Chapter XIII. of 'Domestic Animals.'

November 21st.--Finished 'Pangenesis.'

December 21st.--Finished re-going over all chapters, and sent them to

printers.

December 22nd.--Began concluding chapter of book."

He was in London on two occasions for a week at a time, staying with his

brother, and for a few days (May 29th-June 2nd) in Surrey; for the rest

of the year he was at Down.

There seems to have been a gradual mending in his health; thus he wrote

to Mr. Wallace (January 1866):--"My health is so far improved that I am

able to work one or two hours a day."

With respect to the 4th edition he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker:--

"The new edition of the 'Origin' has caused me two great vexations. I

forgot Bates's paper on variation (This appears to refer to "Notes on

South American Butterflies," Trans. Entomolog. Soc., vol. v. (N.S.).),

but I remembered in time his mimetic work, and now, strange to say, I

find I have forgotten your Arctic paper! I know how it arose; I indexed

for my bigger work, and never expected that a new edition of the

'Origin' would be wanted.

"I cannot say how all this has vexed me. Everything which I have read

during the last four years I find is quite washy in my mind." As far as

I know, Mr. Bates's paper was not mentioned in the later editions of the

'Origin,' for what reason I cannot say.

In connection with his work on 'The Variation of Animals and Plants,' I

give here extracts from three letters addressed to Mr. Huxley, which

are of interest as giving some idea of the development of the theory of

'Pangenesis,' ultimately published in 1868 in the book in question:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, May 27, [1865?].

... I write now to ask a favour of you, a very great favour from one so

hard worked as you are. It is to read thirty pages of MS., excellently

copied out and give me, not lengthened criticism, but your opinion

whether I may venture to publish it. You may keep the MS. for a month

or two. I would not ask this favour, but I REALLY know no one else whose

judgment on the subject would be final with me.

The case stands thus: in my next book I shall publish long chapters on

bud- and seminal-variation, on inheritance, reversion, effects of use

and disuse, etc. I have also for many years speculated on the different

forms of reproduction. Hence it has come to be a passion with me to try

to connect all such facts by some sort of hypothesis. The MS. which I

wish to send you gives such a hypothesis; it is a very rash and crude

hypothesis, yet it has been a considerable relief to my mind, and I

can hang on it a good many groups of facts. I well know that a mere

hypothesis, and this is nothing more, is of little value; but it is very

useful to me as serving as a kind of summary for certain chapters. Now

I earnestly wish for your verdict given briefly as, "Burn it"--or, which

is the most favourable verdict I can hope for, "It does rudely connect

together certain facts, and I do not think it will immediately pass

out of my mind." If you can say this much, and you do not think it

absolutely ridiculous, I shall publish it in my concluding chapter.

Now will you grant me this favour? You must refuse if you are too much

overworked.

I must say for myself that I am a hero to expose my hypothesis to the

fiery ordeal of your criticism.

July 12, [1865?].

My dear Huxley,

I thank you most sincerely for having so carefully considered my MS. It

has been a real act of kindness. It would have annoyed me extremely to

have re-published Buffon's views, which I did not know of, but I will

get the book; and if I have strength I will also read Bonnet. I do not

doubt your judgment is perfectly just, and I will try to persuade myself

not to publish. The whole affair is much too speculative; yet I think

some such view will have to be adopted, when I call to mind such facts

as the inherited effects of use and disuse, etc. But I will try to be

cautious...

[1865?].

My dear Huxley,

Forgive my writing in pencil, as I can do so lying down. I have read

Buffon: whole pages are laughably like mine. It is surprising how candid

it makes one to see one's views in another man's words. I am rather

ashamed of the whole affair, but not converted to a no-belief. What a

kindness you have done me with your "vulpine sharpness." Nevertheless,

there is a fundamental distinction between Buffon's views and mine. He

does not suppose that each cell or atom of tissue throws off a little

bud; but he supposes that the sap or blood includes his "organic

molecules," WHICH ARE READY FORMED, fit to nourish each organ, and when

this is fully formed, they collect to form buds and the sexual elements.

It is all rubbish to speculate as I have done; yet, if I ever

have strength to publish my next book, I fear I shall not resist

"Pangenesis," but I assure you I will put it humbly enough. The ordinary

course of development of beings, such as the Echinodermata, in which

new organs are formed at quite remote spots from the analogous previous

parts, seem to me extremely difficult to reconcile on any view except

the free diffusion in the parent of the germs or gemmules of each

separate new organ; and so in cases of alternate generation. But I will

not scribble any more. Hearty thanks to you, you best of critics and

most learned man...

[The letters now take up the history of the year 1866.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, July 5 [1866].

My dear Wallace,

I have been much interested by your letter, which is as clear as

daylight. I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of

H. Spencer's excellent expression of "the survival of the fittest."

(Extract from a letter of Mr. Wallace's, July 2, 1866: "The term

'survival of the fittest' is the plain expression of the fact; 'natural

selection' is a metaphorical expression of it, and to a certain degree

indirect and incorrect, since... Nature... does not so much select special

varieties as exterminate the most unfavourable ones.") This, however,

had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great

objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing

a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer

continually using the words, natural selection. I formerly thought,

probably in an exaggerated degree, that it was a great advantage to

bring into connection natural and artificial selection; this indeed led

me to use a term in common, and I still think it some advantage. I wish

I had received your letter two months ago, for I would have worked in

"the survival, etc.," often in the new edition of the 'Origin,' which is

now almost printed off, and of which I will of course send you a copy. I

will use the term in my next book on Domestic Animals, etc., from which,

by the way, I plainly see that you expect MUCH, too much. The term

Natural Selection has now been so largely used abroad and at home, that

I doubt whether it could be given up, and with all its faults I should

be sorry to see the attempt made. Whether it will be rejected must now

depend "on the survival of the fittest." As in time the term must grow

intelligible the objections to its use will grow weaker and weaker.

I doubt whether the use of any term would have made the subject

intelligible to some minds, clear as it is to others; for do we not see

even to the present day Malthus on Population absurdly misunderstood?

This reflection about Malthus has often comforted me when I have been

vexed at the misstatement of my views. As for M. Janet (This no doubt

refers to Janet's 'Materialisme Contemporain.'), he is a metaphysician,

and such gentlemen are so acute that I think they often misunderstand

common folk. Your criticism on the double sense ("I find you use

'Natural Selection' in two senses. 1st, for the simple preservation of

favourable and rejection of unfavourable variations, in which case it is

equivalent to the 'survival of the fittest,'--and 2ndly, for the effect

or CHANGE produced by this preservation." Extract from Mr. Wallace's

letter above quoted.) in which I have used Natural Selection is new

to me and unanswerable; but my blunder has done no harm, for I do not

believe that any one, excepting you, has ever observed it. Again, I

agree that I have said too much about "favourable variations;" but I am

inclined to think that you put the opposite side too strongly; if every

part of every being varied, I do not think we should see the same end,

or object, gained by such wonderfully diversified means.

I hope you are enjoying the country, and are in good health, and are

working hard at your Malay Archipelago book, for I will always put this

wish in every note I write to you, like some good people always put in

a text. My health keeps much the same, or rather improves, and I am able

to work some hours daily. With many thanks for your interesting letter.

Believe me, my dear Wallace, yours sincerely, CH. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, August 30 [1866].

My dear Hooker,

I was very glad to get your note and the Notts. Newspaper. I have seldom

been more pleased in my life than at hearing how successfully your

lecture (At the Nottingham meeting of the British Association,

August 27, 1866. The subject of the lecture was 'Insular Floras.' See

"Gardeners' Chronicle", 1866.) went off. Mrs. H. Wedgwood sent us an

account, saying that you read capitally, and were listened to with

profound attention and great applause. She says, when your final

allegory (Sir Joseph Hooker allegorized the Oxford meeting of the

British Association as the gathering of a tribe of savages who believed

that the new moon was created afresh each month. The anger of the

priests and medicine man at a certain heresy, according to which the new

moon is but the offspring of the old one, is excellently given.) began,

"for a minute or two we were all mystified, and then came such bursts

of applause from the audience. It was thoroughly enjoyed amid roars of

laughter and noise, making a most brilliant conclusion."

I am rejoiced that you will publish your lecture, and felt sure that

sooner or later it would come to this, indeed it would have been a

sin if you had not done so. I am especially rejoiced as you give the

arguments for occasional transport, with such perfect fairness; these

will now receive a fair share of attention, as coming from you a

professed botanist. Thanks also for Grove's address; as a whole it

strikes me as very good and original, but I was disappointed in the part

about Species; it dealt in such generalities that it would apply to any

view or no view in particular...

