More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I

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LETTER 172. TO H. FALCONER.
December 26th [1863].

Thank you for telling me about the Pliocene mammal, which is very
remarkable; but has not Owen stated that the Pliocene badger is identical
with the recent? Such a case does indeed well show the stupendous duration
of the same form. I have not heard of Suess' pamphlet (172/1. Probably
Suess's paper "Ueber die Verschiedenheit und die Aufeinanderfolge der
tertiaren Land-faunen in der Niederung von Wien." "Sitz.-Ber. Wien Akad."
XLVII., page 306, 1863.), and should much like to learn the title, if it
can be procured; but I am on different subjects just at present. I should
rather like to see it rendered highly probable that the process of
formation of a new species was short compared to its duration--that is, if
the process was allowed to be slow and long; the idea is new to me. Heer's
view that new species are suddenly formed like monsters, I feel a
conviction from many reasons is false.

CHAPTER 1.IV.--EVOLUTION, 1864-1869.

LETTER 173. TO A.R. WALLACE.
Down, January 1st, 1864.

I am still unable to write otherwise than by dictation. In a letter
received two or three weeks ago from Asa Gray he writes: "I read lately
with gusto Wallace's expose of the Dublin man on Bees' cells, etc."
(173/1. "Remarks on the Rev. S. Haughton's paper on the Bee's Cell and on
the Origin of Species" ("Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist." XII., 1863, page 303).
Prof. Haughton's paper was read before the Natural History Society of
Dublin, November 21st, 1862, and reprinted in the "Ann. and Mag. Nat.
Hist." XI., 1863, page 415. See Letters 73, 74, 75.) Now, though I cannot
read at present, I much want to know where this is published, that I may
procure a copy. Further on, Asa Gray says (after speaking of Agassiz's
paper on Glaciers in the "Atlantic Magazine" and his recent book entitled
"Method of Study"): "Pray set Wallace upon these articles." So Asa Gray
seems to think much of your powers of reviewing, and I mention this as it
assuredly is laudari a laudato. I hope you are hard at work, and if you
are inclined to tell me, I should much like to know what you are doing. It
will be many months, I fear, before I shall do anything.

LETTER 174. TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES.
Down, March 27th [1864?].

I had heard that your work was to be translated, and I heard it with
pleasure; but I can take no share of credit, for I am not an active, only
an honorary member of the Society. Since writing I have finished with
extreme interest to the end your admirable work on metamorphosis. (174/1.
Probably "Metamorphoses of Man and the Lower Animals." Translated by H.
Lawson, 1864.) How well you are acquainted with the works of English
naturalists, and how generously you bestow honour on them! Mr. Lubbock is
my neighbour, and I have known him since he was a little boy; he is in
every way a thoroughly good man; as is my friend Huxley. It gave me real
pleasure to see you notice their works as you have done.

LETTER 175. TO T.H. HUXLEY.
Down, April 11th [1864].

