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%.       THE 
LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF 

CHARLES  DARWIN 


Including  an  Autobiographical  Chapter 


EDITED  BY  HIS  SON 

FRANCIS  DARWIN 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.  I 


NEW  YORK 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

1887 


/ 

/ 


THE  LfRRAfJIY 
BRIGHaVM  YOUN3  tis.  TRSJTY 
a^       -  EROyO,  UTAH 


PREFACE 


In  choosing  letters  for  publication  I  have  been 
largely  guided  by  the  wish  to  illustrate  my  father's 
personal  character.  But  his  life  was  so  essentially  one 
of  work,  that  a  history  of  the  man  could  not  be  writ- 
ten without  following  closely  the  career  of  the  author. 
Thus  it  comes  about  that  the  chief  part  of  the  book 
falls  into  chapters  whose  titles  correspond  to  the 
names  of  his  books. 

In  arranging  the  letters  I  have  adhered  as  far  as 
possible  to  chronological  sequence,  but  the  character 
and  variety  of  his  researches  make  a  strictly  chrono- 
logical order  an  impossibility.  It  was  his  habit  to 
work  more  or  less  simultaneously  at  several  subjects. 
Experimental  work  was  often  carried  on  as  a  refresh- 
ment or  variety,  while  books  entailing  reasoning  and 
the  marshalling  of  large  bodies  of  facts  were  being 
written.  Moreover,  many  of  his  researches  were 
allowed  to  drop,  and  only  resumed  after  an  interval  of 
years.  Thus  a  rigidly  chronological  series  of  letters 
would  present  a  patchwork  of  subjects,  each  of  which 
would  be  difficult  to  follow.  The  Table  of  Contents 
will  show  in  what  way  I  have  attempted  to  avoid  this 
result. 

In  printing  the  letters  I  have  followed  (except  in  a 


IV 


PREFACE. 


few  cases)  the  usual  plan  of  indicating  the  existence  of 
omissions  or  insertions.  My  father's  letters  give  fre- 
quent evidence  of  having  been  written  when  he  was 
tired  or  hurried,  and  they  bear  the  marks  of  this  cir- 
cumstance. In  writing  to  a  friend,  or  to  one  of  his 
family,  he  frequentl}^  omitted  the  articles :  these  have 
been  inserted  without  the  usual  indications,  except  in 
a  few  instances  {e.  g,  vol.  i.  p.  177),  where  it  is  of  spe- 
cial interest  to  preserve  intact  the  hurried  character 
of  the  letter.  Other  small  words,  such  as  of^  to,  &iQ,, 
have  been  inserted  usually  within  brackets.  I  have 
not  followed  the  originals  as  regards  the  spelling  of 
names,  the  use  of  capitals,  or  in  the  matter  of  punctu- 
ation. My  father  underlined  many  words  in  his  let- 
ters ;  these  have  not  always  been  given  in  italics, — 
a  rendering  which  would  unfairly  exaggerate  their 
effect. 

The  Diary  or  Pocket-book,  from  which  quotations 
occur  in  the  following  pages,  has  been  of  value  as  sup- 
plying a  frame-work  of  facts  round  which  letters  may 
be  grouped.  It  is  unfortunately  written  with  great 
brevity,  the  history  of  a  year  being  compressed  into  a 
page  or  less ;  and  contains  little  more  than  the  dates 
of  the  principal  events  of  his  life,  together  with  entries 
as  to  his  work,  and  as  to  the  duration  of  his  more 
serious  illnesses.  He  rarely  dated  his  letters,  so  that 
but  for  the  Diary  it  would  have  been  all  but  impossi- 
ble to  unravel  the  history  of  his  books.  It  has  also 
enabled  me  to  assign  dates  to  many  letters  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  shorn  of  half  their  value. 

Of  letters  addressed  to  my  father  I  have  not  made 
much  use.  It  was  his  custom  to  file  all  letters  re- 
ceived, and  when  his  slender  stock  of  files  (''  spits  *'  as 
he  called  them)  was  exhausted,  he  would  burn  the  let- 
ters of  several  years,  in  order  that  he  might  make  use 


PREFACE.  y 

of  the  liberated  "  spits."  Tliis  process,  carried  on  for 
years,  destroyed  nearly  all  letters  received  before  1862. 
After  that  date  he  was  persuaded  to  keep  the  more 
interesting  letters,  and  these  are  preserved  in  an  ac- 
cessible form. 

I  have  attempted  to  give,  in  Chapter  III.,  some  ac- 
count of  his  manner  of  working.  During  the  last 
eight  years  of  his  life  I  acted  as  his  assistant,  and  thus 
had  an  opportunity  of  knowing  something  of  his  hab- 
its and  methods. 

I  have  received  much  help  from  my  friends  in  the 
course  of  my  work.  To  some  I  am  indebted  for  rem- 
iniscences of  my  father,  to  others  for  information,  crit- 
icisms, and  advice.  To  all  these  kind  coadjutors  I 
gladly  acknowledge  my  indebtedness.  The  names  of 
some  occur  in  connection  with  their  contributions,  but 
I  do  not  name  those  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  criti- 
cisms or  corrections,  because  I  should  wish  to  bear 
alone  the  load  of  my  short-comings,  rather  than  to  let 
any  of  it  fall  on  those  who  have  done  their  best  to 
lighten  it. 

It  will  be  seen  how  largely  I  am  indebted  to  Sir 
Joseph  Hooker  for  the  means  of  illustrating  my 
father's  life.  The  readers  of  these  pages  will,  I  think, 
be  grateful  to  Sir  Joseph  for  the  care  with  which  he 
has  preserved  his  valuable  collection  of  letters,  and  I 
should  wish  to  add  my  acknowledgment  of  the  gen- 
erosity with  which  he  has  placed  it  at  my  disposal, 
and  for  the  kindly  encouragement  given  throughout 
my  work. 

To  Mr.  Huxley  I  owe  a  debt  of  thanks,  not  only 
for  much  kind  help,  but  for  his  willing  compliance 
with  my  request  that  he  should  contribute  a  chapter 
on  the  reception  of  the  '  Origin  of  Species.' 

Finally,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  acknowledge  the  cour- 


vi  PREFACE. 

tesy  of  the  publishers  of  the  '  Century  Magazine  *  who 
have  freely  given  me  the  use  of  their  illustrations.  To 
Messrs.  Maull  and  Fox  and  Messrs.  Elliott  and  Frv  I 
am  also  indebted  for  their  kindness  in  allowing  me  the 
use  of  reproductions  of  their  photographs. 

Francis  Darwin. 

Cambridge, 

October,  1887. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — The  Darwin  Family i 

11. — Autobiography     .........    25 

III. — Reminiscences 87 

LETTERS. 

IV. — Cambridge  Life — 1828-1831 139 

V. — The  Appointment  to  the  *  Beagle' — 183 1       .        .        .  160 

VI.— The  Voyage — 1831-1836 igi 

VII. — London  and  Cambridge — 1836-1842 243 

VIII. — Religion 274 

IX. — Life  at  Down  —1842-1854   .        .        .        .        .      •  .        .  287 
X. — The  Growth  of  the  'Origin  of  Species*       .        .        .  363 
XI. — The  Growth  of  the  'Origin   of  Species' — Letters — 

1843-1856 380 

XII. — The  Unfinished  Book — May  1856-JuNE  1858  .        .        .  426 
XIII. — The   Writing   of   the  'Origin   of   Species' — June  18, 

1858-N0V.  1859 472 

XIV. — Professor  Huxley  on  the   Reception  of  the  'Origin 

of  Species' 533 


Vlll 


CONTENTS. 


LIST    OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Charles  Darwin  in  1874  (?).    From  the  '  Century  Magazine.' 

The  photograph  by  Captain  L.  Darwin,  R.  E.  .  Frontispiece. 
The  House  at  Down.  From  the  'Century  Magazine'  Face  p.  87 
The  Study  at  Down.  From  the  'Century  Magazine'  .  .  loi 
The  Beagle  laid  ashore i6o 


LIFE   AND   LETTERS 

OF 

CHARLES    DARWIN. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE    DARWIN    FAMILY. 

The  earliest  records  of  the  family  show  the  Darwins  to 
have  been  substantial  yeomen  residing  on  the  northern  bor- 
ders of  Lincolnshire,  close  to  Yorkshire.  The  name  is  now 
very  unusual  in  England,  but  I  believe  that  it  is  not  unknown 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sheffield  and  in  Lancashire.  Down 
to  the  year  1600  we  find  the  name  spelt  in  a  variety  of  ways 
— Derwent,  Darwen,  Darwynne,  &c.  It  is  possible,  therefore, 
that  the  family  migrated  at  some  unknown  date  from  York- 
shire, Cumberland,  or  Derbyshire,  where  Derwent  occurs  as 
the  name  of  a  river. 

The  first  ancestor  of  whom  we  know  was  one  William 
Darwin,  who  lived,  about  the  year  1500,  at  Marton,  near 
Gainsborough.  His  great  grandson,  Richard  Darwyn,  in- 
herited land  at  Marton  and  elsewhere,  and  in  his  will,  dated 
1584,  '*  bequeathed  the  sum  of  3^.  4^.  towards  the  settyngeup 
of  the  Queene's  Majestie's  armes  over  the  quearie  (choir) 
doore  in  the  parishe  churche  of  Marton.'*  * 

The  son  of  this  Richard,  named  William  Darwin,  and 


*  We  owe  a  knowledge  of  these  earlier  members  of  the  family  to  re- 
jearches  amongst  the  wills  at  Lincoln,  made  by  the  well-known  genealo- 
gist, Colonel  Chester. 