And now farewell. I do most heartily rejoice at your success, and for

Grove's sake at the brilliant success of the whole meeting.

Yours affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN.

[The next letter is of interest, as giving the beginning of the

connection which arose between my father and Professor Victor Carus. The

translation referred to is the third German edition made from the

fourth English one. From this time forward Professor Carus continued

to translate my father's books into German. The conscientious care with

which this work was done was of material service, and I well

remember the admiration (mingled with a tinge of vexation at his

own short-comings) with which my father used to receive the lists of

oversights, etc., which Professor Carus discovered in the course

of translation. The connection was not a mere business one, but was

cemented by warm feelings of regard on both sides.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO VICTOR CARUS. Down, November 10, 1866.

My dear Sir,

I thank you for your extremely kind letter. I cannot express too

strongly my satisfaction that you have undertaken the revision of the

new edition, and I feel the honour which you have conferred on me. I

fear that you will find the labour considerable, not only on account of

the additions, but I suspect that Bronn's translation is very defective,

at least I have heard complaints on this head from quite a large number

of persons. It would be a great gratification to me to know that the

translation was a really good one, such as I have no doubt you will

produce. According to our English practice, you will be fully justified

in entirely omitting Bronn's Appendix, and I shall be very glad of its

omission. A new edition may be looked at as a new work... You could

add anything of your own that you liked, and I should be much pleased.

Should you make any additions or append notes, it appears to me that

Nageli "Entstehung und Begriff," etc. ('Entstehung und Begriff der

Naturhistorischen Art.' An address given at a public meeting of the

'R. Academy of Sciences' at Munich, March 28, 1865.), would be worth

noticing, as one of the most able pamphlets on the subject. I am,

however, far from agreeing with him that the acquisition of certain

characters which appear to be of no service to plants, offers any great

difficulty, or affords a proof of some innate tendency in plants towards

perfection. If you intend to notice this pamphlet, I should like to

write hereafter a little more in detail on the subject.

... I wish I had known when writing my Historical Sketch that you had

in 1853 published your views on the genealogical connection of past and

present forms.

I suppose you have the sheets of the last English edition on which I

marked with pencil all the chief additions, but many little corrections

of style were not marked.

Pray believe that I feel sincerely grateful for the great service and

honour which you do me by the present translation.

I remain, my dear Sir, yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.

P.S.--I should be VERY MUCH pleased to possess your photograph, and I

send mine in case you should like to have a copy.

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. NAGELI. (Professor of Botany at Munich.) Down, June

12 [1866].

Dear Sir,

I hope you will excuse the liberty which I take in writing to you. I

have just read, though imperfectly, your 'Entstehung und Begriff,'

and have been so greatly interested by it, that I have sent it to be

translated, as I am a poor German scholar. I have just finished a new

[4th] edition of my 'Origin,' which will be translated into German,

and my object in writing to you is to say that if you should see

this edition you would think that I had borrowed from you, without

acknowledgment, two discussions on the beauty of flowers and fruit;

but I assure you every word was printed off before I had opened your

pamphlet. Should you like to possess a copy of either the German or

English new edition, I should be proud to send one. I may add, with

respect to the beauty of flowers, that I have already hinted the same

views as you hold in my paper on Lythrum.

Many of your criticisms on my views are the best which I have met with,

but I could answer some, at least to my own satisfaction; and I regret

extremely that I had not read your pamphlet before printing my new

edition. On one or two points, I think, you have a little misunderstood

me, though I dare say I have not been cautious in expressing myself. The

remark which has struck me most, is that on the position of the leaves

not having been acquired through natural selection, from not being of

any special importance to the plant. I well remember being formerly

troubled by an analogous difficulty, namely, the position of the ovules,

their anatropous condition, etc. It was owing to forgetfulness that

I did not notice this difficulty in the 'Origin.' (Nageli's Essay is

noticed in the 5th edition.) Although I can offer no explanation of such

facts, and only hope to see that they may be explained, yet I hardly see

how they support the doctrine of some law of necessary development,

for it is not clear to me that a plant, with its leaves placed at some

particular angle, or with its ovules in some particular position, thus

stands higher than another plant. But I must apologise for troubling you

with these remarks.

As I much wish to possess your photograph, I take the liberty of

enclosing my own, and with sincere respect I remain, dear Sir,

Yours faithfully, CH. DARWIN.

[I give a few extracts from letters of various dates showing my

father's interest, alluded to in the last letter, in the problem of the

arrangement of the leaves on the stems of plants. It may be added that

Professor Schwendener of Berlin has successfully attacked the question

in his 'Mechanische Theorie der Blattstellungen,' 1878.

TO DR. FALCONER. August 26 [1863].

"Do you remember telling me that I ought to study Phyllotaxy? Well I

have often wished you at the bottom of the sea; for I could not resist,

and I muddled my brains with diagrams, etc., and specimens, and made

out, as might have been expected, nothing. Those angles are a most

wonderful problem and I wish I could see some one give a rational

explanation of them."

TO DR. ASA GRAY. May 11 [1861].

"If you wish to save me from a miserable death, do tell me why the

angles 1/2, 1/3, 2/5, 3/8, etc, series occur, and no other angles. It

is enough to drive the quietest man mad. Did you and some mathematician

(Probably my father was thinking of Chauncey Wright's work on

Phyllotaxy, in Gould's 'Astronomical Journal,' No.99, 1856, and in the

'Mathematical Monthly,' 1859. These papers are mentioned in the "Letters

of Chauncey Wright.' Mr. Wright corresponded with my father on the

subject.) publish some paper on the subject? Hooker says you did; where

is it?

TO DR. ASA GRAY. [May 31, 1863?].

"I have been looking at Nageli's work on this subject, and am astonished

to see that the angle is not always the same in young shoots when the

lea-buds are first distinguishable, as in full-grown branches. This

shows, I think, that there must be some potent cause for those angles

which do occur: I dare say there is some explanation as simple as that

for the angles of the Bees-cells."

My father also corresponded with Dr. Hubert Airy and was interested in

his views on the subject, published in the Royal Soc. Proceedings, 1873,

page 176.

We now return to the year 1866.

In November, when the prosecution of Governor Eyre was dividing England

into two bitterly opposed parties, he wrote to Sir J. Hooker:--

"You will shriek at me when you hear that I have just subscribed to the

Jamaica Committee." (He subscribed 10 pounds.)

On this subject I quote from a letter of my brother's:--

"With respect to Governor Eyre's conduct in Jamaica, he felt strongly

that J.S. Mill was right in prosecuting him. I remember one evening, at

my Uncle's, we were talking on the subject, and as I happened to think

it was too strong a measure to prosecute Governor Eyre for murder, I

made some foolish remark about the prosecutors spending the surplus of

the fund in a dinner. My father turned on me almost with fury, and told

me, if those were my feelings, I had better go back to Southampton; the

inhabitants having given a dinner to Governor Eyre on his landing, but

with which I had had nothing to do." The end of the incident, as told

by my brother, is so characteristic of my father that I cannot resist

giving it, though it has no bearing on the point at issue. "Next morning

at 7 o'clock, or so, he came into my bedroom and sat on my bed, and said

that he had not been able to sleep from the thought that he had been so

angry with me, and after a few more kind words he left me."

The same restless desire to correct a disagreeable or incorrect

impression is well illustrated in an extract which I quote from some

notes by Rev. J. Brodie Innes:--

"Allied to the extreme carefulness of observation was his most

remarkable truthfulness in all matters. On one occasion, when a parish

meeting had been held on some disputed point of no great importance, I

was surprised by a visit from Mr. Darwin at night. He came to say that,

thinking over the debate, though what he had said was quite accurate,

he thought I might have drawn an erroneous conclusion, and he would

not sleep till he had explained it. I believe that if on any day some

certain fact had come to his knowledge which contradicted his most

cherished theories, he would have placed the fact on record for

publication before he slept."

This tallies with my father's habits, as described by himself. When a

difficulty or an objection occurred to him, he thought it of paramount

importance to make a note of it instantly because he found hostile facts

to be especially evanescent.