I am very much obliged for your present of your "Comp. Anatomy." (175/1.
"Lectures on the Elements of Comparative Anatomy," 1864.) When strong
enough I am sure I shall read it with greatest interest. I could not
resist the last chapter, of which I have read a part, and have been much
interested about the "inspired idiot." (175/2. In reference to Oken (op.
cit., page 282) Huxley says: "I must confess I never read his works
without thinking of the epithet of 'inspired idiot' applied to our own
Goldsmith.") If Owen wrote the article "Oken" (175/3. The article on Oken
in the eighth edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" is signed "R.O.":
Huxley wrote to Darwin (April 18th, 1864), "There is not the smallest
question that Owen wrote both the article 'Oken' and the 'Archetype' Book"
(Huxley's "Life," I., page 250). Mr. Huxley's statements amount to this:
(1) Prof. Owen accuses Goethe of having in 1820 appropriated Oken's theory
of the skull, and of having given an apocryphal account of how the idea
occurred to himself in 1790. (2) in the same article, page 502, Owen
stated it to be questionable whether the discoverer of the true theory of
the segmental constitution of the skull (i.e. himself) was excited to his
labours, or "in any way influenced by the a priori guesses of Oken." On
this Huxley writes, page 288: "But if he himself had not been in any way
influenced by Oken, and if the 'Programm' [of Oken] is a mere mass of 'a
priori guesses,' how comes it that only three years before Mr. Owen could
write thus? 'Oken, ce genie profond et penetrant, fut le premier qui
entrevit la verite, guide par l'heureuse idee de l'arrangement des os
craniens en segments, comme ceux du rachis, appeles vertebres...'" Later
on Owen wrote: "Cela servira pour exemple d'une examen scrupuleux des
faits, d'une appreciation philosophique de leurs relations et analogies,
etc." (From "Principes d'Osteologie comparee, ou Recherches sur
l'Archetype," etc., pages 155, 1855). (3) Finally Huxley says, page 289,
plainly: "The fact is that, so far from not having been 'in any way
influenced' by Oken, Prof. Owen's own contributions to this question are
the merest Okenism, remanie.") and the French work on the Archetype (points
you do not put quite clearly), he never did a baser act...You are so good a
Christian that you will hardly understand how I chuckle over this bit of
baseness. I hope you keep well and hearty; I honour your wisdom at giving
up at present Society for Science. But, on the other hand, I feel it in
myself possible to get to care too much for Natural Science and too little
for other things. I am getting better, I almost dare to hope permanently;
for my sickness is decidedly less--for twenty-seven days consecutively I
was sick many times daily, and lately I was five days free. I long to do a
little work again. The magnificent (by far the most magnificent, and too
magnificent) compliment which you paid me at the end of your "Origin of
Species" (175/4. A title applied to the "Lectures to Working Men," that
"green little book" referred to in Letter 156. Speaking of Mr. Darwin's
work he says (page 156): "I believe that if you strip it of its
theoretical part, it still remains one of the greatest encyclopaedias of
biological doctrine that any one man ever brought forth; and I believe
that, if you take it as the embodiment of an hypothesis, it is destined to
be the guide of biological and psychological speculation for the next three
or four generations.') I have met with reprinted from you two or three
times lately.

LETTER 175A. TO ERASMUS DARWIN.
Down, June 30th, 1864.

(175A.1. The preceding letter contains a reference to the prolonged period
of ill-health which Darwin suffered in 1863 and 1864, and in this
connection the present letter is of interest.

The Copley Medal was given to him in 1864.)

I had not heard a word about the Copley Medal. Please give Falconer my
cordial thanks for his interest about me. I enclose the list of everything
published by me except a few unimportant papers. Ask Falconer not to
mention that I sent the list, as some one might say I had been canvassing,
which is an odious imputation. The origin of the Voyage in the "Beagle"
was that Fitz-Roy generously offered to give up half his cabin to any one
who would volunteer to go as naturalist. Beaufort wrote to Cambridge, and
I volunteered. Fitz-Roy never persuaded me to give up the voyage on
account of sickness, nor did I ever think of doing so, though I suffered
considerably; but I do not believe it was the cause of my subsequent ill-
health, which has lost me so many years, and therefore I should not think
the sea-sickness was worth notice. It would save you trouble to forward
this with my kindest remembrances to Falconer.

(176/1. The following letter was the beginning of a correspondence with
Mr. B.D. Walsh, whom C.V. Riley describes as "one of the ablest and most
thorough entomologists of our time.")

LETTER 176. B.D. WALSH TO CHARLES DARWIN.
Rock Island, Illinois, U.S., April 29th, 1864.

(176/2. The words in square brackets are restorations of parts torn off
the original letter.)

More than thirty years ago I was introduced to you at your rooms in
Christ's College by A.W. Grisebach, and had the pleasure of seeing your
noble collection of British Coleoptera. Some years afterwards I became a
Fellow of Trinity, and finally gave up my Fellowship rather than go into
Orders, and came to this country. For the last five or six years I have
been paying considerable attention to the insect fauna of the U.S., some of
the fruits of which you will see in the enclosed pamphlets. Allow me to
take this opportunity of thanking you for the publication of your "Origin
of Species," which I read three years ago by the advice of a botanical
friend, though I had a strong prejudice against what I supposed then to be
your views. The first perusal staggered me, the second convinced me, and
the oftener I read it the more convinced I am of the general soundness of
your theory.

As you have called upon naturalists that believe in your views to give
public testimony of their convictions, I have directed your attention on
the outside of one or two of my pamphlets to the particular passages in
which [I] have done so. You will please accept these papers from me in
token of my respect and admiration.

As you may see from the latest of these papers, I [have] recently made the
remarkable discover that there [are the] so-called "three sexes" not only
in social insects but [also in the] strictly solitary genus Cynips.

When is your great work to make its appearance? [I should be] much pleased
to receive a few lines from you.

LETTER 177. TO B.D. WALSH.
Down, October 21st [1864].

