CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, November 24th [1860].
My dear Lyell,
I thank you much for your letter. I had got to take pleasure in thinking how I could best snub my reviewers; but I was determined, in any case, to follow your advice, and, before I had got to the end of your letter, I was convinced of the wisdom of your advice. ("I get on slowly with my new edition. I find that your advice was EXCELLENT. I can answer all reviews, without any direct notice of them, by a little enlargement here and there, with here and there a new paragraph. Bronn alone I shall treat with the respect of giving his objections with his name. I think I shall improve my book a good deal, and add only some twenty pages." — From a letter to Lyell, December 4th, 1860.) What an advantage it is to me to have such friends as you. I shall follow every hint in your letter exactly.
I have just heard from Murray; he says he sold 700 copies at his sale, and that he has not half the number to supply; so that I must begin at once (On the third edition of the 'Origin of Species,' published in April 1861.)...
P.S. — I must tell you one little fact which has pleased me. You may remember that I adduce electrical organs of fish as one of the greatest difficulties which have occurred to me, and — notices the passage in a singularly disingenuous spirit. Well, McDonnell, of Dublin (a first-rate man), writes to me that he felt the difficulty of the whole case as overwhelming against me. Not only are the fishes which have electric organs very remote in scale, but the organ is near the head in some, and near the tail in others, and supplied by wholly different nerves. It seems impossible that there could be any transition. Some friend, who is much opposed to me, seems to have crowed over McDonnell, who reports that he said to himself, that if Darwin is right, there must be homologous organs both near the head and tail in other non-electric fish. He set to work, and, by Jove, he has found them! ('On an organ in the Skate, which appears to be the homologue of the electrical organ of the Torpedo,' by R. McDonnell, 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1861, page 57.) so that some of the difficulty is removed; and is it not satisfactory that my hypothetical notions should have led to pretty discoveries? McDonnell seems very cautious; he says, years must pass before he will venture to call himself a believer in my doctrine, but that on the subjects which he knows well, viz., Morphology and Embryology, my views accord well, and throw light on the whole subject.
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, November 26th, 1860.
My dear Gray,
I have to thank you for two letters. The latter with corrections, written before you received my letter asking for an American reprint, and saying that it was hopeless to print your reviews as a pamphlet, owing to the impossibility of getting pamphlets known. I am very glad to say that the August or second 'Atlantic' article has been reprinted in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History'; but I have not seen it there. Yesterday I read over with care the third article; and it seems to me, as before, ADMIRABLE. But I grieve to say that I cannot honestly go as far as you do about Design. I am conscious that I am in an utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; and yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of Design. To take a crucial example, you lead me to infer (page 414) that you believe "that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines." I cannot believe this; and I think you would have to believe, that the tail of the Fantail was led to vary in the number and direction of its feathers in order to gratify the caprice of a few men. Yet if the Fantail had been a wild bird, and had used its abnormal tail for some special end, as to sail before the wind, unlike other birds, every one would have said, "What a beautiful and designed adaptation." Again, I say I am, and shall ever remain, in a hopeless muddle.
Thank you much for Bowen's 4to. review. ('Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,' vol. viii.) The coolness with which he makes all animals to be destitute of reason is simply absurd. It is monstrous at page 103, that he should argue against the possibility of accumulative variation, and actually leave out, entirely, selection! The chance that an improved Short-horn, or improved Pouter-pigeon, should be produced by accumulative variation without man's selection is as almost infinity to nothing; so with natural species without natural selection. How capitally in the 'Atlantic' you show that Geology and Astronomy are, according to Bowen, Metaphysics; but he leaves out this in the 4to. Memoir.
I have not much to tell you about my Book. I have just heard that Du Boi-Reymond agrees with me. The sale of my book goes on well, and the multitude of reviews has not stopped the sale...; so I must begin at once on a new corrected edition. I will send you a copy for the chance of your ever re-reading; but, good Heavens, how sick you must be of it!
CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 2nd [1860].