The same point is illustrated by the following incident, for which I am

indebted to Mr. Romanes:--

"I have always remembered the following little incident as a good

example of Mr. Darwin's extreme solicitude on the score of accuracy. One

evening at Down there was a general conversation upon the difficulty of

explaining the evolution of some of the distinctively human emotions,

especially those appertaining to the recognition of beauty in natural

scenery. I suggested a view of my own upon the subject, which, depending

upon the principle of association, required the supposition that a long

line of ancestors should have inhabited regions, the scenery of which is

now regarded as beautiful. Just as I was about to observe that the chief

difficulty attaching to my hypothesis arose from feelings of the sublime

(seeing that these are associated with awe, and might therefore be

expected not to be agreeable), Mr. Darwin anticipated the remark, by

asking how the hypothesis was to meet the case of these feelings. In the

conversation which followed, he said the occasion in his own life, when

he was most affected by the emotions of the sublime was when he stood

upon one of the summits of the Cordillera, and surveyed the magnificent

prospect all around. It seemed, as he quaintly observed, as if

his nerves had become fiddle strings, and had all taken to rapidly

vibrating. This remark was only made incidentally, and the conversation

passed into some other branch. About an hour afterwards Mr. Darwin

retired to rest, while I sat up in the smoking-room with one of his

sons. We continued smoking and talking for several hours, when at

about one o'clock in the morning the door gently opened and Mr.

Darwin appeared, in his slippers and dressing-gown. As nearly as I can

remember, the following are the words he used:--

"'Since I went to bed I have been thinking over our conversation in the

drawing-room, and it has just occurred to me that I was wrong in telling

you I felt most of the sublime when on the top of the Cordillera; I am

quite sure that I felt it even more when in the forests of Brazil. I

thought it best to come and tell you this at once in case I should

be putting you wrong. I am sure now that I felt most sublime in the

forests.'

"This was all he had come to say, and it was evident that he had come to

do so, because he thought that the fact of his feeling 'most sublime in

forests' was more in accordance with the hypothesis which we had been

discussing, than the fact which he had previously stated. Now, as no one

knew better than Mr. Darwin the difference between a speculation and a

fact, I thought this little exhibition of scientific conscientiousness

very noteworthy, where the only question concerned was of so highly

speculative a character. I should not have been so much impressed if he

had thought that by his temporary failure of memory he had put me on a

wrong scent in any matter of fact, although even in such a case he is

the only man I ever knew who would care to get out of bed at such a time

at night in order to make the correction immediately, instead of waiting

till next morning. But as the correction only had reference to a flimsy

hypothesis, I certainly was very much impressed by this display of

character."]

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, December 10 [1866].

... I have now read the last No. of H. Spencer. ('Principles of

Biology.') I do not know whether to think it better than the previous

number, but it is wonderfully clever, and I dare say mostly true. I feel

rather mean when I read him: I could bear, and rather enjoy feeling that

he was twice as ingenious and clever as myself, but when I feel that he

is about a dozen times my superior, even in the master art of wriggling,

I feel aggrieved. If he had trained himself to observe more, even if at

the expense, by the law of balancement, of some loss of thinking power,

he would have been a wonderful man.

... I am HEARTILY glad you are taking up the Distribution of Plants in

New Zealand, and suppose it will make part of your new book. Your view,

as I understand it, that New Zealand subsided and formed two or

more small islands, and then rose again, seems to me extremely

probable... When I puzzled my brains about New Zealand, I remember I came

to the conclusion, as indeed I state in the 'Origin,' that its flora, as

well as that of other southern lands, had been tinctured by an Antarctic

flora, which must have existed before the Glacial period. I concluded

that New Zealand never could have been closely connected with Australia,

though I supposed it had received some few Australian forms by

occasional means of transport. Is there any reason to suppose that New

Zealand could have been more closely connected with South Australia

during the glacial period, when the Eucalypti, etc., might have been

driven further North? Apparently there remains only the line, which

I think you suggested, of sunken islands from New Caledonia. Please

remember that the Edwardsia was certainly drifted there by the sea.

I remember in old days speculating on the amount of life, i.e. of

organic chemical change, at different periods. There seems to me one

very difficult element in the problem, namely, the state of development

of the organic beings at each period, for I presume that a Flora and

Fauna of cellular cryptogamic plants, of Protozoa and Radiata would lead

to much less chemical change than is now going on. But I have scribbled

enough.

Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN.

[The following letter is in acknowledgment of Mr. Rivers' reply to

an earlier letter in which my father had asked for information on

bu-variation:

It may find a place here in illustration of the manner of my father's

intercourse with those "whose avocations in life had to do with the

rearing or use of living things" ("Mr. Dyer in 'Charles Darwin,'"

"Nature Series", 1882, page 39.)--an intercourse which bore such good

fruit in the 'Variation of Animals and Plants.' Mr. Dyer has some

excellent remarks on the unexpected value thus placed on apparently

trivial facts disinterred from weekly journals, or amassed by

correspondence. He adds: "Horticulturists who had... moulded plants

almost at their will at the impulse of taste or profit were at once

amazed and charmed to find that they had been doing scientific work and

helping to establish a great theory."]

CHARLES DARWIN TO T. RIVERS. (The late Mr. Rivers was an eminent

horticulturist and writer on horticulture.) Down, December 28 [1866?].

My dear Sir,

Permit me to thank you cordially for your most kind letter. For years

I have read with interest every scrap which you have written in

periodicals, and abstracted in MS. your book on Roses, and several times

I thought I would write to you, but did not know whether you would think

me too intrusive. I shall, indeed, be truly obliged for any information

you can supply me on bud-variation or sports. When any extra

difficult points occur to me in my present subject (which is a mass of

difficulties), I will apply to you, but I will not be unreasonable. It

is most true what you say that any one to study well the physiology of

the life of plants, ought to have under his eye a multitude of plants.

I have endeavoured to do what I can by comparing statements by many

writers and observing what I could myself. Unfortunately few have

observed like you have done. As you are so kind, I will mention one

other point on which I am collecting facts; namely, the effect produced

on the stock by the graft; thus, it is SAID, that the purple-leaved

filbert affects the leaves of the common hazel on which it is grafted (I

have just procured a plant to try), so variegated jessamine is SAID

to affect its stock. I want these facts partly to throw light on the

marvellous laburnum Adami, trifacial oranges, etc. That laburnum case

seems one of the strangest in physiology. I have now growing splendid,

FERTILE, yellow laburnums (with a long raceme like the so-called

Waterer's laburnum) from seed of yellow flowers on the C. Adami. To a

man like myself, who is compelled to live a solitary life, and sees few

persons, it is no slight satisfaction to hear that I have been able at

all [to] interest by my books observers like yourself.

As I shall publish on my present subject, I presume, within a year, it

will be of no use your sending me the shoots of peaches and nectarines

which you so kindly offer; I have recorded your facts.

Permit me again to thank you cordially; I have not often in my life

received a kinder letter.

My dear Sir, yours sincerely, CH. DARWIN.

CHAPTER 2.V. -- THE PUBLICATION OF THE 'VARIATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS UNDER DOMESTICATION.'

JANUARY 1867, TO JUNE 1868.

[At the beginning of the year 1867 he was at work on the final

chapter--"Concluding Remarks" of the 'Variation of Animals and Plants

under Domestication,' which was begun after the rest of the MS. had

been sent to the printers in the preceding December. With regard to the

publication of the book he wrote to Mr. Murray, on January 3:--

"I cannot tell you how sorry I am to hear of the enormous size of my

book. (On January 9 he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker: "I have been these last

few days vexed and annoyed to a foolish degree by hearing that my MS.

on Dom. An. and Cult. Plants will make 2 volumes, both bigger than

the 'Origin.' The volumes will have to be full-sized octavo, so I have

written to Murray to suggest details to be printed in small type. But I

feel that the size is quite ludicrous in relation to the subject. I am

ready to swear at myself and at every fool who writes a book.") I fear

it can never pay. But I cannot shorten it now; nor, indeed, if I had

foreseen its length, do I see which parts ought to have been omitted.

"If you are afraid to publish it, say so at once, I beg you, and I will

consider your note as cancelled. If you think fit, get any one whose

judgment you rely on, to look over some of the more legible chapters,

namely, the Introduction, and on dogs and plants, the latter chapters

being in my opinion, the dullest in the book... The list of chapters, and

the inspection of a few here and there, would give a good judge a fair

idea of the whole book. Pray do not publish blindly, as it would vex me

all my life if I led you to heavy loss."

Mr. Murray referred the MS. to a literary friend, and, in spite of

a somewhat adverse opinion, willingly agreed to publish the book. My

father wrote:--

"Your note has been a great relief to me. I am rather alarmed about the

verdict of your friend, as he is not a man of science. I think if you

had sent the 'Origin' to an unscientific man, he would have utterly

condemned it. I am, however, VERY GLAD that you have consulted any one

on whom you can rely.

