More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I

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In page 4 of your letter you say you give up many book-species as separate
creations: I give up all, and you infer that our difference is only in
degree and not in kind. I dissent from this; for I give a distinct reason
how far I go in giving up species. I look at all forms, which resemble
each other homologically or embryologically, as certainly descended from
the same species.

You hit me hard and fairly (110/6. Harvey writes: "You ask--were all the
infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as eggs or seed, or
as full grown? To this it is sufficient to reply, was your primordial
organism, or were your four or five progenitors created as egg, seed, or
full grown? Neither theory attempts to solve this riddle, nor yet the
riddle of the Omphalos." The latter point, which Mr. Darwin refuses to
give up, is at page 483 of the "Origin," "and, in the case of mammals, were
they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's
womb?" In the third edition of the "Origin," 1861, page 517, the author
adds, after the last-cited passage: "Undoubtedly these same questions
cannot be answered by those who, under the present state of science,
believe in the creation of a few aboriginal forms, or of some one form of
life. In the sixth edition, probably with a view to the umbilicus, he
writes (page 423): "Undoubtedly some of these same questions," etc., etc.
From notes in Mr. Darwin's copy of the second edition it is clear that the
change in the third edition was chiefly due to Harvey's letter. See Letter
115.) about my question (page 483, "Origin") about creation of eggs or
young, etc., (but not about mammals with the mark of the umbilical cord),
yet I still have an illogical sort of feeling that there is less difficulty
in imagining the creation of an asexual cell, increasing by simple
division.

Page 5 of your letter: I agree to every word about the antiquity of the
world, and never saw the case put by any one more strongly or more ably.
It makes, however, no more impression on me as an objection than does the
astronomer when he puts on a few hundred million miles to the distance of
the fixed stars. To compare very small things with great, Lingula, etc.,
remaining nearly unaltered from the Silurian epoch to the present day, is
like the dovecote pigeons still being identical with wild Rock-pigeons,
whereas its "fancy" offspring have been immensely modified, and are still
being modified, by means of artificial selection.

You put the difficulty of the first modification of the first protozoon
admirably. I assure you that immediately after the first edition was
published this occurred to me, and I thought of inserting it in the second
edition. I did not, because we know not in the least what the first germ
of life was, nor have we any fact at all to guide us in our speculations on
the kind of change which its offspring underwent. I dissent quite from
what you say of the myriads of years it would take to people the world with
such imagined protozoon. In how very short a time Ehrenberg calculated
that a single infusorium might make a cube of rock! A single cube on
geometrical progression would make the solid globe in (I suppose) under a
century. From what little I know, I cannot help thinking that you
underrate the effects of the physical conditions of life on these low
organisms. But I fully admit that I can give no sort of answer to your
objections; yet I must add that it would be marvellous if any man ever
could, assuming for the moment that my theory is true. You beg the
question, I think, in saying that Protococcus would be doomed to eternal
similarity. Nor can you know that the first germ resembled a Protococcus
or any other now living form.

Page 12 of your letter: There is nothing in my theory necessitating in
each case progression of organisation, though Natural Selection tends in
this line, and has generally thus acted. An animal, if it become fitted by
selection to live the life, for instance, of a parasite, will generally
become degraded. I have much regretted that I did not make this part of
the subject clearer. I left out this and many other subjects, which I now
see ought to have been introduced. I have inserted a discussion on this
subject in the foreign editions. (110/7. In the third Edition a
discussion on this point is added in Chapter IV.) In no case will any
organic being tend to retrograde, unless such retrogradation be an
advantage to its varying offspring; and it is difficult to see how going
back to the structure of the unknown supposed original protozoon could ever
be an advantage.

