Volume II Part 52 (1/2)
From a letter to Dr. Dohrn, February 13, 1882:--
”I have got one very bad piece of news to tell you, that F. Balfour is very ill at Cambridge with typhoid fever... I hope that he is not in a very dangerous state; but the fever is severe. Good Heavens, what a loss he would be to Science, and to his many loving friends!”]
CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, January 12, 1882.
My dear Huxley,
Very many thanks for 'Science and Culture,' and I am sure that I shall read most of the essays with much interest. With respect to Automatism (”On the hypothesis that animals are automata and its history,” an Address given at the Belfast meeting of the British a.s.sociation, 1874, and published in the 'Fortnightly Review,' 1874, and in 'Science and Culture.'), I wish that you could review yourself in the old, and of course forgotten, trenchant style, and then you would here answer yourself with equal incisiveness; and thus, by Jove, you might go on ad infinitum, to the joy and instruction of the world.
Ever yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.
[The following letter refers to Dr. Ogle's translation of Aristotle, 'On the Parts of Animals' (1882):]
CHARLES DARWIN TO W. OGLE. Down, February 22, 1882.
My dear Dr. Ogle,
You must let me thank you for the pleasure which the introduction to the Aristotle book has given me. I have rarely read anything which has interested me more, though I have not read as yet more than a quarter of the book proper.
From quotations which I had seen, I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two G.o.ds, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle. How very curious, also, his ignorance on some points, as on muscles as the means of movement. I am glad that you have explained in so probable a manner some of the grossest mistakes attributed to him. I never realized, before reading your book, to what an enormous summation of labour we owe even our common knowledge. I wish old Aristotle could know what a grand Defender of the Faith he had found in you. Believe me, my dear Dr. Ogle,
Yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN.
[In February, he received a letter and a specimen from a Mr. W.D. Crick, which ill.u.s.trated a curious mode of dispersal of bivalve sh.e.l.ls, namely, by closure of their valves so as to hold on to the leg of a water-beetle. This cla.s.s of fact had a special charm for him, and he wrote to 'Nature,' describing the case. ('Nature,' April 6, 1882.)
In April he received a letter from Dr. W. Van Dyck, Lecturer in Zoology at the Protestant College of Beyrout. The letter showed that the street dogs of Beyrout had been rapidly mongrelised by introduced European dogs, and the facts have an interesting bearing on my father's theory of s.e.xual Selection.]
CHARLES DARWIN TO W.T. VAN DYCK. Down, April 3, 1882.
Dear Sir,
After much deliberation, I have thought it best to send your very interesting paper to the Zoological Society, in hopes that it will be published in their Journal. This journal goes to every scientific inst.i.tution in the world, and the contents are abstracted in all year-books on Zoology. Therefore I have preferred it to 'Nature,' though the latter has a wider circulation, but is ephemeral.
I have prefaced your essay by a few general remarks, to which I hope that you will not object.
Of course I do not know that the Zoological Society, which is much addicted to mere systematic work, will publish your essay. If it does, I will send you copies of your essay, but these will not be ready for some months. If not published by the Zoological Society, I will endeavour to get 'Nature' to publish it. I am very anxious that it should be published and preserved.
Dear Sir, Yours faithfully, CH. DARWIN.
[The paper was read at a meeting of the Zoological Society on April 18th--the day before my father's death.
The preliminary remarks with which Dr. Van Dyck's paper is prefaced are thus the latest of my father's writings.]
We must now return to an early period of his life, and give a connected account of his botanical work, which has. .h.i.therto been omitted.
CHAPTER 2.X. -- FERTILISATION OF FLOWERS.
[In the letters already given we have had occasion to notice the general bearing of a number of botanical problems on the wider question of Evolution. The detailed work in botany which my father accomplished by the guidance of the light cast on the study of natural history by his own work on Evolution remains to be noticed. In a letter to Mr. Murray, September 24th, 1861, speaking of his book on the 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' he says: ”It will perhaps serve to ill.u.s.trate how Natural History may be worked under the belief of the modification of species.”
This remark gives a suggestion as to the value and interest of his botanical work, and it might be expressed in far more emphatic language without danger of exaggeration.