'Times',” as Cobbett used to call it, would be to give up meat, drink and air. Farewell, my dear Gray,
Yours most truly, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, March 6, [1863].
... I have been of course deeply interested by your book. ('Antiquity of Man.') I have hardly any remarks worth sending, but will scribble a little on what most interested me. But I will first get out what I hate saying, viz., that I have been greatly disappointed that you have not given judgment and spoken fairly out what you think about the derivation of species. I should have been contented if you had boldly said that species have not been separately created, and had thrown as much doubt as you like on how far variation and natural selection suffices. I hope to Heaven I am wrong (and from what you say about Whewell it seems so), but I cannot see how your chapters can do more good than an extraordinary able review. I think the ”Parthenon” is right, that you will leave the public in a fog. No doubt they may infer that as you give more s.p.a.ce to myself, Wallace, and Hooker, than to Lamarck, you think more of us. But I had always thought that your judgment would have been an epoch in the subject. All that is over with me, and I will only think on the admirable skill with which you have selected the striking points, and explained them. No praise can be too strong, in my opinion, for the inimitable chapter on language in comparison with species.
(After speculating on the sudden appearance of individuals far above the average of the human race, Lyell asks if such leaps upwards in the scale of intellect may not ”have cleared at one bound the s.p.a.ce which separated the higher stage of the unprogressive intelligence of the inferior animals from the first and lowest form of improvable reason manifested by man.”) page 505--A sentence at the top of the page makes me groan...
I know you will forgive me for writing with perfect freedom, for you must know how deeply I respect you as my old honoured guide and master.
I heartily hope and expect that your book will have gigantic circulation and may do in many ways as much good as it ought to do. I am tired, so no more. I have written so briefly that you will have to guess my meaning. I fear my remarks are hardly worth sending. Farewell, with kindest remembrance to Lady Lyell.
Ever yours, C. DARWIN.
[Mr. Huxley has quoted (vol. i. page 546) some pa.s.sages from Lyell's letters which show his state of mind at this time. The following pa.s.sage, from a letter of March 11th to my father, is also of much interest:--
”My feelings, however, more than any thought about policy or expediency, prevent me from dogmatising as to the descent of man from the brutes, which, though I am prepared to accept it, takes away much of the charm from my speculations on the past relating to such matters... But you ought to be satisfied, as I shall bring hundreds towards you who, if I treated the matter more dogmatically, would have rebelled.”]
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, 12 [March, 1863].