Page 13 of your letter: I have been more glad to read your discussion on
"dominant" forms than any part of your letter. (110/8. Harvey writes:
"Viewing organic nature in its widest aspect, I think it is unquestionable
that the truly dominant races are not those of high, but those of low
organisation"; and goes on to quote the potato disease, etc. In the third
edition of the "Origin," page 56, a discussion is introduced defining the
author's use of the term "dominant.") I can now see that I have not been
cautious enough in confining my definition and meaning. I cannot say that
you have altered my views. If Botrytis [Phytophthora] had exterminated the
wild potato, a low form would have conquered a high; but I cannot remember
that I have ever said (I am sure I never thought) that a low form would
never conquer a high. I have expressly alluded to parasites half
exterminating game-animals, and to the struggle for life being sometimes
between forms as different as possible: for instance, between grasshoppers
and herbivorous quadrupeds. Under the many conditions of life which this
world affords, any group which is numerous in individuals and species and
is widely distributed, may properly be called dominant. I never dreamed of
considering that any one group, under all conditions and throughout the
world, would be predominant. How could vertebrata be predominant under the
conditions of life in which parasitic worms live? What good would their
perfected senses and their intellect serve under such conditions? When I
have spoken of dominant forms, it has been in relation to the
multiplication of new specific forms, and the dominance of any one species
has been relative generally to other members of the same group, or at least
to beings exposed to similar conditions and coming into competition. But I
daresay that I have not in the "Origin" made myself clear, and space has
rendered it impossible. But I thank you most sincerely for your valuable
remarks, though I do not agree with them.

About sudden jumps: I have no objection to them--they would aid me in some
cases. All I can say is, that I went into the subject, and found no
evidence to make me believe in jumps; and a good deal pointing in the other
direction. You will find it difficult (page 14 of your letter) to make a
marked line of separation between fertile and infertile crosses. I do not
see how the apparently sudden change (for the suddenness of change in a
chrysalis is of course largely only apparent) in larvae during their
development throws any light on the subject.

I wish I could have made this letter better worth sending to you. I have
had it copied to save you at least the intolerable trouble of reading my
bad handwriting. Again I thank you for your great liberality and kindness
in sending me your criticisms, and I heartily wish we were a little nearer
in accord; but we must remain content to be as wide asunder as the poles,
but without, thank God, any malice or other ill-feeling.

LETTER 111. TO T.H. HUXLEY.

(111/1. Dr. Asa Gray's articles in the "Atlantic Monthly," July, August,
and October, 1860, were published in England as a pamphlet, and form
Chapter III. in his "Darwiniana" (1876). See "Life and Letters," II., page
338. The article referred to in the present letter is that in the August
number.)

Down, September 10th [1860].

I send by this post a review by Asa Gray, so good that I should like you to
see it; I must beg for its return. I want to ask, also, your opinion about
getting it reprinted in England. I thought of sending it to the Editor of
the "Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist." in which two hostile reviews have
appeared (although I suppose the "Annals" have a very poor circulation),
and asking them in the spirit of fair play to print this, with Asa Gray's
name, which I will take the responsibility of adding. Also, as it is long,
I would offer to pay expenses.

It is very good, in addition, as bringing in Pictet so largely. (111/2.
Pictet (1809-72) wrote a "perfectly fair" review opposed to the "Origin."
See "Life and Letters," II., page 297.) Tell me briefly what you think.

What an astonishing expedition this is of Hooker's to Syria! God knows
whether it is wise.

How are you and all yours? I hope you are not working too hard. For
Heaven's sake, think that you may become such a beast as I am. How goes on
the "Nat. Hist. Review?" Talking of reviews, I damned with a good grace
the review in the "Athenaeum" (111/3. Review of "The Glaciers of the Alps"
("Athenaeum," September 1, 1860, page 280).) on Tyndall with a mean, scurvy
allusion to you. It is disgraceful about Tyndall,--in fact, doubting his
veracity.

I am very tired, and hate nearly the whole world. So good-night, and take
care of your digestion, which means brain.

LETTER 112. TO C. LYELL.
15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, 26th [September 1860].

It has just occurred to me that I took no notice of your questions on
extinction in St. Helena. I am nearly sure that Hooker has information on
the extinction of plants (112/1. "Principles of Geology," Volume II.
(Edition X., 1868), page 453. Facts are quoted from Hooker illustrating
the extermination of plants in St. Helena.), but I cannot remember where I
have seen it. One may confidently assume that many insects were
exterminated.

By the way, I heard lately from Wollaston, who told me that he had just
received eminently Madeira and Canary Island insect forms from the Cape of
Good Hope, to which trifling distance, if he is logical, he will have to
extend his Atlantis! I have just received your letter, and am very much
pleased that you approve. But I am utterly disgusted and ashamed about the
dingo. I cannot think how I could have misunderstood the paper so grossly.
I hope I have not blundered likewise in its co-existence with extinct
species: what horrid blundering! I am grieved to hear that you think I
must work in the notes in the text; but you are so much better a judge that
I will obey. I am sorry that you had the trouble of returning the Dog MS.,
which I suppose I shall receive to-morrow.

