When you come to "Deification" (131/1. See Letter 105, note.), ask yourself honestly whether what you are thinking applies to the endless variations of domestic productions, which man accumulates for his mere fancy or use. No doubt these are all caused by some unknown law, but I cannot believe they were ordained for any purpose, and if not so ordained under domesticity, I can see no reason to believe that they were ordained in a state of nature. Of course it may be said, when you kick a stone, or a leaf falls from a tree, that it was ordained, before the foundations of the world were laid, exactly where that stone or leaf should lie. In this sense the subject has no interest for me.

Once again, many thanks for the orchids; you must let me repay you what you paid the collector.

LETTER 132. TO C. LYELL.

(132/1. The first paragraph probably refers to the proof-sheets of Lyell's "Antiquity of Man," but the passage referred to seems not to occur in the book.)

Torquay, August 21st [1861].

...I have really no criticism, except a trifling one in pencil near the end, which I have inserted on account of dominant and important species generally varying most. You speak of "their views" rather as if you were a thousand miles away from such wretches, but your concluding paragraph shows that you are one of the wretches.

I am pleased that you approve of Hutton's review. (132/2. "Some Remarks on Mr. Darwin's Theory," by F.W. Hutton. "Geologist," Volume IV., page 132 (1861). See Letter 124.) It seemed to me to take a more philosophical view of the manner of judging the question than any other review. The sentence you quote from it seems very true, but I do not agree with the theological conclusion. I think he quotes from Asa Gray, certainly not from me; but I have neither A. Gray nor "Origin" with me. Indeed, I have over and over again said in the "Origin" that Natural Selection does nothing without variability; I have given a whole chapter on laws, and used the strongest language how ignorant we are on these laws. But I agree that I have somehow (Hooker says it is owing to my title) not made the great and manifest importance of previous variability plain enough. Breeders constantly speak of Selection as the one great means of improvement; but of course they imply individual differences, and this I should have thought would have been obvious to all in Natural Selection; but it has not been so.

I have just said that I cannot agree with "which variations are the effects of an unknown law, ordained and guided without doubt by an intelligent cause on a preconceived and definite plan." Will you honestly tell me (and I should be really much obliged) whether you believe that the shape of my nose (eheu!) was ordained and "guided by an intelligent cause?" (132/3. It should be remembered that the shape of his nose nearly determined Fitz-Roy to reject Darwin as naturalist to H.M.S. "Beagle" ("Life and Letters," I., page 60).) By the selection of analogous and less differences fanciers make almost generic differences in their pigeons; and can you see any good reason why the Natural Selection of analogous individual differences should not make new species? If you say that God ordained that at some time and place a dozen slight variations should arise, and that one of them alone should be preserved in the struggle for life and the other eleven should perish in the first or few first generations, then the saying seems to me mere verbiage. It comes to merely saying that everything that is, is ordained.

Let me add another sentence. Why should you or I speak of variation as having been ordained and guided, more than does an astronomer, in discussing the fall of a meteoric stone? He would simply say that it was drawn to our earth by the attraction of gravity, having been displaced in its course by the action of some quite unknown laws. Would you have him say that its fall at some particular place and time was "ordained and guided without doubt by an intelligent cause on a preconceived and definite plan"? Would you not call this theological pedantry or display? I believe it is not pedantry in the case of species, simply because their formation has hitherto been viewed as beyond law; in fact, this branch of science is still with most people under its theological phase of development. The conclusion which I always come to after thinking of such questions is that they are beyond the human intellect; and the less one thinks on them the better. You may say, Then why trouble me? But I should very much like to know clearly what you think.

LETTER 133. TO HENRY FAWCETT.

(133/1. The following letter was published in the "Life" of Mr. Fawcett (1885); we are indebted to Mrs. Fawcett and Messrs. Smith & Elder for permission to reprint it. See Letter 129.)

September 18th [1861].

I wondered who had so kindly sent me the newspaper (133/2. The newspaper sent was the "Manchester Examiner" for September 9th, 1861, containing a report of Mr. Fawcett's address given before Section D of the British Association, "On the method of Mr. Darwin in his treatise on the origin of species," in which the speaker showed that the "method of investigation pursued by Mr. Darwin in his treatise on the origin of species is in strict accordance with the principles of logic." The "A" of the letter (as published in Fawcett's Life) is the late Professor Williamson, who is reported to have said that "while he would not say that Mr. Darwin's book had caused him a loss of reputation, he was sure that it had not caused a gain." The reference to "B" is explained by the report of the late Dr. Lankester's speech in which he said, "The facts brought forward in support of the hypothesis had a very different value indeed from that of the hypothesis...A great naturalist, who was still a friend of Mr. Darwin, once said to him (Dr. Lankester), 'The mistake is, that Darwin has dealt with origin. Why did he not put his facts before us, and let them rest?'" Another speaker, the Rt. Hon. J.R. Napier, remarked: "I am going to speak closely to the question. If the hypothesis is put forward to contradict facts, and the averments are contrary to the Word of God, I say that it is not a logical argument." At this point the chairman, Professor Babington, wisely interfered, on the ground that the meeting was a scientific one.), which I was very glad to see; and now I have to thank you sincerely for allowing me to see your MS. It seems to me very good and sound; though I am certainly not an impartial judge. You will have done good service in calling the attention of scientific men to means and laws of philosophising. As far as I could judge by the papers, your opponents were unworthy of you. How miserably A. talked of my reputation, as if that had anything to do with it!...How profoundly ignorant B must be of the very soul of observation! About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!

I have returned only lately from a two months' visit to Torquay, which did my health at the time good; but I am one of those miserable creatures who are never comfortable for twenty-four hours; and it is clear to me that I ought to be exterminated. I have been rather idle of late, or, speaking more strictly, working at some miscellaneous papers, which, however, have some direct bearing on the subject of species; yet I feel guilty at having neglected my larger book. But, to me, observing is much better sport than writing. I fear that I shall have wearied you with this long note.

Pray believe that I feel sincerely grateful that you have taken up the cudgels in defence of the line of argument in the "Origin;" you will have benefited the subject.

Many are so fearful of speaking out. A German naturalist came here the other day; and he tells me that there are many in Germany on our side, but that all seem fearful of speaking out, and waiting for some one to speak, and then many will follow. The naturalists seem as timid as young ladies should be, about their scientific reputation. There is much discussion on the subject on the Continent, even in quiet Holland; and I had a pamphlet from Moscow the other day by a man who sticks up famously for the imperfection of the "Geological Record," but complains that I have sadly understated the variability of the old fossilised animals! But I must not run on.

LETTER 134. TO H.W. BATES. Down, September 25th [1861].

Now for a few words on science. Many thanks for facts on neuters. You cannot tell how I rejoice that you do not think what I have said on the subject absurd. Only two persons have even noticed it to me—viz., the bitter sneer of Owen in the "Edinburgh Review" (134/1. "Edinburgh Review," April, 1860, page 525.), and my good friend and supporter, Sir C. Lyell, who could only screw up courage to say, "Well, you have manfully faced the difficulty."

What a wonderful case of Volucella of which I had never heard. (134/2. Volucella is a fly—one of the Syrphidae—supposed to supply a case of mimicry; this was doubtless the point of interest with Bates. Dr. Sharp says ["Insects," Part II. (in the Camb. Nat. Hist. series), 1899, page 500]: "It was formerly assumed that the Volucella larvae lived on the larvae of the bees, and that the parent flies were providentially endowed with a bee-like appearance that they might obtain entrance into the bees' nests without being detected." Dr. Sharp goes on to say that what little is known on the subject supports the belief that the "presence of the Volucella in the nests is advantageous to both fly and bee.") I had no idea such a case occurred in nature; I must get and see specimens in British Museum. I hope and suppose you will give a good deal of Natural History in your Travels; every one cares about ants—more notice has been taken about slave-ants in the "Origin" than of any other passage.

I fully expect to delight in your Travels. Keep to simple style, as in your excellent letters,—but I beg pardon, I am again advising.

What a capital paper yours will be on mimetic resemblances! You will make quite a new subject of it. I had thought of such cases as a difficulty; and once, when corresponding with Dr. Collingwood, I thought of your explanation; but I drove it from my mind, for I felt that I had not knowledge to judge one way or the other. Dr C., I think, states that the mimetic forms inhabit the same country, but I did not know whether to believe him. What wonderful cases yours seem to be! Could you not give a few woodcuts in your Travels to illustrate this? I am tired with a hard day's work, so no more, except to give my sincere thanks and hearty wishes for the success of your Travels.

LETTER 135. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, March 18th [1862].

