More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I

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What you say about lowness of brackish-water plants interests me. I
remember that they are apt to be social (i.e. many individuals in
comparison to specific forms), and I should be tempted to look at this as a
case of a very small area, and consequently of very few individuals in
comparison with those on the land or in pure fresh-water; and hence less
development (odious word!) than on land or fresh-water. But here comes in
your two-edged sword! I should like much to see any paper on plants of
brackish water or on the edge of the sea; but I suppose such has never been
published.

Thanks about Nelumbium, for I think this was the very plant which from the
size of seed astonished me, and which A. De Candolle adduced as a
marvellous case of almost impossible transport. I now find to my surprise
that herons do feed sometimes on [illegible] fruit; and grebes on seeds of
Compositae.

Many thanks for offer of help about a grant for the Abstract; but I should
hope it would sell enough to pay expenses.

I am reading your letter and scribbling as I go on.

Your oak and chestnut case seems very curious; is it not the more so as
beeches have gone to, or come from the south? But I vehemently protest
against you or any one making such cases especial marvels, without you are
prepared to say why each species in any flora is twice or thrice, etc.,
rarer than each other species which grows in the same soil. The more I
think, the more evident is it to me how utterly ignorant we are of the
thousand contingencies on which range, frequency, and extinction of each
species depend.

I have sometimes thought, from Edentata (70/5. No doubt a slip of the pen
for Monotremata.) and Marsupialia, that Australia retains a remnant of the
former and ancient state of the fauna of the world, and I suppose that you
are coming to some such conclusion for plants; but is not the relation
between the Cape and Australia too special for such views? I infer from
your writings that the relation is too special between Fuegia and Australia
to allow us to look at the resemblances in certain plants as the relics of
mundane resemblances. On the other hand, [have] not the Sandwich Islands
in the Northern Hemisphere some odd relations to Australia? When we are
dead and gone what a noble subject will be Geographical Distribution!

You may say what you like, but you will never convince me that I do not owe
you ten times as much as you can owe me. Farewell, my dear Hooker. I am
sorry to hear that you are both unwell with influenza. Do not bother
yourself in answering anything in this, except your general impression on
the battle between N. and S.

CHAPTER 1.III.--Evolution, 1859-1863.

LETTER 71. TO A.R. WALLACE.
Down, April 6th, 1859.

I this morning received your pleasant and friendly note of November 30th.
The first part of my MS. is in Murray's hands to see if he likes to publish
it. There is no preface, but a short introduction, which must be read by
every one who reads my book. The second paragraph in the introduction
(71/1. "Origin of Species," Edition I., 1859, pages 1 and 2.) I have had
copied verbatim from my foul copy, and you will, I hope, think that I have
fairly noticed your paper in the "Linn. Journal." (71/2. "On the Tendency
of Species to form Varieties, and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and
Species by Natural Means of Selection." By Charles Darwin and Alfred
Russell Wallace. Communicated by Sir Charles Lyell and J.D. Hooker.
"Journ. Linn. Soc." Volume III., page 45, 1859. (Read July 1st, 1858.))
You must remember that I am now publishing only an abstract, and I give no
references. I shall, of course, allude to your paper on distribution
(71/3. "On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species"
(A.R. Wallace). "Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XVI., page 184, 1855. The
law alluded to is thus stated by Wallace: "Every species has come into
existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely
allied species" (loc. cit., page 186).); and I have added that I know from
correspondence that your explanation of your law is the same as that which
I offer. You are right, that I came to the conclusion that selection was
the principle of change from the study of domesticated productions; and
then, reading Malthus, I saw at once how to apply this principle.
Geographical distribution and geological relations of extinct to recent
inhabitants of South America first led me to the subject: especially the
case of the Galapagos Islands. I hope to go to press in the early part of
next month. It will be a small volume of about five hundred pages or so.
I will of course send you a copy. I forget whether I told you that Hooker,
who is our best British botanist and perhaps the best in the world, is a
full convert, and is now going immediately to publish his confession of
faith; and I expect daily to see proof-sheets. (71/4. "The Flora of
Australia, etc., an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania." London
1859.) Huxley is changed, and believes in mutation of species: whether a
convert to us, I do not quite know. We shall live to see all the younger
men converts. My neighbour and an excellent naturalist, J. Lubbock, is an
enthusiastic convert. I see that you are doing great work in the
Archipelago; and most heartily do I sympathise with you. For God's sake
take care of your health. There have been few such noble labourers in the
cause of Natural Science as you are.