Ill-health has prevented me from sooner thanking you for your very kind
letter and several memoirs.

I have been very much pleased to see how boldly and clearly you speak out
on the modification of species. I thank you for giving me the pages of
reference; but they were superfluous, for I found so many original and
profound remarks that I have carefully looked through all the papers. I
hope that your discovery about the Cynips (177/1. "On Dimorphism in the
hymenopterous genus Cynips," "Proc. Entom. Soc. Philadelphia," March, 1864.
Mr. Walsh's view is that Cynips quercus aciculata is a dimorphous form of
Cynips q. spongifica, and occurs only as a female. Cynips q. spongifica
also produces spongifica females and males from other galls at a different
time of year.) will hold good, for it is a remarkable one, and I for one
have often marvelled what could be the meaning of the case. I will lend
your paper to my neighbour Mr. Lubbock, who I know is much interested in
the subject. Incidentally I shall profit by your remarks on galls. If you
have time I think a rather hopeless experiment would be worth trying;
anyhow, I should have tried it had my health permitted. It is to insert a
minute grain of some organic substance, together with the poison from bees,
sand-wasps, ichneumons, adders, and even alkaloid poisons into the tissues
of fitting plants for the chance of monstrous growths being produced.
(177/2. See "Life and Letters," III., page 346, for an account of
experiments attempted in this direction by Mr. Darwin in 1880. On the
effects of injuring plant-tissues, see Massart, "La Cicatrisation, etc." in
Tome LVII. of the "Memoires Couronnes" of the Brussels Academy.)

My health has long been poor, and I have lately suffered from a long
illness which has interrupted all work, but I am now recommencing a volume
in connection with the "Origin."

P.S.--If you write again I should very much like to hear what your life in
your new country is.

What can be the meaning or use of the great diversity of the external
generative organs in your cases, in Bombus, and the phytophagous
coleoptera?

What can there be in the act of copulation necessitating such complex and
diversified apparatus?

LETTER 178. TO W.H. FLOWER.
Down, July 11th, 1864.

I am truly obliged for all the trouble which you have taken for me, and for
your very interesting note. I had only vaguely heard it said that frogs
had a rudiment of a sixth toe; had I known that such great men had looked
to the point I should not have dreamed of looking myself. The rudiment
sent to you was from a full-grown frog; so that if these bones are the two
cuneiforms they must, I should think, be considered to be in a rudimentary
condition. This afternoon my gardener brought in some tadpoles with the
hind-legs alone developed, and I looked at the rudiment. At this age it
certainly looks extremely like a digit, for the extremity is enlarged like
that of the adjoining real toe, and the transverse articulation seems
similar. I am sorry that the case is doubtful, for if these batrachians
had six toes, I certainly think it would have thrown light on the truly
extraordinary strength of inheritance in polydactylism in so many animals,
and especially on the power of regeneration in amputated supernumerary
digits. (178/1. In the first edition of "Variation under Domestication"
the view here given is upheld, but in the second edition (Volume I., page
459) Darwin withdrew his belief that the development of supernumerary
digits in man is "a case of reversion to a lowly-organised progenitor
provided with more than five digits." See Letters 161, 270.)

LETTER 179. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down [October 22nd, 1864].

The Lyells have been here, and were extremely pleasant, but I saw them only
occasionally for ten minutes, and when they went I had an awful day [of
illness]; but I am now slowly getting up to my former standard. I shall
soon be confined to a living grave, and a fearful evil it is.

I suppose you have read Tyndall. (179/1. Probably Tyndall "On the
Conformation of the Alps" ("Phil. Mag." 1864, page 255).) I have now come
round again to Ramsay's view, (179/2. "Phil. Mag." 1864, page 293.) for
the third or fourth time; but Lyell says when I read his discussion in the
"Elements," I shall recant for the fifth time. (179/3. This refers to a
discussion on the "Connection of the predominance of Lakes with Glacial
Action" ("Elements," Edition VI., pages 168-74). Lyell adheres to the
views expressed in the "Antiquity of Man" (1863) against Ramsay's theory of
the origin of lake basins by ice action.) What a capital writer Tyndall
is!

In your last note you ask what the Bardfield oxlip is. It is P. elatior of
Jacq., which certainly looks, when growing, to common eyes different from
the common oxlip. I will fight you to the death that as primrose and
cowslip are different in appearance (not to mention odour, habitat and
range), and as I can now show that, when they cross, the intermediate
offspring are sterile like ordinary hybrids, they must be called as good
species as a man and a gorilla.