2  THE   DARWIN   FAMILY. 

described  as  "  gentleman/'  appears  to  have  been  a  successful 
man.  Whilst  retaining  his  ancestral  land  at  Marton,  he  ac- 
quired through  his  wife  and  by  purchase  an  estate  at  Cleat- 
ham,  in  the  parish  of  Manton,  near  Kirton  Lindsey,  and 
fixed  his  residence  there.  This  estate  remained  in  the  family 
down  to  the  year  1760.  A  cottage  with  thick  walls,  some 
fish-ponds  and  old  trees,  now  alone  show  w^here  the  "  Old 
Hall  '*  once  stood,  and  a  field  is  still  locally  known  as  the 
*'  Darwin  Charity,*'  from  being  subject  to  a  charge  in  favour 
of  the  poor  of  Marton.  William  Darwin  must,  at  least  in 
part,  have  owed  his  rise  in  station  to  his  appointment  in  16 13 
by  James  I.  to  the  post  of  Yeoman  of  the  Royal  Armoury  of 
Greenwich.  The  office  appears  to  have  been  worth  only  £3^ 
a  year,  and  the  duties  were  probably  almost  nominal  ;  he 
held  the  post  down  to  his  death  during  the  Civil  Wars. 

The  fact  that  this  William  was  a  royal  servant  may  explain 
why  his  son,  also  named  William,  served  when  almost  a  boy 
for  the  King,  as  ^'Captain-Lieutenant"  in  Sir  William  Pel- 
ham's  troop  of  horse.  On  the  partial  dispersion  of  the  royal 
armies,  and  the  retreat  of  the  remainder  to  Scotland,  the 
boy's  estates  were  sequestrated  by  the  Parliament,  but  they 
were  redeemed  on  his  signing  the  Solemn  League  and  Cove- 
nant, and  on  his  paying  a  fine  which  must  have  struck  his 
finances  severely  ;  for  in  a  petition  to  Charles  II.  he  speaks 
of  his  almost  utter  ruin  from  having  adhered  to  the  royal 
cause. 

During   the   Commonwealth,   William   Darwin  became  a 
barrister  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  this  circumstance  probably  led| 
to  his  marriage  with  the  daughter  of  Erasmus  Earle,  serjeant 
at- law  ;  hence  his  great-grandson,  Erasmus  Darwin,  the  Poet,|| 
derived  his  Christian  name.     He  ultimately  became  Recorder 
of  the  city  of  Lincoln. 

The  eldest  son  of  the  Recorder,  again  called  William,  was 
born  in  1655,  and  married  the  heiress  of  Robert  Waring 
member  of  a  good  Staffordshire  family.     This  lady  inheritec 
from  the  family  of  Lassells,  or  Lascelles,  the  manor  and  hal 
of  Elston,  near  Newark,  which  has  remained  ever  since  in  th( 


THE   DARWIN   FAMILY.  j 

family.*  A  portrait  of  this  William  Darwin  at  Elston  shows 
him  as  a  good-looking  young  man  in  a  full-bottomed  wig. 

This  third  William  had  two  sons,  William,  and  Robert  who 
was  educated  as  a  barrister.  The  Cleatham  property  was 
left  to  William,  but  on  the  termination  of  his  line  in  daughters 
reverted  to  the  younger  brother,  who  had  received  Elston. 
On  his  mother's  death  Robert  gave  up  his  profession  and 
resided  ever  afterwards  at  Elston  Hall.  Of  this  Robert, 
Charles  Darwin  writes  f  : — 

"  He  seems  to  have  had  some  taste  for  science,  for  he  was 
an  early  member  of  the  well-known  Spalding  Club  ;  and  the 
celebrated  antiquary  Dr.  Stukeley,  in  ^An  Account  of  the 
almost  entire  Sceleton  of  a  large  Animal,'  &c.,  published  in 
the  *  Philosophical  Transactions,'  April  and  May  1719,  begins 
the  paper  as  follows :  *  Having  an  account  from  my  friend 
Robert  Darwin,  Esq.,  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  a  person  of  curiosity, 
of  a  human  sceleton  impressed  in  stone,  found  lately  by  the 
rector  of  Elston,'  &c.  Stukeley  then  speaks  of  it  as  a  great 
rarity,  ^  the  like  whereof  has  not  been  observed  before  in  this 
island  to  my  knowledge.'  Judging  from  a  sort  of  litany 
written  by  Robert,  and  handed  down  in  the  family,  he  was  a 
strong  advocate  of  temperance,  which  his  son  ever  afterwards 
so  strongly  advocated  : — 

From  a  morning  that  doth  shine, 
From  a  boy  that  drinketh  wine, 
From  a  wife  that  talketh  Latine, 
Good  Lord  deliver  me  ! 

*  Captain  Lassells,  or  Lascelles,  of  Elston  was  military  secretary  to 
Monk,  Duke  of  Albemarle,  during  the  Civil  Wars.  A  large  volume  of 
account  books,  countersigned  in  many  places  by  Monk,  are  now  in  the 
possession  of  my  cousin  Francis  Darwin.  The  accounts  might  possibly 
prove  of  interest  to  the  antiquarian  or  historian.  A  portrait  of  Captain 
Lassells  in  armour,  although  used  at  one  time  as  an  archery-target  by  some 
small  boys  of  our  name,  was  not  irretrievably  ruined. 

f  What  follows  is  quoted  from  Charles  Darwin's  biography  of  his  grand- 
father, forming  the  preliminary  notice  to  Ernst  Krause's  interesting  essay. 
If  'Erasmus  Darwin,*  London,  1879,  P-  4*  ? 


4  THE   DARWIN   FAMILY. 

"  It  is  suspected  that  the  third  line  may  be  accounted  for  ) 
by  his  wife,  the  mother  of  Erasmus,  having  been  a  very  learned  | 
lady.     The  eldest  son  of  Robert,  christened  Robert  Waring,  j 
succeeded  to  the  estate  of  Elston,  and  died  there  at  the  age  f 
of  ninety-two,  a  bachelor.     He  had  a  strong  taste  for  poetry, 
like  his  youngest  brother  Erasmus.     Robert  also  cultivated 
botany,  and,  when  an  oldish  man,  he  published  his  *  Principia 
Botanica.'     This  book  in  MS.  was  beautifully  written,  and 
my  father  [Dr.  R.  W.  Darwin]  declared  that  he  believed  it 
was  published  because  his  old  uncle  could  not  endure  that 
such  fine  caligraphy  should  be  wasted.     But  this  was  hardly 
just,  as  the  work  contains  many  curious  notes  on  biology — a 
subject  wholly  neglected  in  England  in  the  last  century.    The 
public,  moreover,  appreciated  the  book,  as  the  copy  in  my 
possession  is  the  third  edition.'* 

The   second  son,  William  Alvey,   inherited    Elston,  and  | 
transmitted  it  to  his  granddaughter,  the  late  Mrs.  Darwin,  of  | 
Elston  and  Creskeld.     A  third  son,  John,  became  rector  of 
Elston,  the  living  being  in  the  gift  of  the  family.     The  fourth 
son,  and  youngest  child,  was  Erasmus  Darwin,  the  poet  and 
philosopher. 

The  table  on  page  5  shows  Charles  Darwin's  descent  from 
Robert,  and  his  relationship  to  some  other  members  of  the 
family,  whose  names  occur  in  his  correspondence.  Among 
these  are  included  William  Darwin  Fox,  one  of  his  earliest 
correspondents,  and  Francis  Galton,  with  whom  he  main- 
tained a  warm  friendship  for  many  years.  Here  also  occurs 
the  name  of  Francis  Sacheverel  Darwin,  who  inherited  a  love 
of  natural  history  from  Erasmus,  and  transmitted  it  to  his  son 
Edward  Darwin,  author  (under  the  name  of  *'High  Elms") 
of  a  *  Gamekeeper's  Manual'  (4th  Edit.  1863),  which  shows 
keen  observation  of  the  habits  of  various  animals. 

It  is  always  interesting  to  see  how  far  a  man's  personal 
characteristics  can  be  traced  in  his  forefathers.  Charles  Dar- 
win inherited  the  tall  stature,  but  not  the  bulky  figure  of 
Erasmus  ;  but  in  his  features  there  is  no  traceable  resem- 
blance to  those   of  his  grandfather.     Nor,   it  appears,  had 


TABLE   OF   RELATIONSHIP. 


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g  THE   DARWIN    FAMILY. 

