More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I

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It is a grand fact about Anoplotherium (230/2. This perhaps refers to the
existence of Anoplotherium in the S. American Eocene formation: it is one
of the points in which the fauna of S. America resembles Europe rather than
N. America. (See Wallace "Geographical Distribution," I., page 148.)), and
shows how even terrestrial quadrupeds had time formerly to spread to very
distinct regions. At each epoch the world tends to get peopled pretty
uniformly, which is a blessing for Geology.

The article in "N. British Review" (230/3. See Letter 229.) is well worth
reading scientifically; George D. and Erasmus were delighted with it. How
the author does hit! It was a euphuism to speak of a fling at you: it was
a kick. He is very unfair to Huxley, and accuses him of "quibbling," etc.;
yet the author cannot help admiring him extremely. I know I felt very
small when I finished the article. You will be amused to observe that
geologists have all been misled by Playfair, who was misled by two of the
greatest mathematicians! And there are other such cases; so we could turn
round and show your reviewer how cautious geologists ought to be in
trusting mathematicians.

There is another excellent original article, I feel sure by McClennan, on
Primeval Man, well worth reading.

I do not quite agree about Sabine: he is unlike every other soldier or
sailor I ever heard of if he would not put his second leg into the tomb
with more satisfaction as K.C.B. than as a simple man. I quite agree that
the Government ought to have made him long ago, but what does the
Government know or care for Science? So much for your splenditious letter.

LETTER 231. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, August 14th [1869?]

I write one line to tell you that you are a real good man to propose coming
here for a Sunday after Exeter. Do keep to this good intention...I am sure
Exeter and your other visit will do you good. I often wonder how you stand
all your multifarious work.

I quite agree about the folly of the endless subscriptions for dead men;
but Faraday is an exception, and if you will pay three guineas for me, it
will save me some trouble; but it will be best to enclose a cheque, which,
as you will see, must be endorsed. If you read the "North British Review,"
you will like to know that George has convinced me, from correspondence in
style, and spirit, that the article is by Tait, the co-worker with Thomson.

I was much surprised at the leaves of Drosophyllum being always rolled
backwards at their tips, but did not know that it was a unique character.

(PLATE: SIR J.D. HOOKER, 1870? From a photograph by Wallich.)

LETTER 232. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, November 13th [1869].

I heard yesterday from a relation who had seen in a newspaper that you were
C.B. I must write one line to say "Hurrah," though I wish it had been
K.C.B., as it assuredly ought to have been; but I suppose they look at
K.C.B. before C.B. as a dukedom before an earldom.

We had a very successful week in London, and I was unusually well and saw a
good many persons, which, when well, is a great pleasure to me. I had a
jolly talk with Huxley, amongst others. And now I am at the same work as
before, and shall be for another two months--namely, putting ugly sentences
rather straighter; and I am sick of the work, and, as the subject is all on
sexual selection, I am weary of everlasting males and females, cocks and
hens.

It is a shame to bother you, but I should like some time to hear about the
C.B. affair.

I have read one or two interesting brochures lately--viz., Stirling the
Hegelian versus Huxley and protoplasm; Tylor in "Journal of Royal
Institute" on the survivals of old thought in modern civilisation.

Farewell. I am as dull as a duck, both male and female.

To Dr. Hooker, C.B., F.R.S.
Dr. Hooker, K.C.B.
(This looks better).

P.S. I hear a good account of Bentham's last address (232/1. Presidential
Address, chiefly on Geographical Distribution, delivered before the "Linn.
Soc." May 24th, 1869.), which I am now going to read.

I find that I have blundered about Bentham's address. Lyell was speaking
about one that I read some months ago; but I read half of it again last
night, and shall finish it. Some passages are either new or were not
studied enough by me before. It strikes me as admirable, as it did on the
first reading, though I differ in some few points.

Such an address is worth its weight in gold, I should think, in making
converts to our views. Lyell tells me that Bunbury has been wonderfully
impressed with it, and he never before thought anything of our views on
evolution.

P.S. (2). I have just read, and like very much, your review of Schimper.
(232/2. A review of Schimper's "Traite de Paleontologie Vegetale," the
first portion of which was published in 1869. "Nature," November 11th,
1869, page 48.)

LETTER 233. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, November 19th [1869].

