Volume II Part 25 (1/2)
The presentation of the Copley Medal is of interest in another way, inasmuch as it led to Sir C. Lyell making, in his after-dinner speech, a ”confession of faith as to the 'Origin.'” He wrote to my father ('Life,'
vol. ii. page 384), ”I said I had been forced to give up my old faith without thoroughly seeing my way to a new one. But I think you would have been satisfied with the length I went.”]
CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, October 3 [1864].
My dear Huxley,
If I do not pour out my admiration of your article (”Criticisms on the Origin of Species,” 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1864. Republished in 'Lay Sermons,' 1870, page 328. The work of Professor Kolliker referred to is 'Ueber die Darwin'sche Schopfungstheorie' (Leipzig, 1864). Toward Professor Kolliker my father felt not only the respect due to so distinguished a naturalist (a sentiment well expressed in Professor Huxley's review), but he had also a personal regard for him, and often alluded with satisfaction to the visit which Professor Kolliker paid at Down.) on Kolliker, I shall explode. I never read anything better done.
I had much wished his article answered, and indeed thought of doing so myself, so that I considered several points. You have hit on all, and on some in addition, and oh! by Jove, how well you have done it. As I read on and came to point after point on which I had thought, I could not help jeering and scoffing at myself, to see how infinitely better you had done it than I could have done. Well, if any one, who does not understand Natural Selection, will read this, he will be a blockhead if it is not as clear as daylight. Old Flourens ('Examen du livre de M.
Darwin sur l'origine des especes.' Par P. Flourens. 8vo. Paris, 1864.) was hardly worth the powder and shot; but how capitally you bring in about the Academician, and your metaphor of the sea-sand is INIMITABLE.
It is a marvel to me how you can resist becoming a regular reviewer.
Well, I have exploded now, and it has done me a deal of good...
[In the same article in the 'Natural History Review,' Mr. Huxley speaks of the book above alluded to by Flourens, the Secretaire Perpetuel of the Academie des Sciences, as one of the two ”most elaborate criticisms”
of the 'Origin of Species' of the year. He quotes the following pa.s.sage:--
”M. Darwin continue: 'Aucune distinction absolue n'a ete et ne peut etre entre les especes et les varietes!' Je vous ai deja dit que vous vous trompiez; une distinction absolue separe les varietes d'avec les especes.” Mr. Huxley remarks on this, ”Being devoid of the blessings of an Academy in England, we are unaccustomed to see our ablest men treated in this way even by a Perpetual Secretary.” After demonstrating M.
Flourens' misapprehension of Natural Selection, Mr. Huxley says, ”How one knows it all by heart, and with what relief one reads at page 65 'Je laisse M. Darwin.'”
On the same subject my father wrote to Mr. Wallace:--
”A great gun, Flourens, has written a little dull book against me which pleases me much, for it is plain that our good work is spreading in France. He speaks of the ”engouement” about this book [the 'Origin'] ”so full of empty and presumptuous thoughts.” The pa.s.sage here alluded to is as follows:--
”Enfin l'ouvrage de M. Darwin a paru. On ne peut qu'etre frappe du talent de l'auteur. Mais que d'idees obscures, que d'idees fausses! Quel jargon metaphysique jete mal a propos dans l'histoire naturelle, qui tombe dans le galimatias des qu'elle sort des idees claires, des idees justes. Quel langage pretentieux et vide! Quelles personifications pueriles et surannees! O lucidite! O solidite de l'esprit francais, que devene-vous?”]
1865.
[This was again a time of much ill-health, but towards the close of the year he began to recover under the care of the late Dr. Bence-Jones, who dieted him severely, and as he expressed it, ”half-starved him to death.” He was able to work at 'Animals and Plants' until nearly the end of April, and from that time until December he did practically no work, with the exception of looking over the 'Origin of Species' for a second French edition. He wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker:--”I am, as it were, reading the 'Origin' for the first time, for I am correcting for a second French edition: and upon my life, my dear fellow, it is a very good book, but oh! my gracious, it is tough reading, and I wish it were done.” (Towards the end of the year my father received the news of a new convert to his views, in the person of the distinguished American naturalist Lesquereux. He wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker: ”I have had an enormous letter from Leo Lesquereux (after doubts, I did not think it worth sending you) on Coal Flora. He wrote some excellent articles in 'Silliman' against 'Origin' views; but he says now, after repeated reading of the book, he is a convert!”)