Erasmus  the  love  of  exercise  and  of  field-sports,  so  character- 
istic of  Charles  Darwin  as  a  young  man,  though  he  had,  like 
his  grandson,  an  indomitable  love  of  hard  mental  work.  Be- 
nevolence and  sympathy  with  others,  and  a  great  personal 
charm  of  manner,  were  common  to  the  two.  Charles  Darwin 
possessed,  in  the  highest  degree,  that  '^  vividness  of  imagina- 
tion "  of  which  he  speaks  as  strongly  characteristic  of  Eras- 
mus, and  as  leading  "to  his  overpowering  tendency  to  theo- 
rise and  generalise.*'  This  tendency,  in  the  case  of  Charles 
Darwin,  was  fully  kept  in  check  by  the  determination  to  test 
his  theories  to  the  utmost.  Erasmus  had  a  strong  love  of  all 
kinds  of  mechanism,  for  which  Charles  Darwin  had  no  taste. 
Neither  had  Charles  Darwin  the  literary  temperament  which 
made  Erasmus  a  poet  as  well  as  a  philosopher.  He  writes  of 
Erasmus  :  *  "  Throughout  his  letters  I  have  been  struck  with 
his  indifference  to  fame,  and  the  complete  absence  of  all  signs 
of  any  over-estimation  of  his  own  abilities,  or  of  the  success 
of  his  works."  These,  indeed,  seem  indications  of  traits  most 
strikingly  prominent  in  his  own  character.  Yet  we  get  no 
evidence  in  Erasmus  of  the  intense  modesty  and  simplicity 
that  marked  Charles  Darwin's  whole  nature.  But  by  the 
quick  bursts  of  anger  provoked  in  Erasmus,  at  the  sight  of 
any  inhumanity  or  injustice,  we  are  again  reminded  of 
him. 

On  the  whole,  however,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  do  not 
know  enough  of  the  essential  personal  tone  of  Erasmus  Dar- 
win's character  to  attempt  more  than  a  superficial  compari- 
son ;  and  I  am  left  with  an  impression  that,  in  spite  of  many 
resemblances,  the  two  men  were  of  a  different  type.  It  has 
been  shown  that  Miss  Seward. and  Mrs.  Schimmelpenninck 
have  misrepresented  Erasmus  Darwin's  character.!  It  is, 
however,  extremely  probable  that  the  faults  which  they  exag- 
gerate were  to  some  extent  characteristic  of  the  man  ;  and 
this  leads  me  to  think  that  Erasmus  had  a  certain  acerbity  or 
severity  of  temper  which  did  not  exist  in  his  grandson. 


•56  i 


Life  of  Erasmus  Darwin,'  p.  68.  f  Ibid.,  pp.  77,  79,  &c, 


ERASMUS   DARWIN.  7 

The  sons  of  Erasmus  Darwin  inherited  in  some  degree  his 
intellectual  tastes,  for  Charles  Darwin  writes  of  them  as  fol- 
lows : 

**  His  eldest  son,  Charles  (born  September  3,  1758),  was  a 
young  man  of  extraordinary  promise,  but  died  (May  15,  1778) 
before  he  was  twenty-one  years  old,  from  the  effects  of  a 
wound  received  whilst  dissecting  the  brain  of  a  child.  He 
inherited  from  his  father  a  strong  taste  for  various  branches 
of  science,  for  writing  verses,  and  for  mechanics.  .  .  .  He 
also  inherited  stammering.  With  the  hope  of  curing  him,  his 
father  sent  him  to  France,  when  about  eight  years  old  (1766- 
'67),  with  a  private  tutor,  thinking  that  if  he  was  not  allowed 
to  speak  English  for  a  tiaie,  the  habit  of  stammering  might 
be  lost ;  and  it  is  a  curious  fact,  that  in  after  years,  when 
speaking  French,  he  never  stammered.  At  a  very  early  age 
he  collected  specimens  of  all  kinds.  When  sixteen  years  old 
he  was  sent  for  a  year  to  [Christ  Church]  Oxford,  but  he  did 
not  like  the  place,  and  thought  (in  the  words  of  his  father) 
that  the  'vigour  of  his  mind  languished  in  the  pursuit  of  clas- 
sical elegance  like  Hercules  at  the  distaff,  and  sighed  to  be 
removed  to  the  robuster  exercise  of  the  medical  school  of 
Edinburgh.*  He  stayed  three  years  at  Edinburgh,  working 
hard  at  his  medical  studies,  and  attending  'with  diligence  all 
the  sick  poor  of  the  parish  of  Waterleith,  and  supplying  them 
with  the  necessary  medicines.'  The  ^^sculapian  Society 
awarded  him  its  first  gold  medal  for  an  experimental  inquiry 
on  pus  and  mucus.  Notices  of  him  appeared  in  various  jour- 
nals ;  and  all  the  writers  agree  about  his  uncommon  energy 
and  abilities.  He  seems  like  his  father  to  have  excited  the 
warm  affection  of  his  friends.  Professor  Andrew  Duncan 
.  .  .  .  spoke  ....  about  him  with  the  warmest  affection 
forty-seven  years  after  his  death  when  I  was  a  young  medical 
student  at  Edinburgh  .... 

'^  About  the  character  of  his  second  son,  Erasmus  (born 
1759),  I  have  little  to  say,  for  though  he  wrote  poetry^  he 
seems  to  have  had  none  of  the  other  tastes  of  his  father.  He 
aad,  however,  his  own  peculiar  tastes,  viz.,  genealogy,  the  col- 


a  THE   DARWIN   FAMILY. 

lecting  of  coins,  and  statistics.  When  a  boy  he  counted  all 
the  houses  in  the  city  of  Lichfield,  and  found  out  the  num- 
ber of  inhabitants  in  as  many  as  he  could  ;  he  thus  made  a 
census,  and  when  a  real  one  was  first  made,  his  estimate  was 
found  to  be  nearly  accurate.  His  disposition  was  quiet  and 
retiring.  My  father  had  a  very  high  opinion  of  his  abilities, 
and  this  was  probably  just,  for  he  would  not  otherwise  have 
been  invited  to  travel  with,  and  pay  long  visits  to,  men  so  dis- 
tinguished in  different  ways  as  Boulton  the  engineer,  and  Day 
the  moralist  and  novelist.''  His  death  by  suicide,  in  1799, 
seems  to  have  taken  place  in  a  state  of  incipient  insanity. 

Robert  Waring,  the  father  of  Charles  Darwin,  was  born 
May  30,  1766,  and  entered  the  medical  profession  like  his 
father.  He  studied  for  a  few  months  at  Leyden,  and  took 
his  M.  D.*  at  that  University  on  Feb.  26, 1785.  ''  His  father '' 
(Erasmus)  "  brought  f  him  to  Shrewsbury  before  he  was 
twenty-one  years  old  (1787),  and  left  him  ;^2o,  saying,  'Let 
me  know  when  you  want  more,  and  I  will  send  it  you.'  His 
uncle,  the  rector  of  Elston,  afterwards  also  sent  him  ;^2o,  and 
this  was  the  sole  pecuniary  aid  J  which  he  ever  received  .  .  . 
Erasmus  tells  Mr.  Edgeworth  that  his  son  Robert,  after 
being  settled  in  Shrewsbury  for  only  six  months,  *  already 
had  between  forty  and  fifty  patients.'  By  the  second  year 
he  was  in  considerable,  and  ever  afterwards  in  very  large, 
practice." 

*  I  owe  this  information  to  the  kindness  of  Professor  Rauwenhoff,  Di-. 
rector  of  the  Archives  at  Leyden.  He  quotes  from  the  catalogue  of  doc- 
tors that  **  Robertus  Waring  Darwin,  Anglo-britannus,"  defended  (Feb. 
26,  1785)  in  the  Senate  a  Dissertation  on  the  coloured  images  seen  after 
looking  at  a  bright  object,  and  "  Medicinae  Doctor  creatus  est  a  clar.  Para- 
dijs.*'  The  archives  of  Leyden  University  are  so  complete  that  Professor 
Rauwenhoff  is  able  to  tell  me  that  my  grandfather  lived  together  with  a 
certain  **Petrus  Crompton,  Anglus,"  in  lodgings  in  the  Apothekersdijk. 
Dr.  Darwin's  Leyden  dissertation  was  published  in  the  *  Philosophical 
Transactions,'  and  my  father  used  to  say  that  the  work  was  in  fact  due  to 
Erasmus  Darwin. — F.  D. 

\  *  Life  of  Erasmus  Darwin,'  p.  85. 

t    See  Errata. 


DR.   R.   W.   DARWIN.  O 

Robert  Waring  Darwin  married  (April  i8,  1796)  Susannah, 
the  daughter  of  his  father's  friend,  Josiah  Wedgwood,  of 
Etruria,  then  in  her  thirty-second  year.  We  have  a  miniature 
3f  her,  with  a  remarkably  sweet  and  happy  face,  bearing  some 
resemblance  to  the  portrait  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  of  her 
■ather ;  a  countenance  expressive  of  the  gentle  and  sympathetic 
lature  which  Miss  Meteyard  ascribes  to  her.*  She  died  July 
[5,  181 7,  thirty-two  years  before  her  husband,  whose  death 
occurred  on  November  13,  1848.  Dr.  Darwin  lived  before 
lis  marriage  for  two  or  three  years  on  St.  John's  Hill ;  after- 
»\'ards  at  the  Crescent,  where  his  eldest  daughter  Marianne 
vas  born ;  lastly  at  the  "  Mount,'*  in  the  part  of  Shrewsbury 
cnown  as  Frankwell,  where  the  other  children  were  born, 
rhis  house  was  built  by  Dr.  Darwin  about  1800,  it  is  now  in 
:he  possession  of  Mr.  Spencer  Phillips,  and  has  undergone 
3ut  little  alteration.  It  is  a  large,  plain,  square,  red-brick 
louse,  of  which  the  most  attractive  feature  is  the  pretty 
^reen-house,  opening  out  of  the  morning-room. 