Your letter discusses lots of interesting subjects, and I am very glad you have sent for your letter to Bates. (135/1. Published in Mr. Clodd's memoir of Bates in the "Naturalist on the Amazons," 1892, page l.) What do you mean by "individual plants"? (135/2. In a letter to Mr. Darwin dated March 17th, 1862, Sir J.D. Hooker had discussed a supposed difference between animals and plants, "inasmuch as the individual animal is certainly changed materially by external conditions, the latter (I think) never, except in such a coarse way as stunting or enlarging—e.g. no increase of cold on the spot, or change of individual plant from hot to cold, will induce said individual plant to get more woolly covering; but I suppose a series of cold seasons would bring about such a change in an individual quadruped, just as rowing will harden hands, etc.") I fancied a bud lived only a year, and you could hardly expect any change in that time; but if you call a tree or plant an individual, you have sporting buds. Perhaps you mean that the whole tree does not change. Tulips, in "breaking," change. Fruit seems certainly affected by the stock. I think I have (135/3. See note, Letter 16.) got cases of slight change in alpine plants transplanted. All these subjects have rather gone out of my head owing to orchids, but I shall soon have to enter on them in earnest when I come again to my volume on variation under domestication.

...In the lifetime of an animal you would, I think, find it very difficult to show effects of external condition on animals more than shade and light, good and bad soil, produce on a plant.

You speak of "an inherent tendency to vary wholly independent of physical conditions"! This is a very simple way of putting the case (as Dr. Prosper Lucas also puts it) (135/4. Prosper Lucas, the author of "Traite philosophique et physiologique de l'heredite naturelle dans les etats de sante et de maladie du systeme nerveux": 2 volumes, Paris, 1847-50.): but two great classes of facts make me think that all variability is due to change in the conditions of life: firstly, that there is more variability and more monstrosities (and these graduate into each other) under unnatural domestic conditions than under nature; and, secondly, that changed conditions affect in an especial manner the reproductive organs—those organs which are to produce a new being. But why one seedling out of thousands presents some new character transcends the wildest powers of conjecture. It was in this sense that I spoke of "climate," etc., possibly producing without selection a hooked seed, or any not great variation. (135/5. This statement probably occurs in a letter, and not in Darwin's published works.)

I have for years and years been fighting with myself not to attribute too much to Natural Selection—to attribute something to direct action of conditions; and perhaps I have too much conquered my tendency to lay hardly any stress on conditions of life.

I am not shaken about "saltus" (135/6. Sir Joseph had written, March 17th, 1862: "Huxley is rather disposed to think you have overlooked saltus, but I am not sure that he is right—saltus quoad individuals is not saltus quoad species—as I pointed out in the Begonia case, though perhaps that was rather special pleading in the present state of science." For the Begonia case, see "Life and Letters," II., page 275, also letter 110, page 166.), I did not write without going pretty carefully into all the cases of normal structure in animals resembling monstrosities which appear per saltus.

LETTER 136. TO J.D. HOOKER. 26th [March, 1862].

Thanks also for your own (136/1. See note in Letter 135.) and Bates' letter now returned. They are both excellent; you have, I think, said all that can be said against direct effects of conditions, and capitally put. But I still stick to my own and Bates' side. Nevertheless I am pleased to attribute little to conditions, and I wish I had done what you suggest—started on the fundamental principle of variation being an innate principle, and afterwards made a few remarks showing that hereafter, perhaps, this principle would be explicable. Whenever my book on poultry, pigeons, ducks, and rabbits is published, with all the measurements and weighings of bones, I think you will see that "use and disuse" at least have some effect. I do not believe in perfect reversion. I rather demur to your doctrine of "centrifugal variation." (136/2. The "doctrine of centrifugal variation" is given in Sir J.D. Hooker's "Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania" (Part III. of the Botany of the Antarctic Expedition), 1859, page viii. In paragraph 10 the author writes: "The tendency of varieties, both in nature and under cultivation...is rather to depart more and more widely from the original type than to revert to it." In Sir Joseph's letter to Bates (loc. cit., page lii) he wrote: "Darwin also believes in some reversion to type which is opposed to my view of variation." It may be noted in this connection that Mr. Galton has shown reason to believe in a centripetal tendency in variation (to use Hooker's phraseology) which is not identical with the reversion of cultivated plants to their ancestors, the case to which Hooker apparently refers. See "Natural Inheritance," by F. Galton, 1889.) I suppose you do not agree with or do not remember my doctrine of the good of diversification (136/3. Darwin usually used the word "divergence" in this connection.); this seems to me amply to account for variation being centrifugal—if you forget it, look at this discussion (page 117 of 3rd edition), it was the best point which, according to my notions, I made out, and it has always pleased me. It is really curiously satisfactory to me to see so able a man as Bates (and yourself) believing more fully in Natural Selection than I think I even do myself. (136/4. This refers to a very interesting passage in Hooker's letter to Bates (loc. cit., page liii): "I am sure that with you, as with me, the more you think the less occasion you will see for anything but time and natural selection to effect change; and that this view is the simplest and clearest in the present state of science is one advantage, at any rate. Indeed, I think that it is, in the present state of the inquiry, the legitimate position to take up; it is time enough to bother our heads with the secondary cause when there is some evidence of it or some demand for it—at present I do not see one or the other, and so feel inclined to renounce any other for the present.") By the way, I always boast to you, and so I think Owen will be wrong that my book will be forgotten in ten years, for a French edition is now going through the press and a second German edition wanted. Your long letter to Bates has set my head working, and makes me repent of the nine months spent on orchids; though I know not why I should not have amused myself on them as well as slaving on bones of ducks and pigeons, etc. The orchids have been splendid sport, though at present I am fearfully sick of them.

I enclose a waste copy of woodcut of Mormodes ignea; I wish you had a plant at Kew, for I am sure its wonderful mechanism and structure would amuse you. Is it not curious the way the labellum sits on the top of the column?—here insects alight and are beautifully shot, when they touch a certain sensitive point, by the pollinia.

How kindly you have helped me in my work! Farewell, my dear old fellow.

LETTER 137. TO H.W. BATES. Down, May 4th [1862].

Hearty thanks for your most interesting letter and three very valuable extracts. I am very glad that you have been looking at the South Temperate insects. I wish that the materials in the British Museum had been richer; but I should think the case of the South American Carabi, supported by some other case, would be worth a paper. To us who theorise I am sure the case is very important. Do the South American Carabi differ more from the other species than do, for instance, the Siberian and European and North American and Himalayan (if the genus exists there)? If they do, I entirely agree with you that the difference would be too great to account for by the recent Glacial period. I agree, also, with you in utterly rejecting an independent origin for these Carabi. There is a difficulty, as far as I know, in our ignorance whether insects change quickly in time; you could judge of this by knowing how far closely allied coleoptera generally have much restricted ranges, for this almost implies rapid change. What a curious case is offered by land-shells, which become modified in every sub-district, and have yet retained the same general structure from very remote geological periods! When working at the Glacial period, I remember feeling much surprised how few birds, no mammals, and very few sea-mollusca seemed to have crossed, or deeply entered, the inter-tropical regions during the cold period. Insects, from all you say, seem to come under the same category. Plants seem to migrate more readily than animals. Do not underrate the length of Glacial period: Forbes used to argue that it was equivalent to the whole of the Pleistocene period in the warmer latitudes. I believe, with you, that we shall be driven to an older Glacial period.

I am very sorry to hear about the British Museum; it would be hopeless to contend against any one supported by Owen. Perhaps another chance might occur before very long. How would it be to speak to Owen as soon as your own mind is made up? From what I have heard, since talking to you, I fear the strongest personal interest with a Minister is requisite for a pension.

Farewell, and may success attend the acerrimo pro-pugnatori.

P.S. I deeply wish you could find some situation in which you could give your time to science; it would be a great thing for science and for yourself.

LETTER 138. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES. Down, July 11th [1862].

I thank you cordially for so kindly and promptly answering my questions. I will quote some of your remarks. The case seems to me of some importance with reference to my heretical notions, for it shows how larvae might be modified. I shall not publish, I daresay, for a year, for much time is expended in experiments. If within this time you should acquire any fresh information on the similarity of the moths of distinct races, and would allow me to quote any facts on your authority, I should feel very grateful.

I thank you for your great kindness with respect to the translation of the "Origin;" it is very liberal in you, as we differ to a considerable degree. I have been atrociously abused by my religious countrymen; but as I live an independent life in the country, it does not in the least hurt me in any way, except indeed when the abuse comes from an old friend like Professor Owen, who abuses me and then advances the doctrine that all birds are probably descended from one parent.

I wish the translator (138/1. Mdlle. Royer, who translated the first French edition of the "Origin.') had known more of Natural History; she must be a clever but singular lady, but I never heard of her till she proposed to translate my book.

LETTER 139. TO ASA GRAY. Down, July 23rd [1862].

I received several days ago two large packets, but have as yet read only your letter; for we have been in fearful distress, and I could attend to nothing. Our poor boy had the rare case of second rash and sore throat...; and, as if this was not enough, a most serious attack of erysipelas, with typhoid symptoms. I despaired of his life; but this evening he has eaten one mouthful, and I think has passed the crisis. He has lived on port wine every three-quarters of an hour, day and night. This evening, to our astonishment, he asked whether his stamps were safe, and I told him of one sent by you, and that he should see it to-morrow. He answered, "I should awfully like to see it now"; so with difficulty he opened his eyelids and glanced at it, and, with a sigh of satisfaction, said, "All right." Children are one's greatest happiness, but often and often a still greater misery. A man of science ought to have none—perhaps not a wife; for then there would be nothing in this wide world worth caring for, and a man might (whether he could is another question) work away like a Trojan. I hope in a few days to get my brains in order, and then I will pick out all your orchid letters, and return them in hopes of your making use of them...