... I have got fairly sick of hostile reviews. Nevertheless, they have been of use in showing me when to expatiate a little and to introduce a few new discussions. OF COURSE I will send you a copy of the new edition.
I entirely agree with you, that the difficulties on my notions are terrific, yet having seen what all the Reviews have said against me, I have far more confidence in the GENERAL truth of the doctrine than I formerly had. Another thing gives me confidence, viz. that some who went half an inch with me now go further, and some who were bitterly opposed are now less bitterly opposed. And this makes me feel a little disappointed that you are not inclined to think the general view in some slight degree more probable than you did at first. This I consider rather ominous. Otherwise I should be more contented with your degree of belief. I can pretty plainly see that, if my view is ever to be generally adopted, it will be by young men growing up and replacing the old workers, and then young ones finding that they can group facts and search out new lines of investigation better on the notion of descent, than on that of creation. But forgive me for running on so egotistically. Living so solitary as I do, one gets to think in a silly manner of one's own work.
Ever yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, December 11th [1860].
... I heard from A. Gray this morning; at my suggestion he is going to reprint the three 'Atlantic' articles as a pamphlet, and send 250 copies to England, for which I intend to pay half the cost of the whole edition, and shall give away, and try to sell by getting a few advertisements put in, and if possible notices in Periodicals.
... David Forbes has been carefully working the Geology of Chile, and as I value praise for accurate observation far higher than for any other quality, forgive (if you can) the INSUFFERABLE vanity of my copying the last sentence in his note: "I regard your Monograph on Chile as, without exception, one of the finest specimens of Geological enquiry." I feel inclined to strut like a Turkey-cock!
CHAPTER 2.III. — SPREAD OF EVOLUTION
1861-1862
[The beginning of the year 1861 saw my father with the third chapter of 'The Variation of Animals and Plants' still on his hands. It had been begun in the previous August, and was not finished until March 1861. He was, however, for part of this time (I believe during December 1860 and January 1861) engaged in a new edition (2000 copies) of the 'Origin,' which was largely corrected and added to, and was published in April 1861.
With regard to this, the third edition, he wrote to Mr. Murray in December 1860: —
"I shall be glad to hear when you have decided how many copies you will print off — the more the better for me in all ways, as far as compatible with safety; for I hope never again to make so many corrections, or rather additions, which I have made in hopes of making my many rather stupid reviewers at least understand what is meant. I hope and think I shall improve the book considerably."
An interesting feature in the new edition was the "Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species" (The Historical Sketch had already appeared in the first German edition (1860) and the American edition. Bronn states in the German edition (footnote, page 1) that it was his critique in the 'N. Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie' that suggested the idea of such a sketch to my father.) which now appeared for the first time, and was continued in the later editions of the work. It bears a strong impress of the author's personal character in the obvious wish to do full justice to all his predecessors, — though even in this respect it has not escaped some adverse criticism.
Towards the end of the present year (1861), the final arrangements for the first French edition of the 'Origin' were completed, and in September a copy of the third English edition was despatched to Mdlle. Clemence Royer, who undertook the work of translation. The book was now spreading on the Continent, a Dutch edition had appeared, and, as we have seen, a German translation had been published in 1860. In a letter to Mr. Murray (September 10, 1861), he wrote, "My book seems exciting much attention in Germany, judging from the number of discussions sent me." The silence had been broken, and in a few years the voice of German science was to become one of the strongest of the advocates of evolution.
During all the early part of the year (1861) he was working at the mass of details which are marshalled in order in the early chapter of 'Animals and Plants.' Thus in his Diary occur the laconic entries, "May 16, Finished Fowls (eight weeks); May 31, Ducks."
On July 1, he started, with his family, for Torquay, where he remained until August 27 — a holiday which he characteristically enters in his diary as "eight weeks and a day." The house he occupied was in Hesketh Crescent, a pleasantly placed row of houses close above the sea, somewhat removed from what was then the main body of the town, and not far from the beautiful cliffed coast-line in the neighbourhood of Anstey's Cove.