The  house  is  charmingly  placed,  on  the  top  of  a  steep  bank 
eading  down  to  the  Severn.  The  terraced  bank  is  traversed 
)y  a  long  walk,  leading  from  end  to  end,  still  called  "the 
Doctor's  Walk."  At  one  point  in  this  walk  grows  a  Spanish 
:hestnut,  the  branches  of  which  bend  back  parallel  to  them- 
jelves  in  a  curious  manner,  and  this  was  Charles  Darwin's 
■avourite  tree  as  a  boy,  where  he  and  his  sister  Catherine  had 
iach  their  special  seat. 

The  Doctor  took  a  great  pleasure  in  his  garden,  planting 
t  with  ornamental  trees  and  shrubs,  and  being  especially  suc- 
:essful  in  fruit-trees  ;  and  this  love  of  plants  was,  I  think,  the 
)nly  taste  kindred  to  natural  history  which  he  possessed.  Of 
he  *^  Mount  pigeons,"  which  Miss  Meteyard  describes  as  illus- 
rating  Dr.  Darwin's  natural-history  taste,  I  have  not  been 
ible  to  hear  from  those  most  capable  of  knowing.  Miss 
VEeteyard's  account  of  him  is  not  quite  accurate  in  a  few 
)oints.     For  instance,  it  is  incorrect  to  describe  Dr.  Darwin 

*  *  A  Group  of  Englishmen,'  by  Miss  Meteyard,  1871. 


10 


THE    DARWIN    FAMILY. 


as  having  a  philosophical  mind ;  his  was  a  mind  especially 
given  to  detail,  and  not  to  generalising.  Again,  those  who 
knew  him  intimately  describe  him  as  eating  remarkably  little, 
so  that  he  was  not  ^*  a  great  feeder,  eating  a  goose  for  his  din- 
ner, as  easily  as  other  men  do  a  partridge.''*  In  the  matter  j 
of  dress  he  was  conservative,  and  wore  to  the  end  of  his  life 
knee-breeches  and  drab  gaiters,  which,  however,  certainly  did 
not,  as  Miss  Meteyard  says,  button  above  the  knee — a  form 
of  costume  chiefly  known  to  us  in  grenadiers  of  Queen  Anne's 
day,  and  in  modern  wood-cutters  and  ploughboys. 

Charles  Darwin  had  the  strongest  feeling  of  love  and  re- 
spect for  his  father's  memory.  His  recollection  of  everything 
that  was  connected  with  him  was  peculiarly  distinct,  and  he 
spoke  of  him  frequently;  generally  prefacing  an  anecdote 
with  some  such  phrase  as,  "  My  father,  who  was  the  wisest 
man  I  ever  knew,  &c.  .  .  ."  It  was  astonishing  how  clearly 
he  remembered  his  father's  opinions,  so  that  he  was  able  to 
quote  some  maxims  or  hint  of  his  in  most  cases  of  illness. 
As  a  rule,  he  put  small  faith  in  doctors,  and  thus  his  unlim- 
ited belief  in  Dr.  Darwin's  medical  instinct  and  methods  of 
treatment  was  all  the  more  striking. 

His  reverence  for  him  was  boundless  and  most  touching. 
He  would  have  wished  to  judge  everything  else  in  the  world 
dispassionately,  but  anything  his  father  had  said  was  received 
with  almost  implicit  faith.     His  daughter  Mrs.  Litchfield  re 
members  him  saying  that  he  hoped  none  of  his  sons  woul 
ever  believe  anything  because  he  said  it,  unless  they  wer 
themselves  convinced  of  its  truth, — a  feeling  in  striking  con 
trast  with  his  own  manner  of  faith. 

A  visit  which  Charles  Darwin  made  to  Shrewsbury  in  i86 
left  on  the  mind  of  his  daughter  who  accompanied  him 
strong  impression  of  his  love  for  his  old  home.  The  the 
tenant  of  the  Mount  showed  them  over  the  house,  &c.,  an 
with  mistaken  hospitality  remained  with  the  party  during  th 
whole  visit.     As  they  were  leaving,  Charles  Darwin  said,  wit 


*< 


A  Group  of  Englishmen,'  p.  263. 


DR.    R.    W.    DARWIN.  II 

a  pathetic  look  of  regret,  *^  If  I  could  have  been  left  alone  in 
that  green-house  for  five  minutes,  I  know  I  should  have  been 
able  to  see  my  father  in  his  wheel-chair  as  vividly  as  if  he 
had  been  there  before  me." 

Perhaps  this  incident  shows  what  I  think  is  the  truth,  that 
the  memory  of  his  father  he  loved  the  best,  was  that  of  him 
as  an  old  man.  Mrs.  Litchfield  has  noted  down  a  few  words 
which  illustrate  well  his  feeling  towards  his  father.  She  de- 
scribes him  as  saying  with  the  most  tender  respect,  "  I  think 
my  father  was  a  little  unjust  to  me  when  I  was  young,  but 
afterwards  I  am  thankful  to  think  I  became  a  prime  favourite 
with  him."  She  has  a  vivid  recollection  of  the  expression  of 
happy  reverie  that  accompanied  these  words,  as  if  he  were 
reviewing  the  whole  relation,  and  the  remembrance  left  a  deep 
sense  of  peace  and  gratitude. 

What  follows  was  added  by  Charles  Darwin  to  his  auto- 
biographical *  Recollections,'  and  was  written  about  1877 
or  1878. 

**  I  may  here  add  a  few  pages  about  my  father,  who  was 
in  many  ways  a  remarkable  man. 

*^  He  was  about  6  feet  2  inches  in  height,  with  broad 
shoulders,  and  very  corpulent,  so  that  he  was  the  largest 
man  whom  I  ever  saw.  When  he  last  weighed  himself,  he 
was  24  stone,  but  afterwards  increased  much  in  weight.  His 
chief  mental  characteristics  were  his  powers  of  observation 
and  his  sympathy,  neither  of  which  have  I  ever  seen  exceeded 
or  even  equalled.  His  sympathy  was  not  only  with  the  dis- 
tresses of  others,  but  in  a  greater  degree  with  the  pleasures 
of  all  around  him.  This  led  him  to  be  always  scheming  to 
give  pleasure  to  others,  and,  though  hating  extravagance,  to 

perform  many  generous  actions.     For  instance,  Mr.  B ,  a 

small  manufacturer  in  Shrewsbury,  came  to  him  one  day,  and 
said  he  should  be  bankrupt  unless  he  could  at  once  borrow 
;^i 0,000,  but  that  he  was  unable  to  give  any  legal  security. 
My  father  heard  his  reasons  for  believing  that  he  could  ulti- 
mately repay  the  money,  and  from  [his]  intuitive  perception 


12  THE   DARWIN   FAMILY. 

of  character  felt  sure  that  he  was  to  be  trusted.  So  he  ad- 
vanced this  sum,  which  was  a  very  large  one  for  him  while 
young,  and  was  after  a  time  repaid. 

"  I  suppose  that  it  was  his  sympathy  which  gave  him  un- 
bounded power  of  winning  confidence,  and  as  a  consequence 
made  him  highly  successful  as  a  physician.  He  began  to 
practise  before  he  was  twenty-one  years  old,  and  his  fees 
during  the  first  year  paid  for  the  keep  of  two  horses  and  a 
servant.  On  the  following  year  his  practice  was  large,  and 
so  continued  for  about  sixty  years,  when  he  ceased  to  attend 
on  any  one.  His  great  success  as  a  doctor  was  the  more 
remarkable,  as  he  told  me  that  he  at  first  hated  his  profession 
so  much  that  if  he  had  been  sure  of  the  smallest  pittance,  or 
if  his  father  had  given  hina-any  choice,  nothing  should  have 
induced  him  to  follow  it.  To  the  end  of  his  life,  the  thought 
of  an  operation  almost  sickened  him,  and  he  could  scarcely 
endure  to  see  a  person  bled — a  horror  which  he  has  trans- 
mitted to  me — and  I  remember  the  horror  which  I  felt  as  a 
schoolboy  in  reading  about  Pliny  (I  think)  bleeding  to  death 
in  a  warm  bath.  .  .  . 

*^  Owing  to  my  father's  power  of  winning  confidence,  many 
patients,  especially  ladies,  consulted  him  when  suffering  from 
any  misery,  as  a  sort  of  Father-Confessor.  He  told  me  that 
they  always  began  by  complaining  in  a  vague  manner  about 
their  health,  and  by  practice  he  soon  guessed  what  was  really 
the  matter.  He  then  suggested  that  they  had  been  suffering 
in  their  minds,  and  now  they  would  pour  out  their  troubles, 
and  he  heard  nothing  more  about  the  body.  .  .  .  Owing  to 
my  father's  skill  in  winning  confidence  he  received  many 
strange  confessions  of  misery  and  guilt.  He  often  remarked 
how  many  miserable  wives  he  had  known.  In  several  in- 
stances husbands  and  wives  had  gone  on  pretty  well  to- 
gether for  between  twenty  and  thirty  years,  and  then 
hated  each  other  bitterly ;  this  he  attributed  to  their  hav- 
ing lost  a  common  bond  in  their  young  children  having 
grown  up. 