Thank you much for telling me all about the C.B., for I much wished to
hear. It pleases me extremely that the Government have done this much; and
as the K.C.B.'s are limited in number (which I did not know), I excuse it.
I will not mention what you have told me to any one, as it would be
Murchisonian. But what a shame it is to use this expression, for I fully
believe that Murchison would take any trouble to get any token of honour
for any man of science.

I like all scientific periodicals, including poor "Scientific Opinion," and
I think higher than you do of "Nature." Lord, what a rhapsody that was of
Goethe, but how well translated; it seemed to me, as I told Huxley, as if
written by the maddest English scholar. It is poetry, and can I say
anything more severe? The last number of the "Academy" was splendid, and I
hope it will soon come out fortnightly. I wish "Nature" would search more
carefully all foreign journals and transactions.

I am now reading a German thick pamphlet (233/1. "Die Abhangigheit der
Pflanzengestalt von Klima und Boden. Ein Beitrag zur Lehre von der
Enstehung und Verbreitung der Arten, etc." Festschrift zur 43 Versammlung
Deutscher Naturforscher und Aertze in Innsbruck (Innsbruck, 1869).) by
Kerner on Tubocytisus; if you come across it, look at the map of the
distribution of the eighteen quasi-species, and at the genealogical tree.
If the latter, as the author says, was constructed solely from the
affinities of the forms, then the distribution is wonderfully interesting;
we may see the very steps of the formation of a species. If you study the
genealogical tree and map, you will almost understand the book. The two
old parent connecting links just keep alive in two or three areas; then we
have four widely extended species, their descendants; and from them little
groups of newer descendants inhabiting rather small areas...

LETTER 234. TO CAMILLE DARESTE.
Down, November 20th, 1869.

Dear Sir,

I am glad that you are a candidate for the Chair of Physiology in Paris.
As you are aware from my published works, I have always considered your
investigations on the production of monstrosities as full of interest. No
subject is at the present time more important, as far as my judgment goes,
than the ascertaining by experiment how far structure can be modified by
the direct action of changed conditions; and you have thrown much light on
this subject.

I observe that several naturalists in various parts of Europe have lately
maintained that it is now of the highest interest for science to endeavour
to lessen, as far as possible, our profound ignorance on the cause of each
individual variation; and, as Is. Geoffroy St. Hilaire long ago remarked,
monstrosities cannot be separated by any distinct line from slighter
variations.

With my best wishes for your success in obtaining the Professorship, and
with sincere respect.

I have the honour to remain, dear sir,
Yours faithfully,
CHARLES DARWIN.

CHAPTER 1.V.--EVOLUTION, 1870-1882.

LETTER 235. TO J. JENNER WEIR.
Down, March 17th [1870].

It is my decided opinion that you ought to send an account to some
scientific society, and I think to the Royal Society. (235/1. Mr. Jenner
Weir's case is given in "Animals and Plants," Edition II., Volume I., page
435, and does not appear to have been published elsewhere. The facts are
briefly that a horse, the offspring of a mare of Lord Mostyn's, which had
previously borne a foal by a quagga, showed a number of quagga-like
characters, such as stripes, low-growing mane, and elongated hoofs. The
passage in "Animals and Plants," to which he directs Mr. Weir's attention
in reference to Carpenter's objection, is in Edition I., Volume I., page
405: "It is a most improbable hypothesis that the mere blood of one
individual should affect the reproductive organs of another individual in
such a manner as to modify the subsequent offspring. The analogy from the
direct action of foreign pollen on the ovarium and seed-coats of the mother
plant strongly supports the belief that the male element acts directly on
the reproductive organs of the female, wonderful as is this action, and not
through the intervention of the crossed embryo." For references to Mr.
Galton's experiments on transfusion of blood, see Letter 273.) I would
communicate it if you so decide. You might give as a preliminary reason
the publication in the "Transactions" of the celebrated Morton case and the
pig case by Mr. Giles. You might also allude to the evident physiological
importance of such facts as bearing on the theory of generation. Whether
it would be prudent to allude to despised pangenesis I cannot say, but I
fully believe pangenesis will have its successful day. Pray ascertain
carefully the colour of the dam and sire. See about duns in my book
["Animals and Plants"], Volume I., page 55. The extension of the mane and
form of hoofs are grand new facts. Is the hair of your horse at all curly?
for [an] observed case [is] given by me (Volume II., page 325) from Azara
of correlation of forms of hoof with curly hairs. See also in my book
(Volume I., page 55; Volume II., page 41) how exceedingly rare stripes are
on the faces of horses in England. Give the age of your horse.