The following letter refers to the Duke of Argyll's address to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, December 5th, 1864, in which he criticises the 'Origin of Species.' My father seems to have read the Duke's address as reported in the ”Scotsman” of December 6th, 1865. In a letter to my father (January 16, 1865, 'Life,' vol. ii. page 385), Lyell wrote, ”The address is a great step towards your views--far greater, I believe, than it seems when read merely with reference to criticisms and objections.”]
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, January 22, [1865].
My dear Lyell,
I thank you for your very interesting letter. I have the true English instinctive reverence for rank, and therefore liked to hear about the Princess Royal. (”I had... an animated conversation on Darwinism with the Princess Royal, who is a worthy daughter of her father, in the reading of good books, and thinking of what she reads. She was very much au fait at the 'Origin,' and Huxley's book, the 'Antiquity,' etc.”--(Lyell's 'Life,' vol. ii. page 385.) You ask what I think of the Duke's address, and I shall be glad to tell you. It seems to me EXTREMELY clever, like everything I have read of his; but I am not shaken--perhaps you will say that neither G.o.ds nor men could shake me. I demur to the Duke reiterating his objection that the brilliant plumage of the male humming-bird could not have been acquired through selection, at the same time entirely ignoring my discussion (page 93, 3rd edition) on beautiful plumage being acquired through s.e.xUAL selection. The duke may think this insufficient, but that is another question. All a.n.a.logy makes me quite disagree with the Duke that the difference in the beak, wing and tail, are not of importance to the several species. In the only two species which I have watched, the difference in flight and in the use of the tail was conspicuously great.
The Duke, who knows my Orchid book so well, might have learnt a lesson of caution from it, with respect to his doctrine of differences for mere variety or beauty. It may be confidently said that no tribe of plants presents such grotesque and beautiful differences, which no one until lately, conjectured were of any use; but now in almost every case I have been able to show their important service. It should be remembered that with humming birds or orchids, a modification in one part will cause correlated changes in other parts. I agree with what you say about beauty. I formerly thought a good deal on the subject, and was led quite to repudiate the doctrine of beauty being created for beauty's sake. I demur also to the Duke's expression of ”new births.” That may be a very good theory, but it is not mine, unless indeed he calls a bird born with a beak 1/100th of an inch longer than usual ”a new birth;” but this is not the sense in which the term would usually be understood. The more I work the more I feel convinced that it is by the acc.u.mulation of such extremely slight variations that new species arise. I do not plead guilty to the Duke's charge that I forget that natural selection means only the preservation of variations which independently arise.
(”Strictly speaking, therefore, Mr. Darwin's theory is not a theory on the Origin of Species at all, but only a theory on the causes which lead to the relative success and failure of such new forms as may be born into the world.”--”Scotsman”, December 6, 1864.) I have expressed this in as strong language as I could use, but it would have been infinitely tedious had I on every occasion thus guarded myself. I will cry ”peccavi” when I hear of the Duke or you attacking breeders for saying that man has made his improved shorthorns, or pouter pigeons, or bantams. And I could quote still stronger expressions used by agriculturists. Man does make his artificial breeds, for his selective power is of such importance relatively to that of the slight spontaneous variations. But no one will attack breeders for using such expressions, and the rising generation will not blame me.
Many thanks for your offer of sending me the 'Elements.' (Sixth edition in one volume.) I hope to read it all, but unfortunately reading makes my head whiz more than anything else. I am able most days to work for two or three hours, and this makes all the difference in my happiness.
I have resolved not to be tempted astray, and to publish nothing till my volume on Variation is completed. You gave me excellent advice about the footnotes in my Dog chapter, but their alteration gave me infinite trouble, and I often wished all the dogs, and I fear sometimes you yourself, in the nether regions.