"  But  the  most  remarkable  power  which  my  father  pos- 


DR.   R.   W.   DARWIN.  1 3 

sessed  was  that  of  reading   the   characters,   and   even   the 
thoughts  of  those  whom  he  saw  even  for  a  short  time.     We 
had  many  instances  of  the  power,  some  of  which  seemed 
ahnost  supernatural.     It  saved  my  father  from  ever  making 
(with  one  exception,  and  the  character  of  this  man  was  soon 
discovered)  an  unworthy  friend.     A  strange  clergyman  came 
to  Shrewsbury,  and  seemed  to  be  a  rich  man  ;   everybody 
called   on   him,  and   he   was  invited  to  many   houses.     My 
father  called,  and  on  his  return  home  told  my  sisters  on  no 
account  to  invite  him  or  his  family  to  our  house  ;  for  he  felt 
sure  that  the  man  was  not  to  be  trusted.     After  a  few  months 
he  suddenly  bolted,  being  heavily  in  debt,  and  was  found  out 
to  be  little  better  than  an  habitual  swindler.     Here  is  a  case 
of  trustfulness  which  not  many  men  would  have  ventured  on. 
An  Irish  gentleman,  a  complete  stranger,  called  on  my  father 
one  day,  and  said  that  he  had  lost  his  purse,  and  that  it 
would  be  a  serious  inconvenience  to  him  to  wait  in  Shrews- 
bury until  he  could  receive  a  remittance  from  Ireland.     He 
then  asked  my  father  to  lend  him  ;^2o,  which  was  immedi- 
ately done,  as  my  father  felt  certain  that  the  story  was  a  true 
Dne.    As  soon  as  a  letter  could  arrive  from  Ireland,  one  came 
tfsrith  the  most  profuse  thanks,  and  enclosing,  as  he  said,  a 
p^2o  Bank  of  England  note,  but  no  note  was  enclosed.     I 
isked  my  father  whether  this  did  not  stagger  him,  but  he  an- 
swered 'not  in  the  least.'     On  the  next  day  another  letter 
:ame  with  many  apologies  for  having  forgotten  (like  a  true 
[rishman)  to  put  the  note  into  his  letter  of  the  day  before. 
.  .  [A  gentleman]  brought  his  nephew,  who  was  insane  but 
luite  gentle,  to  my  father  ;  and  the  young  man's  insanity  led 
lim  to  accuse  himself  of  all  the  crimes  under  heaven.    When 
ny  father  afterwards  talked  over  the  matter  with  the  uncle, 
le  said,  *  I  am  sure  that  your  nephew  is  really  guilty  of  .  .  . 
L  heinous  crime.'     Whereupon  [the  gentleman]  said,  '  Good 
jod.  Dr.  Darwin,  who  told  you ;  we  thought  that  no  human 
)eing  knew  the  fact  except  ourselves !  '     My  father  told  me 
he  story  many  years  after  the  event,  and  I  asked  him  how 
le  distinguished  the  true  from  the  false  self-accusations  ;  and 


H 


THE   DARWIN   FAMILY. 


it  was  very  characteristic  of  my  father  that  he  said  he  could 
not  explain  how  it  was. 

"  The  following  story  shows  what  good  guesses  my  father 
could  make.  Lord  Shelburne,  afterwards  the  first  Marquis 
of  Lansdowne,  was  famous  (as  Macaulay  somewhere  remarks) 
for  his  knowledge  of  the  affairs  of  Europe,  on  which  he  great- 
ly prided  himself.  He  consulted  my  father  medically,  and 
afterwards  harangued  him  on  the  state  of  Holland.  My 
father  had  studied  medicine  at  Leyden,  and  one  day  [while 
there]  went  a  long  walk  into  the  country  with  a  friend  who 
took  him  to  the  house  of  a  clergyman  (we  will  say  the  Rev. 

Mr.  A ,  for  I  have  forgotten  his  name),  who  had  married 

an  Englishwoman.  My  father  was  very  hungry,  and  there 
was  little  for  luncheon  except  cheese,  which  he  could  never 
eat.  The  old  lady  was  surprised  and  grieved  at  this,  and  as- 
sured my  father  that  it  was  an  excellent  cheese,  and  had  been 
sent  her  from  Bowood,  the  seat  of  Lord  Shelburne.  My 
father  wondered  why  a  cheese  should  be  sent  her  from  Bowood, 
but  thought  nothing  more  about  it  until  it  flashed  across  his 
mind  many  years  afterwards,  whilst  Lord  Shelburne  was  talk- 
ing about  Holland.     So  he  answered,  *  I  should  think  from 

what  I  saw  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  A ,  that  he  was  a  very  able 

man,  and  well  acquainted  with  the  state  of  Holland.'  My 
father  saw  that  the  Earl,  who  immediately  changed  the  con- 
versation, was  much  startled.  On  the  next  morning  my 
father  received  a  note  from  the  Earl,  saying  that  he  had  dela)^ed 
starting  on  his  journey,  and  wished  particularly  to  see  my 
father.     When  he  called,  the  Earl  said,  ^  Dr.  Darwin,  it  is  of 

the  utmost  importance  to  me  and  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  A to 

learn  how  you  have  discovered  that  he  is  the  source  of  my 
information  about  Holland.*  So  my  father  had  to  explain  the 
state  of  the  case,  and  he  supposed  that  Lord  Shelburne  was 
much  struck  with  his  diplomatic  skill  in  guessing,  for  during 
many  years  afterwards  he  received  many  kind  messages  from 
him  through  various  friends.  I  think  that  he  must  have  told 
the  story  to  his  children  ;  for  Sir  C.  Lyell  asked  me  many 
years  ago  why  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne  (the  son  or  grand- 


DR.   R.   W.    DARWIN.  15 

son  of  the  first  marquis)  felt  so  much  interest  about  me,  whom 
he  had  never  seen,  and  my  family.  When  forty  new  members 
(the  forty  thieves  as  they  were  then  called)  were  added  to  the 
Athenaeum  Club,  there  was  much  canvassing  to  be  one  of 
them;  and  without  my  having  asked  any  one,  Lord  Lans- 
downe  proposed  me  and  got  me  elected.  If  I  am  right  in  my 
supposition,  it  was  a  queer  concatenation  of  events  that  my 
father  not  eating  cheese  half-a-century  before  in  Holland  led 
to  my  election  as  a  member  of  the  Athenaeum. 

*^  The  sharpness  of  his  observation  led  him  to  predict  with 
remarkable  skill  the  course  of  any  illness,  and  he  suggested 
endless  small  details  of  relief.  I  was  told  that  a  young  doctor 
in  Shrewsbury,  who  disliked  my  father,  used  to  say  that  he 
was  wholly  unscientific,  but  owned  that  his  power  of  predict- 
ing the  end  of  an  illness  was  unparalleled.  Formerly  when 
he  thought  that  I  should  be  a  doctor,  he  talked  much  to  me 
about  his  patients.  In  the  old  days  the  practice  of  bleeding 
largely  was  universal,  but  my  father  maintained  that  far  more 
evil  was  thus  caused  than  good  done  ;  and  he  advised  me  if 
ever  I  was  myself  ill  not  to  allow  any  doctor  to  take  more 
than  an  extremely  small  quantity  of  blood.  Long  before  ty- 
phoid fever  was  recognised  as  distinct,  my  father  told  me  that 
two  utterly  distinct  kinds  of  illness  were  confounded  under 
the  name  of  typhus  fever.  He  was  vehement  against  drink- 
ing, and  was  convinced  of  both  the  direct  and  inherited  evil 
effects  of  alcohol  when  habitually  taken  even  in  moderate 
quantity  in  a  very  large  majority  of  cases.  But  he  admitted 
and  advanced  instances  of  certain  persons  who  could  drink 
largely  during  their  whole  lives  without  apparently  suffering 
any  evil  effects,  and  he  believed  that  he  could  often  before- 
hand tell  who  would  thus  not  suffer.  He  himself  never  drank 
a  drop  of  any  alcoholic  fluid.  This  remark  reminds  me  of  a 
case  showing  how  a  witness  under  the  most  favourable  cir- 
cumstances may  be  utterly  mistaken.  A  gentleman-farmer 
was  strongly  urged  by  my  father  not  to  drink,  and  was  en- 
couraged by  being  told  that  he  himself  never  touched  any 
spirituous  liquor.     Whereupon   the  gentleman  said,  *Come, 


j5  the   DARWIN   FAMILY. 

come,  Doctor,  this  won't  do— though  it  is  very  kind  of  you  to 
say  so  for  my  sake— for  I  know  that  you  take  a  very  large 
glass  of  hot  gin  and  water  every  evening  after  your  dinner.'  * 
So  my  father  asked  him  how  he  knew  this.  The  man  an- 
swered, ^  My  cook  was  your  kitchen-maid  for  two  or  three 
years,  and  she  saw  the  butler  every  day  prepare  and  take  to 
you  the  gin  and  water.'  The  explanation  was  that  my  father 
had  the  odd  habit  of  drinking  hot  water  in  a  very  tall  and 
large  glass  after  his  dinner  ;  and  the  butler  used  first  to  put 
some  cold  water  in  the  glass,  which  the  girl  mistook  for  gin, 
and  then  filled  it  up  with  boiling  water  from  the  kitchen 
boiler. 