During the Torquay holiday, and for the remainder of the year, he worked at the fertilisation of orchids. This part of the year 1861 is not dealt with in the present chapter, because (as explained in the preface) the record of his life, as told in his letters, seems to become clearer when the whole of his botanical work is placed together and treated separately. The present series of chapters will, therefore, include only the progress of his works in the direction of a general amplification of the 'Origin of Species' — e.g., the publication of 'Animals and Plants,' 'Descent of Man,' etc.]
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 15 [1861].
My dear Hooker,
The sight of your handwriting always rejoices the very cockles of my heart...
I most fully agree to what you say about Huxley's Article ('Natural History Review,' 1861, page 67, "On the Zoological Relations of Man with the Lower Animals." This memoir had its origin in a discussion at the previous meeting of the British Association, when Professor Huxley felt himself "compelled to give a diametrical contradiction to certain assertions respecting the differences which obtain between the brains of the higher apes and of man, which fell from Professor Owen." But in order that his criticisms might refer to deliberately recorded words, he bases them on Professor Owen's paper, "On the Characters, etc., of the Class Mammalia," read before the Linnean Society in February and April, 1857, in which he proposed to place man not only in a distinct order, but in "a distinct su-class of the Mammalia" — the Archencephala.), and the power of writing... The whole review seems to me excellent. How capitally Oliver has done the resume of botanical books. Good Heavens, how he must have read!..
I quite agree that Phillips ('Life on the Earth' (1860), by Prof. Phillips, containing the substance of the Rede Lecture (May 1860).) is unreadably dull. You need not attempt Bree. (The following sentence (page 16) from 'Species not Transmutable,' by Dr. Bree, illustrates the degree in which he understood the 'Origin of Species': "The only real difference between Mr. Darwin and his two predecessors" [Lamarck and the 'Vestiges'] "is this: — that while the latter have each given a mode by which they conceive the great changes they believe in have been brought about, Mr. Darwin does no such thing." After this we need not be surprised at a passage in the preface: "No one has derived greater pleasure than I have in past days from the study of Mr. Darwin's other works, and no one has felt a greater degree of regret that he should have imperilled his fame by the publication of his treatise upon the 'Origin of Species.'")...
If you come across Dr. Freke on 'Origin of Species by means of Organic Affinity,' read a page here and there... He tells the reader to observe [that his result] has been arrived at by "induction," whereas all my results are arrived at only by "analogy." I see a Mr. Neale has read a paper before the Zoological Society on 'Typical Selection;' what it means I know not. I have not read H. Spencer, for I find that I must more and more husband the very little strength which I have. I sometimes suspect I shall soon entirely fail... As soon as this dreadful weather gets a little milder, I must try a little water cure. Have you read the 'Woman in White'? the plot is wonderfully interesting. I can recommend a book which has interested me greatly, viz. Olmsted's 'Journey in the Back Country.' It is an admirably lively picture of man and slavery in the Southern States...
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. February 2, 1861.
My dear Lyell,
I have thought you would like to read the enclosed passage in a letter from A. Gray (who is printing his reviews as a pamphlet ("Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology," from the 'Atlantic Monthly' for July, August, and October, 1860; published by Trubner.), and will send copies to England), as I think his account is really favourable in high degree to us: —
"I wish I had time to write you an account of the lengths to which Bowen and Agassiz, each in their own way, are going. The first denying all heredity (all transmission except specific) whatever. The second coming near to deny that we are genetically descended from our great-grea-grandfathers; and insisting that evidently affiliated languages, e.g. Latin, Greek, Sanscrit, owe none of their similarities to a community of origin, are all autochthonal; Agassiz admits that the derivation of languages, and that of species or forms, stand on the same foundation, and that he must allow the latter if he allows the former, which I tell him is perfectly logical."
Is not this marvellous?
Ever yours, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 4 [1861].