"I must add, that my 'Journal of Researches' was seen in MS. by an

eminent semi-scientific man, and was pronounced unfit for publication."

The proofs were begun in March, and the last revise was finished on

November 15th, and during this period the only intervals of rest were

two visits of a week each at his brother Erasmus's house in Queen Anne

Street. He notes in his Diary:--

"I began this book [in the] beginning of 1860 (and then had some MS.),

but owing to interruptions from my illness, and illness of children;

from various editions of the 'Origin,' and Papers, especially Orchis

book and Tendrils, I have spent four years and two months over it."

The edition of 'Animals and Plants' was of 1500 copies, and of these

1260 were sold at Mr. Murray's autumnal sale, but it was not published

until January 30, 1868. A new edition of 1250 copies was printed in

February of the same year.

In 1867 he received the distinction of being made a knight of the

Prussian Order "Pour le Merite." (The Order "Pour le Merite" was

founded in 1740 by Frederick II. by the re-christening of an "Order

of Generosity," founded in 1665. It was at one time strictly military,

having been previously both civil and military, and in 1840 the Order

was again opened to civilians. The order consists of thirty members of

German extraction, but distinguished foreigners are admitted to a kind

of extraordinary membership. Faraday, Herschel, and Thomas Moore, have

belonged to it in this way. From the thirty members a chancellor is

elected by the king (the first officer of this kind was Alexander v.

Humboldt); and it is the duty of the chancellor to notify a vacancy in

the Order to the remainder of the thirty, who then elect by vote the new

member--but the king has technically the appointment in his own hands.)

He seems not to have known how great the distinction was, for in June

1868 he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker:--

"What a man you are for sympathy. I was made "Eques" some months ago,

but did not think much about it. Now, by Jove, we all do; but you, in

fact, have knighted me."

The letters may now take up the story.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 8 [1867].

My dear Hooker,

I am heartily glad that you have been offered the Presidentship of the

British Association, for it is a great honour, and as you have so

much work to do, I am equally glad that you have declined it. I feel,

however, convinced that you would have succeeded very well; but if I

fancy myself in such a position, it actually makes my blood run cold. I

look back with amazement at the skill and taste with which the Duke of

Argyll made a multitude of little speeches at Glasgow. By the way,

I have not seen the Duke's book ('The Reign of Law,' 1867.), but I

formerly thought that some of the articles which appeared in periodicals

were very clever, but not very profound. One of these was reviewed

in the "Saturday Review" ("Saturday Review", November 15, 1862, 'The

"Edinburgh Review" on the Supernatural.' Written by my cousin, Mr.

Henry Parker.) some years ago, and the fallacy of some main argument

was admirably exposed, and I sent the article to you, and you agreed

strongly with it... There was the other day a rather good review of the

Duke's book in the "Spectator", and with a new explanation, either by

the Duke or the reviewer (I could not make out which), of rudimentary

organs, namely, that economy of labour and material was a great guiding

principle with God (ignoring waste of seed and of young monsters, etc.),

and that making a new plan for the structure of animals was thought, and

thought was labour, and therefore God kept to a uniform plan, and left

rudiments. This is no exaggeration. In short, God is a man, rather

cleverer than us... I am very much obliged for the "Nation" (returned by

this post); it is ADMIRABLY good. You say I always guess wrong, but I do

not believe any one, except Asa Gray, could have done the thing so well.

I would bet even, or three to two, that it is Asa Gray, though one or

two passages staggered me.

I finish my book on 'Domestic Animals,' etc., by a single paragraph,

answering, or rather throwing doubt, in so far as so little space

permits, on Asa Gray's doctrine that each variation has been specially

ordered or led along a beneficial line. It is foolish to touch such

subjects, but there have been so many allusions to what I think about

the part which God has played in the formation of organic beings (Prof.

Judd allows me to quote from some notes which he has kindly given

me:--"Lyell once told me that he had frequently been asked if Darwin was

not one of the most unhappy of men, it being suggested that his outrage

upon public opinion should have filled him with remorse." Sir Charles

Lyell must have been able, I think, to give a satisfactory answer on

this point. Professor Judd continues:--

"I made a note of this and other conversations of Lyell's at the time.

At the present time such statements must appear strange to any one

who does not recollect the revolution in opinion which has taken place

during the last 23 years [1882]."), that I thought it shabby to evade

the question... I have even received several letters on the subject... I

overlooked your sentence about Providence, and suppose I treated it as

Buckland did his own theology, when his Bridgewater Treatise was read

aloud to him for correction...

[The following letter, from Mrs. Boole, is one of those referred to in

the last letter to Sir J.D. Hooker:]

Dear Sir,

Will you excuse my venturing to ask you a question, to which no one's

answer but your own would be quite satisfactory?

Do you consider the holding of your theory of Natural Selection, in its

fullest and most unreserved sense, to be inconsistent--I do not say with

any particular scheme of theological doctrine--but with the following

belief, namely:--

That knowledge is given to man by the direct inspiration of the Spirit

of God.

That God is a personal and Infinitely good Being.

That the effect of the action of the Spirit of God on the brain of man

is especially a moral effect.

And that each individual man has within certain limits a power of choice

as to how far he will yield to his hereditary animal impulses, and how

far he will rather follow the guidance of the Spirit, who is educating

him into a power of resisting those impulses in obedience to moral

motives?

The reason why I ask you is this: my own impression has always been, not

only that your theory was perfectly COMPATIBLE with the faith to which

I have just tried to give expression, but that your books afforded me

a clue which would guide me in applying that faith to the solution of

certain complicated psychological problems which it was of practical

importance to me as a mother to solve. I felt that you had supplied one

of the missing links--not to say THE missing link--between the facts of

science and the promises of religion. Every year's experience tends to

deepen in me that impression.

But I have lately read remarks on the probable bearing of your theory on

religious and moral questions which have perplexed and pained me sorely.

I know that the persons who make such remarks must be cleverer and wiser

than myself. I cannot feel sure that they are mistaken, unless you will

tell me so. And I think--I cannot know for certain--but I THINK--that if

I were an author, I would rather that the humblest student of my works

should apply to me directly in a difficulty, than that she should puzzle

too long over adverse and probably mistaken or thoughtless criticisms.

At the same time I feel that you have a perfect right to refuse to

answer such questions as I have asked you. Science must take her

path, and Theology hers, and they will meet when and where and how God

pleases, and you are in no sense responsible for it if the meeting-point

should still be very far off. If I receive no answer to this letter I

shall infer nothing from your silence, except that you felt I had no

right to make such enquiries of a stranger.

[My father replied as follows:]

Down, December 14, [1866].

Dear Madam,

It would have gratified me much if I could have sent satisfactory

answers to your questions, or, indeed, answers of any kind. But I cannot

see how the belief that all organic beings, including man, have been

genetically derived from some simple being, instead of having been

separately created, bears on your difficulties. These, as it seems to

me, can be answered only by widely different evidence from science, or

by the so-called "inner consciousness." My opinion is not worth more

than that of any other man who has thought on such subjects, and it

would be folly in me to give it. I may, however, remark that it has

always appeared to me more satisfactory to look at the immense amount of

pain and suffering in this world as the inevitable result of the natural

sequence of events, i.e. general laws, rather than from the direct

intervention of God, though I am aware this is not logical with

reference to an omniscient Deity. Your last question seems to resolve

itself into the problem of free will and necessity, which has been found

by most persons insoluble. I sincerely wish that this note had not been

as utterly valueless as it is. I would have sent full answers, though I

have little time or strength to spare, had it been in my power. I have

the honour to remain, dear Madam,

Yours very faithfully, CHARLES DARWIN.

P.S.--I am grieved that my views should incidentally have caused trouble

to your mind, but I thank you for your judgment, and honour you for it,

that theology and science should each run its own course, and that in

the present case I am not responsible if their meeting-point should

still be far off.

[The next letter discusses the 'Reign of Law,' referred to a few pages

back:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, June 1 [1867].

... I am at present reading the Duke, and am VERY MUCH interested by him;

yet I cannot but think, clever as the whole is, that parts are weak, as

when he doubts whether each curvature of the beak of humming-birds is of

service to each species. He admits, perhaps too fully, that I have shown

the use of each little ridge and shape of each petal in orchids, and how

strange he does not extend the view to humming-birds. Still odder, it

seems to me, all that he says on beauty, which I should have thought a

nonentity, except in the mind of some sentient being. He might have as

well said that love existed during the secondary or Palaeozoic periods.