*'  My  father  used  to  tell  me  many  little  things  which  he 
had  found  useful  in  his  medical  practice.  Thus  ladies  often 
cried  much  while  telling  him  their  troubles,  and  thus  caused 
much  loss  of  his  precious  time.  He  soon  found  that  begging 
them  to  command  and  restrain  themselves,  always  made  them 
weep  the  more,  so  that  afterwards  he  always  encouraged  them 
to  go  on  crying,  saying  that  this  would  relieve  them  more  than 
anything  else,  and  with  the  invariable  result  that  they  soon 
ceased  to  cry,  and  he  could  hear  what  they  had  to  say  and 
give  his  advice.  When  patients  who  were  very  ill  craved  for 
some  strange  and  unnatural  food,  my  father  asked  them  what 
had  put  such  an  idea  into  their  heads;  if  they  answered  that 
they  did  not  know,  he  would  allow  them  to  try  the  food,  and 
often  with  success,  as  he  trusted  to  their  having  a  kind  of 
instinctive  desire  ;  but  if  they  answered  that  they  had  heard 
that  the  food  in  question  had  done  good  to  some  one  else, 
he  firmly  refused  his  assent. 

"  He  gave  one  day  an  odd  little  specimen  of  human  na- 
ture. When  a  very  young  man  he  was  called  in  to  consult 
with  the  family  physician  in  the  case  of  a  gentleman  of  much 
distinction  in  Shropshire.  The  old  doctor  told  the  wife 
My  father  took   a   different  view  and   maintained  that  the 

*  This  belief  still  survives,  and  was  mentioned  to  my  brother  in  1884 
by  an  old  inhabitant  of  Shrewsbury.— F.  D. 


DR.    R.    W.    DARWIN. 


17 


that  the  illness  was  of  such  a  nature  that  it  must  end  fatally, 
gentleman  would  recover :  he  was  proved  quite  wrong  in  all 
respects  (I  think  by  autopsy)  and  he  owned  his  error.  He 
was  then  convinced  that  he  should  never  again  be  consulted 
by  this  family ;  but  after  a  few  months  the  widow  sent  for 
him,  having  dismissed  the  old  family  doctor.  My  father  was 
so  much  surprised  at  this,  that  he  asked  a  friend  of  the  widow 
to  find  out  why  he  was  again  consulted.  The  widow  an- 
swered her  friend,  that  '  she  would  never  again  see  the  odious 
old  doctor  who  said  from  the  first  that  her  husband  would  die, 
while  Dr.  Darwin  always  maintained  that  he  would  recover  ! ' 
In  another  case  my  father  told  a  lady  that  her  husband  would 
certainly  die.  Some  months  afterwards  he  saw  the  widow, 
who  was  a  very  sensible  woman,  and  she  said,  ^  You  are  a  very 
young  man,  and  allow  me  to  addse  you  always  to  give,  as 
long  as  you  possibly  can,  hope  to  any  near  relative  nursing  a 
patient.  You  made  me  despair,  and  from  that  moment  I  lost 
strength.'  My  father  said  that  he  had  often  since  seen  the 
paramount  importance,  for  the  sake  of  the  patient,  of  keeping 
up  the  hope  and  with  it  the  strength  of  the  nurse  in  charge. 
This  he  sometimes  found  difficult  to  do  compatibly  with  truth. 
One  old  gentleman,  however,  caused  him  no  such  perplexity. 

He  was  sent  for  by  Mr.  P ,  who  said,  *  From  all  that  I 

have  seen  and  heard  of  you  I  believe  that  you  are  the  sort 
of  man  who  will  speak  the  truth,  and  if  I  ask,  you  will  tell 
me  when  I  am  dying.  Now  I  much  desire  that  you  should 
attend  me,  if  you  will  promise,  whatever  I  may  say,  always 
to  declare  that  I  am  not  going  to  die.'  My  father  acquiesced 
on  the  understanding  that  his  words  should  in  fact  have  no 


meanmac. 


*'  My  father  possessed  an  extraordinary  memory,  especially 
for  dates,  so  that  he  knew,  when  he  was  very  old,  the  day  of 
the  birth,  marriage,  and  death  of  a  multitude  of  persons  in 
Shropshire ;  and  he  once  told  me  that  this  power  annoyed 
him ;  for  if  he  once  heard  a  date,  he  could  not  forget  it ;  and 
thus  the  deaths  of  many  friends  were  often  recalled  to  his 
mind.     Owing  to  his  strong  memory  he  knew  an  extraordi- 


1 8  THE   DARWIN   FAMILY. 

nary  number  of  curious  stories,  which  he  liked  to  tell,  as  he  was 
a  great  talker.  He  was  generally  in  high  spirits,  and  laughed 
and  joked  with  every  one — often  with  his  servants — with  the 
utmost  freedom ;  yet  he  had  the  art  of  making  every  one  obey 
him  to  the  letter.  Many  persons  were  much  afraid  of  him. 
I  remember  my  father  telling  us  one  day,  with  a  laugh,  that 

several  persons  had  asked  him  whether  Miss ,  a  grand 

old  lady  in  Shropshire,  had  called  on  him,  so  that  at  last  he 

enquired  why  they  asked  him  ;  and  he  was  told  that  Miss , 

whom  my  father  had  somehow  mortally  offended,  was  telling 
everybody  that  she  would  call  and  tell  '  that  fat  old  doctor 
very  plainly  what  she  thought  of  him.'  She  had  already 
called,  but  her  courage  had  failed,  and  no  one  could  have 
been  more  courteous  and  friendly.     As  a  boy,  I  went  to  stay 

at  the  house  of ,  whose  wife  was  insane ;  and  the  poor 

creature,  as  soon  as  she  saw  me,  was  in  the  most  abject  state 
of  terror  that  I  ever  saw,  weeping  bitterly  and  asking  me  over 
and  over  again,  *  Is  your  father  coming  ?  *  but  was  soon  paci- 
fied. On  my  return  home,  I  asked  my  father  why  she  was  so 
frightened,  and  he  answered  he  was  very  glad  to  hear  it,  as 
he  had  frightened  her  on  purpose,  feeling  sure  that  she  would 
be  kept  in  safety  and  much  happier  without  any  restraint, 
if  her  husband  could  influence  her,  whenever  she  became 
at  all  violent,  by  proposing  to  send  for  Dr.  Darwin ;  and 
these  words  succeeded  perfectly  during  the  rest  of  her  long 
life. 

**  My  father  was  very  sensitive,  so  that  many  small  events 
annoyed  him  or  pained  him  much.  I  once  asked  him,  when 
he  was  old  and  could  not  walk,  why  he  did  not  drive  out  for 
exercise  ;  and  he  answered,  '  Every  road  out  of  Shrewsbury 
is  associated  in  my  mind  with  some  painful  event.*  Yet  he 
was  generally  in  high  spirits.  He  was  easily  made  very 
angry,  but  his  kindness  was  unbounded.  He  was  widely  and 
deeply  loved. 

"  He  was  a  cautious  and  good  man  of  busine^,  so  that  he 
hardly  ever  lost  money  by  an  investment,  and  left  to  his 
children  a  very  large  property.     I  remember  a  story  showing 


DE.    R.    W.    DARWIN.  lO 

how  easily  utterly  false  beliefs  originate  and    spread.     Mr. 

E ,  a  squire  of  one  of  the  oldest  families  in  Shropshire, 

and  head  partner  in  a  bank,  committed  suicide.  My  father 
was  sent  for  as  a  matter  of  form,  and  found  him  dead.  I  may 
I  mention,  by  the  way,  to  show  how  matters  were  managed  in 

those  old  days,  that  because  Mr.  E was  a  rather  great 

man,  and  universally  respected,  no  inquest  was  held  over  his 
body.  My  father,  in  returning  home,  thought  it  proper  to 
call  at  the  bank  (where  he  had  an  account)  to  tell  the  manag- 
ing partners  of  the  event,  as  it  was  not  improbable  that  it 
would  cause  a  run  on  the  bank.  Well,  the  story  was  spread 
far  and  wide,  that  my  father  went  into  the  bank,  drew  out  all 
I  his  money,  left  the  bank,  came  back  again,  and  said,  *  I  may  just 

tell  you  that  Mr.  E has  killed  himself,'  and  then  departed. 

It  seems  that  it  was  then  a  common  belief  that  money  with- 
drawn from  a  bank  was  not  safe  until  the  person  had  passed 
out  through  the  door  of  the  bank.  My  father  did  not  hear 
this  story  till  some  little  time  afterwards,  when  the  managing 
partner  said  that  he  had  departed  from  his  invariable  rule  of 
never  allowing  any  one  to  see  the  account  of  another  man,  by 
having  shown  the  ledger  with  my  father's  account  to  several 
persons,  as  this  proved  that  my  father  had  not  drawn  out  a 
penny  on  that  day.  It  would  have  been  dishonorable  in  my 
father  to  have  used  his  professional  knowledge  for  his  private 
advantage.  Nevertheless,  the  supposed  act  was  greatly  ad- 
mired by  some  persons ;  and  many  years  afterwards,  a  gen- 
tleman remarked,  *  Ah,  Doctor,  what  a  splendid  man  of  busi- 
ness you  were  in  so  cleverly  getting  all  your  money  safe  out 
of  that  bank  ! ' 

*^  My  father's  mind  was  not  scientific,  and  he  did  not  try 
to  generalize  his  knowledge  under  general  laws ;  yet  he 
formed  a  theory  for  almost  everything  which  occurred.  I 
do  not  think  I  gained  much  from  him  intellectually  ;  but 
his  example  ought  to  have  been  of  much  moral  service  to  all 
his  children.  One  of  his  golden  rules  (a  hard  one  to  follow) 
was,  ^  Never  become  the  friend  of  any  one  whom  you  cannot 
respect.'  '* 


20  THE   DARWIN   FAMILY. 

Dr.  Darwin  had  six  children :  *  Marianne,  married  Dr. 
Henry  Parker  ;  Caroline,  married  Josiah  Wedgwood ;  Eras-  j 
mus  Alvey  ;  Susan,  died  unmarried ;  Charles  Robert ;  Cathe-  ? 
rine,  married  Rev.  Charles  Langton. 