My dear Hooker,
I was delighted to get your long chatty letter, and to hear that you are thawing towards science. I almost wish you had remained frozen rather longer; but do not thaw too quickly and strongly. No one can work long as you used to do. Be idle; but I am a pretty man to preach, for I cannot be idle, much as I wish it, and am never comfortable except when at work. The word holiday is written in a dead language for me, and much I grieve at it. We thank you sincerely for your kind sympathy about poor H. [his daughter]... She has now come up to her old point, and can sometimes get up for an hour or two twice a day... Never to look to the future or as little as possible is becoming our rule of life. What a different thing life was in youth with no dread in the future; all golden, if baseless, hopes.
... With respect to the 'Natural History Review' I can hardly think that ladies would be so very sensitive about "lizards' guts;" but the publication is at present certainly a sort of hybrid, and original illustrated papers ought hardly to appear in a review. I doubt its ever paying; but I shall much regret if it dies. All that you say seems very sensible, but could a review in the strict sense of the word be filled with readable matter?
I have been doing little, except finishing the new edition of the 'Origin,' and crawling on most slowly with my volume of 'Variation under Domestication'...
[The following letter refers to Mr. Bates's paper, "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley," in the 'Transactions of the Entomological Society,' vol.5, N.S. (The paper was read November 24, 1860.) Mr. Bates points out that with the return, after the glacial period, of a warmer climate in the equatorial regions, the "species then living near the equator would retreat north and south to their former homes, leaving some of their congeners, slowly modified subsequently... to re-people the zone they had forsaken." In this case the species now living at the equator ought to show clear relationship to the species inhabiting the regions about the 25th parallel, whose distant relatives they would of course be. But this is not the case, and this is the difficulty my father refers to. Mr. Belt has offered an explanation in his 'Naturalist in Nicaragua' (1874), page 266. "I believe the answer is that there was much extermination during the glacial period, that many species (and some genera, etc., as, for instance, the American horse), did not survive it... but that a refuge was found for many species on lands now below the ocean, that were uncovered by the lowering of the sea, caused by the immense quantity of water that was locked up in frozen masses on the land."]
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 27th [March 1861].
My dear Hooker,
I had intended to have sent you Bates's article this very day. I am so glad you like it. I have been extremely much struck with it. How well he argues, and with what crushing force against the glacial doctrine. I cannot wriggle out of it: I am dumbfounded; yet I do believe that some explanation some day will appear, and I cannot give up equatorial cooling. It explains so much and harmonises with so much. When you write (and much interested I shall be in your letter) please say how far floras are generally uniform in generic character from 0 to 25 degrees N. and S.
Before reading Bates, I had become thoroughly dissatisfied with what I wrote to you. I hope you may get Bates to write in the 'Linnean.'
Here is a good joke: H.C. Watson (who, I fancy and hope, is going to review the new edition (third edition of 2000 copies, published in April, 1861.) of the 'Origin') says that in the first four paragraphs of the introduction, the words "I," "me," "my," occur forty-three times! I was dimly conscious of the accursed fact. He says it can be explained phrenologically, which I suppose civilly means, that I am the most egotistically self-sufficient man alive; perhaps so. I wonder whether he will print this pleasing fact; it beats hollow the parentheses in Wollaston's writing.
I am, MY dear Hooker, ever yours, C. DARWIN.
P.S. — Do not spread this pleasing joke; it is rather too biting.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [April] 23? [1861].