I hope you are getting on with your book better than I am with mine,

which kills me with the labour of correcting, and is intolerably dull,

though I did not think so when I was writing it. A naturalist's life

would be a happy one if he had only to observe, and never to write.

We shall be in London for a week in about a fortnight's time, and I

shall enjoy having a breakfast talk with you.

Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN.

[The following letter refers to the new and improved translation of the

'Origin,' undertaken by Professor Carus:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO J. VICTOR CARUS. Down, February 17 [1867].

My dear Sir,

I have read your preface with care. It seems to me that you have treated

Bronn with complete respect and great delicacy, and that you have

alluded to your own labour with much modesty. I do not think that any of

Bronn's friends can complain of what you say and what you have done. For

my own sake, I grieve that you have not added notes, as I am sure that

I should have profited much by them; but as you have omitted Bronn's

objections, I believe that you have acted with excellent judgment and

fairness in leaving the text without comment to the independent verdict

of the reader. I heartily congratulate you that the main part of your

labour is over; it would have been to most men a very troublesome task,

but you seem to have indomitable powers of work, judging from those two

wonderful and most useful volumes on zoological literature ('Bibliotheca

Zoologica,' 1861.) edited by you, and which I never open without

surprise at their accuracy, and gratitude for their usefulness. I cannot

sufficiently tell you how much I rejoice that you were persuaded to

superintend the translation of the present edition of my book, for I

have now the great satisfaction of knowing that the German public can

judge fairly of its merits and demerits...

With my cordial and sincere thanks, believe me,

My dear Sir, yours very faithfully, CH. DARWIN.

[The earliest letter which I have seen from my father to Professor

Haeckel, was written in 1865, and from that time forward they

corresponded (though not, I think, with any regularity) up to the end of

my father's life. His friendship with Haeckel was not nearly growth of

correspondence, as was the case with some others, for instance, Fritz

Muller. Haeckel paid more than one visit to Down, and these were

thoroughly enjoyed by my father. The following letter will serve to

show the strong feeling of regard which he entertained for his

correspondent--a feeling which I have often heard him emphatically

express, and which was warmly returned. The book referred to is

Haeckel's 'Generelle Morphologie,' published in 1866, a copy of which my

father received from the author in January 1867.

Dr. E. Krause ('Charles Darwin und sein Verhaltniss zu Deutschland,'

1885.) has given a good account of Professor Haeckel's services to the

cause of Evolution. After speaking of the lukewarm reception which the

'Origin' met with in Germany on its first publication, he goes on to

describe the first adherents of the new faith as more or less popular

writers, not especially likely to advance its acceptance with the

professorial or purely scientific world. And he claims for Haeckel that

it was his advocacy of Evolution in his 'Radiolaria' (1862), and at

the "Versammlung" of Naturalists at Stettin in 1863, that placed the

Darwinian question for the first time publicly before the forum

of German science, and his enthusiastic propagandism that chiefly

contributed to its success.

Mr. Huxley, writing in 1869, paid a high tribute to Professor Haeckel as

the Coryphaeus of the Darwinian movement in Germany. Of his 'Generelle

Morphologie,' "an attempt to work out the practical application" of the

doctrine of Evolution to their final results, he says that it has the

"force and suggestiveness, and... systematising power of Oken without his

extravagance." Professor Huxley also testifies to the value of Haeckel's

'Schopfungs-Geschichte' as an exposition of the 'Generelle Morphologie'

"for an educated public."

Again, in his 'Evolution in Biology' (An article in the 'Encyclopaedia

Britannica,' 9th edition, reprinted in 'Science and Culture,' 1881, page

298.), Mr. Huxley wrote: "Whatever hesitation may, not unfrequently,

be felt by less daring minds, in following Haeckel in many of his

speculations, his attempt to systematise the doctrine of Evolution,

and to exhibit its influence as the central thought of modern biology,

cannot fail to have a far-reaching influence on the progress of

science."

In the following letter my father alludes to the somewhat fierce manner

in which Professor Haeckel fought the battle of 'Darwinismus,' and

on this subject Dr. Krause has some good remarks (page 162). He asks

whether much that happened in the heat of the conflict might not well

have been otherwise, and adds that Haeckel himself is the last man to

deny this. Nevertheless he thinks that even these things may have worked

well for the cause of Evolution, inasmuch as Haeckel "concentrated

on himself by his 'Ursprung des Menschen-Geschlechts,' his 'Generelle

Morphologie,' and 'Schopfungs-Geschichte,' all the hatred and

bitterness which Evolution excited in certain quarters," so that, "in

a surprisingly short time it became the fashion in Germany that Haeckel

alone should be abused, while Darwin was held up as the ideal of

forethought and moderation."]

CHARLES DARWIN TO E. HAECKEL. Down, May 21, 1867.

Dear Haeckel,

Your letter of the 18th has given me great pleasure, for you have

received what I said in the most kind and cordial manner. You have

in part taken what I said much stronger than I had intended. It never

occurred to me for a moment to doubt that your work, with the whole

subject so admirably and clearly arranged, as well as fortified by so

many new facts and arguments, would not advance our common object in the

highest degree. All that I think is that you will excite anger, and that

anger so completely blinds every one, that your arguments would have

no chance of influencing those who are already opposed to our views.

Moreover, I do not at all like that you, towards whom I feel so much

friendship, should unnecessarily make enemies, and there is pain and

vexation enough in the world without more being caused. But I repeat

that I can feel no doubt that your work will greatly advance our

subject, and I heartily wish it could be translated into English, for

my own sake and that of others. With respect to what you say about

my advancing too strongly objections against my own views, some of

my English friends think that I have erred on this side; but truth

compelled me to write what I did, and I am inclined to think it was good

policy. The belief in the descent theory is slowly spreading in England

(In October 1867 he wrote to Mr. Wallace:--"Mr. Warrington has lately

read an excellent and spirited abstract of the 'Origin' before the

Victoria Institute, and as this is a most orthodox body, he has gained

the name of the Devil's Advocate. The discussion which followed during

three consecutive meetings is very rich from the nonsense talked. If you

would care to see the number I could send it you."), even amongst those

who can give no reason for their belief. No body of men were at first

so much opposed to my views as the members of the London Entomological

Society, but now I am assured that, with the exception of two or three

old men, all the members concur with me to a certain extent. It has been

a great disappointment to me that I have never received your long letter

written to me from the Canary Islands. I am rejoiced to hear that your

tour, which seems to have been a most interesting one, has done your

health much good. I am working away at my new book, but make very slow

progress, and the work tries my health, which is much the same as when

you were here.

Victor Carus is going to translate it, but whether it is worth

translation, I am rather doubtful. I am very glad to hear that there is

some chance of your visiting England this autumn, and all in this house

will be delighted to see you here.

Believe me, my dear Haeckel, Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO F. MULLER. Down, July 31 [1867].

My dear Sir,

I received a week ago your letter of June 2, full as usual of valuable

matter and specimens. It arrived at exactly the right time, for I was

enabled to give a pretty full abstract of your observations on the

plant's own pollen being poisonous. I have inserted this abstract in the

proo-sheets in my chapter on sterility, and it forms the most striking

part of my whole chapter. (In 'The Variation of Animals and Plants.') I

thank you very sincerely for the most interesting observations, which,

however, I regret that you did not publish independently. I have been

forced to abbreviate one or two parts more than I wished... Your letters

always surprise me, from the number of points to which you attend. I

wish I could make my letters of any interest to you, for I hardly ever

see a naturalist, and live as retired a life as you in Brazil. With

respect to mimetic plants, I remember Hooker many years ago saying he

believed that there were many, but I agree with you that it would

be most difficult to distinguish between mimetic resemblance and the

effects of peculiar conditions. Who can say to which of these causes to

attribute the several plants with heath-like foliage at the Cape of Good

Hope? Is it not also a difficulty that quadrupeds appear to recognise

plants more by their [scent] than their appearance? What I have just

said reminds me to ask you a question. Sir J. Lubbock brought me the

other day what appears to be a terrestrial Planaria (the first ever

found in the northern hemisphere) and which was coloured exactly like

our dark-coloured slugs. Now slugs are not devoured by birds, like

the shell-bearing species, and this made me remember that I found the

Brazilian Planariae actually together with striped Vaginuli which I

believe were similarly coloured. Can you throw any light on this? I wish

to know, because I was puzzled some months ago how it would be possible

to account for the bright colours of the Planariae in reference to

sexual selection. By the way, I suppose they are hermaphrodites.