The  elder  son,  Erasmus,  was  born  in  1804,  and  died  un-  ' 
married  at  the  age  of  seventy-seven.  j 

He,  like  his  brother,  was  educated  at  Shrewsbury  School 
and  at  Christ's  College,  Cambridge.  He  studied  medicine  at 
Edinburgh  and  in  London,  and  took  the  degree  of  Bachelor 
of  Medicine  at  Cambridge.  He  never  made  any  pretence  of 
practising  as  a  doctor,  and,  after  leaving  Cambridge,  lived  a 
quiet  life  in  London. 

There  was  something  pathetic  in  Charles  Darwin's  affec- 
tion for  his  brother  Erasmus,  as  if  he  always  recollected  his 
solitary  life,  and  the  touching  patience  and  sweetness  of  his 
nature.  He  often  spoke  of  him  as  "  Poor  old  Ras,*'  or  "  Poor 
dear  old  Philos  " — I  imagine  Philos  (Philosopher)  was  a  relic 
of  the  days  when  they  worked  at  chemistry  in  the  tool-house 
at  Shrewsbury — a  time  of  which  he  always  preserved  a  pleas- 
ant memory.  Erasmus  being  rather  more  than  four  years 
older  than  Charles  Darwin,  they  were  not  long  together  at 
Cambridge,  but  previously  at  Edinburgh  they  lived  in  the 
same  lodgings,  and  after  the  Voyage  they  lived  for  a  time  to- 
gether in  Erasmus'  house  in  Great  Marlborough  Street.  At 
this  time  also  he  often  speaks  with  much  affection  of  Eras- 
mus in  his  letters  to  Fox,  using  words  such  as  "my  dear  good 
old  brother.  '  In  later  years  Erasmus  Darwin  came  to  Down  ; 
occasionally,  or  joined  his  brother's  family  in  a  summer  holi- 
day. But  gradually  it  came  about  that  he  could  not,  through 
ill  health,  make  up  his  mind  to  leave  London,  and  then  they 
only  saw  each  other  when  Charles  Darwin  went  for  a  week  at 
a  time  to  his  brother's  house  in  Queen  Anne  Street. 

The  following  note  on  his  brother's  character  was  written 
by  Charles  Darwin  at  about  the  same  time  that  the  sketch  of 
his  father  was  added  to  the  *  Recollections ': — 

*  Of  these  Mrs.  Wedgwood  is  now  the  sole  survivor. 


ERASMUS   DARWIN   THE   YOUNGER.  21 

"  My  brother  Erasmus  possessed  a  remarkably  clear  mind 
with  extensive  and  diversified  tastes  and  knowledge  in  litera- 
ture, art,  and  even  in  science.  For  a  short  time  he  collected 
and  dried  plants,  and  during  a  somewhat  longer  time  experi- 
|mented  in  chemistry.  He  was  extremely  agreeable,  and  his 
wit  often  reminded  me  of  that  in  the  letters  and  works  of 
Charles  Lamb.  He  was  very  kind-hearted.  .  .  .  His  health 
from  his  boyhood  had  been  weak,  and  as  a  consequence  he 
failed  in  energy.  His  spirits  were  not  high,  sometimes  low, 
more  especially  during  early  and  middle  manhood.  He  read 
much,  even  whilst  a  boy,  and  at  school  encouraged  me  to 
read,  lending  me  books.  Our  minds  and  tastes  were,  hov/ever, 
so  different,  that  I  do  not  think  I  owe  much  to  him  intellectu- 
ally. I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  Francis  Galton  in  believ- 
ing that  education  and  environment  produce  only  a  small 
effect  on  the  mind  of  any  one,  and  that  most  of  our  qualities 
are  innate." 

Erasmus  Darwin's  name,  though  not  known  to  the  general 
public,  may  be  remembered  from  the  sketch  of  his  character 
in  Carlyle's  'Reminiscences,'  which  I  here  reproduce  in 
part : — - 

^'  Erasmus  Darwin,  a  most  diverse  kind  of  mortal,  came  to 
seek  us  out  very  soon  (*  had  heard  of  Carlyle  in  Germany, 
&c.')  and  continues  ever  since  to  be  a  quiet  house-friend 
honestly  attached ;  though  his  visits  latterly  have  been  rarer 
and  rarer,  health  so  poor,  I  so  occupied,  &c.,  &c.  He  had 
something  of  original  and  sarcastically  ingenious  in  him,  one 
of  the  sincerest,  naturally  truest,  and  most  modest  of  men ; 
elder  brother  of  Charles  Darwin  (the  famed  Darwin  on  Species 
of  these  days)  to  whom  I  rather  prefer  him  for  intellect,  had 
not  his  health  quite  doomed  him  to  silence  and  patient  idle- 
ness. .  .  .  My  dear  one  had  a  great  favour  for  this  honest 
Darwin  always  ;  many  a  road,  to  shops  and  the  like,  he  drove 
her  in  his  cab  (Darwingium  Cabbum  comparable  to  Georgium 
Sidus)  in  those  early  days  when  even  the  charge  of  omnibuses 


22  THE   DARWIN    FAMILY. 

was  a  consideration,  and  his  sparse  utterances,  sardonic  often, 
were  a  great  amusement  to  her.  *A  perfect  gentleman,'  she 
at  once  discerned  him  to  be,  and  of  sound  worth  and  kindli- 
ness in  the  most  unaffected  form.*'  * 

Charles  Darwin  did  not  appreciate  this  sketch  of  his 
brother ;  he  thought  Carlyle  had  missed  the  essence  of  his 
most  lovable  nature. 

I  am  tempted  by  the  wish  of  illustrating  further  the 
character  of  one  so  sincerely  beloved  by  all  Charles  Darwin's 
children,  to  reproduce  a  letter  to  the  Spectator  (Sept.  3,  188 1) 
by  his  cousin  Miss  Julia  Wedgwood. 

"  A  portrait  from  Mr.  Carlyle's  portfolio  not  regretted  by 
any  who  loved  the  original,  surely  confers  sufficient  distinc- 
tion to  warrant  a  few  words  of  notice,  when  the  character 
it  depicts  is  withdrawn  from  mortal  gaze.  Erasmus,  the  only 
brother  of  Charles  Darwin,  and  the  faithful  and  affectionate 
old  friend  of  both  the  Carlyles,  has  left  a  circle  of  mourners 
who  need  no  tribute  from  illustrious  pen  to  embalm  the 
memory  so  dear  to  their  hearts  ;  but  a  wider  circle  must 
have  felt  some  interest  excited  by  that  tribute,  and  may 
receive  with  a  certain  attention  the  record  of  a  unique  and 
indelible  impression,  even  though  it  be  made  only  on  the 
hearts  of  those  who  cannot  bequeath  it,  and  with  whom,  there- 
fore, it  must  speedily  pass  away.  They  remember  it  with  the 
same  distinctness  as  they  remember  a  creation  of  genius  ;  it 
has  in  like  manner  enriched  and  sweetened  life,  formed  a 
common  meeting-point  for  those  who  had  no  other ;  and,  in 
its  strong  fragrance  of  individuality,  enforced  that  respect  for 
the  idiosyncracies  of  human  character  without  which  moral 
judgment  is  always  hard  and  shallow,  and  often  unjust. 
Carlyle  was  one  to  find  a  peculiar  enjoyment  in  the  combina- 
tion of  liveliness  and  repose  which  gave  his  friend's  society  an 
influence  at  once  stimulating  and  soothing,  and  the  warmth 

*  Carlyle's  *  Reminiscences/  vol.  ii.  p.  208. 


ERASMUS   DARWIN   THE   YOUNGER.  23 

of  his  appreciation  was  not  made  known  first  in  its  posthu- 
mous expression  ;  his  letters  of  anxiety  nearly  thirty  years  ago, 
when  the  frail  life  which  has  been  prolonged  to  old  age  was 
threatened  by  serious  illness,  are  still  fresh  in  my  memory. 
The  friendship  was  equally  warm  with  both  husband  and  wife. 
I   remember   well    a   pathetic    little  remonstrance  from  her 

