Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter Part 27

_C. D. to A. R. Wallace._ Ilkley, November 13th, 1859.

MY DEAR SIR,--I have told Murray to send you by post (if possible) a copy of my book, and I hope that you will receive it at nearly the same time with this note. (N.B. I have got a bad finger, which makes me write extra badly.) If you are so inclined, I should very much like to hear your general impression of the book, as you have thought so profoundly on the subject, and in so nearly the same channel with myself. I hope there will be some little new to you, but I fear not much. Remember it is only an abstract, and very much condensed. G.o.d knows what the public will think. No one has read it, except Lyell, with whom I have had much correspondence. Hooker thinks him a complete convert, but he does not seem so in his letters to me; but is evidently deeply interested in the subject. I do not think your share in the theory will be overlooked by the real judges, as Hooker, Lyell, Asa Gray, &c. I have heard from Mr.

Sclater that your paper on the Malay Archipelago has been read at the Linnean Society, and that he was _extremely_ much interested by it.

I have not seen one naturalist for six or nine months, owing to the state of my health, and therefore I really have no news to tell you. I am writing this at Ilkley Wells, where I have been with my family for the last six weeks, and shall stay for some few weeks longer. As yet I have profited very little. G.o.d knows when I shall have strength for my bigger book.

I sincerely hope that you keep your health; I suppose that you will be thinking of returning[166] soon with your magnificent collections, and still grander mental materials. You will be puzzled how to publish. The Royal Society fund will be worth your consideration. With every good wish, pray believe me,

Yours very sincerely.

P.S.--I think that I told you before that Hooker is a complete convert.

If I can convert Huxley I shall be content.

_C. Darwin to W. B. Carpenter._ November 19th [1859].

... If, after reading my book, you are able to come to a conclusion in any degree definite, will you think me very unreasonable in asking you to let me hear from you? I do not ask for a long discussion, but merely for a brief idea of your general impression. From your widely extended knowledge, habit of investigating the truth, and abilities, I should value your opinion in the very highest rank. Though I, of course, believe in the truth of my own doctrine, I suspect that no belief is vivid until shared by others. As yet I know only one believer, but I look at him as of the greatest authority, viz. Hooker. When I think of the many cases of men who have studied one subject for years, and have persuaded themselves of the truth of the foolishest doctrines, I feel sometimes a little frightened, whether I may not be one of these monomaniacs.

Again pray excuse this, I fear, unreasonable request. A short note would suffice, and I could bear a hostile verdict, and shall have to bear many a one.

Yours very sincerely.

_C. D. to J. D. Hooker._ Ilkley, Yorkshire. [November, 1859.]

MY DEAR HOOKER,--I have just read a review on my book in the _Athenaeum_[167] and it excites my curiosity much who is the author. If you should hear who writes in the _Athenaeum_ I wish you would tell me.

It seems to me well done, but the reviewer gives no new objections, and, being hostile, pa.s.ses over every single argument in favour of the doctrine.... I fear, from the tone of the review, that I have written in a conceited and c.o.c.ksure style,[168] which shames me a little. There is another review of which I should like to know the author, viz. of H. C.

Watson in the _Gardeners' Chronicle_.[169] Some of the remarks are like yours, and he does deserve punishment; but surely the review is too severe. Don't you think so?...

I have heard from Carpenter, who, I think, is likely to be a convert.

Also from Quatref.a.ges, who is inclined to go a long way with us. He says that he exhibited in his lecture a diagram closely like mine!

_J. D. Hooker to C. Darwin._ Monday [Nov. 21, 1859].

MY DEAR DARWIN,--I am a sinner not to have written you ere this, if only to thank you for your glorious book--what a ma.s.s of close reasoning on curious facts and fresh phenomena--it is capitally written, and will be very successful. I say this on the strength of two or three plunges into as many chapters, for I have not yet attempted to read it. Lyell, with whom we are staying, is perfectly enchanted, and is absolutely gloating over it. I must accept your compliment to me, and acknowledgment of supposed a.s.sistance[170] from me, as the warm tribute of affection from an honest (though deluded) man, and furthermore accept it as very pleasing to my vanity; but, my dear fellow, neither my name nor my judgment nor my a.s.sistance deserved any such compliments, and if I am dishonest enough to be pleased with what I don't deserve, it must just pa.s.s. How different the _book_ reads from the MS. I see I shall have much to talk over with you. Those lazy printers have not finished my luckless Essay: which, beside your book, will look like a ragged handkerchief beside a Royal Standard....

_C. D. to J. D. Hooker._ [November, 1859.]

MY DEAR HOOKER,--I cannot help it, I must thank you for your affectionate and most kind note. My head will be turned. By Jove, I must try and get a bit modest. I was a little chagrined by the review.[171] I hope it was _not_ ----. As advocate, he might think himself justified in giving the argument only on one side. But the manner in which he drags in immortality, and sets the priests at me, and leaves me to their mercies, is base. He would, on no account, burn me, but he will get the wood ready, and tell the black beasts how to catch me.... It would be unspeakably grand if Huxley were to lecture on the subject, but I can see this is a mere chance; Faraday might think it too unorthodox.

... I had a letter from [Huxley] with such tremendous praise of my book, that modesty (as I am trying to cultivate that difficult herb) prevents me sending it to you, which I should have liked to have done, as he is very modest about himself.

You have c.o.c.kered me up to that extent, that I now feel I can face a score of savage reviewers. I suppose you are still with the Lyells. Give my kindest remembrance to them. I triumph to hear that he continues to approve.

Believe me, your would-be modest friend.