Of all the carpenters for knocking the right nail on the head, you are the very best; no one else has perceived that my chief interest in my orchid book has been that it was a "flank movement" on the enemy. I live in such solitude that I hear nothing, and have no idea to what you allude about Bentham and the orchids and species. But I must enquire.

By the way, one of my chief enemies (the sole one who has annoyed me), namely Owen, I hear has been lecturing on birds; and admits that all have descended from one, and advances as his own idea that the oceanic wingless birds have lost their wings by gradual disuse. He never alludes to me, or only with bitter sneers, and coupled with Buffon and the "Vestiges."

Well, it has been an amusement to me this first evening, scribbling as egotistically as usual about myself and my doings; so you must forgive me, as I know well your kind heart will do. I have managed to skim the newspaper, but had not heart to read all the bloody details. Good God! What will the end be? Perhaps we are too despondent here; but I must think you are too hopeful on your side of the water. I never believed the "canards" of the army of the Potomac having capitulated. My good dear wife and self are come to wish for peace at any price. Good night, my good friend. I will scribble on no more.

One more word. I should like to hear what you think about what I say in the last chapter of the orchid book on the meaning and cause of the endless diversity of means for the same general purpose. It bears on design, that endless question. Good night, good night!

LETTER 140. TO C. LYELL. 1, Carlton Terrace, Southampton, August 22nd [1862].

You say that the Bishop and Owen will be down on you (140/1. This refers to the "Antiquity of Man," which was published in 1863.): the latter hardly can, for I was assured that Owen, in his lectures this spring, advanced as a new idea that wingless birds had lost their wings by disuse. (140/2. The first paragraph of this letter was published in "Life and Letters," II., pages 387, 388.) Also that magpies stole spoons, etc., from a remnant of some instinct like that of the bower-bird, which ornaments its playing passage with pretty feathers. Indeed, I am told that he hinted plainly that all birds are descended from one. What an unblushing man he must be to lecture thus after abusing me so, and never to have openly retracted, or alluded to my book!

LETTER 141. TO JOHN LUBBOCK (LORD AVEBURY). Cliff Cottage, Bournemouth, September 5th [1862].

Many thanks for your pleasant note in return for all my stupid trouble. I did not fully appreciate your insect-diving case (141/1. "On two Aquatic Hymenoptera, one of which uses its Wings in Swimming." By John Lubbock. "Trans. Linn. Soc." Volume XXIV., 1864, pages 135-42.) [Read May 7th, 1863.] In this paper Lubbock describes a new species of Polynema—P. natans—which swims by means of its wings, and is capable of living under water for several hours; the other species, referred to a new genus Prestwichia, lives under water, holds its wings motionless and uses its legs as oars.) before your last note, nor had I any idea that the fact was new, though new to me. It is really very interesting. Of course you will publish an account of it. You will then say whether the insect can fly well through the air. (141/2. In describing the habits of Polynema, Lubbock writes, "I was unfortunately unable to ascertain whether they could fly" (loc. cit., page 137).) My wife asked, "How did he find that it stayed four hours under water without breathing?" I answered at once: "Mrs. Lubbock sat four hours watching." I wonder whether I am right.

I long to be at home and at steady work, and I hope we may be in another month. I fear it is hopeless my coming to you, for I am squashier than ever, but hope two shower-baths a day will give me a little strength, so that you will, I hope, come to us. It is an age since I have seen you or any scientific friend.

I heard from Lyell the other day in the Isle of Wight, and from Hooker in Scotland. About Huxley I know nothing, but I hope his book progresses, for I shall be very curious to see it. (141/3. "Man's Place in Nature." London, 1863.)

I do nothing here except occasionally look at a few flowers, and there are very few here, for the country is wonderfully barren.

See what it is to be well trained. Horace said to me yesterday, "If every one would kill adders they would come to sting less." I answered: "Of course they would, for there would be fewer." He replied indignantly: "I did not mean that; but the timid adders which run away would be saved, and in time would never sting at all." Natural selection of cowards!

LETTER 142. H. FALCONER TO CHARLES DARWIN.

(142/1. This refers to the MS. of Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.)," published in the "Natural History Review," January, 1863, page 43. The section dealing with the bearing of his facts on Darwin's views is at page 77. He insists strongly (page 78) on the "persistence and uniformity of the characters of the molar teeth in the earliest known mammoth, and his most modern successor." Nevertheless, he adds that the "inferences I draw from these facts are not opposed to one of the leading propositions of Darwin's theory." These admissions were the more satisfactory since, as Falconer points out (page 77), "I have been included by him in the category of those who have vehemently maintained the persistence of specific characters.")

21, Park Crescent, Portland Place, N.W., September 24th [1862].

Do not be frightened at the enclosure. I wish to set myself right by you before I go to press. I am bringing out a heavy memoir on elephants—an omnium gatherum affair, with observations on the fossil and recent species. One section is devoted to the persistence in time of the specific characters of the mammoth. I trace him from before the Glacial period, through it and after it, unchangeable and unchanged as far as the organs of digestion (teeth) and locomotion are concerned. Now, the Glacial period was no joke: it would have made ducks and drakes of your dear pigeons and doves.

With all my shortcomings, I have such a sincere and affectionate regard for you and such admiration of your work, that I should be pained to find that I had expressed my honest convictions in a way that would be open to any objection by you. The reasoning may be very stupid, but I believe that the observation is sound. Will you, therefore, look over the few pages which I have sent, and tell me whether you find any flaw, or whether you think I should change the form of expression? You have been so unhandsomely and uncandidly dealt with by a friend of yours and mine that I should be sorry to find myself in the position of an opponent to you, and more particularly with the chance of making a fool of myself.

I met your brother yesterday, who tells me you are coming to town. I hope you will give me a hail. I long for a jaw with you, and have much to speak to you about.

You will have seen the eclaircissement about the Eocene monkeys of England. By a touch of the conjuring wand they have been metamorphosed—a la Darwin—into Hyracotherian pigs. (142/2. "On the Hyracotherian Character of the Lower Molars of the supposed Macacus from the Eocene Sand of Kyson, Suffolk." "Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume X., 1862, page 240. In this note Owen stated that the teeth which he had named Macacus ("Ann. Mag." 1840, page 191) most probably belonged to Hyracotherium cuniculus. See "A Catalogue of British Fossil Vertebrata," A.S. Woodward and C.D. Sherborn, 1890, under Hyracotherium, page 356; also Zittel's "Handbuch der Palaeontologie" Abth. I., Bd. IV., Leipzig, 1891-93, page 703.) Would you believe it? This even is a gross blunder. They are not pigs.

LETTER 143. TO HUGH FALCONER. Down, October 1st [1862].

On my return home yesterday I found your letter and MS., which I have read with extreme interest. Your note and every word in your paper are expressed with the same kind feeling which I have experienced from you ever since I have had the happiness of knowing you. I value scientific praise, but I value incomparably higher such kind feeling as yours. There is not a single word in your paper to which I could possibly object: I should be mad to do so; its only fault is perhaps its too great kindness. Your case seems the most striking one which I have met with of the persistence of specific characters. It is very much the more striking as it relates to the molar teeth, which differ so much in the species of the genus, and in which consequently I should have expected variation. As I read on I felt not a little dumbfounded, and thought to myself that whenever I came to this subject I should have to be savage against myself; and I wondered how savage you would be. I trembled a little. My only hope was that something could be made out of the bog N. American forms, which you rank as a geographical race; and possibly hereafter out of the Sicilian species. Guess, then, my satisfaction when I found that you yourself made a loophole (143/1. This perhaps refers to a passage ("N.H. Review," 1863, page 79) in which Falconer allows the existence of intermediate forms along certain possible lines of descent. Falconer's reference to the Sicilian elephants is in a note on page 78; the bog-elephant is mentioned on page 79.), which I never, of course, could have guessed at; and imagine my still greater satisfaction at your expressing yourself as an unbeliever in the eternal immutability of species. Your final remarks on my work are too generous, but have given me not a little pleasure. As for criticisms, I have only small ones. When you speak of "moderate range of variation" I cannot but think that you ought to remind your readers (though I daresay previously done) what the amount is, including the case of the American bog-mammoth. You speak of these animals as having been exposed to a vast range of climatal changes from before to after the Glacial period. I should have thought, from analogy of sea-shells, that by migration (or local extinction when migration not possible) these animals might and would have kept under nearly the same climate.