I agree that if Scott's red cowslip grew wild or spread itself and did not
vary [into] common cowslip (and we have absolutely no proof of primrose or
cowslip varying into each other), and as it will not cross with the
cowslip, it would be a perfectly good species. The power of remaining for
a good long period constant I look at as the essence of a species, combined
with an appreciable amount of difference; and no one can say there is not
this amount of difference between primrose and oxlip.

(PLATE: HUGH FALCONER, 1844. From a photograph by Hill & Adamson.)

LETTER 180. HUGH FALCONER TO W. SHARPEY.

(180/1. Falconer had proposed Darwin for the Copley Medal of the Royal
Society (which was awarded to him in 1864), but being detained abroad, he
gave his reasons for supporting Darwin for this honour in a letter to
Sharpey, the Secretary of the Royal Society. A copy of the letter here
printed seems to have been given to Erasmus Darwin, and by him shown to his
brother Charles.)

Montauban, October 25th, 1864.

Busk and myself have made every effort to be back in London by the 27th
inst., but we have been persecuted by mishaps--through the breakdown of
trains, diligences, etc., so that we have been sadly put out in our
reckoning--and have lost some of the main objects that brought us round by
this part of France--none of which were idle or unimportant.

Busk started yesterday for Paris from Bruniquel, to make sure of being
present at the meeting of the Royal Council on Thursday. He will tell you
that there were strong reasons for me remaining behind him. But as I
seconded the proposal of Mr. Darwin for the Copley Medal, in default of my
presence at the first meeting, I beg that you will express my great regrets
to the President and Council at not being there, and that I am very
reluctantly detained. I shall certainly be in London (D.V.) by the second
meeting on the 3rd proximo. Meanwhile I solicit the favour of being heard,
through you, respecting the grounds upon which I seconded Mr. Darwin's
nomination for the Copley Medal.

Referring to the classified list which I drew up of Mr. Darwin's scientific
labours, ranging through the wide field of (1) Geology, (2) Physical
Geography, (3) Zoology, (4) physiological Botany, (5) genetic Biology, and
to the power with which he has investigated whatever subject he has taken
up,--Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit,--I am of opinion that Mr. Darwin is
not only one of the most eminent naturalists of his day, but that hereafter
he will be regarded as one of the great naturalists of all countries and of
all time. His early work on the structure and distribution of coral reefs
constitutes an era in the investigation of the subject. As a monographic
labour, it may be compared with Dr. Wells' "Essay upon Dew," as original,
exhaustive, and complete--containing the closest observation with large and
important generalisations.

Among the zoologists his monographs upon the Balanidae and Lepadidae,
Fossil and Recent, in the Palaeontographical and Ray Societies'
publications, are held to be models of their kind.

In physiological Botany, his recent researches upon the dimorphism of the
genital organs in certain plants, embodied in his papers in the "Linnean
Journal," on Primula, Linum, and Lythrum, are of the highest order of
importance. They open a new mine of observation upon a field which had
been barely struck upon before. The same remark applies to his researches
on the structure and various adaptations of the orchideous flower to a
definite object connected with impregnation of the plants through the
agency of insects with foreign pollen. There has not yet been time for
their due influence being felt in the advancement of the science. But in
either subject they constitute an advance per saltum. I need not dwell
upon the value of his geological researches, which won for him one of the
earlier awards of the Wollaston Medal from the Geological Society, the best
of judges on the point.

And lastly, Mr. Darwin's great essay on the "Origin of Species" by Natural
Selection. This solemn and mysterious subject had been either so lightly
or so grotesquely treated before, that it was hardly regarded as being
within the bounds of legitimate philosophical investigation. Mr. Darwin,
after twenty years of the closest study and research, published his views,
and it is sufficient to say that they instantly fixed the attention of
mankind throughout the civilised world. That the efforts of a single mind
should have arrived at success on a subject of such vast scope, and
encompassed with such difficulties, was more than could have been
reasonably expected, and I am far from thinking that Charles Darwin has
made out all his case. But he has treated it with such power and in such a
philosophical and truth-seeking spirit, and illustrated it with such an
amount of original and collated observation as fairly to have brought the
subject within the bounds of rational scientific research. I consider this
great essay on genetic Biology to constitute a strong additional claim on
behalf of Mr. Darwin for the Copley Medal. (180/2. The following letter
(December 3rd, 1864), from Mr. Huxley to Sir J.D. Hooker, is reprinted, by
the kind permission of Mr. L. Huxley, from his father's "Life," I., page
255. Sabine's address (from the "Reader") is given in the "Life and
Letters," III., page 28. In the "Proceedings of the Royal Society" the
offending sentence is slightly modified. It is said, in Huxley's "Life"
(loc. cit., note), that the sentence which follows it was introduced to
mitigate the effect:--