P.S. You cannot tell how I admire your spirit, in the manner in which you
have taken all that was done about publishing all our papers. I had
actually written a letter to you, stating that I would not publish anything
before you had published. I had not sent that letter to the post when I
received one from Lyell and Hooker, urging me to send some MS. to them, and
allow them to act as they thought fair and honestly to both of us; and I
did so.

(71/5. The following is the passage from the Introduction to the "Origin
of Species," referred to in the first paragraph of the above letter.)

"My work is now nearly finished; but as it will take me two or three years
more to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged
to publish this Abstract. I have more especially been induced to do this,
as Mr. Wallace, who is now studying the Natural History of the Malay
Archipelago, has arrived at almost exactly the same general conclusions
that I have on the origin of species. Last year he sent to me a memoir on
this subject, with a request that I would forward it to Sir Charles Lyell,
who sent it to the Linnean Society, and it is published in the third volume
of the Journal of that Society. Sir C. Lyell and Dr. Hooker, who both knew
of my work--the latter having read my sketch of 1844--honoured me by
thinking it advisable to publish, with Mr. Wallace's excellent memoir, some
brief extracts from my manuscripts."

LETTER 72. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, May 3rd, 1859.

With respect to reversion, I have been raking up vague recollections of
vague facts; and the impression on my mind is rather more in favour of
reversion than it was when you were here.

In my abstract (72/1. "The Origin of Species.") I give only a paragraph on
the general case of reversion, though I enter in detail on some cases of
reversion of a special character. I have not as yet put all my facts on
this subject in mass, so can come to no definite conclusion. But as single
characters may revert, I must say that I see no improbability in several
reverting. As I do not believe any well-founded experiments or facts are
known, each must form his opinion from vague generalities. I think you
confound two rather distinct considerations; a variation arises from any
cause, and reversion is not opposed to this, but solely to its inheritance.
Not but what I believe what we must call perhaps a dozen distinct laws are
all struggling against each other in every variation which ever arises. To
give my impression, if I were forced to bet whether or not, after a hundred
generations of growth in a poor sandy soil, a cauliflower and red cabbage
would or would not revert to the same form, I must say I would rather stake
my money that they would. But in such a case the conditions of life are
changed (and here comes the question of direct influence of condition), and
there is to be no selection, the comparatively sudden effect of man's
selection are left to the free play of reversion.

In short, I dare not come to any conclusion without comparing all facts
which I have collected, and I do not think there are many.

Please do not say to any one that I thought my book on species would be
fairly popular and have a fairly remunerative sale (which was the height of
my ambition), for if it prove a dead failure it would make me the more
ridiculous.

LETTER 73. TO W.H. MILLER.
Down, June 5th [1859].

I thank you much for your letter. Had I seen the interest of my remark I
would have made many more measurements, though I did make several. I
stated the facts merely to give the general reader an idea of the thickness
of the walls. (73/1. The walls of bees' cells: see Letter 173.)

Especially if I had seen that the fact had any general bearing, I should
have stated that as far as I could measure, the walls are by no means
perfectly of the same thickness. Also I should have stated that the chief
difference is when the thickness of walls of the upper part of the hexagon
and of the pyramidal basal plates are contrasted. Will you oblige me by
looking with a strong lens at the bit of comb, brushing off with a knife
the upper thickened edges, and then compare, by eye alone, the thickness of
the walls there with the thickness of the basal plates, as seen in any
cross section. I should very much like to hear whether, even in this way,
the difference is not perceptible. It is generally thus perceptible by
comparing the thickness of the walls of the hexagon (if not taken very
close to the angle) near to the basal plates, where the comparison by eye
is of course easier. Your letter actually turned me sick with panic; from
not seeing any great importance [in the] fact, till I looked at my notes, I
did not remember that I made several measurements. I have now repeated the
same measurements, roughly with the same general results, but the
difference, I think, is hardly double.