I mean to give good woodcuts of all the chief races of pigeons. (112/2.
"The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," 1868.)

Except the C. oenas (112/3. The Columba oenas of Europe roosts on trees
and builds its nest in holes, either in trees or the ground ("Var. of
Animals," Volume I., page 183).) (which is partly, indeed almost entirely,
a wood pigeon), there is no other rock pigeon with which our domestic
pigeon would cross--that is, if several exceedingly close geographical
races of C. livia, which hardly any ornithologist looks at as true species,
be all grouped under C. livia. (112/4. Columba livia, the Rock-pigeon.
"We may conclude with confidence that all the domestic races,
notwithstanding their great amount of difference, are descended from the
Columba livia, including under this name certain wild races" (op. cit.,
Volume I., page 223).)

I am writing higgledy-piggledy, as I re-read your letter. I thought that
my letter had been much wilder than yours. I quite feel the comfort of
writing when one may "alter one's speculations the day after." It is
beyond my knowledge to weigh ranks of birds and monotremes; in the
respiratory and circulatory system and muscular energy I believe birds are
ahead of all mammals.

I knew that you must have known about New Guinea; but in writing to you I
never make myself civil!

After treating some half-dozen or dozen domestic animals in the same manner
as I treat dogs, I intended to have a chapter of conclusions. But Heaven
knows when I shall finish: I get on very slowly. You would be surprised
how long it took me to pick out what seemed useful about dogs out of
multitudes of details.

I see the force of your remark about more isolated races of man in old
times, and therefore more in number. It seems to me difficult to weigh
probabilities. Perhaps so, if you refer to very slight differences in the
races: to make great differences much time would be required, and then,
even at the earliest period I should have expected one race to have spread,
conquered, and exterminated the others.

With respect to Falconer's series of Elephants (112/5. In 1837 Dr.
Falconer and Sir Proby Cautley collected a large number of fossil remains
from the Siwalik Hills. Falconer and Cautley, "Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis,"
1845-49.), I think the case could be answered better than I have done in
the "Origin," page 334. (112/6. "Origin of Species," Edition I., page
334. "It is no real objection to the truth of the statement that the fauna
of each period as a whole is nearly intermediate in character between the
preceding and succeeding faunas, that certain genera offer exceptions to
the rule. For instance, mastodons and elephants, when arranged by Dr.
Falconer in two series, first according to their mutual affinities and then
according to their periods of existence, do not accord in arrangement. The
species extreme in character are not the oldest, or the most recent; nor
are those which are intermediate in character intermediate in age. But
supposing for an instant, in this and other such cases, that the record of
the first appearance and disappearance of the species was perfect, we have
no reason to believe that forms successively produced necessarily endure
for corresponding lengths of time. A very ancient form might occasionally
last much longer than a form elsewhere subsequently produced, especially in
the case of terrestrial productions inhabiting separated districts" (pages
334-5). The same words occur in the later edition of the "Origin" (Edition
VI., page 306.) All these new discoveries show how imperfect the
discovered series is, which Falconer thought years ago was nearly perfect.

I will send to-day or to-morrow two articles by Asa Gray. The longer one
(now not finally corrected) will come out in the October "Atlantic
Monthly," and they can be got at Trubner's. Hearty thanks for all your
kindness.

Do not hurry over Asa Gray. He strikes me as one of the best reasoners and
writers I ever read. He knows my book as well as I do myself.

LETTER 113. TO C. LYELL.
15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, October 3rd [1860].

Your last letter has interested me much in many ways.

I enclose a letter of Wyman's which touches on brains. Wyman is mistaken
in supposing that I did not know that the Cave-rat was an American form; I
made special enquiries. He does not know that the eye of the Tucotuco was
carefully dissected.

With respect to reviews by A. Gray. I thought of sending the Dialogue to
the "Saturday Review" in a week's time or so, as they have lately discussed
Design. (113/1. "Discussion between two Readers of Darwin's Treatise on
the Origin of Species, upon its Natural Theology" ("Amer. Journ. Sci."
Volume XXX, page 226, 1860). Reprinted in "Darwiniana," 1876, page 62.
The article begins with the following question: "First Reader--Is Darwin's
theory atheistic or pantheistic? Or does it tend to atheism or pantheism?"
The discussion is closed by the Second Reader, who thus sums up his views:
"Wherefore we may insist that, for all that yet appears, the argument for
design, as presented by the natural theologians, is just as good now, if we
accept Darwin's theory, as it was before the theory was promulgated; and
that the sceptical juryman, who was about to join the other eleven in an
unanimous verdict in favour of design, finds no good excuse for keeping the
Court longer waiting.") I have sent the second, or August, "Atlantic"
article to the "Annals and Mag. of Nat. History." (113/2. "Annals and
Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume VI., pages 373-86, 1860. (From the "Atlantic
Monthly," August, 1860.)) The copy which you have I want to send to
Pictet, as I told A. Gray I would, thinking from what he said he would like
this to be done. I doubt whether it would be possible to get the October
number reprinted in this country; so that I am in no hurry at all for this.