A rather more important consideration, as it seems to me, is that the whole proboscidean group may, I presume, be looked at as verging towards extinction: anyhow, the extinction has been complete as far as Europe and America are concerned. Numerous considerations and facts have led me in the "Origin" to conclude that it is the flourishing or dominant members of each order which generally give rise to new races, sub-species, and species; and under this point of view I am not at all surprised at the constancy of your species. This leads me to remark that the sentence at the bottom of page [80] is not applicable to my views (143/2. See Falconer at the bottom of page 80: it is the old difficulty—how can variability co-exist with persistence of type? In our copy of the letter the passage is given as occurring on page 60, a slip of the pen for page 80.), though quite applicable to those who attribute modification to the direct action of the conditions of life. An elephant might be more individually variable than any known quadruped (from the effects of the conditions of life or other innate unknown causes), but if these variations did not aid the animal in better resisting all hostile influences, and therefore making it increase in numbers, there would be no tendency to the preservation and accumulation of such variations—i.e. to the formation of a new race. As the proboscidean group seems to be from utterly unknown causes a failing group in many parts of the world, I should not have anticipated the formation of new races.

You make important remarks versus Natural Selection, and you will perhaps be surprised that I do to a large extent agree with you. I could show you many passages, written as strongly as I could in the "Origin," declaring that Natural Selection can do nothing without previous variability; and I have tried to put equally strongly that variability is governed by many laws, mostly quite unknown. My title deceives people, and I wish I had made it rather different. Your phyllotaxis (143/3. Falconer, page 80: "The law of Phyllotaxis...is nearly as constant in its manifestation as any of the physical laws connected with the material world.") will serve as example, for I quite agree that the spiral arrangement of a certain number of whorls of leaves (however that may have primordially arisen, and whether quite as invariable as you state), governs the limits of variability, and therefore governs what Natural Selection can do. Let me explain how it arose that I laid so much stress on Natural Selection, and I still think justly. I came to think from geographical distribution, etc., etc., that species probably change; but for years I was stopped dead by my utter incapability of seeing how every part of each creature (a woodpecker or swallow, for instance) had become adapted to its conditions of life. This seemed to me, and does still seem, the problem to solve; and I think Natural Selection solves it, as artificial selection solves the adaptation of domestic races for man's use. But I suspect that you mean something further,—that there is some unknown law of evolution by which species necessarily change; and if this be so, I cannot agree. This, however, is too large a question even for so unreasonably long a letter as this. Nevertheless, just to explain by mere valueless conjectures how I imagine the teeth of your elephants change, I should look at the change as indirectly resulting from changes in the form of the jaws, or from the development of tusks, or in the case of the primigenius even from correlation with the woolly covering; in all cases Natural Selection checking the variation. If, indeed, an elephant would succeed better by feeding on some new kinds of food, then any variation of any kind in the teeth which favoured their grinding power would be preserved. Now, I can fancy you holding up your hands and crying out what bosh! To return to your concluding sentence: far from being surprised, I look at it as absolutely certain that very much in the "Origin" will be proved rubbish; but I expect and hope that the framework will stand. (143/4. Falconer, page 80: "He [Darwin] has laid the foundations of a great edifice: but he need not be surprised if, in the progress of erection, the superstructure is altered by his successors...")

I had hoped to have called on you on Monday evening, but was quite knocked up. I saw Lyell yesterday morning. He was very curious about your views, and as I had to write to him this morning I could not help telling him a few words on your views. I suppose you are tired of the "Origin," and will never read it again; otherwise I should like you to have the third edition, and would gladly send it rather than you should look at the first or second edition. With cordial thanks for your generous kindness.

LETTER 144. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. Royal Gardens, Kew, November 7th, 1862.

I am greatly relieved by your letter this morning about my Arctic essay, for I had been conjuring up some egregious blunder (like the granitic plains of Patagonia).. Certes, after what you have told me of Dawson, he will not like the letter I wrote to him days ago, in which I told him that it was impossible to entertain a strong opinion against the Darwinian hypothesis without its giving rise to a mental twist when viewing matters in which that hypothesis was or might be involved. I told him I felt that this was so with me when I opposed you, and that all minds are subject to such obliquities!—the Lord help me, and this to an LL.D. and Principal of a College! I proceeded to discuss his Geology with the effrontery of a novice; and, thank God, I urged the very argument of your letter about evidence of subsidence—viz., not all submerged at once, and glacial action being subaerial and not oceanic. Your letter hence was a relief, for I felt I was hardly strong enough to have launched out as I did to a professed geologist.

(144/1. [On the subject of the above letter, see one of earlier date by Sir J.D. Hooker (November 2nd, 1862) given in the present work (Letter 354) with Darwin's reply (Letter 355).])

LETTER 145. TO HUGH FALCONER. Down, November 14th [1862].

I have read your paper (145/1. "On the disputed Affinity of the Mammalian Genus Plagiaulax, from the Purbeck beds."—"Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume XVIII., page 348, 1862.) with extreme interest, and I thank you for sending it, though I should certainly have carefully read it, or anything with your name, in the Journal. It seems to me a masterpiece of close reasoning: although, of course, not a judge of such subjects, I cannot feel any doubt that it is conclusive. Will Owen answer you? I expect that from his arrogant view of his own position he will not answer. Your paper is dreadfully severe on him, but perfectly courteous, and polished as the finest dagger. How kind you are towards me: your first sentence (145/2. "One of the most accurate observers and original thinkers of our time has discoursed with emphatic eloquence on the Imperfection of the Geological Record.") has pleased me more than perhaps it ought to do, if I had any modesty in my composition. By the way, after reading the first whole paragraph, I re-read it, not for matter, but for style; and then it suddenly occurred to me that a certain man once said to me, when I urged him to publish some of his miscellaneous wealth of knowledge, "Oh, he could not write,—he hated it," etc. You false man, never say that to me again. Your incidental remark on the remarkable specialisation of Plagiaulax (145/3. "If Plagiaulax be regarded through the medium of the view advocated with such power by Darwin, through what a number of intermediate forms must not the genus have passed before it attained the specialised condition in which the fossils come before us!") (which has stuck in my gizzard ever since I read your first paper) as bearing on the number of preceding forms, is quite new to me, and, of course, is in accordance to my notions a most impressive argument. I was also glad to be reminded of teeth of camel and tarsal bones. (145/4. Op. cit. page 353. A reference to Cuvier's instance "of the secret relation between the upper canine-shaped incisors of the camel and the bones of the tarsus.") Descent from an intermediate form, Ahem!

Well, all I can say is that I have not been for a long time more interested with a paper than with yours. It gives me a demoniacal chuckle to think of Owen's pleasant countenance when he reads it.

I have not been in London since the end of September; when I do come I will beat up your quarters if I possibly can; but I do not know what has come over me. I am worse than ever in bearing any excitement. Even talking of an evening for less than two hours has twice recently brought on such violent vomiting and trembling that I dread coming up to London. I hear that you came out strong at Cambridge (145/5. Prof. Owen, in a communication to the British Association at Cambridge (1862) "On a tooth of Mastodon from the Tertiary marls, near Shanghai," brought forward the case of the Australian Mastodon as a proof of the remarkable geographical distribution of the Proboscidia. In a subsequent discussion he frankly abandoned it, in consequence of the doubts then urged regarding its authenticity. (See footnote, page 101, in Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil Elephant," "Nat. Hist. Review," 1863.)), and am heartily glad you attacked the Australian Mastodon. I never did or could believe in him. I wish you would read my little Primula paper in the "Linnean Journal," Volume VI. Botany (No. 22), page 77 (I have no copy which I can spare), as I think there is a good chance that you may have observed similar cases. This is my real hobby-horse at present. I have re-tested this summer the functional difference of the two forms in Primula, and find all strictly accurate. If you should know of any cases analogous, pray inform me. Farewell, my good and kind friend.

LETTER 146. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(146/1. The following letter is interesting in connection with a letter addressed to Sir J.D. Hooker, March 26th, 1862, No. 136, where the value of Natural Selection is stated more strongly by Sir Joseph than by Darwin. It is unfortunate that Sir Joseph's letter, to which this is a reply, has not been found.)

Down, November 20th [1862].

Your last letter has interested me to an extraordinary degree, and your truly parsonic advice, "some other wise and discreet person," etc., etc., amused us not a little. I will put a concrete case to show what I think A. Gray believes about crossing and what I believe. If 1,000 pigeons were bred together in a cage for 10,000 years their number not being allowed to increase by chance killing, then from mutual intercrossing no varieties would arise; but, if each pigeon were a self-fertilising hermaphrodite, a multitude of varieties would arise. This, I believe, is the common effect of crossing, viz., the obliteration of incipient varieties. I do not deny that when two marked varieties have been produced, their crossing will produce a third or more intermediate varieties. Possibly, or probably, with domestic varieties, with a strong tendency to vary, the act of crossing tends to give rise to new characters; and thus a third or more races, not strictly intermediate, may be produced. But there is heavy evidence against new characters arising from crossing wild forms; only intermediate races are then produced. Now, do you agree thus far? if not, it is no use arguing; we must come to swearing, and I am convinced I can swear harder than you, therefore I am right. Q.E.D.

If the number of 1,000 pigeons were prevented increasing not by chance killing, but by, say, all the shorter-beaked birds being killed, then the WHOLE body would come to have longer beaks. Do you agree?