"I wish you had been at the anniversary meeting and dinner, because the
latter was very pleasant, and the former, to me, very disagreeable. My
distrust of Sabine is, as you know, chronic; and I went determined to keep
careful watch on his address, lest some crafty phrase injurious to Darwin
should be introduced. My suspicions were justified, the only part of the
address [relating] to Darwin written by Sabine himself containing the
following passage:

"'Speaking generally and collectively, we have expressly omitted it
[Darwin's theory] from the grounds of our award.'

"Of course this would be interpreted by everybody as meaning that after due
discussion, the council had formally resolved not only to exclude Darwin's
theory from the grounds of the award, but to give public notice through the
president that they had done so, and, furthermore, that Darwin's friends
had been base enough to accept an honour for him on the understanding that
in receiving it he should be publicly insulted!

"I felt that this would never do, and therefore, when the resolution for
printing the address was moved, I made a speech, which I took care to keep
perfectly cool and temperate, disavowing all intention of interfering with
the liberty of the president to say what he pleased, but exercising my
constitutional right of requiring the minutes of council making the award
to be read, in order that the Society might be informed whether the
conditions implied by Sabine had been imposed or not.

"The resolution was read, and of course nothing of the kind appeared.
Sabine didn't exactly like it, I believe. Both Busk and Falconer
remonstrated against the passage to him, and I hope it will be withdrawn
when the address is printed. If not, there will be an awful row, and I for
one will show no mercy.")

In forming an estimate of the value and extent of Mr. Darwin's researches,
due regard ought to be had to the circumstances under which they have been
carried out--a pressure of unremitting disease, which has latterly left him
not more than one or two hours of the day which he could call his own.

LETTER 181. TO HUGH FALCONER.
Down, November 4th [1864].

What a good kind friend you are! I know well that this medal must have
cost you a deal of trouble. It is a very great honour to me, but I declare
the knowledge that you and a few other friends have interested themselves
on the subject is the real cream of the enjoyment to me; indeed, it is to
me worth far more than many medals. So accept my true and cordial thanks.
I hope that I may yet have strength to do a little more work in Natural
Science, shaky and old though I be. I have chuckled and triumphed over
your postscript about poor M. Brulle and his young pupils (181/1. The
following is the postscript in a letter from Falconer to Darwin November
3rd [1864]: "I returned last night from Spain via France. On Monday I was
at Dijon, where, while in the Museum, M. Brulle, Professor of Zoology,
asked me what was my frank opinion of Charles Darwin's doctrine? He told
me in despair that he could not get his pupils to listen to anything from
him except a la Darwin! He, poor man, could not comprehend it, and was
still unconvinced, but that all young Frenchmen would hear or believe
nothing else.") About a week ago I had a nearly similar account from
Germany, and at the same time I heard of some splendid converts in such men
as Leuckart, Gegenbauer, etc. You may say what you like about yourself,
but I look at a man who treats natural history in the same spirit with
which you do, exactly as good, for what I believe to be the truth, as a
convert.

LETTER 182. TO HUGH FALCONER.
Down, November 8th [1864].

Your remark on the relation of the award of the medal and the present
outburst of bigotry had not occurred to me. It seems very true, and makes
me the more gratified to receive it. General Sabine (182/1. See "Life and
Letters," III., page 28.) wrote to me and asked me to attend at the
anniversary, but I told him it was really impossible. I have never been
able to conjecture the cause; but I find that on my good days, when I can
write for a couple of hours, that anything which stirs me up like talking
for half or even a quarter of an hour, generally quite prostrates me,
sometimes even for a long time afterwards. I believe attending the
anniversary would possibly make me seriously ill. I should enjoy attending
and shaking you and a few of my other friends by the hand, but it would be
folly even if I did not break down at the time. I told Sabine that I did
not know who had proposed and seconded me for the medal, but that I
presumed it was you, or Hooker or Busk, and that I felt sure, if you
attended, you would receive the medal for me; and that if none of you
attended, that Lyell or Huxley would receive it for me. Will you receive
it, and it could be left at my brother's?