I had a letter a few weeks ago from Symonds on the imperfection of the
Geological Record, less clear and forcible than I expected. I answered him
at length and very civilly, though I could hardly make out what he was
driving at. He spoke about you in a way which it did me good to read.

I am extremely glad that you like A. Gray's reviews. How generous and
unselfish he has been in all his labour! Are you not struck by his
metaphors and similes? I have told him he is a poet and not a lawyer.

I should altogether doubt on turtles being converted into land tortoises on
any one island. Remember how closely similar tortoises are on all
continents, as well as islands; they must have all descended from one
ancient progenitor, including the gigantic tortoise of the Himalaya.

I think you must be cautious in not running the convenient doctrine that
only one species out of very many ever varies. Reflect on such cases as
the fauna and flora of Europe, North America, and Japan, which are so
similar, and yet which have a great majority of their species either
specifically distinct, or forming well-marked races. We must in such cases
incline to the belief that a multitude of species were once identically the
same in all the three countries when under a warmer climate and more in
connection; and have varied in all the three countries. I am inclined to
believe that almost every species (as we see with nearly all our domestic
productions) varies sufficiently for Natural Selection to pick out and
accumulate new specific differences, under new organic and inorganic
conditions of life, whenever a place is open in the polity of nature. But
looking to a long lapse of time and to the whole world, or to large parts
of the world, I believe only one or a few species of each large genus
ultimately becomes victorious, and leaves modified descendants. To give an
imaginary instance: the jay has become modified in the three countries
into (I believe) three or four species; but the jay genus is not,
apparently, so dominant a group as the crows; and in the long run probably
all the jays will be exterminated and be replaced perhaps by some modified
crows.

I merely give this illustration to show what seems to me probable.

But oh! what work there is before we shall understand the genealogy of
organic beings!

With respect to the Apteryx, I know not enough of anatomy; but ask Dr. F.
whether the clavicle, etc., do not give attachment to some of the muscles
of respiration. If my views are at all correct, the wing of the Apteryx
(113/3. "Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 140.) cannot be (page 452
of the "Origin") a nascent organ, as these wings are useless. I dare not
trust to memory, but I know I found the whole sternum always reduced in
size in all the fancy and confined pigeons relatively to the same bones in
the wild Rock-pigeon: the keel was generally still further reduced
relatively to the reduced length of the sternum; but in some breeds it was
in a most anomalous manner more prominent. I have got a lot of facts on
the reduction of the organs of flight in the pigeon, which took me weeks to
work out, and which Huxley thought curious.

I am utterly ashamed, and groan over my handwriting. It was "Natural
Preservation." Natural persecution is what the author ought to suffer. It
rejoices me that you do not object to the term. Hooker made the same
remark that it ought to have been "Variation and Natural Selection." Yet
with domestic productions, when selection is spoken of, variation is always
implied. But I entirely agree with your and Hooker's remark.

Have you begun regularly to write your book on the antiquity of man?
(113/4. Published in 1863.)

I do NOT agree with your remark that I make Natural Selection do too much
work. You will perhaps reply that every man rides his hobby-horse to
death; and that I am in the galloping state.

LETTER 114. TO C. LYELL.
15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, Friday 5th [October, 1860].

I have two notes to thank you for, and I return Wollaston. It has always
seemed to me rather strange that Forbes, Wollaston and Co. should argue,
from the presence of allied, and not identical species in islands, for the
former continuity of land.

They argue, I suppose, from the species being allied in different regions
of the same continent, though specifically distinct. But I think one might
on the creative doctrine argue with equal force in a directly reverse
manner, and say that, as species are so often markedly distinct, yet
allied, on islands, all our continents existed as islands first, and their
inhabitants were first created on these islands, and since became mingled
together, so as not to be so distinct as they now generally are on islands.

