More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I

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I am extremely glad to hear that you intend adding new arguments about the
imperfection of the Geological Record. I always feel this acutely, and am
surprised that such men as Ramsay and Jukes do not feel it more.

I quite agree on insufficient evidence about mummy wheat. (102/2. See
notes appended to a letter to Lyell, September 1843 (Botany).

When you can spare it, I should like (but out of mere curiosity) to see
Binney on Coal marine marshes.

I once made Hooker very savage by saying that I believed the Coal plants
grew in the sea, like mangroves. (102/3. See "Life and Letters," I., page
356.)

LETTER 103. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(103/1. This letter is of interest as containing a strong expression upon
the overwhelming importance of selection.)

Down [1860].

Many thanks for Harvey's letter (103/2. W.H. Harvey had been corresponding
with Sir J.D. Hooker on the "Origin of Species."), which I will keep a
little longer and then return. I will write to him and try to make clear
from analogy of domestic productions the part which I believe selection has
played. I have been reworking my pigeons and other domestic animals, and I
am sure that any one is right in saying that selection is the efficient
cause, though, as you truly say, variation is the base of all. Why I do
not believe so much as you do in physical agencies is that I see in almost
every organism (though far more clearly in animals than in plants)
adaptation, and this except in rare instances, must, I should think, be due
to selection.

Do not forget the Pyrola when in flower. (103/3. In a letter to Hooker,
May 22nd, 1860, Darwin wrote: "Have you Pyrola at Kew? if so, for heaven's
sake observe the curvature of the pistil towards the gangway to the
nectary." The fact of the stigma in insect-visited flowers being so placed
that the visitor must touch it on its way to the nectar, was a point which
early attracted Darwin's attention and strongly impressed him.) My blessed
little Scaevola has come into flower, and I will try artificial
fertilisation on it.

I have looked over Harvey's letter, and have assumed (I hope rightly) that
he could not object to knowing that you had forwarded it to me.

LETTER 104. TO ASA GRAY.
Down, June 8th [1860].

I have to thank you for two notes, one through Hooker, and one with some
letters to be posted, which was done. I anticipated your request by making
a few remarks on Owen's review. (104/1. "The Edinburgh Review," April,
1860.) Hooker is so weary of reviews that I do not think you will get any
hints from him. I have lately had many more "kicks than halfpence." A
review in the last Dublin "Nat. Hist. Review" is the most unfair thing
which has appeared,--one mass of misrepresentation. It is evidently by
Haughton, the geologist, chemist and mathematician. It shows immeasurable
conceit and contempt of all who are not mathematicians. He discusses bees'
cells, and puts a series which I have never alluded to, and wholly ignores
the intermediate comb of Melipona, which alone led me to my notions. The
article is a curiosity of unfairness and arrogance; but, as he sneers at
Malthus, I am content, for it is clear he cannot reason. He is a friend of
Harvey, with whom I have had some correspondence. Your article has
clearly, as he admits, influenced him. He admits to a certain extent
Natural Selection, yet I am sure does not understand me. It is strange
that very few do, and I am become quite convinced that I must be an
extremely bad explainer. To recur for a moment to Owen: he grossly
misrepresents and is very unfair to Huxley. You say that you think the
article must be by a pupil of Owen; but no one fact tells so strongly
against Owen, considering his former position at the College of Surgeons,
as that he has never reared one pupil or follower. In the number just out
of "Fraser's Magazine" (104/2. See "Life and Letters," II., page 314.)
there is an article or review on Lamarck and me by W. Hopkins, the
mathematician, who, like Haughton, despises the reasoning power of all
naturalists. Personally he is extremely kind towards me; but he evidently
in the following number means to blow me into atoms. He does not in the
least appreciate the difference in my views and Lamarck's, as explaining
adaptation, the principle of divergence, the increase of dominant groups,
and the almost necessary extinction of the less dominant and smaller
groups, etc.

LETTER 105. TO C. LYELL.
Down, June 17th [1860].

One word more upon the Deification (105/1. "If we confound 'Variation' or
'Natural Selection' with such creational laws, we deify secondary causes or
immeasurably exaggerate their influence" (Lyell, "The Geological Evidences
of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks on Theories on the Origin of Species
by Variation," page 469, London, 1863). See Letter 131.) of Natural
Selection: attributing so much weight to it does not exclude still more
general laws, i.e. the ordering of the whole universe. I have said that
Natural Selection is to the structure of organised beings what the human
architect is to a building. The very existence of the human architect
shows the existence of more general laws; but no one, in giving credit for
a building to the human architect, thinks it necessary to refer to the laws
by which man has appeared.