... I quite agree with what you say on Lieutenant Hutton's Review (In the 'Geologist,' 1861, page 132, by Lieutenant Frederick Wollaston Hutton, now Professor of Biology and Geology at Canterbury College, New Zealand.) (who he is I know not); it struck me as very original. He is one of the very few who see that the change of species cannot be directly proved, and that the doctrine must sink or swim according as it groups and explains phenomena. It is really curious how few judge it in this way, which is clearly the right way. I have been much interested by Bentham's paper ("On the Species and Genera of Plants, etc.," 'Natural History Review,' 1861, page 133.) in the N.H.R., but it would not, of course, from familiarity strike you as it did me. I liked the whole; all the facts on the nature of close and varying species. Good Heavens! to think of the British botanists turning up their noses, and saying that he knows nothing of British plants! I was also pleased at his remarks on classification, because it showed me that I wrote truly on this subject in the 'Origin.' I saw Bentham at the Linnean Society, and had some talk with him and Lubbock, and Edgeworth, Wallich, and several others. I asked Bentham to give us his ideas of species; whether partially with us or dead against us, he would write EXCELLENT matter. He made no answer, but his manner made me think he might do so if urged; so do you attack him. Every one was speaking with affection and anxiety of Henslow. (Prof. Henslow was in his last illness.) I dined with Bell at the Linnean Club, and liked my dinner... Dining out is such a novelty to me that I enjoyed it. Bell has a real good heart. I liked Rolleston's paper, but I never read anything so obscure and not sel-evident as his 'Canons.' (George Rolleston, M.D., F.R.S., 1829-1881. Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Oxford. A man of much learning, who left but few published works, among which may be mentioned his handbook 'Forms of Animal Life.' For the 'Canons,' see 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1861, page 206.)... I called on R. Chambers, at his very nice house in St. John's Wood, and had a very pleasant half-hour's talk; he is really a capital fellow. He made one good remark and chuckled over it, that the laymen universally had treated the controversy on the 'Essays and Reviews' as a merely professional subject, and had not joined in it, but had left it to the clergy. I shall be anxious for your next letter about Henslow. (Sir Joseph Hooker was Prof. Henslow's son-in-law.) Farewell, with sincere sympathy, my old friend,
C. DARWIN.
P.S. — We are very much obliged for the 'London Review.' We like reading much of it, and the science is incomparably better than in the "Athenaeum". You shall not go on very long sending it, as you will be ruined by pennies and trouble, but I am under a horrid spell to the "Athenaeum" and the "Gardener's Chronicle", but I have taken them in for so many years, that I CANNOT give them up.
[The next letter refers to Lyell's visit to the Biddenham gravel-pits near Bedford in April 1861. The visit was made at the invitation of Mr. James Wyatt, who had recently discovered two stone implements "at the depth of thirteen feet from the surface of the soil," resting "immediately on solid beds of oolitic-limestone." ('Antiquity of Man,' fourth edition, page 214.) Here, says Sir C. Lyell, "I... for the first time, saw evidence which satisfied me of the chronological relations of those three phenomena — the antique tools, the extinct mammalia, and the glacial formation."]
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, April 12 [1861].
My dear Lyell,
I have been most deeply interested by your letter. You seem to have done the grandest work, and made the greatest step, of any one with respect to man.
It is an especial relief to hear that you think the French superficial deposits are deltoid and semi-marine; but two days ago I was saying to a friend, that the unknown manner of the accumulation of these deposits, seemed the great blot in all the work done. I could not stomach debacles or lacustrine beds. It is grand. I remember Falconer told me that he thought some of the remains in the Devonshire caverns were pre-glacial, and this, I presume, is now your conclusion for the older celts with hyena and hippopotamus. It is grand. What a fine long pedigree you have given the human race!
I am sure I never thought of parallel roads having been accumulated during subsidence. I think I see some difficulties on this view, though, at first reading your note, I jumped at the idea. But I will think over all I saw there. I am (stomacho volente) coming up to London on Tuesday to work on cocks and hens, and on Wednesday morning, about a quarter before ten, I will call on you (unless I hear to the contrary), for I long to see you. I congratulate you on your grand work.
Ever yours, C. DARWIN.