You are aware that Dr. Carpenter and others have tried to account for the
effects of a first impregnation from the influence of the blood of the
crossed embryo; but with physiologists who believe that the reproductive
elements are actually formed by the reproductive glands, this view is
inconsistent. Pray look at what I have said in "Domestic Animals" (Volume
I., pages 402-5) against this doctrine. It seems to me more probable that
the gemmules affect the ovaria alone. I remember formerly speculating,
like you, on the assertion that wives grow like their husbands; but how
impossible to eliminate effects of imitation and same habits of life, etc.
Your letter has interested me profoundly.

P.S.--Since publishing I have heard of additional cases--a very good one in
regard to Westphalian pigs crossed by English boar, and all subsequent
offspring affected, given in "Illust. Landwirth-Zeitung," 1868, page 143.

I have shown that mules are often striped, though neither parent may be
striped,--due to ancient reversion. Now, Fritz Muller writes to me from S.
Brazil: "I have been assured, by persons who certainly never had heard of
Lord Morton's mare, that mares which have borne hybrids to an ass are
particularly liable to produce afterwards striped ass-colts." So a
previous fertilisation apparently gives to the subsequent offspring a
tendency to certain characters, as well as characters actually possessed by
the first male.

In the reprint (not called a second edition) of my "Domestic Animals" I
give a good additional case of subsequent progeny of hairless dog being
hairy from effects of first impregnation.

P.S. 2nd. The suggestion, no doubt, is superfluous, but you ought, I
think, to measure extension of mane beyond a line joining front or back of
ears, and compare with horse. Also the measure (and give comparison with
horse), length, breadth, and depth of hoofs.

LETTER 236. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, July 12th [1870].

Your conclusion that all speculation about preordination is idle waste of
time is the only wise one; but how difficult it is not to speculate! My
theology is a simple muddle; I cannot look at the universe as the result of
blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent design or indeed of
design of any kind, in the details. As for each variation that has ever
occurred having been preordained for a special end, I can no more believe
in it than that the spot on which each drop of rain falls has been
specially ordained.

Spontaneous generation seems almost as great a puzzle as preordination. I
cannot persuade myself that such a multiplicity of organisms can have been
produced, like crystals, in Bastian's (236/1. On September 2nd, 1872, Mr.
Darwin wrote to Mr. Wallace, in reference to the latter's review of "The
Beginnings of Life," by H.C. Bastian (1872), in "Nature," 1872, pages 284-
99: "At present I should prefer any mad hypothesis, such as that every
disintegrated molecule of the lowest forms can reproduce the parent-form;
and that these molecules are universally distributed, and that they do not
lose their vital power until heated to such a temperature that they
decompose like dead organic particles.") solutions of the same kind. I am
astonished that, as yet, I have met with no allusion to Wyman's positive
statement (236/2. "Observations and Experiments on Living Organisms in
Heated Water," by Jeffries Wyman, Prof. of Anatomy, Harvard Coll. ("Amer.
Journ. Sci." XLIV., 1867, page 152.) Solutions of organic matter in
hermetically sealed flasks were immersed in boiling water for various
periods. "No infusoria of any kind appeared if the boiling was prolonged
beyond a period of five hours.") that if the solutions are boiled for five
hours no organisms appear; yet, if my memory serves me, the solutions when
opened to air immediately became stocked. Against all evidence, I cannot
avoid suspecting that organic particles (my "gemmules" from the separate
cells of the lower creatures!) will keep alive and afterwards multiply
under proper conditions.

What an interesting problem it is.

LETTER 237. TO W.B. TEGETMEIER.
Down, July 15th [1870].

It is very long since I have heard from you, and I am much obliged for your
letter. It is good news that you are going to bring out a new edition of
your Poultry book (237/1. "The Poultry Book," 1872.), and you are quite at
liberty to use all my materials. Thanks for the curious case of the wild
duck variation: I have heard of other instances of a tendency to vary in
one out of a large litter or family. I have too many things in hand at
present to profit by your offer of the loan of the American Poultry book.

Pray keep firm to your idea of working out the subject of analogous
variations (237/2. "By this term I mean that similar characters
occasionally make their appearance in the several varieties or races
descended from the same species, and more rarely in the offspring of widely
distinct species" ("Animals and Plants," II., Edition II., page 340).) with
pigeons; I really think you might thus make a novel and valuable
contribution to science. I can, however, quite understand how much your
time must be occupied with the never-ending, always-beginning editorial
cares.