I should not have mentioned the thickness of the basal plates at all, had I
not thought it would give an unfair notion of the thickness of the walls to
state the lesser measurements alone.

LETTER 74. TO W.H. MILLER.
[1859]

I had no thought that you would measure the thickness of the walls of the
cells; but if you will, and allow me to give your measurements, it will be
an immense advantage. As it is no trouble, I send more specimens. If you
measure, please observe that I measured the thickness of the walls of the
hexagonal prisms not very near the base; but from your very interesting
remarks the lower part of the walls ought to be measured.

Thank you for the suggestion about how bees judge of angles and distances.
I will keep it in mind. It is a complete perplexity to me, and yet
certainly insects can rudely somehow judge of distance. There are special
difficulties on account of the gradation in size between the worker-scells
and the larger drone-cells. I am trying to test the case practically by
getting combs of different species, and of our own bee from different
climates. I have lately had some from the W. Indies of our common bee, but
the cells SEEM certainly to be larger; but they have not yet been carefully
measured. I will keep your suggestion in mind whenever I return to
experiments on living bees; but that will not be soon.

As you have been considering my little discussion in relation to Lord
Brougham (74/1. Lord Brougham's paper on "The Mathematical Structure of
Bees' Cells," read before the National Institute of France in May, 1858.),
and as I have been more vituperated for this part than for almost any
other, I should like just to tell you how I think the case stands. The
discussion viewed by itself is worth little more than the paper on which it
is printed, except in so far as it contains three or four certainly new
facts. But to those who are inclined to believe the general truth of the
conclusion that species and their instincts are slowly modified by what I
call Natural Selection, I think my discussion nearly removes a very great
difficulty. I believe in its truth chiefly from the existence of the
Melipona, which makes a comb so intermediate in structure between that of
the humble and hive-bee, and especially from the new and curious fact of
the bees making smooth cups or saucers when they excavated in a thick piece
of wax, which saucers stood so close that hexagons were built on their
intersecting edges. And, lastly, because when they excavated on a thin
slip of wax, the excavation on both sides of similar smooth basins was
stopped, and flat planes left between the nearly opposed basins. If my
view were wholly false these cases would, I think, never have occurred.
Sedgwick and Co. may abuse me to their hearts' content, but I shall as yet
continue to think that mine is a rational explanation (as far as it goes)
of their method of work.

LETTER 75. TO W.H. MILLER.
Down, December 1st [1859].

Some months ago you were so kind as to say you would measure the thickness
of the walls of the basal and side plates of the cell of the bee. Could
you find time to do so soon? Why I want it soon, is that I have lately
heard from Murray that he sold at his sale far more copies than he has of
the "Origin of Species," and that I must immediately prepare a new edition,
which I am now correcting. By the way, I hear from Murray that all the
attacks heaped on my book do not seem to have at all injured the sale,
which will make poor dear old Sedgwick groan. If the basal plates and
walls do differ considerably in thickness, as they certainly did in the one
or two cells which I measured without particular care (as I never thought
the point of any importance), will you tell me the bearing of the fact as
simply as you can, for the chance of one so stupid as I am in geometry
being able to understand?

Would the greater thickness of the basal plates and of the rim of the
hexagons be a good adaptation to carry the vertical weight of the cells
filled with honey and supporting clusters of living bees?

Will you endeavour to screw out time and grant me this favour?

P.S. If the result of your measurement of the thickness of the walls turns
out at all what I have asserted, would it not be worth while to write a
little bit of a paper on the subject of your former note; and "pluck" the
bees if they deserve this degradation? Many mathematicians seem to have
thought the subject worthy of attention. When the cells are full of honey
and hang vertically they have to support a great weight. Can the thicker
basal plates be a contrivance to give strength to the whole comb, with less
consumption of wax, than if all the sides of the hexagons were thickened?

This crude notion formerly crossed my mind; but of course it is beyond me
even to conjecture how the case would be.