Thirdly, if 1,000 pigeons were kept in a hot country, and another 1,000 in a cold country, and fed on different food, and confined in different-size aviary, and kept constant in number by chance killing, then I should expect as rather probable that after 10,000 years the two bodies would differ slightly in size, colour, and perhaps other trifling characters; this I should call the direct action of physical conditions. By this action I wish to imply that the innate vital forces are somehow led to act rather differently in the two cases, just as heat will allow or cause two elements to combine, which otherwise would not have combined. I should be especially obliged if you would tell me what you think on this head.

But the part of your letter which fairly pitched me head over heels with astonishment, is that where you state that every single difference which we see might have occurred without any selection. I do and have always fully agreed; but you have got right round the subject, and viewed it from an entirely opposite and new side, and when you took me there I was astounded. When I say I agree, I must make the proviso, that under your view, as now, each form long remains adapted to certain fixed conditions, and that the conditions of life are in the long run changeable; and second, which is more important, that each individual form is a self-fertilising hermaphrodite, so that each hair-breadth variation is not lost by intercrossing. Your manner of putting the case would be even more striking than it is if the mind could grapple with such numbers—it is grappling with eternity—think of each of a thousand seeds bringing forth its plant, and then each a thousand. A globe stretching to the furthest fixed star would very soon be covered. I cannot even grapple with the idea, even with races of dogs, cattle, pigeons, or fowls; and here all admit and see the accurate strictness of your illustration.

Such men as you and Lyell thinking that I make too much of a Deus of Natural Selection is a conclusive argument against me. Yet I hardly know how I could have put in, in all parts of my book, stronger sentences. The title, as you once pointed out, might have been better. No one ever objects to agriculturalists using the strongest language about their selection, yet every breeder knows that he does not produce the modification which he selects. My enormous difficulty for years was to understand adaptation, and this made me, I cannot but think, rightly, insist so much on Natural Selection. God forgive me for writing at such length; but you cannot tell how much your letter has interested me, and how important it is for me with my present book in hand to try and get clear ideas. Do think a bit about what is meant by direct action of physical conditions. I do not mean whether they act; my facts will throw some light on this. I am collecting all cases of bud-variations, in contradistinction to seed-variations (do you like this term, for what some gardeners call "sports"?); these eliminate all effects of crossing. Pray remember how much I value your opinion as the clearest and most original I ever get.

I see plainly that Welwitschia (146/2. Sir Joseph's great paper on Welwitschia mirabilis was published in the "Linn. Soc. Trans." 1863.) will be a case of Barnacles.

I have another plant to beg, but I write on separate paper as more convenient for you to keep. I meant to have said before, as an excuse for asking for so much from Kew, that I have now lost TWO seasons, by accursed nurserymen not having right plants, and sending me the wrong instead of saying that they did not possess.

LETTER 147. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 24th [November, 1862].

I have just received enclosed for you, and I have thought that you would like to read the latter half of A. Gray's letter to me, as it is political and nearly as mad as ever in our English eyes. You will see how the loss of the power of bullying is in fact the sore loss to the men of the North from disunion.

I return with thanks Bates' letter, which I was glad to see. It was very good of you writing to him, for he is evidently a man who wants encouragement. I have now finished his paper (but have read nothing else in the volume); it seems to me admirable. To my mind the act of segregation of varieties into species was never so plainly brought forward, and there are heaps of capital miscellaneous observations.

I hardly know why I am a little sorry, but my present work is leading me to believe rather more in the direct action of physical conditions. I presume I regret it, because it lessens the glory of Natural Selection, and is so confoundedly doubtful. Perhaps I shall change again when I get all my facts under one point of view, and a pretty hard job this will be. (147/1. This paragraph was published in "Life and Letters," II., page 390. It is not clear why a belief in "direct action" should diminish the glory of Natural Selection, since the changes so produced must, like any other variations, pass through the ordeal of the survival of the fittest. On the whole question of direct action see Mr. Adam Sedgwick's "Presidential Address to the Zoological Section of the British Association," 1899.)

LETTER 148. TO H.W. BATES. Down, November 25th [1862?].

I should think it was not necessary to get a written agreement. (148/1. Mr. Bates' book, "A Naturalist on the Amazons," was published in 1863.) I have never had one from Murray. I suppose you have a letter with terms; if not, I should think you had better ask for one to prevent misunderstandings. I think Sir C. Lyell told me he had not any formal agreements. I am heartily glad to hear that your book is progressing. Could you find me some place, even a footnote (though these are in nine cases out of ten objectionable), where you could state, as fully as your materials permit, all the facts about similar varieties pairing,—at a guess how many you caught, and how many now in your collection? I look at this fact as very important; if not in your book, put it somewhere else, or let me have cases.

I entirely agree with you on the enormous advantage of thoroughly studying one group.

I really have no criticism to make. (148/2. Mr. Bates' paper on mimetic butterflies was read before the Linnean Society, November 21st, 1861, and published in the "Linn. Soc. Trans." XXIII., 1862, page 495, under the title of "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley.") Style seems to me very good and clear; but I much regret that in the title or opening passage you did not blow a loud trumpet about what you were going to show. Perhaps the paper would have been better more divided into sections with headings. Perhaps you might have given somewhere rather more of a summary on the progress of segregation of varieties, and not referred your readers to the descriptive part, excepting such readers as wanted minute detail. But these are trifles: I consider your paper as a most admirable production in every way. Whenever I come to variation under natural conditions (my head for months has been exclusively occupied with domestic varieties), I shall have to study and re-study your paper, and no doubt shall then have to plague you with questions. I am heartily glad to hear that you are well. I have been compelled to write in a hurry; so excuse me.

LETTER 149. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 7th [1862].

I was on the point of adding to an order to Williams & Norgate for your Lectures (149/1. "A Course of Six Lectures to Working Men," published in six pamphlets by Hardwicke, and later as a book. See Letter 156.) when they arrived, and much obliged I am. I have read them with interest, and they seem to me very good for this purpose and capitally written, as is everything which you write. I suppose every book nowadays requires some pushing, so that if you do not wish these lectures to be extensively circulated, I suppose they will not; otherwise I should think they would do good and spread a taste for the natural sciences. Anyhow, I have liked them; but I get more and more, I am sorry to say, to care for nothing but Natural History; and chiefly, as you once said, for the mere species question. I think I liked No. III. the best of all. I have often said and thought that the process of scientific discovery was identical with everyday thought, only with more care; but I never succeeded in putting the case to myself with one-tenth of the clearness with which you have done. I think your second geological section will puzzle your non-scientific readers; anyhow, it has puzzled me, and with the strong middle line, which must represent either a line of stratification or some great mineralogical change, I cannot conceive how your statement can hold good.

I am very glad to hear of your "three-year-old" vigour [?]; but I fear, with all your multifarious work, that your book on Man will necessarily be delayed. You bad man; you say not a word about Mrs. Huxley, of whom my wife and self are always truly anxious to hear.

P.S. I see in the "Cornhill Magazine" a notice of a work by Cohn, which apparently is important, on the contractile tissue of plants. (149/2. "Ueber contractile Gewebe im Pflanzenreiche." "Abhand. der Schlesischen Gesellschaft fur vaterlandische Cultur," Heft I., 1861.) You ought to have it reviewed. I have ordered it, and must try and make out, if I can, some of the accursed german, for I am much interested in the subject, and experimented a little on it this summer, and came to the conclusion that plants must contain some substance most closely analogous to the supposed diffused nervous matter in the lower animals; or as, I presume, it would be more accurate to say with Cohn, that they have contractile tissue.

Lecture VI., page 151, line 7 from top—wetting FEET or bodies? (Miss Henrietta Darwin's criticism.) (149/3. Lecture VI., page 151: Lamarck "said, for example, that the short-legged birds, which live on fish, had been converted into the long-legged waders by desiring to get the fish without wetting their feet."

Their criticisms on Lectures IV. and VI. are on a separate piece of undated paper, and must belong to a letter of later date; only three lectures were published by December 7th, 1862.)

Lecture IV., page 89—Atavism.

You here and there use atavism = inheritance. Duchesne, who, I believe, invented the word, in his Strawberry book confined it, as every one has since done, to resemblance to grandfather or more remote ancestor, in contradistinction to resemblance to parents.

LETTER 150. TO JOHN SCOTT.

(150/1. The following is the first of a series of letters addressed to the late John Scott, of which the major part is given in our Botanical chapters. We have been tempted to give this correspondence fully not only because of its intrinsic scientific interest, but also because they are almost the only letters which show Darwin in personal relation with a younger man engaged in research under his supervision.)

[1862?]