Do not forget to aid me, if in your power, with answers to ANY of my

questions on expression, for the subject interests me greatly. With

cordial thanks for your never-failing kindness, believe me,

Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, July 18 [1867].

My dear Lyell,

Many thanks for your long letter. I am sorry to hear that you are in

despair about your book (The 2nd volume of the 10th Edition of the

'Principles.'); I well know that feeling, but am now getting out of the

lower depths. I shall be very much pleased, if you can make the least

use of my present book, and do not care at all whether it is published

before yours. Mine will appear towards the end of November of this year;

you speak of yours as not coming out till November, 1868, which I

hope may be an error. There is nothing about Man in my book which can

interfere with you, so I will order all the completed clean sheets to be

sent (and others as soon as ready) to you, but please observe you will

not care for the first volume, which is a mere record of the amount

of variation; but I hope the second will be somewhat more interesting.

Though I fear the whole must be dull.

I rejoice from my heart that you are going to speak out plainly about

species. My book about Man, if published, will be short, and a large

portion will be devoted to sexual selection, to which subject I alluded

in the 'Origin' as bearing on Man...

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, August 22 [1867].

My dear Lyell,

I thank you cordially for your last two letters. The former one did me

REAL good, for I had got so wearied with the subject that I could hardly

bear to correct the proofs (The proofs of 'Animals and Plants,' which

Lyell was then reading.), and you gave me fresh heart. I remember

thinking that when you came to the Pigeon chapter you would pass it over

as quite unreadable. Your last letter has interested me in very many

ways, and I have been glad to hear about those horrid unbelieving

Frenchmen. I have been particularly pleased that you have noticed

Pangenesis. I do not know whether you ever had the feeling of having

thought so much over a subject that you had lost all power of judging

it. This is my case with Pangenesis (which is 26 or 27 years old), but I

am inclined to think that if it be admitted as a probable hypothesis it

will be a somewhat important step in Biology.

I cannot help still regretting that you have ever looked at the slips,

for I hope to improve the whole a good deal. It is surprising to me,

and delightful, that you should care in the least about the plants.

Altogether you have given me one of the best cordials I ever had in my

life, and I heartily thank you. I despatched this morning the French

edition. (Of the 'Origin.' It appears that my father was sending a copy

of the French edition to Sir Charles. The introduction was by Mdlle.

Royer, who translated the book.) The introduction was a complete

surprise to me, and I dare say has injured the book in France;

nevertheless... it shows, I think, that the woman is uncommonly clever.

Once again many thanks for the renewed courage with which I shall attack

the horrid proof-sheets.

Yours affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN.

P.S.--A Russian who is translating my new book into Russian has been

here, and says you are immensely read in Russia, and many editions--how

many I forget. Six editions of Buckle and four editions of the 'Origin.'

CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, October 16 [1867].

My dear Gray,

I send by this post clean sheets of Volume I. up to page 336, and there

are only 411 pages in this volume. I am VERY glad to hear that you are

going to review my book; but if the "Nation" (The book was reviewed by

Dr. Gray in the "Nation", March 19, 1868.) is a newspaper I wish it

were at the bottom of the sea, for I fear that you will thus be stopped

reviewing me in a scientific journal. The first volume is all details,

and you will not be able to read it; and you must remember that the

chapters on plants are written for naturalists who are not botanists.

The last chapter in Volume I. is, however, I think, a curious

compilation of facts; it is on bu-variation. In Volume II. some of the

chapters are more interesting; and I shall be very curious to hear your

verdict on the chapter on close inte-breeding. The chapter on what I

call Pangenesis will be called a mad dream, and I shall be pretty well

satisfied if you think it a dream worth publishing; but at the bottom of

my own mind I think it contains a great truth. I finish my book with a

semi-theological paragraph, in which I quote and differ from you; what

you will think of it, I know not...

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, November 17 [1867].

My dear Hooker,

Congratulate me, for I have finished the last revise of the last sheet

of my book. It has been an awful job: seven and a half months correcting

the press: the book, from much small type, does not look big, but is

really very big. I have had hard work to keep up to the mark, but during

the last week only few revises came, so that I have rested and feel more

myself. Hence, after our long mutual silence, I enjoy myself by writing

a note to you, for the sake of exhaling, and hearing from you. On

account of the index (The index was made by Mr. W.S. Dallas; I have

often heard my father express his admiration of this excellent piece of

work.), I do not suppose that you will receive your copy till the middle

of next month. I shall be intensely anxious to hear what you think

about Pangenesis; though I can see how fearfully imperfect, even in mere

conjectural conclusions, it is; yet it has been an infinite satisfaction

to me somehow to connect the various large groups of facts, which I

have long considered, by an intelligible thread. I shall not be at all

surprised if you attack it and me with unparalleled ferocity. It will

be my endeavour to do as little as possible for some time, but [I] shall

soon prepare a paper or two for the Linnean Society. In a short time we

shall go to London for ten days, but the time is not yet fixed. Now I

have told you a deal about myself, and do let me hear a good deal

about your own past and future doings. Can you pay us a visit, early in

December?... I have seen no one for an age, and heard no news.

... About my book I will give you a bit of advice. Skip the WHOLE of

Volume I., except the last chapter (and that need only be skimmed) and

skip largely in the 2nd volume; and then you will say it is a very good

book.

1868.

['The Variation of Animals and Plants' was, as already mentioned,

published on January 30, 1868, and on that day he sent a copy to Fritz

Muller, and wrote to him:--

"I send by this post, by French packet, my new book, the publication of

which has been much delayed. The greater part, as you will see, is not

meant to be read; but I should very much like to hear what you think

of 'Pangenesis,' though I fear it will appear to EVERY ONE far too

speculative."]

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. February 3 [1868].

... I am very much pleased at what you say about my Introduction; after

it was in type I was as near as possible cancelling the whole. I have

been for some time in despair about my book, and if I try to read a few

pages I feel fairly nauseated, but do not let this make you praise it;

for I have made up my mind that it is not worth a fifth part of the

enormous labour it has cost me. I assure you that all that is worth your

doing (if you have time for so much) is glancing at Chapter VI., and

reading parts of the later chapters. The facts on self-impotent plants

seem to me curious, and I have worked out to my own satisfaction the

good from crossing and evil from interbreeding. I did read Pangenesis

the other evening, but even this, my beloved child, as I had fancied,

quite disgusted me. The devil take the whole book; and yet now I am at

work again as hard as I am able. It is really a great evil that from

habit I have pleasure in hardly anything except Natural History, for

nothing else makes me forget my eve-recurrent uncomfortable sensations.

But I must not howl any more, and the critics may say what they like;

I did my best, and man can do no more. What a splendid pursuit Natural

History would be if it was all observing and no writing!...

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 10 [1868].

My dear Hooker,

What is the good of having a friend, if one may not boast to him? I

heard yesterday that Murray has sold in a week the whole edition of

1500 copies of my book, and the sale so pressing that he has agreed with

Clowes to get another edition in fourteen days! This has done me a world

of good, for I had got into a sort of dogged hatred of my book. And

now there has appeared a review in the "Pall Mall" which has pleased me

excessively, more perhaps than is reasonable. I am quite content, and

do not care how much I may be pitched into. If by any chance you should

hear who wrote the article in the "Pall Mall", do please tell me; it

is some one who writes capitally, and who knows the subject. I went to

luncheon on Sunday, to Lubbock's, partly in hopes of seeing you, and, be

hanged to you, you were not there.

Your cock-a-hoop friend, C.D.

[Independently of the favourable tone of the able series of notices in

the "Pall Mall Gazette" (February 10, 15, 17, 1868), my father may well

have been gratified by the following passages:--

"We must call attention to the rare and noble calmness with which he

expounds his own views, undisturbed by the heats of polemical agitation

which those views have excited, and persistently refusing to retort on

his antagonists by ridicule, by indignation, or by contempt. Considering

the amount of vituperation and insinuation which has come from the other

side, this forbearance is supremely dignified."

And again in the third notice, February 17:--

"Nowhere has the author a word that could wound the most sensitive

sel-love of an antagonist; nowhere does he, in text or note, expose the

fallacies and mistakes of brother investigators... but while abstaining

from impertinent censure, he is lavish in acknowledging the smallest

debts he may owe; and his book will make many men happy."

I am indebted to Messrs. Smith & Elder for the information that these

articles were written by Mr. G.H. Lewes.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 23 [1868].