I keep much as usual, and crawl on with my work.

LETTER 238. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, September 27th [1870].

Yours was a splendid letter, and I was very curious to hear something about
the Liverpool meeting (238/1. Mr. Huxley was President of the British
Association at Liverpool in 1870. His Presidential Address on "Biogenesis
and Abiogenesis" is reprinted in his collected Essays, VIII., page 229.
Some account of the meeting is given in Huxley's "Life and Letters," Volume
I., pages 332, 336.), which I much wished to be successful for Huxley's
sake. I am surprised that you think his address would not have been clear
to the public; it seemed to me as clear as water. The general line of his
argument might have been answered by the case of spontaneous combustion:
tens of thousands of cases of things having been seen to be set on fire
would be no true argument against any one who maintained that flames
sometimes spontaneously burst forth. I am delighted at the apotheosis of
Sir Roderick; I can fancy what neat and appropriate speeches he would make
to each nobleman as he entered the gates of heaven. You ask what I think
about Tyndall's lecture (238/2. Tyndall's lecture was "On the Scientific
Uses of the Imagination."): it seemed to me grand and very interesting,
though I could not from ignorance quite follow some parts, and I longed to
tell him how immensely it would have been improved if all the first part
had been made very much less egotistical. George independently arrived at
the same conclusion, and liked all the latter part extremely. He thought
the first part not only egotistical, but rather clap-trap.

How well Tyndall puts the "as if" manner of philosophising, and shows that
it is justifiable. Some of those confounded Frenchmen have lately been
pitching into me for using this form of proof or argument.

I have just read Rolleston's address in "Nature" (238/3. Presidential
Address to the Biological Section, British Association, 1870. "Nature,"
September 22nd, 1870, page 423. Rolleston referred to the vitality of
seeds in soil, a subject on which Darwin made occasional observations. See
"Life and Letters," II., page 65.): his style is quite unparalleled! I
see he quotes you about seed, so yesterday I went and observed more
carefully the case given in the enclosed paper, which perhaps you might
like to read and burn.

How true and good what you say about Lyell. He is always the same; Dohrn
was here yesterday, and was remarking that no one stood higher in the
public estimation of Germany than Lyell.

I am truly and profoundly glad that you are thinking of some general work
on Geographical Distribution, or so forth; I hope to God that your
incessant occupations may not interrupt this intention. As for my book, I
shall not have done the accursed proofs till the end of November (238/4.
The proofs of the "Descent of Man" were finished on January 15th, 1871.):
good Lord, what a muddled head I have got on my wretched old shoulders.

LETTER 239. TO H. SETTEGAST.
Down, September 29th, 1870.

I am very much obliged for your kind letter and present of your beautiful
volume. (239/1. "Die Thierzucht," 1868.) Your work is not new to me, for
I heard it so highly spoken of that I procured a copy of the first edition.
It was a great gratification to me to find a man who had long studied with
a philosophical spirit our domesticated animals, and who was highly
competent to judge, agreeing to a large extent with my views. I regretted
much that I had not known your work when I published my last volumes.

I am surprised and pleased to hear that science is not quite forgotten
under the present exciting state of affairs. Every one whom I know in
England is an enthusiastic wisher for the full and complete success of
Germany.

P.S. I will give one of my two copies of your work to some public
scientific library in London.

LETTER 240. TO THE EDITOR OF THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE."
Down, March 24th [1871].

Mr. Darwin presents his compliments to the Editor, and would be greatly
obliged if he would address and post the enclosed letter to the author of
the two admirable reviews of the "Descent of Man." (240/1. The notices of
the "Descent of Man," published in the "Pall Mall Gazette" of March 20th
and 21st, 1871, were by Mr. John Morley. We are indebted to the Editor of
the "Pall Mall Gazette" for kindly allowing us to consult his file of the
journal.)

LETTER 241. TO JOHN MORLEY.
Down, March 24th, 1871.

From the spirit of your review in the "Pall Mall Gazette" of my last book,
which has given me great pleasure, I have thought that you would perhaps
inform me on one point, withholding, if you please, your name.