To the best of my judgment, no subject is so important in relation to theoretical natural science, in several respects, and likewise in itself deserving investigation, as the effects of changed or unnatural conditions, or of changed structure on the reproductive system. Under this point of view the relation of well-marked but undoubted varieties in fertilising each other requires far more experiments than have been tried. See in the "Origin" the brief abstract of Gartner on Verbascum and Zea. Mr. W. Crocker, lately foreman at Kew and a very good observer, is going at my suggestion to work varieties of hollyhock. (150/2. Altheae species. These experiments seem not to have been carried out.) The climate would be too cold, I suppose, for varieties of tobacco. I began on cabbages, but immediately stopped from early shedding of their pollen causing too much trouble. Your knowledge would suggest some [plants]. On the same principle it would be well to test peloric flowers with their own pollen, and with pollen of regular flowers, and try pollen of peloric on regular flowers—seeds being counted in each case. I have now got one seedling from many crosses of a peloric Pelargonium by peloric pollen; I have two or three seedlings from a peloric flower by pollen of regular flower. I have ordered a peloric Antirrhinum (150/3. See "Variation of Animals and Plants," Edition I., Volume II., page 70.) and the peloric Gloxinia, but I much fear I shall never have time to try them. The Passiflora cases are truly wonderful, like the Crinum cases (see "Origin"). (150/4. "Origin," Edition VI., page 238.) I have read in a German paper that some varieties of potatoes (name not given) cannot be fertilised by [their] own pollen, but can by pollen of other varieties: well worth trying. Again, fertility of any monster flower, which is pretty regularly produced; I have got the wonderful Begonia frigida (150/5. The species on which Sir J.D. Hooker wrote in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," February 25th, 1860. See "Life and Letters," II., page 275.) from Kew, but doubt whether I have heat to set its seeds. If an unmodified Celosia could be got, it would be well to test with the modified cockscomb. There is a variation of columbine [Aquilegia] with simple petals without nectaries, etc., etc. I never could think what to try; but if one could get hold of a long-cultivated plant which crossed with a distinct species and yielded a very small number of seeds, then it would be highly good to test comparatively the wild parent-form and its varying offspring with this third species: for instance, if a polyanthus would cross with some species of Primula, then to try a wild cowslip with it. I believe hardly any primulas have ever been crossed. If we knew and could get the parent of the carnation (150/6. Dianthus caryophyllus, garden variety.), it would be very good for this end. Any member of the Lythraceae raised from seed ought to be well looked after for dimorphism. I have wonderful facts, the result of experiment, on Lythrum salicaria.

LETTER 151. TO JOHN SCOTT. Down, December 11th [1862].

I have read your paper with much interest. (151/1. "On the Nature and Peculiarities of the Fern-spore." "Bot. Soc. Edin." Read June 12th, 1862.) You ask for remarks on the matter, which is alone really important. Shall you think me impertinent (I am sure I do not mean to be so) if I hazard a remark on the style, which is of more importance than some think? In my opinion (whether or no worth much) your paper would have been much better if written more simply and less elaborated—more like your letters. It is a golden rule always to use, if possible, a short old Saxon word. Such a sentence as "so purely dependent is the incipient plant on the specific morphological tendency" does not sound to my ears like good mother-English—it wants translating. Here and there you might, I think, have condensed some sentences. I go on the plan of thinking every single word which can be omitted without actual loss of sense as a decided gain. Now perhaps you will think me a meddling intruder: anyhow, it is the advice of an old hackneyed writer who sincerely wishes you well. Your remark on the two sexes counteracting variability in product of the one is new to me. (151/2. Scott (op. cit., page 214): "The reproductive organs of phoenogams, as is well-known, are always products of two morphologically distinct organs, the stamens producing the pollen, the carpels producing the ovules...The embryo being in this case the modified resultant of two originally distinct organs, there will necessarily be a greater tendency to efface any individual peculiarities of these than would have been the case had the embryo been the product of a single organ." A different idea seems to have occurred to Mr. Darwin, for in an undated letter to Scott he wrote: "I hardly know what to say on your view of male and female organs and variability. I must think more over it. But I was amused by finding the other day in my portfolio devoted to bud-variation a slip of paper dated June, 1860, with some such words as these, 'May not permanence of grafted buds be due to the two sexual elements derived from different parts not having come into play?' I had utterly forgotten, when I read your paper that any analogous notion had ever passed through my mind—nor can I now remember, but the slip shows me that it had." It is interesting that Huxley also came to a conclusion differing from Scott's; and, curiously enough, Darwin confused the two views, for he wrote to Scott (December 19th): "By an odd chance, reading last night some short lectures just published by Prof. Huxley, I find your observation, independently arrived at by him, on the confluence of the two sexes causing variability." Professor Huxley's remarks are in his "Lectures to Working Men on our Knowledge, etc." No. 4, page 90: "And, indeed, I think that a certain amount of variation from the primitive stock is the necessary result of the method of sexual propagation itself; for inasmuch as the thing propagated proceeds from two organisms of different sexes and different makes and temperaments, and, as the offspring is to be either of one sex or the other, it is quite clear that it cannot be an exact diagonal of the two, or it would be of no sex at all; it cannot be an exact intermediate form between that of each of its parents—it must deviate to one side or the other.") But I cannot avoid thinking that there is something unknown and deeper in seminal generation. Reflect on the long succession of embryological changes in every animal. Does a bud ever produce cotyledons or embryonic leaves? I have been much interested by your remark on inheritance at corresponding ages; I hope you will, as you say, continue to attend to this. Is it true that female Primula plants always produce females by parthenogenesis? (151/3. It seems probable that Darwin here means vegetative reproduction.) If you can answer this I should be glad; it bears on my Primula work. I thought on the subject, but gave up investigating what had been observed, because the female bee by parthenogenesis produces males alone. Your paper has told me much that in my ignorance was quite new to me. Thanks about P. scotica. If any important criticisms are made on the Primula to the Botanical Society, I should be glad to hear them. If you think fit, you may state that I repeated the crossing experiments on P. sinensis and cowslip with the same result this spring as last year—indeed, with rather more marked difference in fertility of the two crosses. In fact, had I then proved the Linum case, I would not have wasted time in repetition. I am determined I will at once publish on Linum...

I was right to be cautious in supposing you in error about Siphocampylus (no flowers were enclosed). I hope that you will make out whether the pistil presents two definite lengths; I shall be astounded if it does. I do not fully understand your objections to Natural Selection; if I do, I presume they would apply with full force to, for instance, birds. Reflect on modification of Arab-Turk horse into our English racehorse. I have had the satisfaction to tell my publisher to send my "Journal" and "Origin" to your address. I suspect, with your fertile mind, you will find it far better to experiment on your own choice; but if, on reflection, you would like to try some which interest me, I should be truly delighted, and in this case would write in some detail. If you have the means to repeat Gartner's experiments on variations of Verbascum or on maize (see the "Origin"), such experiments would be pre-eminently important. I could never get variations of Verbascum. I could suggest an experiment on potatoes analogous with the case of Passiflora; even the case of Passiflora, often as it has been repeated, might be with advantage repeated. I have worked like a slave (having counted about nine thousand seeds) on Melastoma, on the meaning of the two sets of very different stamens, and as yet have been shamefully beaten, and I now cry for aid. I could suggest what I believe a very good scheme (at least, Dr. Hooker thought so) for systematic degeneration of culinary plants, and so find out their origin; but this would be laborious and the work of years.

LETTER 152. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 12th [December, 1862].

My good old Friend—

How kind you have been to give me so much of your time! Your letter is of real use, and has been and shall be well considered. I am much pleased to find that we do not differ as much as I feared. I begin my book with saying that my chief object is to show the inordinate scale of variation; I have especially studied all sorts of variations of the individual. On crossing I cannot change; the more I think, the more reason I have to believe that my conclusion would be agreed to by all practised breeders. I also greatly doubt about variability and domestication being at all necessarily correlative, but I have touched on this in "Origin." Plants being identical under very different conditions has always seemed to me a very heavy argument against what I call direct action. I think perhaps I will take the case of 1,000 pigeons (152/1. See Letter 146.) to sum up my volume; I will not discuss other points, but, as I have said, I shall recur to your letter. But I must just say that if sterility be allowed to come into play, if long-beaked be in the least degree sterile with short-beaked, my whole case is altered. By the way, my notions on hybridity are becoming considerably altered by my dimorphic work. I am now strongly inclined to believe that sterility is at first a selected quality to keep incipient species distinct. If you have looked at Lythrum you will see how pollen can be modified merely to favour crossing; with equal readiness it could be modified to prevent crossing.

It is this which makes me so much interested with dimorphism, etc. (152/2. This gives a narrow impression of Darwin's interest in dimorphism. The importance of his work was (briefly put) the proof that sterility has no necessary connection with specific difference, but depends on sexual differentiation independent of racial differences. See "Life and Letters," III., page 296. His point of view that sterility is a selected quality is again given in a letter to Huxley ("Life and Letters," II., page 384), but was not upheld in his later writings (see "Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 245). The idea of sterility being a selected quality is interesting in connection with Romanes' theory of physiological selection. (See Letters 209-214.))

One word more. When you pitched me head over heels by your new way of looking at the back side of variation, I received assurance and strength by considering monsters—due to law: horribly strange as they are, the monsters were alive till at least when born. They differ at least as much from the parent as any one mammal from another.