My dear Hooker,

I have had almost as many letters to write of late as you can have, viz.

from 8 to 10 per diem, chiefly getting up facts on sexual selection,

therefore I have felt no inclination to write to you, and now I mean to

write solely about my book for my own satisfaction, and not at all for

yours. The first edition was 1500 copies, and now the second is

printed off; sharp work. Did you look at the review in the "Athenaeum"

("Athenaeum", February 15, 1868. My father quoted Pouchet's assertion

that "variation under domestication throws no light on the natural

modification of species." The reviewer quotes the end of a passage

in which my father declares that he can see no force in Pouchet's

arguments, or rather assertions, and then goes on: "We are sadly

mistaken if there are not clear proofs in the pages of the book before

us that, on the contrary, Mr. Darwin has perceived, felt, and yielded to

the force of the arguments or assertions of his French antagonist." The

following may serve as samples of the rest of the review:--

"Henceforth the rhetoricians will have a better illustration of

anti-climax than the mountain which brought forth a mouse,... in the

discoverer of the origin of species, who tried to explain the variation

of pigeons!

"A few summary words. On the 'Origin of Species' Mr. Darwin has

nothing, and is never likely to have anything, to say; but on the vastly

important subject of inheritance, the transmission of peculiarities

once acquired through successive generations, this work is a valuable

store-house of facts for curious students and practical breeders."),

showing profound contempt of me?... It is a shame that he should have

said that I have taken much from Pouchet, without acknowledgment; for I

took literally nothing, there being nothing to take. There is a capital

review in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" which will sell the book if

anything will. I don't quite see whether I or the writer is in a

muddle about man CAUSING variability. If a man drops a bit of iron into

sulphuric acid he does not cause the affinities to come into play, yet

he may be said to make sulphate of iron. I do not know how to avoid

ambiguity.

After what the "Pall Mall Gazette" and the "Chronicle" have said I do

not care a d--.

I fear Pangenesis is stillborn; Bates says he has read it twice, and

is not sure that he understands it. H. Spencer says the view is quite

different from his (and this is a great relief to me, as I feared to be

accused of plagiarism, but utterly failed to be sure what he meant, so

thought it safest to give my view as almost the same as his), and he

says he is not sure he understands it... Am I not a poor devil? yet I

took such pains, I must think that I expressed myself clearly. Old Sir

H. Holland says he has read it twice, and thinks it very tough; but

believes that sooner or later "some view akin to it" will be accepted.

You will think me very self-sufficient, when I declare that I feel SURE

if Pangenesis is now stillborn it will, thank God, at some future time

reappear, begotten by some other father, and christened by some other

name.

Have you ever met with any tangible and clear view of what takes place

in generation, whether by seeds or buds, or how a long-lost character

can possibly reappear; or how the male element can possibly affect

the mother plant, or the mother animal, so that her future progeny are

affected? Now all these points and many others are connected together,

whether truly or falsely is another question, by Pangenesis. You see I

die hard, and stick up for my poor child.

This letter is written for my own satisfaction, and not for yours. So

bear it.

Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO A. NEWTON. (Prof. of Zoology at Cambridge.) Down,

February 9 [1870].

Dear Newton,

I suppose it would be universally held extremely wrong for a defendant

to write to a Judge to express his satisfaction at a judgment in his

favour; and yet I am going thus to act. I have just read what you

have said in the 'Record' ('Zoological Record.' The volume for 1868,

published December 1869.) about my pigeon chapters, and it has gratified

me beyond measure. I have sometimes felt a little disappointed that the

labour of so many years seemed to be almost thrown away, for you are the

first man capable of forming a judgment (excepting partly Quatrefages),

who seems to have thought anything of this part of my work. The amount

of labour, correspondence, and care, which the subject cost me, is more

than you could well suppose. I thought the article in the "Athenaeum"

was very unjust; but now I feel amply repaid, and I cordially thank you

for your sympathy and too warm praise. What labour you have bestowed on

your part of the 'Record'! I ought to be ashamed to speak of my amount

of work. I thoroughly enjoyed the Sunday, which you and the others spent

here, and

I remain, dear Newton, yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, February 27 [1868].

My dear Wallace,

You cannot well imagine how much I have been pleased by what you say

about 'Pangenesis.' None of my friends will speak out... Hooker, as far

as I understand him, which I hardly do at present, seems to think that

the hypothesis is little more than saying that organisms have such

and such potentialities. What you say exactly and fully expresses my

feeling, viz. that it is a relief to have some feasible explanation

of the various facts, which can be given up as soon as any better

hypothesis is found. It has certainly been an immense relief to my mind;

for I have been stumbling over the subject for years, dimly seeing that

some relation existed between the various classes of facts. I now hear

from H. Spencer that his views quoted in my foot-note refer to something

quite distinct, as you seem to have perceived.

I shall be very glad to hear at some future day your criticisms on

the "causes of variability." Indeed I feel sure that I am right about

sterility and natural selection... I do not quite understand your case,

and we think that a word or two is misplaced. I wish sometime you would

consider the case under the following point of view:--If sterility is

caused or accumulated through natural selection, than as every degree

exists up to absolute barrenness, natural selection must have the power

of increasing it. Now take two species, A and B, and assume that they

are (by any means) half-sterile, i.e. produce half the full number of

offspring. Now try and make (by natural selection) A and B absolutely

sterile when crossed, and you will find how difficult it is. I grant

indeed, it is certain, that the degree of sterility of the individuals A

and B will vary, but any such extra-sterile individuals of, we will

say A, if they should hereafter breed with other individuals of A, will

bequeath no advantage to their progeny, by which these families will

tend to increase in number over other families of A, which are not more

sterile when crossed with B. But I do not know that I have made this any

clearer than in the chapter in my book. It is a most difficult bit of

reasoning, which I have gone over and over again on paper with diagrams.

... Hearty thanks for your letter. You have indeed pleased me, for I had

given up the great god Pan as a stillborn deity. I wish you could be

induced to make it clear with your admirable powers of elucidation in

one of the scientific journals...

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 28 [1868].

My dear Hooker,

I have been deeply interested by your letter, and we had a good laugh

over Huxley's remark, which was so deuced clever that you could not

recollect it. I cannot quite follow your train of thought, for in the

last page you admit all that I wish, having apparently denied all, or

thought all mere words in the previous pages of your note; but it may be

my muddle. I see clearly that any satisfaction which Pan may give will

depend on the constitution of each man's mind. If you have arrived

already at any similar conclusion, the whole will of course appear stale

to you. I heard yesterday from Wallace, who says (excuse horrid vanity),

"I can hardly tell you how much I admire the chapter on 'Pangenesis.'

It is a POSITIVE COMFORT to me to have any feasible explanation of a

difficulty that has always been haunting me, and I shall never be able

to give it up till a better one supplies its place, and that I think

hardly possible, etc." Now his foregoing [italicised] words express my

sentiments exactly and fully: though perhaps I feel the relief extra

strongly from having during many years vainly attempted to form some

hypothesis. When you or Huxley say that a single cell of a plant, or the

stump of an amputated limb, have the "potentiality" of reproducing

the whole--or "diffuse an influence," these words give me no positive

idea;--but when it is said that the cells of a plant, or stump, include

atoms derived from every other cell of the whole organism and capable of

development, I gain a distinct idea. But this idea would not be worth

a rush, if it applied to one case alone; but it seems to me to apply

to all the forms of reproduction--inheritance--metamorphosis--to the

abnormal transposition of organs--to the direct action of the male

element on the mother plant, etc. Therefore I fully believe that each

cell does ACTUALLY throw off an atom or gemmule of its contents;--but

whether or not, this hypothesis serves as a useful connecting link for

various grand classes of physiological facts, which at present stand

absolutely isolated.

I have touched on the doubtful point (alluded to by Huxley) how far

atoms derived from the same cell may become developed into different

structure accordingly as they are differently nourished; I advanced as

illustrations galls and polypoid excrescences...

It is a real pleasure to me to write to you on this subject, and I

should be delighted if we can understand each other; but you must not

let your good nature lead you on. Remember, we always fight tooth and

nail. We go to London on Tuesday, first for a week to Queen Anne Street,

and afterwards to Miss Wedgwood's, in Regent's Park, and stay the whole

month, which, as my gardener truly says, is a "terrible thing" for my

experiments.

CHARLES DARWIN TO W. OGLE. (Dr. William Ogle, now the Superintendent of

Statistics to the Registrar-General.) Down, March 6 [1868].