A mathematician, Mr. Wright, has been writing on the geometry of bee-cells
in the United States in consequence of my book; but I can hardly understand
his paper. (75/1. Chauncey Wright, "Remarks on the Architecture of Bees"
("Amer. Acad. Proc." IV., 1857-60, page 432.)

LETTER 76. TO T.H. HUXLEY.

(76/1. The date of this letter is unfortunately doubtful, otherwise it
would prove that at an early date he was acquainted with Erasmus Darwin's
views on evolution, a fact which has not always been recognised. We can
hardly doubt that it was written in 1859, for at this time Mr. Huxley was
collecting facts about breeding for his lecture given at the Royal
Institution on February 10th, 1860, on "Species and Races and their
Origin." See "Life and Letters," II., page 281.)

Down [June?] 9 [1859?].

If on the 11th you have half an hour to spare, you might like to see a very
good show of pigeons, and the enclosed card will admit you.

The history of error is quite unimportant, but it is curious to observe how
exactly and accurately my grandfather (in "Zoonomia," Volume I., page 504,
1794) gives Lamarck's theory. I will quote one sentence. Speaking of
birds' beaks, he says: "All which seem to have been gradually produced
during many generations by the perpetual endeavour of the creatures to
supply the want of food, and to have been delivered to their posterity with
constant improvement of them for the purposes required." Lamarck published
"Hist. Zoolog." in 1809. The "Zoonomia" was translated into many
languages.

LETTER 77. TO C. LYELL.
Down, 28 [June 1859].

It is not worth while troubling you, but my conscience is uneasy at having
forgotten to thank you for your "Etna" (77/1. "On the Structure of Lavas
which have been consolidated on Steep Slopes, with remarks on the Mode of
Origin of Mount Etna, and on the Theory of 'Craters of Elevation'" ("Phil.
Trans. R. Soc." Volume CXLVIII., 1858, page 703).), which seems to me a
magnificent contribution to volcanic geology, and I should think you might
now rest on your oars in this department.

As soon as ever I can get a copy of my book (77/2. "The Origin of
Species," London, 1859.) ready, in some six weeks' or two months' time, it
shall be sent you; and if you approve of it, even to a moderate extent, it
will be the highest satisfaction which I shall ever receive for an amount
of labour which no one will ever appreciate.

LETTER 78. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(78/1. The reference in the following letter is to the proofs of Hooker's
"Australian Flora.")

Down, 28 [July 1859].

The returned sheet is chiefly that which I received in MS. Parts seem to
me (though perhaps it may be forgetfulness) much improved, and I retain my
former impression that the whole discussion on the Australian flora is
admirably good and original. I know you will understand and not object to
my thus expressing my opinion (for one must form one) so presumptuously. I
have no criticisms, except perhaps I should like you somewhere to say, when
you refer to me, that you refer only to the notice in the "Linnean
Journal;" not that, on my deliberate word of honour, I expect that you will
think more favourably of the whole than of the suggestion in the "Journal."
I am far more than satisfied at what you say of my work; yet it would be as
well to avoid the appearance of your remarks being a criticism on my fuller
work.

I am very sorry to hear you are so hard-worked. I also get on very slowly,
and have hardly as yet finished half my volume...I returned on last Tuesday
from a week's hydropathy.

Take warning by me, and do not work too hard. For God's sake, think of
this.

It is dreadfully uphill work with me getting my confounded volume finished.

I wish you well through all your labours. Adios.

LETTER 79. TO ASA GRAY.
Down, November 29th [1859].

This shall be such an extraordinary note as you have never received from
me, for it shall not contain one single question or request. I thank you
for your impression on my views. Every criticism from a good man is of
value to me. What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work
will be grievously hypothetical, and large parts by no means worthy of
being called induction, my commonest error being probably induction from
too few facts. I had not thought of your objection of my using the term
"natural selection" as an agent. I use it much as a geologist does the
word denudation--for an agent, expressing the result of several combined
actions. I will take care to explain, not merely by inference, what I mean
by the term; for I must use it, otherwise I should incessantly have to
expand it into some such (here miserably expressed) formula as the
following: "The tendency to the preservation (owing to the severe struggle
for life to which all organic beings at some time or generation are
exposed) of any, the slightest, variation in any part, which is of the
slightest use or favourable to the life of the individual which has thus
varied; together with the tendency to its inheritance." Any variation,
which was of no use whatever to the individual, would not be preserved by
this process of "natural selection." But I will not weary you by going on,
as I do not suppose I could make my meaning clearer without large
expansion. I will only add one other sentence: several varieties of sheep
have been turned out together on the Cumberland mountains, and one
particular breed is found to succeed so much better than all the others
that it fairly starves the others to death. I should here say that natural
selection picks out this breed, and would tend to improve it, or
aboriginally to have formed it...