I have just finished a long, weary chapter on simple facts of variation of cultivated plants, and am now refreshing myself with a paper on Linum for the Linnean Society.

LETTER 153. TO W.B. TEGETMEIER.

(153/1. The following letter also bears on the question of the artificial production of sterility.)

Down, 27th [December, 1862].

The present plan is to try whether any existing breeds happen to have acquired accidentally any degree of sterility; but to this point hereafter. The enclosed MS. will show what I have done and know on the subject. Please at some future time carefully return the MS. to me. If I were going to try again, I would prefer Turbit with Carrier or Dragon.

I will suggest an analogous experiment, which I have had for two years in my experimental book with "be sure and try," but which, as my health gets yearly weaker and weaker and my other work increases, I suppose I shall never try. Permit me to add that if 5 pounds would cover the expenses of the experiment, I should be delighted to give it, and you could publish the result if there be any result. I crossed the Spanish cock (your bird) and white Silk hen and got plenty of eggs and chickens; but two of them seemed to be quite sterile. I was then sadly overdone with work, but have ever since much reproached myself that I did not preserve and carefully test the procreative power of these hens. Now, if you are inclined to get a Spanish cock and a couple of white Silk hens, I shall be most grateful to hear whether the offspring breed well: they will prove, I think, not hardy; if they should prove sterile, which I can hardly believe, they will anyhow do for the pot. If you do try this, how would it do to put a Silk cock to your curious silky Cochin hen, so as to get a big silk breed; it would be curious if you could get silky fowl with bright colours. I believe a Silk hen crossed by any other breed never gives silky feathers. A cross from Silk cock and Cochin Silk hen ought to give silky feathers and probably bright colours.

I have been led lately from experiments (not published) on dimorphism to reflect much on sterility from hybridism, and partially to change the opinion given in "Origin." I have now letters out enquiring on the following point, implied in the experiment, which seems to me well worth trying, but too laborious ever to be attempted. I would ask every pigeon and fowl fancier whether they have ever observed, in the same breed, a cock A paired to a hen B which did not produce young. Then I would get cock A and match it to a hen of its nearest blood; and hen B to its nearest blood. I would then match the offspring of A (viz., a, b, c, d, e) to the offspring of B (viz., f, g, h, i, j), and all those children which were fertile together should be destroyed until I found one—say a, which was not quite fertile with—say, i. Then a and i should be preserved and paired with their parents A and B, so as to try and get two families which would not unite together; but the members WITHIN each family being fertile together. This would probably be quite hopeless; but he who could effect this would, I believe, solve the problem of sterility from hybridism. If you should ever hear of individual fowls or pigeons which are sterile together, I should be very grateful to hear of the case. It is a parallel case to those recorded of a man not impotent long living with a woman who remained childless; the husband died, and the woman married again and had plenty of children. Apparently (by no means certainly) this first man and woman were dissimilar in their sexual organisation. I conceive it possible that their offspring (if both had married again and both had children) would be sexually dissimilar, like their parents, or sterile together. Pray forgive my dreadful writing; I have been very unwell all day, and have no strength to re-write this scrawl. I am working slowly on, and I suppose in three or four months shall be ready.

I am sure I do not know whether any human being could understand or read this shameful scrawl.

LETTER 154. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December, 28th [1862].

I return enclosed: if you write, thank Mr. Kingsley for thinking of letting me see the sound sense of an Eastern potentate. (154/1. Kingsley's letter to Huxley, dated December 20th, 1862, contains a story or parable of a heathen Khan in Tartary who was visited by a pair of proselytising Moollahs. The first Moollah said: "Oh! Khan, worship my God. He is so wise that he made all things." But Moollah No. 2 won the day by pointing out that his God is "so wise that he makes all things make themselves.") All that I said about the little book (154/2. The six "Lectures to Working Men," published in six pamphlets and in book-form in 1863. Mr. Huxley considered that Mr. Darwin's argument required the production by man's selection of breeds which should be mutually infertile, and thus resemble distinct species physiologically as well as morphologically.) is strictly my opinion; it is in every way excellent, and cannot fail to do good the wider it is circulated. Whether it is worth your while to give up time to it is another question for you alone to decide; that it will do good for the subject is beyond all question. I do not think a dunce exists who could not understand it, and that is a bold saying after the extent to which I have been misunderstood. I did not understand what you required about sterility: assuredly the facts given do not go nearly so far. We differ so much that it is no use arguing. To get the degree of sterility you expect in recently formed varieties seems to me simply hopeless. It seems to me almost like those naturalists who declare they will never believe that one species turns into another till they see every stage in process.

I have heard from Tegetmeier, and have given him the result of my crosses of the birds which he proposes to try, and have told him how alone I think the experiment could be tried with the faintest hope of success—namely, to get, if possible, a case of two birds which when paired were unproductive, yet neither impotent. For instance, I had this morning a letter with a case of a Hereford heifer, which seemed to be, after repeated trials, sterile with one particular and far from impotent bull, but not with another bull. But it is too long a story—it is to attempt to make two strains, both fertile, and yet sterile when one of one strain is crossed with one of the other strain. But the difficulty...would be beyond calculation. As far as I see, Tegetmeier's plan would simply test whether two existing breeds are now in any slight degree sterile; which has already been largely tested: not that I dispute the good of re-testing.

LETTER 155. TO HUGH FALCONER.

(155/1. The original letter is dated "December 10th," but this must, we think, be a slip of the pen for January 10th. It contains a reference to No. VI. of the "Lectures to Working Men" which, as Mr. Leonard Huxley is good enough to inform us, was not delivered until December 15th, and therefore could not have been seen by Mr. Darwin on December 10th. The change of date makes comprehensible the reference to Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.)," which appeared in the January number of the "Natural History Review." It is true that he had seen advanced sheets of Falconer's paper ("Life and Letters," II., page 389), but the reference here is to the complete paper.

In the present volume we have thought it right to give some expression to the attitude of Darwin towards Owen. Professor Owen's biographer has clearly felt the difficulty of making a statement on Owen's attitude towards Darwinism, and has ("Life of Sir Richard Owen," Volume II., page 92) been driven to adopt the severe indictment contained in the "Origin of Species," Edition VI., page xviii. Darwin was by no means alone in his distrust of Owen; and to omit altogether a reference to the conduct which led up to the isolation of Owen among his former friends and colleagues would be to omit a part of the history of science of the day. And since we cannot omit to notice Darwin's point of view, it seems right to give the facts of a typical case illustrating the feeling with which he regarded Owen. This is all the more necessary since the recently published biography of Sir R. Owen gives no hint, as far as we are aware, of even a difference of opinion with other scientific men.

The account which Falconer gives in the above-mentioned paper in the "Nat. Hist. Review" (January, 1863) would be amusing if the matter were less serious. In 1857 Falconer described ("Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." XIII.) a new species of fossil elephant from America, to which he gave the name Elephas Columbi, a designation which was recognised and adopted by Continental writers. In 1858 (Brit. Assoc. Leeds) Owen made use of the name "Elephas texianus," Blake" for the species which Falconer had previously named E. Columbi, but without referring to Falconer's determination; he gave no authority, "thus by the established usage in zoology producing it as his own." In 1861 Owen in his Palaeontology, 2nd edition, 1861, describes the elephant as E. texianus, Blake. To Mr. Blake's name is appended an asterisk which refers to a footnote to Bollaert's "Antiquities of S. America," 2nd edition. According to Falconer (page 46) no second edition of Bollaert had appeared at the time of writing (August, 1862), and in the first edition (1860) he was "unable to detect the occurrence of the name even, of E. texianus, anywhere throughout the volume"; though Bollaert mentions the fact that he had deposited, in the British Museum, the tooth of a fossil elephant from Texas.

In November, 1861, Blake wrote a paper in the "Geologist" in which the new elephant no longer bears his own name as authority, but is described as "Elephas texianus, Owen, E. Columbi, Falconer." Finally, in another paper the name of Owen is dropped and the elephant is once more his own. As Falconer remarks, "the usage of science does not countenance such accommodating arrangements, when the result is to prejudice a prior right."

It may be said, no doubt, that the question who first described a given species is a petty one; but this view has a double edge, and applies most strongly to those who neglect the just claims of their predecessors.

Down, January 5th [1863].