LETTER 115. TO H.G. BRONN.
Down, October 5th [1860].

I ought to apologise for troubling you, but I have at last carefully read
your excellent criticisms on my book. (115/1. Bronn added critical
remarks to his German translation of the "Origin": see "Life and Letters,"
II., page 279.) I agree with much of them, and wholly with your final
sentence. The objections and difficulties which may be urged against my
view are indeed heavy enough almost to break my back, but it is not yet
broken! You put very well and very fairly that I can in no one instance
explain the course of modification in any particular instance. I could
make some sort of answer to your case of the two rats; and might I not turn
round and ask him who believes in the separate creation of each species,
why one rat has a longer tail or shorter ears than another? I presume that
most people would say that these characters were of some use, or stood in
some connection with other parts; and if so, Natural Selection would act on
them. But as you put the case, it tells well against me. You argue most
justly against my question, whether the many species were created as eggs
(115/2. See Letter 110.) or as mature, etc. I certainly had no right to
ask that question. I fully agree that there might have been as well a
hundred thousand creations as eight or ten, or only one. But then, on the
view of eight or ten creations (i.e. as many as there are distinct types of
structure) we can on my view understand the homological and embryological
resemblance of all the organisms of each type, and on this ground almost
alone I disbelieve in the innumerable acts of creation. There are only two
points on which I think you have misunderstood me. I refer only to one
Glacial period as affecting the distribution of organic beings; I did not
wish even to allude to the doubtful evidence of glacial action in the
Permian and Carboniferous periods. Secondly, I do not believe that the
process of development has always been carried on at the same rate in all
different parts of the world. Australia is opposed to such belief. The
nearly contemporaneous equal development in past periods I attribute to the
slow migration of the higher and more dominant forms over the whole world,
and not to independent acts of development in different parts. Lastly,
permit me to add that I cannot see the force of your objection, that
nothing is effected until the origin of life is explained: surely it is
worth while to attempt to follow out the action of electricity, though we
know not what electricity is.

If you should at any time do me the favour of writing to me, I should be
very much obliged if you would inform me whether you have yourself examined
Brehm's subspecies of birds; for I have looked through some of his
writings, but have never met an ornithologist who believed in his
[illegible]. Are these subspecies really characteristic of certain
different regions of Germany?

Should you write, I should much like to know how the German edition sells.

LETTER 116. TO J.S. HENSLOW.
October 26th [1860].

Many thanks for your note and for all the trouble about the seeds, which
will be most useful to me next spring. On my return home I will send the
shillings. (116/1. Shillings for the little girls in Henslow's parish who
collected seeds for Darwin.) I concluded that Dr. Bree had blundered about
the Celts. I care not for his dull, unvarying abuse of me, and singular
misrepresentation. But at page 244 he in fact doubts my deliberate word,
and that is the act of a man who has not the soul of a gentleman in him.
Kingsley is "the celebrated author and divine" (116/2. "Species not
Transmutable," by C.R. Bree. After quoting from the "Origin," Edition II.,
page 481, the words in which a celebrated author and divine confesses that
"he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of
the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms, etc.," Dr. Bree
goes on: "I think we ought to have had the name of this divine given with
this remarkable statement. I confess that I have not yet fully made up my
mind that any divine could have ever penned lines so fatal to the truths he
is called upon to teach.") whose striking sentence I give in the second
edition with his permission. I did not choose to ask him to let me use his
name, and as he did not volunteer, I had of course no choice. (116/3. We
are indebted to Mr. G.W. Prothero for calling our attention to the
following striking passage from the works of a divine of this period:--
"Just a similar scepticism has been evinced by nearly all the first
physiologists of the day, who have joined in rejecting the development
theories of Lamarck and the 'Vestiges'...Yet it is now acknowledged under
the high sanction of the name of Owen that 'creation' is only another name
for our ignorance of the mode of production...while a work has now appeared
by a naturalist of the most acknowledged authority, Mr. Darwin's masterly
volume on the 'Origin of Species,' by the law of 'natural selection,' which
now substantiates on undeniable grounds the very principle so long
denounced by the first naturalists--the origination of new species by
natural causes: a work which must soon bring about an entire revolution of
opinion in favour of the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of
nature."--Prof. Baden Powell's "Study of the Evidences of Christianity,"
"Essays and Reviews," 7th edition, 1861 (pages 138, 139).)