You say that my phraseology on beauty is "loose scientifically, and
philosophically most misleading." (241/1. "Mr. Darwin's work is one of
those rare and capital achievements of intellect which effect a grave
modification throughout all the highest departments of the realm of
opinion...There is throughout the description and examination of Sexual
Selection a way of speaking of beauty, which seems to us to be highly
unphilosophical, because it assumes a certain theory of beauty, which the
most competent modern thinkers are too far from accepting, to allow its
assumption to be quite judicious...Why should we only find the aesthetic
quality in birds wonderful, when it happens to coincide with our own? In
other words, why attribute to them conscious aesthetic qualities at all?
There is no more positive reason for attributing aesthetic consciousness to
the Argus pheasant than there is for attributing to bees geometric
consciousness of the hexagonal prisms and rhombic plates of the hive which
they so marvellously construct. Hence the phraseology which Mr. Darwin
employs in this part of the subject, though not affecting the degree of
probability which may belong to this theory, seems to us to be very loose
scientifically, and philosophically most misleading."--"Pall Mall
Gazette.") This is not at all improbable, as it is almost a lifetime since
I attended to the philosophy of aesthetics, and did not then think that I
should ever make use of my conclusions. Can you refer me to any one or two
books (for my power of reading is not great) which would illumine me? or
can you explain in one or two sentences how I err? Perhaps it would be
best for me to explain what I mean by the sense of beauty in its lowest
stage of development, and which can only apply to animals. When an intense
colour, or two tints in harmony, or a recurrent and symmetrical figure
please the eye, or a single sweet note pleases the ear, I call this a sense
of beauty; and with this meaning I have spoken (though I now see in not a
sufficiently guarded manner) of a taste for the beautiful being the same in
mankind (for all savages admire bits of bright cloth, beads, plumes, etc.)
and in the lower animals. If the blue and yellow plumage of a macaw
(241/2. "What man deems the horrible contrasts of yellow and blue attract
the macaw, while ball-and-socket-plumage attracts the Argus pheasant"--
"Pall Mall Gazette," March 21st, 1871, page 1075.) pleases the eye of this
bird, I should say that it had a sense of beauty, although its taste was
bad according to our standard. Now, will you have the kindness to tell me
how I can learn to see the error of my ways? Of course I recognise, as
indeed I have remarked in my book, that the sense of beauty in the case of
scenery, pictures, etc., is something infinitely complex, depending on
varied associations and culture of the mind. From a very interesting
review in the "Spectator," and from your and Wallace's review, I perceive
that I have made a great oversight in not having said what little I could
on the acquisition of the sense for the beautiful by man and the lower
animals. It would indeed be an immense advantage to an author if he could
read such criticisms as yours before publishing. At page 11 of your review
you accidentally misquote my words placed by you within inverted commas,
from my Volume II., page 354: I say that "man cannot endure any great
change," and the omitted words "any great" make all the difference in the
discussion. (241/3. "Mr. Darwin tells us, and gives us excellent reasons
for thinking, that 'the men of each race prefer what they are accustomed to
behold; they cannot endure change.' Yet is there not an inconsistency
between this fact and the other that one race differs from another exactly
because novelties presented themselves, and were eagerly seized and
propagated?")

Permit me to add a few other remarks. I believe your criticism is quite
just about my deficient historic spirit, for I am aware of my ignorance in
this line. (241/4. "In the historic spirit, however, Mr. Darwin must
fairly be pronounced deficient. When, for instance, he speaks of the
'great sin of slavery' having been general among primitive nations, he
forgets that, though to hold a slave would be a sinful degradation to a
European to-day, the practice of turning prisoners of war into slaves,
instead of butchering them, was not a sin at all, but marked a decided
improvement in human manners.") On the other hand, if you should ever be
led to read again Chapter III., and especially Chapter V., I think you will
find that I am not amenable to all your strictures; though I felt that I
was walking on a path unknown to me and full of pitfalls; but I had the
advantage of previous discussions by able men. I tried to say most
emphatically that a great philosopher, law-giver, etc., did far more for
the progress of mankind by his writings or his example than by leaving a
numerous offspring. I have endeavoured to show how the struggle for
existence between tribe and tribe depends on an advance in the moral and
intellectual qualities of the members, and not merely on their capacity of
obtaining food. When I speak of the necessity of a struggle for existence
in order that mankind should advance still higher in the scale, I do not
refer to the MOST, but "to the MORE highly gifted men" being successful in
the battle for life; I referred to my supposition of the men in any country
being divided into two equal bodies--viz., the more and the less highly
gifted, and to the former on an average succeeding best.