No astronomer, in showing how the movements of planets are due to gravity,
thinks it necessary to say that the law of gravity was designed that the
planets should pursue the courses which they pursue. I cannot believe that
there is a bit more interference by the Creator in the construction of each
species than in the course of the planets. It is only owing to Paley and
Co., I believe, that this more special interference is thought necessary
with living bodies. But we shall never agree, so do not trouble yourself
to answer.

I should think your remarks were very just about mathematicians not being
better enabled to judge of probabilities than other men of common-sense.

I have just got more returns about the gestation of hounds. The period
differs at least from sixty-one to seventy-four days, just as I expected.

I was thinking of sending the "Gardeners' Chronicle" to you, on account of
a paper by me on the fertilisation of orchids by insects (105/2.
"Fertilisation of British Orchids by Insect Agency." This article in the
"Gardeners' Chronicle" of June 9th, 1860, page 528, begins with a request
that observations should be made on the manner of fertilisation in the bee-
and in the fly-orchis.), as it involves a curious point, and as you cared
about my paper on kidney beans; but as you are so busy, I will not.

LETTER 106. TO C. LYELL.
Down [June?] 20th [1860].

I send Blyth (106/1. See Letter 27.); it is a dreadful handwriting; the
passage is on page 4. In a former note he told me he feared there was
hardly a chance of getting money for the Chinese expedition, and spoke of
your kindness.

Many thanks for your long and interesting letter. I wonder at, admire, and
thank you for your patience in writing so much. I rather demur to
Deinosaurus not having "free will," as surely we have. I demur also to
your putting Huxley's "force and matter" in the same category with Natural
Selection. The latter may, of course, be quite a false view; but surely it
is not getting beyond our depth to first causes.

It is truly very remarkable that the gestation of hounds (106/2. In a
letter written to Lyell on June 25th, 1860, the following paragraph occurs:
"You need not believe one word of what I said about gestation of dogs.
Since writing to you I have had more correspondence with the master of
hounds, and I see his [record?] is worth nothing. It may, of course, be
correct, but cannot be trusted. I find also different statements about the
wolf: in fact, I am all abroad.") should vary so much, while that of man
does not. It may be from multiple origin. The eggs from the Musk and the
common duck take an intermediate period in hatching; but I should rather
look at it as one of the ten thousand cases which we cannot explain--
namely, when one part or function varies in one species and not in another.

Hooker has told me nothing about his explanation of few Arctic forms; I
knew the fact before. I had speculated on what I presume, from what you
say, is his explanation (106/3. "Outlines of the Distribution of Arctic
Plants," J.D. Hooker, "Trans. Linn. Soc." Volume XXIII., page 251, 1862.
[read June 21st, 1860.] In this paper Hooker draws attention to the
exceptional character of the Greenland flora; but as regards the paucity of
its species and in its much greater resemblance to the floras of Arctic
Europe than to those of Arctic America, he considers it difficult to
account for these facts, "unless we admit Mr. Darwin's hypotheses" (see
"Origin," Edition VI., 1872, Chapter XII., page 330) of a southern
migration due to the cold of the glacial period and the subsequent return
of the northern types during the succeeding warmer period. Many of the
Greenland species, being confined to the peninsula, "would, as it were, be
driven into the sea--that is exterminated" (Hooker, op. cit., pages 253-
4).); but there must have been at all times an Arctic region. I found the
speculation got too complex, as it seemed to me, to be worth following out.

I have been doing some more interesting work with orchids. Talk of
adaptation in woodpeckers (106/4. "Can a more striking instance of
adaptation be given than that of a woodpecker for climbing trees and
seizing insects in the chinks of the bark?" (Origin of Species," Edition
HAVE I., page 141).), some of the orchids beat it.

I showed the case to Elizabeth Wedgwood, and her remark was, "Now you have
upset your own book, for you won't persuade me that this could be effected
by Natural Selection."

LETTER 107. TO T.H. HUXLEY.
July 20th [1860].