I finished your Elephant paper last night, and you must let me express my admiration at it. (155/2. "On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.), etc." "Nat. Hist. Rev." 1863, page 81. (Cf. Letter to Lyell. "Life and Letters," II., page 389; also "Origin," Edition VI., page 306.) See Letter 143.) All the points strike me as admirably worked out, and very many most interesting. I was particularly struck with your remarks on the character of the ancient Mammalian Fauna of N. America (155/3. Falconer, page 62. This passage is marked in Darwin's copy.); it agrees with all I fancied was the case, namely a temporary irruption of S. American forms into N. America, and conversely, I chuckled a little over the specimen of M. Andium "hesitating" between the two groups. (155/4. In speaking of the characters of Mastodon Andium, Falconer refers to a former paper by himself ("Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume XIII. 1857, page 313), in which he called attention "to the exceptional character of certain specimens of M. Andium, as if hesitating between [the groups] Tetralophodon and Trilophodon" (ibid., page 100).) I have been assured by Mr. Wallace that abundant Mastodon remains have been found at Timor, and that is rather close to Australia. I rejoice that you have smashed that case. (155/5. In the paper in the "Nat. Hist. Review" (loc. cit.) Falconer writes: "It seems more probable that some unintentional error has got mixed up with the history of this remarkable fossil; and until further confirmatory evidence is adduced, of an unimpeachable character, faith cannot be reposed in the reality of the asserted Australian Mastodon" (page 101).) It is indeed a grand paper. I will say nothing more about your allusions to me, except that they have pleased me quite as much in print as in MS. You must have worked very hard; the labour must have been extreme, but I do hope that you will have health and strength to go on. You would laugh if you could see how indignant all Owen's mean conduct about E. Columbi made me. (155/6. See Letter 157.) I did not get to sleep till past 3 o'clock. How well you lash him, firmly and severely, with unruffled temper, as if you were performing a simple duty. The case is come to such a pass, that I think every man of science is bound to show his feelings by some overt act, and I shall watch for a fitting opportunity.

P.S.—I have kept back for a day the enclosed owing to the arrival of your most interesting letter. I knew it was a mere chance whether you could inform me on the points required; but no one other person has so often responded to my miscellaneous queries. I believe I have now in my greenhouse L. trigynum (155/7. Linum trigynum.), which came up from seed purchased as L. flavum, from which it is wholly different in foliage. I have just sent in a paper on Dimorphism of Linum to the Linnean Society (155/8. "On the Existence of the Forms, and on their reciprocal Sexual Relation, in several species of the genus Linum.—"Journ. Linn. Soc." Volume VII., page 69, 1864.), and so I do not doubt your memory is right about L. trigynum: the functional difference in the two forms of Linum is really wonderful. I assure you I quite long to see you and a few others in London; it is not so much the eczema which has taken the epidermis a dozen times clean off; but I have been knocked up of late with extraordinary facility, and when I shall be able to come up I know not. I particularly wish to hear about the wondrous bird: the case has delighted me, because no group is so isolated as Birds. I much wish to hear when we meet which digits are developed; when examining birds two or three years ago, I distinctly remember writing to Lyell that some day a fossil bird would be found with the end of wing cloven, i.e. the bastard-wing and other part, both well developed. Thanks for Von Martius, returned by this post, which I was glad to see. Poor old Wagner (Probably Johann Andreas Wagner, author of "Zur Feststellung des Artbegriffes, mit besonderer Bezugnahme auf die Ansichten von Nathusius, Darwin, Is. Geoffroy and Agassiz," "Munchen Sitzungsb." (1861), page 301, and of numerous papers on zoological and palaeozoological subjects.) always attacked me in a proper spirit, and sent me two or three little brochures, and I thanked him cordially. The Germans seem much stirred up on the subject. I received by the same post almost a little volume on the "Origin."

I cannot work above a couple of hours daily, and this plays the deuce with me.

P.S. 2nd.—I have worked like a slave and been baffled like a slave in trying to make out the meaning of two very different sets of stamens in some Melastomaceae. (155/9. Several letters on the Melastomaceae occur in our Botanical section.) I must tell you one fact. I counted 9,000 seeds, one by one, from my artificially fertilised pods. There is something very odd, but I am as yet beaten. Plants from two pollens grow at different rates! Now, what I want to know is, whether in individuals of the same species, growing together, you have ever noticed any difference in the position of the pistil or in the size and colour of the stamens?

LETTER 156. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 18th [1862].

I have read Nos. IV, and V. (156/1. "On our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature," being six Lectures to Working Men delivered at the Museum of Practical Geology by Prof. Huxley, 1863. These lectures, which were given once a week from November 10th, 1862, onwards, were printed from the notes of Mr. J.A. Mays, a shorthand writer, who asked permission to publish them on his own account; Mr. Huxley stating in a prefatory "Notice" that he had no leisure to revise the lectures.) They are simply perfect. They ought to be largely advertised; but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down No. IV. with this reflection, "What is the good of writing a thundering big book, when everything is in this green little book, so despicable for its size?" In the name of all that is good and bad, I may as well shut up shop altogether. You put capitally and most simply and clearly the relation of animals and plants to each other at page 122.

Be careful about Fantails: their tail-feathers are fixed in a radiating position, but they can depress and elevate them. I remember in a pigeon-book seeing withering contempt expressed at some naturalist for not knowing this important point! Page 111 (156/2. The reference is to the original little green paper books in which the lectures first appeared; the paging in the bound volume dated 1863 is slightly different. The passage here is, "...If you couple a male and female hybrid...the result is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will get no offspring at all." Darwin maintains elsewhere that Huxley, from not knowing the botanical evidence, made too much of this point. See "Life and Letters," II., page 384.) seems a little too strong—viz., ninety-nine out of a hundred, unless you except plants.

Page 118: You say the answer to varieties when crossed being at all sterile is "absolutely a negative." (156/3. Huxley, page 112: "Can we find any approximation to this [sterility of hybrids] in the different races known to be produced by selective breeding from a common stock? Up to the present time the answer to that question is absolutely a negative one.") Do you mean to say that Gartner lied, after experiments by the hundred (and he a hostile witness), when he showed that this was the case with Verbascum and with maize (and here you have selected races): does Kolreuter lie when he speaks about the varieties of tobacco? My God, is not the case difficult enough, without its being, as I must think, falsely made more difficult? I believe it is my own fault—my d—d candour: I ought to have made ten times more fuss about these most careful experiments. I did put it stronger in the third edition of the "Origin." If you have a new edition, do consider your second geological section: I do not dispute the truth of your statement; but I maintain that in almost every case the gravel would graduate into the mud; that there would not be a hard, straight line between the mass of gravel and mud; that the gravel, in crawling inland, would be separated from the underlying beds by oblique lines of stratification. A nice idea of the difficulty of Geology your section would give to a working man! Do show your section to Ramsay, and tell him what I say; and if he thinks it a fair section for a beginner I am shut up, and "will for ever hold my tongue." Good-night.

LETTER 157. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, [January] 10th [1863].

You will be weary of notes from me about the little book of yours. It is lucky for me that I expressed, before reading No. VI. (157/1. "Lectures to Working Men," No. VI., is a critical examination of the position of the "Origin of Species" in relation to the complete theory of the "causes of the phenomena of organic nature."), my opinion of its absolute excellence, and of its being well worth wide distribution and worth correction (not that I see where you could improve), if you thought it worth your valuable time. Had I read No. VI., even a rudiment of modesty would, or ought to, have stopped me saying so much. Though I have been well abused, yet I have had so much praise, that I have become a gourmand, both as to capacity and taste; and I really did not think that mortal man could have tickled my palate in the exquisite manner with which you have done the job. So I am an old ass, and nothing more need be said about this. I agree entirely with all your reservations about accepting the doctrine, and you might have gone further with further safety and truth. Of course I do not wholly agree about sterility. I hate beyond all things finding myself in disagreement with any capable judge, when the premises are the same; and yet this will occasionally happen. Thinking over my former letter to you, I fancied (but I now doubt) that I had partly found out the cause of our disagreement, and I attributed it to your naturally thinking most about animals, with which the sterility of the hybrids is much more conspicuous than the lessened fertility of the first cross. Indeed, this could hardly be ascertained with mammals, except by comparing the products of [their] whole life; and, as far as I know, this has only been ascertained in the case of the horse and ass, which do produce fewer offspring in [their] lifetime than in pure breeding. In plants the test of first cross seems as fair as test of sterility of hybrids. And this latter test applies, I will maintain to the death, to the crossing of varieties of Verbascum, and varieties, selected varieties, of Zea. (157/2. See Letter 156.) You will say Go to the Devil and hold your tongue. No, I will not hold my tongue; for I must add that after going, for my present book, all through domestic animals, I have come to the conclusion that there are almost certainly several cases of two or three or more species blended together and now perfectly fertile together. Hence I conclude that there must be something in domestication,—perhaps the less stable conditions, the very cause which induces so much variability,—which eliminates the natural sterility of species when crossed. If so, we can see how unlikely that sterility should arise between domestic races. Now I will hold my tongue. Page 143: ought not "Sanscrit" to be "Aryan"? What a capital number the last "Natural History Review" is! That is a grand paper by Falconer. I cannot say how indignant Owen's conduct about E. Columbi has made me. I believe I hate him more than you do, even perhaps more than good old Falconer does. But I have bubbled over to one or two correspondents on this head, and will say no more. I have sent Lubbock a little review of Bates' paper in "Linn. Transact." (157/3. The unsigned review of Mr. Bates' work on mimetic butterflies appeared in the "Nat. Hist. Review" (1863), page 219.) which L. seems to think will do for your "Review." Do inaugurate a great improvement, and have pages cut, like the Yankees do; I will heap blessings on your head. Do not waste your time in answering this.