You speak of species not having any material base to rest on, but is this
any greater hardship than deciding what deserves to be called a variety,
and be designated by a Greek letter? When I was at systematic work, I know
I longed to have no other difficulty (great enough) than deciding whether
the form was distinct enough to deserve a name, and not to be haunted with
undefined and unanswerable questions whether it was a true species. What a
jump it is from a well-marked variety, produced by natural cause, to a
species produced by the separate act of the hand of God! But I am running
on foolishly. By the way, I met the other day Phillips, the
palaeontologist, and he asked me, "How do you define a species?" I
answered, "I cannot." Whereupon he said, "at last I have found out the
only true definition,--any form which has ever had a specific name!"...

LETTER 80. TO C. LYELL.
Ilkley, October 31st [1859].

That you may not misunderstand how far I go with Pallas and his many
disciples I should like to add that, though I believe that our domestic
dogs have descended from several wild forms, and though I must think that
the sterility, which they would probably have evinced, if crossed before
being domesticated, has been eliminated, yet I go but a very little way
with Pallas & Co. in their belief in the importance of the crossing and
blending of the aboriginal stocks. (80/1. "With our domesticated animals,
the various races when crossed together are quite fertile; yet in many
cases they are descended from two or more wild species. From this fact we
must conclude either that the aboriginal parent-species at first produced
perfectly fertile hybrids, or that the hybrids subsequently reared under
domestication became quite fertile. This latter alternative, which was
first propounded by Pallas, seems by far the most probable, and can,
indeed, hardly be doubted" ("Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 240).)
You will see this briefly put in the first chapter. Generally, with
respect to crossing, the effects may be diametrically opposite. If you
cross two very distinct races, you may make (not that I believe such has
often been made) a third and new intermediate race; but if you cross two
exceedingly close races, or two slightly different individuals of the same
race, then in fact you annul and obliterate the difference. In this latter
way I believe crossing is all-important, and now for twenty years I have
been working at flowers and insects under this point of view. I do not
like Hooker's terms, centripetal and centrifugal (80/2. Hooker's
"Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania," pages viii. and ix.): they
remind me of Forbes' bad term of Polarity. (80/3. Forbes, "On the
Manifestation of Polarity in the Distribution of Organised Beings in
Time."--"R. Institution Proc." I., 1851-54.)

I daresay selection by man would generally work quicker than Natural
Selection; but the important distinction between them is, that man can
scarcely select except external and visible characters, and secondly, he
selects for his own good; whereas under nature, characters of all kinds are
selected exclusively for each creature's own good, and are well exercised;
but you will find all this in Chapter IV.

Although the hound, greyhound, and bull-dog may possibly have descended
from three distinct stocks, I am convinced that their present great amount
of difference is mainly due to the same causes which have made the breeds
of pigeons so different from each other, though these breeds of pigeons
have all descended from one wild stock; so that the Pallasian doctrine I
look at as but of quite secondary importance.

In my bigger book I have explained my meaning fully; whether I have in the
Abstract I cannot remember.

LETTER 81. TO C. LYELL.
[December 5th, 1859.]

I forget whether you take in the "Times;" for the chance of your not doing
so, I send the enclosed rich letter. (81/1. See the "Times," December 1st
and December 5th, 1859: two letters signed "Senex," dealing with "Works of
Art in the Drift.") It is, I am sure, by Fitz-Roy...It is a pity he did
not add his theory of the extinction of Mastodon, etc., from the door of
the Ark being made too small. (81/2. A postscript to this letter, here
omitted, is published in the "Life and Letters," II., page 240.)