Many thanks for your pleasant letter. I agree to every word you say about
"Fraser" and the "Quarterly." (107/1. Bishop Wilberforce's review of the
"Origin" in the "Quarterly Review," July, 1860, was republished in his
"Collected Essays," 1874. See "Life and Letters, II., page 182, and II.,
page 324, where some quotations from the review are given. For Hopkins'
review in "Fraser's Magazine," June, 1860, see "Life and Letters," II.,
314.) I have had some really admirable letters from Hopkins. I do not
suppose he has ever troubled his head about geographical distribution,
classification, morphologies, etc., and it is only those who have that will
feel any relief in having some sort of rational explanation of such facts.
Is it not grand the way in which the Bishop asserts that all such facts are
explained by ideas in God's mind? The "Quarterly" is uncommonly clever;
and I chuckled much at the way my grandfather and self are quizzed. I
could here and there see Owen's hand. By the way, how comes it that you
were not attacked? Does Owen begin to find it more prudent to leave you
alone? I would give five shillings to know what tremendous blunder the
Bishop made; for I see that a page has been cancelled and a new page gummed
in.

I am indeed most thoroughly contented with the progress of opinion. From
all that I hear from several quarters, it seems that Oxford did the subject
great good. (107/2. An account of the meeting of the British Association
at Oxford in 1860 is given in the "Life and Letters," II., page 320, and a
fuller account in the one-volume "Life of Charles Darwin," 1892, page 236.
See also the "Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley," Volume I., page 179, and
the amusing account of the meeting in Mr. Tuckwell's "Reminiscences of
Oxford," London, 1900, page 50.) It is of enormous importance the showing
the world that a few first-rate men are not afraid of expressing their
opinion. I see daily more and more plainly that my unaided book would have
done absolutely nothing. Asa Gray is fighting admirably in the United
States. He is thorough master of the subject, which cannot be said by any
means of such men as even Hopkins.

I have been thinking over what you allude to about a natural history
review. (107/3. In the "Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley," Volume I., page
209, some account of the founding of the "Natural History Review" is given
in a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker of July 17th, 1860. On August 2nd Mr.
Huxley added: "Darwin wrote me a very kind expostulation about it, telling
me I ought not to waste myself on other than original work. In reply,
however, I assured him that I MUST waste myself willy-nilly, and that the
'Review' was only a save-all.") I suppose you mean really a REVIEW and not
journal for original communications in Natural History. Of the latter
there is now superabundance. With respect to a good review, there can be
no doubt of its value and utility; nevertheless, if not too late, I hope
you will consider deliberately before you decide. Remember what a deal of
work you have on your shoulders, and though you can do much, yet there is a
limit to even the hardest worker's power of working. I should deeply
regret to see you sacrificing much time which could be given to original
research. I fear, to one who can review as well as you do, there would be
the same temptation to waste time, as there notoriously is for those who
can speak well.

A review is only temporary; your work should be perennial. I know well
that you may say that unless good men will review there will be no good
reviews. And this is true. Would you not do more good by an occasional
review in some well-established review, than by giving up much time to the
editing, or largely aiding, if not editing, a review which from being
confined to one subject would not have a very large circulation? But I
must return to the chief idea which strikes me--viz., that it would lessen
the amount of original and perennial work which you could do. Reflect how
few men there are in England who can do original work in the several lines
in which you are excellently fitted. Lyell, I remember, on analogous
grounds many years ago resolved he would write no more reviews. I am an
old slowcoach, and your scheme makes me tremble. God knows in one sense I
am about the last man in England who ought to throw cold water on any
review in which you would be concerned, as I have so immensely profited by
your labours in this line.

With respect to reviewing myself, I never tried: any work of that kind
stops me doing anything else, as I cannot possibly work at odds and ends of
time. I have, moreover, an insane hatred of stopping my regular current of
work. I have now materials for a little paper or two, but I know I shall
never work them up. So I will not promise to help; though not to help, if
I could, would make me feel very ungrateful to you. You have no idea
during how short a time daily I am able to work. If I had any regular
duties, like you and Hooker, I should do absolutely nothing in science.

I am heartily glad to hear that you are better; but how such labour as
volunteer-soldiering (all honour to you) does not kill you, I cannot
understand.

For God's sake remember that your field of labour is original research in
the highest and most difficult branches of Natural History. Not that I
wish to underrate the importance of clever and solid reviews.

LETTER 108. TO T.H. HUXLEY.
Sudbrook Park, Richmond, Thursday [July, 1860].