P.S. — Tell Lady Lyell that I was unable to digest the funereal ceremonies of the ants, notwithstanding that Erasmus has often told me that I should find some day that they have their bishops. After a battle I have always seen the ants carry away the dead for food. Ants display the utmost economy, and always carry away a dead fellow-creature as food. But I have just forwarded two most extraordinary letters to Busk, from a backwoodsman in Texas, who has evidently watched ants carefully, and declares most positively that they plant and cultivate a kind of grass for store food, and plant other bushes for shelter! I do not know what to think, except that the old gentleman is not fibbing intentionally. I have left the responsibility with Busk whether or no to read the letters. (I.e. to read them before the Linnean Society.)
CHARLES DARWIN TO THOMAS DAVIDSON. (Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., born in Edinburgh, May 17, 1817; died 1885. His researches were chiefly connected with the sciences of geology and palaeontology, and were directed especially to the elucidation of the characters, classification, history, geological and geographical distribution of recent and fossil Brachiopoda. On this subject he brought out an important work, 'British Fossil Brachiopoda,' 5 vols. 4to. (Cooper, 'Men of the Time,' 1884.)) Down, April 26, 1861.
My dear Sir,
I hope that you will excuse me for venturing to make a suggestion to you which I am perfectly well aware it is a very remote chance that you would adopt. I do not know whether you have read my 'Origin of Species'; in that book I have made the remark, which I apprehend will be universally admitted, that AS A WHOLE, the fauna of any formation is intermediate in character between that of the formations above and below. But several really good judges have remarked to me how desirable it would be that this should be exemplified and worked out in some detail and with some single group of beings. Now every one will admit that no one in the world could do this better than you with Brachiopods. The result might turn out very unfavourable to the views which I hold; if so, so much the better for those who are opposed to me. ("Mr. Davidson is not at all a full believer in great changes of species, which will make his work all the more valuable. — C. Darwin to R. Chambers (April 30, 1861).) But I am inclined to suspect that on the whole it would be favourable to the notion of descent with modification; for about a year ago, Mr. Salter (John William Salter; 1820- 1869. He entered the service of the Geological Survey in 1846, and ultimately became its Palaeontologist, on the retirement of Edward Forbes, and gave up the office in 1863. He was associated with several well-known naturalists in their work — with Sedgwick, Murchison, Lyell, Ramsay, and Huxley. There are sixty entries under his name in the Royal Society Catalogue. The above facts are taken from an obituary notice of Mr. Salter in the 'Geological Magazine,' 1869.) in the Museum in Jermyn Street, glued on a board some Spirifers, etc., from three palaeozoic stages, and arranged them in single and branching lines, with horizontal lines marking the formations (like the diagram in my book, if you know it), and the result seemed to me very striking, though I was too ignorant fully to appreciate the lines of affinities. I longed to have had these shells engraved, as arranged by Mr. Salter, and connected by dotted lines, and would have gladly paid the expense: but I could not persuade Mr. Salter to publish a little paper on the subject. I can hardly doubt that many curious points would occur to any one thoroughly instructed in the subject, who would consider a group of beings under this point of view of descent with modification. All those forms which have come down from an ancient period very slightly modified ought, I think, to be omitted, and those forms alone considered which have undergone considerable change at each successive epoch. My fear is whether brachiopods have changed enough. The absolute amount of difference of the forms in such groups at the opposite extremes of time ought to be considered, and how far the early forms are intermediate in character between those which appeared much later in time. The antiquity of a group is not really diminished, as some seem vaguely to think, because it has transmitted to the present day closely allied forms. Another point is how far the succession of each genus is unbroken, from the first time it appeared to its extinction, with due allowance made for formations poor in fossils. I cannot but think that an important essay (far more important than a hundred literary reviews) might be written by one like yourself, and without very great labour. I know it is highly probable that you may not have leisure, or not care for, or dislike the subject, but I trust to your kindness to forgive me for making this suggestion. If by any extraordinary good fortune you were inclined to take up this notion, I would ask you to read my Chapter X. on Geological Succession. And I should like in this case to be permitted to send you a copy of the new edition, just published, in which I have added and corrected somewhat in Chapters IX. and X.
Pray excuse this long letter, and believe me, My dear Sir, yours very faithfully, C. DARWIN.
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