Dear Sir,

I thank you most sincerely for your letter, which is very interesting

to me. I wish I had known of these views of Hippocrates before I had

published, for they seem almost identical with mine--merely a change

of terms--and an application of them to classes of facts necessarily

unknown to the old philosopher. The whole case is a good illustration of

how rarely anything is new.

Hippocrates has taken the wind out of my sails, but I care very little

about being forestalled. I advance the views merely as a provisional

hypothesis, but with the secret expectation that sooner or later some

such view will have to be admitted.

... I do not expect the reviewers will be so learned as you: otherwise,

no doubt, I shall be accused of wilfully stealing Pangenesis from

Hippocrates,--for this is the spirit some reviewers delight to show.

CHARLES DARWIN TO VICTOR CARUS. Down, March 21 [1868].

... I am very much obliged to you for sending me so frankly your opinion

on Pangenesis, and I am sorry it is unfavourable, but I cannot quite

understand your remark on pangenesis, selection, and the struggle

for life not being more methodical. I am not at all surprised at your

unfavourable verdict; I know many, probably most, will come to the same

conclusion. One English Review says it is much too complicated... Some

of my friends are enthusiastic on the hypothesis... Sir C. Lyell says

to every one, "you may not believe in 'Pangenesis,' but if you once

understand it, you will never get it out of your mind." And with this

criticism I am perfectly content. All cases of inheritance and reversion

and development now appear to me under a new light...

[An extract from a letter to Fritz Muller, though of later date (June),

may be given here:--

"Your letter of April 22 has much interested me. I am delighted that you

approve of my book, for I value your opinion more than that of almost

any one. I have yet hopes that you will think well of Pangenesis. I feel

sure that our minds are somewhat alike, and I find it a great relief

to have some definite, though hypothetical view, when I reflect on the

wonderful transformations of animals,--the re-growth of parts,--and

especially the direct action of pollen on the mother-form, etc. It often

appears to me almost certain that the characters of the parents are

"photographed" on the child, only by means of material atoms derived

from each cell in both parents, and developed in the child."]

CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, May 8 [1868].

My dear Gray,

I have been a most ungrateful and ungracious man not to have written to

you an immense time ago to thank you heartily for the "Nation", and for

all your most kind aid in regard to the American edition [of 'Animals

and Plants']. But I have been of late overwhelmed with letters, which

I was forced to answer, and so put off writing to you. This morning

I received the American edition (which looks capital), with your nice

preface, for which hearty thanks. I hope to heaven that the book will

succeed well enough to prevent you repenting of your aid. This arrival

has put the finishing stroke to my conscience, which will endure its

wrongs no longer.

... Your article in the "Nation" [March 19] seems to me very good, and

you give an excellent idea of Pangenesis--an infant cherished by few as

yet, except his tender parent, but which will live a long life. There

is parental presumption for you! You give a good slap at my concluding

metaphor (A short abstract of the precipice metaphor is given in

Volume I. Dr. Gray's criticism on this point is as follows: "But in Mr.

Darwin's parallel, to meet the case of nature according to his own view

of it, not only the fragments of rock (answering to variation) should

fall, but the edifice (answering to natural selection) should rise,

irrespective of will or choice!" But my father's parallel demands that

natural selection shall be the architect, not the edifice--the question

of design only comes in with regard to the form of the building

materials.): undoubtedly I ought to have brought in and contrasted

natural and artificial selection; but it seems so obvious to me that

natural selection depended on contingencies even more complex than those

which must have determined the shape of each fragment at the base of my

precipice. What I wanted to show was that in reference to pre-ordainment

whatever holds good in the formation of a pouter pigeon holds good in

the formation of a natural species of pigeon. I cannot see that this

is false. If the right variations occurred, and no others, natural

selection would be superfluous. A reviewer in an Edinburgh paper, who

treats me with profound contempt, says on this subject that Professor

Asa Gray could with the greatest ease smash me into little pieces. (The

"Daily Review", April 27, 1868. My father has given rather a highly

coloured version of the reviewer's remarks: "We doubt not that Professor

Asa Gray... could show that natural selection... is simply an instrument

in the hands of an omnipotent and omniscient creator." The reviewer goes

on to say that the passage in question is a "very melancholy one," and

that the theory is the "apotheosis of materialism.")

Believe me, my dear Gray, Your ungrateful but sincere friend, CHARLES

DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO G. BENTHAM. Down, June 23, 1868.

My dear Mr. Bentham,

As your address (Presidential Address to the Linnean Society.) is

somewhat of the nature of a verdict from a judge, I do not know whether

it is proper for me to do so, but I must and will thank you for the

pleasure which you have given me. I am delighted at what you say about

my book. I got so tired of it, that for months together I thought

myself a perfect fool for having given up so much time in collecting

and observing little facts, but now I do not care if a score of common

critics speak as contemptuously of the book as did the "Athenaeum".

I feel justified in this, for I have so complete a reliance on your

judgment that I feel certain that I should have bowed to your judgment

had it been as unfavourable as it is the contrary. What you say about

Pangenesis quite satisfies me, and is as much perhaps as any one is

justified in saying. I have read your whole Address with the greatest

interest. It must have cost you a vast amount of trouble. With cordial

thanks, pray believe me,

Yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN.

P.S.--I fear that it is not likely that you have a superfluous copy

of your Address; if you have, I should much like to send one to Fritz

Muller in the interior of Brazil. By the way let me add that I discussed

bud-variation chiefly from a belief which is common to several persons,

that all variability is related to sexual generation; I wished to show

clearly that this was an error.

[The above series of letters may serve to show to some extent the

reception which the new book received. Before passing on (in the next

chapter) to the 'Descent of Man,' I give a letter referring to the

translation of Fritz Muller's book, 'Fur Darwin,' it was originally

published in 1864, but the English translation, by Mr. Dallas, which

bore the title suggested by Sir C. Lyell, of 'Facts and Arguments for

Darwin,' did not appear until 1869:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO F. MULLER. Down, March 16 [1868].

My dear Sir,

Your brother, as you will have heard from him, felt so convinced that

you would not object to a translation of 'Fur Darwin' (In a letter to

Fritz Muller, my father wrote:--"I am vexed to see that on the title my

name is more conspicuous than yours, which I especially objected to, and

I cautioned the printers after seeing one proof."), that I have ventured

to arrange for a translation. Engelmann has very liberally offered me

cliches of the woodcuts for 22 thalers; Mr. Murray has agreed to bring

out a translation (and he is our best publisher) on commission, for he

would not undertake the work on his own risk; and I have agreed with Mr.

W.S. Dallas (who has translated Von Siebold on Parthenogenesis, and many

German works, and who writes very good English) to translate the book.

He thinks (and he is a good judge) that it is important to have some

few corrections or additions, in order to account for a translation

appearing so lately [i.e. at such a long interval of time] after the

original; so that I hope you will be able to send some...

[Two letters may be placed here as bearing on the spread of Evolutionary

ideas in France and Germany:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO A. GAUDRY. Down, January 21 [1868].

Dear Sir,

I thank you for your interesting essay on the influence of the

Geological features of the country on the mind and habits of the Ancient

Athenians (This appears to refer to M. Gaudry's paper translated in the

'Geol. Mag.,' 1868, page 372.), and for your very obliging letter. I am

delighted to hear that you intend to consider the relations of fossil

animals in connection with their genealogy; it will afford you a

fine field for the exercise of your extensive knowledge and powers of

reasoning. Your belief will I suppose, at present, lower you in the

estimation of your countrymen; but judging from the rapid spread in all

parts of Europe, excepting France, of the belief in the common descent

of allied species, I must think that this belief will before long

become universal. How strange it is that the country which gave birth to

Buffon, the elder Geoffroy, and especially to Lamarck, should now cling

so pertinaciously to the belief that species are immutable creations.

My work on Variation, etc., under domestication, will appear in a French

translation in a few months' time, and I will do myself the pleasure

and honour of directing the publisher to send a copy to you to the same

address as this letter.

With sincere respect, I remain, dear sir, Yours very faithfully, CHARLES

DARWIN.

[The next letter is of especial interest, as showing how high a value my

father placed on the support of the younger German naturalists:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO W. PREYER. (Now Professor of Physiology at Jena.)

March 31, 1868.

... I am delighted to hear that you uphold the doctrine of the

Modification of Species, and defend my views. The support which I

receive from Germany is my chief ground for hoping that our views

will ultimately prevail. To the present day I am continually abused

or treated with contempt by writers of my own country; but the younger

naturalists are almost all on my side, and sooner or later the public

must follow those who make the subject their special study. The abuse

and contempt of ignorant writers hurts me very little...