I must send you a line to say what a good fellow you are to send me so long
an account of the Oxford doings. I have read it twice, and sent it to my
wife, and when I get home shall read it again: it has so much interested
me. But how durst you attack a live bishop in that fashion? I am quite
ashamed of you! Have you no reverence for fine lawn sleeves? By Jove, you
seem to have done it well. If any one were to ridicule any belief of the
bishop's, would he not blandly shrug his shoulders and be inexpressibly
shocked? I am very, very sorry to hear that you are not well; but am not
surprised after all your self-imposed labour. I hope you will soon have an
outing, and that will do you real good.

I am glad to hear about J. Lubbock, whom I hope to see soon, and shall tell
him what you have said. Have you read Hopkins in the last "Fraser?"--well
put, in good spirit, except soul discussion bad, as I have told him;
nothing actually new, takes the weak points alone, and leaves out all other
considerations.

I heard from Asa Gray yesterday; he goes on fighting like a Trojan.

God bless you!--get well, be idle, and always reverence a bishop.

LETTER 109. TO J.D. DANA.
Down, July 30th [1860].

I received several weeks ago your note telling me that you could not visit
England, which I sincerely regretted, as I should most heartily have liked
to have made your personal acquaintance. You gave me an improved, but not
very good, account of your health. I should at some time be grateful for a
line to tell me how you are. We have had a miserable summer, owing to a
terribly long and severe illness of my eldest girl, who improves slightly
but is still in a precarious condition. I have been able to do nothing in
science of late. My kind friend Asa Gray often writes to me and tells me
of the warm discussions on the "Origin of Species" in the United States.
Whenever you are strong enough to read it, I know you will be dead against
me, but I know equally well that your opposition will be liberal and
philosophical. And this is a good deal more than I can say of all my
opponents in this country. I have not yet seen Agassiz's attack (109/1.
"Silliman's Journal," July, 1860. A passage from Agassiz's review is given
by Mr. Huxley in Darwin's "Life and Letters," II., page 184.), but I hope
to find it at home when I return in a few days, for I have been for several
weeks away from home on my daughter's account. Prof. Silliman sent me an
extremely kind message by Asa Gray that your Journal would be open to a
reply by me. I cannot decide till I see it, but on principle I have
resolved to avoid answering anything, as it consumes much time, often
temper, and I have said my say in the "Origin." No one person understands
my views and has defended them so well as A. Gray, though he does not by
any means go all the way with me. There was much discussion on the subject
at the British Association at Oxford, and I had many defenders, and my side
seems (for I was not there) almost to have got the best of the battle.
Your correspondent and my neighbour, J. Lubbock, goes on working at such
spare time as he has. This is an egotistical note, but I have not seen a
naturalist for months. Most sincerely and deeply do I hope that this note
may find you almost recovered.

LETTER 110. TO W.H. HARVEY.

(110/1. See Letter 95, note. This letter was written in reply to a long
one from W.H. Harvey, dated August 24th, 1860. Harvey had already
published a serio-comic squib and a review, to which references are given
in the "Life and Letters," II., pages 314 and 375; but apparently he had
not before this time completed the reading of the "Origin.")

[August, 1860.]