The following pa.s.sage from a letter to Lyell shows how strongly he felt on the subject of Lyell's adherence:--"I rejoice profoundly that you intend admitting the doctrine of modification in your new edition;[172]

nothing, I am convinced, could be more important for its success. I honour you most sincerely. To have maintained in the position of a master, one side of a question for thirty years, and then deliberately give it up, is a fact to which I much doubt whether the records of science offer a parallel. For myself, also I rejoice profoundly; for, thinking of so many cases of men pursuing an illusion for years, often and often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted my life to a phantasy. Now I look at it as morally impossible that investigators of truth, like you and Hooker, can be wholly wrong, and therefore I rest in peace."

_T. H. Huxley[173] to C. Darwin._ Jermyn Street, W. November 23rd, 1859.

MY DEAR DARWIN,--I finished your book yesterday, a lucky examination having furnished me with a few hours of continuous leisure.

Since I read Von Bar's[174] essays, nine years ago, no work on Natural History Science I have met with has made so great an impression upon me, and I do most heartily thank you for the great store of new views you have given me. Nothing, I think, can be better than the tone of the book, it impresses those who know nothing about the subject. As for your doctrine, I am prepared to go to the stake, if requisite, in support of Chapter IX.,[175] and most parts of Chapters X., XI., XII.; and Chapter XIII. contains much that is most admirable, but on one or two points I enter a _caveat_ until I can see further into all sides of the question.

As to the first four chapters, I agree thoroughly and fully with all the principles laid down in them. I think you have demonstrated a true cause for the production of species, and have thrown the _onus probandi_, that species did not arise in the way you suppose, on your adversaries.

But I feel that I have not yet by any means fully realized the bearings of those most remarkable and original Chapters III., IV. and V., and I will write no more about them just now.

The only objections that have occurred to me are, 1st that you have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting _Natura non facit saltum_ so unreservedly.... And 2nd, it is not clear to me why, if continual physical conditions are of so little moment as you suppose, variation should occur at all.

However, I must read the book two or three times more before I presume to begin picking holes.

I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse and misrepresentation which, unless I greatly mistake, is in store for you. Depend upon it you have earned the lasting grat.i.tude of all thoughtful men. And as to the curs which will bark and yelp, you must recollect that some of your friends, at any rate, are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often and justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead.

I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness.

Looking back over my letter, it really expresses so feebly all I think about you and your n.o.ble book that I am half ashamed of it; but you will understand that, like the parrot in the story, "I think the more."

Ever yours faithfully.

_C. D. to T. H. Huxley._ Ilkley, Nov. 25 [1859].

MY DEAR HUXLEY,--Your letter has been forwarded to me from Down. Like a good Catholic who has received extreme unction, I can now sing "nunc dimittis." I should have been more than contented with one quarter of what you have said. Exactly fifteen months ago, when I put pen to paper for this volume, I had awful misgivings; and thought perhaps I had deluded myself, like so many have done, and I then fixed in my mind three judges, on whose decision I determined mentally to abide. The judges were Lyell, Hooker, and yourself. It was this which made me so excessively anxious for your verdict. I am now contented, and can sing my "nunc dimittis." What a joke it would be if I pat you on the back when you attack some immovable creationists! You have most cleverly hit on one point, which has greatly troubled me; if, as I must think, external conditions produce little _direct_ effect, what the devil determines each particular variation? What makes a tuft of feathers come on a c.o.c.k's head, or moss on a moss-rose? I shall much like to talk over this with you....

My dear Huxley, I thank you cordially for your letter.

Yours very sincerely.

_Erasmus Darwin[176] to C. Darwin._ November 23rd [1859].

DEAR CHARLES,--I am so much weaker in the head, that I hardly know if I can write, but at all events I will jot down a few things that the Dr.[177] has said. He has not read much above half, so, as he says, he can give no definite conclusion, and keeps stating that he is not tied down to either view, and that he has always left an escape by the way he has spoken of varieties. I happened to speak of the eye before he had read that part, and it took away his breath--utterly impossible--structure--function, &c., &c., &c., but when he had read it he hummed and hawed, and perhaps it was partly conceivable, and then he fell back on the bones of the ear, which were beyond all probability or conceivability. He mentioned a slight blot, which I also observed, that in speaking of the slave-ants carrying one another, you change the species without giving notice first, and it makes one turn back....

... For myself I really think it is the most interesting book I ever read, and can only compare it to the first knowledge of chemistry, getting into a new world or rather behind the scenes. To me the geographical distribution, I mean the relation of islands to continents is the most convincing of the proofs, and the relation of the oldest forms to the existing species. I dare say I don't feel enough the absence of varieties, but then I don't in the least know if everything now living were fossilized whether the palaeontologists could distinguish them. In fact the _a priori_ reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling. My ague has left me in such a state of torpidity that I wish I had gone through the process of natural selection.

Yours affectionately.

_A. Sedgwick[178] to C. Darwin._ [November 1859.]

MY DEAR DARWIN,--I write to thank you for your work on the _Origin of Species_. It came, I think, in the latter part of last week; but it may have come a few days sooner, and been overlooked among my book-parcels, which often remain unopened when I am lazy or busy with any work before me. So soon as I opened it I began to read it, and I finished it, after many interruptions, on Tuesday. Yesterday I was employed--1st, in preparing for my lecture; 2ndly, in attending a meeting of my brother Fellows to discuss the final propositions of the Parliamentary Commissioners; 3rdly, in lecturing; 4thly, in hearing the conclusion of the discussion and the College reply, whereby, in conformity with my own wishes, we accepted the scheme of the Commissioners; 5thly, in dining with an old friend at Clare College; 6thly, in adjourning to the weekly meeting of the Ray Club, from which I returned at 10 P.M., dog-tired, and hardly able to climb my staircase. Lastly, in looking through the _Times_ to see what was going on in the busy world.