I have read your long letter with much interest, and I thank you for your
great liberality in sending it me. But, on reflection, I do not wish to
attempt answering any part, except to you privately. Anything said by
myself in defence would have no weight; it is best to be defended by
others, or not at all. Parts of your letter seem to me, if I may be
permitted to say so, very acute and original, and I feel it a great
compliment your giving up so much time to my book. But, on the whole, I am
disappointed; not from your not concurring with me, for I never expected
that, and, indeed, in your remarks on Chapters XII. and XIII., you go much
further with me (though a little way) than I ever anticipated, and am much
pleased at the result. But on the whole I am disappointed, because it
seems to me that you do not understand what I mean by Natural Selection, as
shown at page 11 (110/2. Harvey speaks of the perpetuation or selection of
the useful, pre-supposing "a vigilant and intelligent agent," which is very
much like saying that an intelligent agent is needed to see that the small
stones pass through the meshes of a sieve and the big ones remain behind.)
of your letter and by several of your remarks. As my book has failed to
explain my meaning, it would be hopeless to attempt it in a letter. You
speak in the early part of your letter, and at page 9, as if I had said
that Natural Selection was the sole agency of modification, whereas I have
over and over again, ad nauseam, directly said, and by order of precedence
implied (what seems to me obvious) that selection can do nothing without
previous variability (see pages 80, 108, 127, 468, 469, etc.), "nothing can
be effected unless favourable variations occur." I consider Natural
Selection as of such high importance, because it accumulates successive
variations in any profitable direction, and thus adapts each new being to
its complex conditions of life. The term "selection," I see, deceives many
persons, though I see no more reason why it should than elective affinity,
as used by the old chemists. If I had to rewrite my book, I would use
"natural preservation" or "naturally preserved." I should think you would
as soon take an emetic as re-read any part of my book; but if you did, and
were to erase selection and selected, and insert preservation and
preserved, possibly the subject would be clearer. As you are not singular
in misunderstanding my book, I should long before this have concluded that
my brains were in a haze had I not found by published reviews, and
especially by correspondence, that Lyell, Hooker, Asa Gray, H.C. Watson,
Huxley, and Carpenter, and many others, perfectly comprehend what I mean.
The upshot of your remarks at page 11 is that my explanation, etc., and the
whole doctrine of Natural Selection, are mere empty words, signifying the
"order of nature." As the above-named clear-headed men, who do comprehend
my views, all go a certain length with me, and certainly do not think it
all moonshine, I should venture to suggest a little further reflection on
your part. I do not mean by this to imply that the opinion of these men is
worth much as showing that I am right, but merely as some evidence that I
have clearer ideas than you think, otherwise these same men must be even
more muddle-headed than I am; for they have no temptation to deceive
themselves. In the forthcoming September (110/3. "American Journal of
Science and Arts," September 1860, "Design versus Necessity," reprinted in
Asa Gray's "Darwiniana," 1876, page 62.) number of the "American Journal of
Science" there is an interesting and short theological article (by Asa
Gray), which gives incidentally with admirable clearness the theory of
Natural Selection, and therefore might be worth your reading. I think that
the theological part would interest you.

You object to all my illustrations. They are all necessarily conjectural,
and may be all false; but they were the best I could give. The bear case
(110/4. "Origin of Species," Edition I., page 184. See Letter 120.) has
been well laughed at, and disingenuously distorted by some into my saying
that a bear could be converted into a whale. As it offended persons, I
struck it out in the second edition; but I still maintain that there is no
especial difficulty in a bear's mouth being enlarged to any degree useful
to its changing habits,--no more difficulty than man has found in
increasing the crop of the pigeon, by continued selection, until it is
literally as big as the whole rest of the body. If this had not been
known, how absurd it would have appeared to say that the crop of a bird
might be increased till it became like a balloon!

With respect to the ostrich, I believe that the wings have been reduced,
and are not in course of development, because the whole structure of a bird
is essentially formed for flight; and the ostrich is essentially a bird.
You will see at page 182 of the "Origin" a somewhat analogous discussion.
At page 450 of the second edition I have pointed out the essential
distinction between a nascent and rudimentary organ. If you prefer the
more complex view that the progenitor of the ostrich lost its wings, and
that the present ostrich is regaining them, I have nothing to say in
opposition.

With respect to trees on islands, I collected some cases, but took the main
facts from Alph. De Candolle, and thought they might be trusted. My
explanation may be grossly wrong; but I am not convinced it is so, and I do
not see the full force of your argument of certain herbaceous orders having
been developed into trees in certain rare cases on continents. The case
seems to me to turn altogether on the question whether generally herbaceous
orders more frequently afford trees and bushes on islands than on
continents, relatively to their areas. (110/5. In the "Origin," Edition
I., page 392, the author points out that in the presence of competing trees
an herbaceous plant would have little chance of becoming arborescent; but
on an island, with only other herbaceous plants as competitors, it might
gain an advantage by overtopping its fellows, and become tree-like. Harvey
writes: "What you say (page 392) of insular trees belonging to orders
which elsewhere include only herbaceous species seems to me to be
unsupported by sufficient evidence. You cite no particular trees, and I
may therefore be wrong in guessing that the orders you allude to are
Scrophularineae and Compositae; and the insular trees the Antarctic
Veronicas and the arborescent Compositae of St. Helena, Tasmania, etc. But
in South Africa Halleria (Scrophularineae) is often as large and woody as
an apple tree; and there are several South African arborescent Compositae
(Senecio and Oldenburgia). Besides, in Tasmania at least, the arborescent
Composites are not found competing with herbaceous plants alone, and
growing taller and taller by overtopping them...; for the most arborescent
of them all (Eurybia argophylla, the Musk tree) grows...in Eucalyptus
forests. And so of the South African Halleria, which is a tree among
trees. What the conditions of the arborescent Gerania of the Sandwich
Islands may be I am unable to say...I cannot remember any other instances,
nor can I accept your explanation in any other of the cases I have cited.")