(elicited  by  an  avowal  from  Erasmus  Darwin,  that  he  preferred 
cats  to  dogs,  which  she  felt  a  slur  on  her  little  '  Nero ; '  and 
the  tones  in  which  she  said,  ^  Oh,  but  you  are  fond  of  dogs ! 
you  are  too  kind  not  to  be,*  spoke  of  a  long  vista  of  small, 
gracious  kindnesses,  remembered  with  a  tender  gratitude. 
I  He  was  intimate  also  with  a  person  whose  friends,  like  those 
jof  Mr.  Carlyle,  have  not  always  had  cause  to  congratulate 
themselves  on  their  place  in  her  gallery, — Harriet  Martineau. 
I  have  heard  him  more  than  once  call  her  a  faithful  friend,  and 
it  always  seemed  to  me  a  curious  tribute  to  something  in  the 
friendship  that  he  alone  supplied  ;  but  if  she  had  written  of 
him  at  all,  I  believe  the  mention,  in  its  heartiness  of  apprecia- 
tion, would  have  afforded  a  rare  and  curious  meeting-point 
with  the  other  ^  Reminiscences,'  so  like  and  yet  so  unlike.  It 
is  not  possible  to  transfer  the  impression  of  a  character ;  we 
can  only  suggest  it  by  means  of  some  resemblance ;  and  it  is 
a  singular  illustration  of  that  irony  which  checks  or  directs 
our  sympathies,  that  in  trying  to  give  some  notion  of  the  man 
whom,  among  those  who  were  not  his  kindred,  Carlyle  appears 
to  have  most  loved,  I  can  say  nothing  more  descriptive  than 
that  he  seems  to  me  to  have  had  something  in  common  with 
the  man  whom  Carlyle  least  appreciated.  The  society  of 
Erasmus  Darwin  had,  to  my  mind,  much  the  same  charm  as 
the  writings  of  Charles  Lamb.  There  was  the  same  kind  of 
playfulness,  the  same  lightness  of  touch,  the  same  tenderness, 
perhaps  the  same  limitations.  On  another  side  of  his  nature, 
I  have  often  been  reminded  of  him  by  the  quaint,  delicate 
humour,  the  superficial  intolerance,  the  deep  springs  of  pity, 
the  peculiar  mixture  of  something  pathetic  with  a  sort  of  gay 
scorn,  entirely  remote  from  contempt,  which  distinguish  the 
Ellesmere  of  Sir  Arthur  Helps*  earlier  dialogues.     Perhaps 


24 


THE   DARWIN    FAMILY. 


we  recall  such  natures  most  distinctly,  when  such  a  resem-  ^ 
blance  is  all  that  is  left  of  them.  The  character  is  not  merged  4 
in  the  creation ;  and  what  we  lose  in  the  power  to  communi-  ^ 
cate  our  impression,  we  seem  to  gain  in  its  vividness.  Eras-  * 
mus  Darwin  has  passed  away  in  old  age,  yet  his  memory  ■ 
retains  something  of  a  youthful  fragrance  ;  his  influence  gave  c 
much  happiness,  of  a  kind  usually  associated  with  youth,  to  | 
many  lives  besides  the  illustrious  one  whose  records  justify, 
though  certainly  they  do  not  inspire,  the  wish  to  place  this 
fading  chaplet  on  his  grave.'* 

The  foregoing  pages  give,  in  a  fragmentary  manner,  as 
much  perhaps  as  need  be  told  of  the  family  from  which 
Charles  Darwin  came,  and  may  serve  as  an  introduction  to 
the  autobiographical  chapter  which  follows. 

1 


\ 


CHAPTER   II. 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

[My  father's  autobiographical  recollections,  given  in  the  present 
chapter,  were  written  for  his  children, — and  written  without  any- 
thought  that  they  would  ever  be  published.  To  many  this  may  seem 
an  impossibility ;  but  those  who  knew  my  father  will  understand  how 
it  was  not  only  possible,  but  natural.  The  autobiography  bears  the 
heading,  *  Recollections  of  the  Development  of  my  Mind  and  Charac- 
ter,' and  end  with  the  following  note : — "  Aug.  3,  1876.  This  sketch 
of  my  life  was  begun  about  May  28th  at  Hopedene,*  and  since  then  I 
have  written  for  nearly  an  hour  on  most  afternoons."  It  will  easily 
be  understood  that,  in  a  narrative  of  a  personal  and  intimate  kind 
written  for  his  wife  and  children,  passages  should  occur  which  must 
here  be  omitted ;  and  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  indicate 
where  such  omissions  are  made.  It  has  been  found  necessary  to 
make  a  few  corrections  of  obvious  verbal  slips,  but  the  number  of 
such  alterations  has  been  kept  down  to  the  minimum. — F.  D.] 

A  German  Editor  having  written  to  me  for  an  account  of 
the  development  of  my  mind  and  character  with  some  sketch 
of  my  autobiography,  I  have  thought  that  the  attempt  would 
amuse  me,  and  might  possibly  interest  my  children  or  their 
children.  I  know  that  it  would  have  interested  me  greatly  to 
have  read  even  so  short  and  dull  a  sketch  of  the  mind  of  my 
grandfather,  written  by  himself,  and  what  he  thought  and 
did,  and  how  he  worked.  I  have  attempted  to  write  the  fol- 
lowing account  of  myself,  as  if  I  were  a  dead  man  in  another 
world  looking  back  at  my  own  life.     Nor  have  I  found  this 


*  Mr.  Hensleigh  Wedgwood's  house  in  Surrey. 
3 


26  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

difficult,  for  life  is  nearly  over  with  me.     I  have  taken  no 
pains  about  my  style  of  writing. 

I  was  born  at  Shrewsbury  on  February  12th,  1809,  and 
my  earliest  recollection  goes  back  only  to  when  I  was  a  few 
months  over  four  years  old,  when  we  went  to  near  Abergele 
for  sea-bathing,  and  I  recollect  some  events  and  places  there 
with  some  little  distinctness. 

My  mother  died  in  July  1817,  when  I  was  a  little  over 
eight  years  old,  and  it  is  odd  that  I  can  remember  hardly 
anything  about  her  except  her  death-bed,  her  black  velvet 
gown,  and  her  curiously  constructed  work-table.  In  the 
spring  of  this  same  year  I  was  sent  to  a  day-school  in  Shrews- 
bury, where  I  stayed  a  year.  I  have  been  told  that  I  was 
much  slower  in  learning  than  my  younger  sister  Catherine, 
and  I  believe  that  I  was  in  many  ways  a  naughty  boy. 

By  the  time  I  went  to  this  day-school  *  my  taste  for  natu- 
ral history,  and  more  especially  for  collecting,  was  well  devel- 
oped. I  tried  to  make  out  the  names  of  plants,t  and  col- 
lected all  sorts  of  things,  shells,  seals,  franks,  coins,  and  min- 
erals. The  passion  for  collecting  which  leads  a  man  to  be  a] 
systematic  naturalist,  a  virtuoso,  or  a  miser,  was  very  strong! 
in  me,  and  was  clearly  innate,  as  none  of  my  sisters  or  brotherj 
ever  had  this  taste. 


*  Kept  by  Rev.  G.  Case,  minister  of  the  Unitarian  Chapel  in  the  Higl 
Street.    Mrs.  Darwin  was  a  Unitarian  and  attended  Mr.  Case's  chapel,  and 
my  father  as  a  little  boy  went  there  with  his  elder  sisters.     But  both  he 
and  his  brother  were  christened  and  intended  to  belong  to  the  Church  of 
England  ;  and  after  his  early  boyhood  he  seems  usually  to  have  gone  to    . 
church  and  not  to  Mr.  Case's.     It  appears  (Sf.  James'  Gazette,  Dec.  15, 
1883)  that  a  mural  tablet  has  been  erected  to  his  memory  in  the  chapel,     ' 
which  is  now  known  as  the  *  Free  Christian  Church.' 

f  Rev.  W.  A.  Leighton,  who  was  a  schoolfellow  of  my  father's  at  Mr, 
Case's  school,  remembers  his  bringing  a  flower  to  school  and  saying  that  I 
his  mother  had  taught  him  how  by  looking  at  the  inside  of  the  blossom  the  [ 
name  of  the  plant  could  be  discovered.  Mr.  Leighton  goes  on,  "  This  ' 
greatly  roused  my  attention  and  curiosity,  and  I  inquired  of  him  repeated-  ji 
ly  how  this  could  be  done  ?  " — but  his  lesson  was  naturally  enough  not  I 
transmissible. — F.  D. 


BOYHOOD. 


27 


One  little  event  during  this  year  has  fixed  itself  very 
firmly  in  my  mind,  and  I  hope  that  it  has  done  so  from  my 
conscience  having  been  afterwards  sorely  troubled  by  it ;  it 
is  curious  as  showing  that  apparently  I  was  interested  at  this 
early  age  in  the  variability  of  plants !  I  told  another  little 
boy  (I  believe  it  was  Leighton,  who  afterwards  became  a  well- 
known  lichenologist  and  botanist),  that  I  could  produce  vari- 
ously coloured  polyanthuses  and  primroses  by  watering  them 
with  certain  coloured  fluids,  which  was  of  course  a  monstrous 
fable,  and  had  never  been  tried  by  me.  I  may  here  also  con- 
fess that  as  a  little  boy  I  was  much  given  to  inventing  delib- 
erate falsehoods,  and  this  was  always  done  for  the  sake  of 
causing  excitement.  For  instance,  I  once  gathered  much 
valuable  fruit  from  my  father's  trees  and  hid  it  in  the  shrub- 
bery, and  then  ran  in  breathless  haste  to  spread  the  news 
that  I  had  discovered  a  hoard  of  stolen  fruit. 

I  must  have  been  a  very  simple  little  fellow  when  I  first 
went  to  the  school.  A  boy  of  the  name  of  Garnett  took  me 
into  a  cake  shop  one  day,  and  bought  some  cakes  for  which 
he  did  not  pay,  as  the  shopman  trusted  him.  When  we  came 
out  I  asked  him  why  he  did  not  pay  for  them,  and  he  instant- 
ly answered,  **Why,  do  you  not  know  that  my  uncle  left 
a  great  sum  of  money  to  the  town  on  condition  that  every 
tradesman  should  give  whatever  was  wanted  without  pay- 
ment to  any  one  who  wore  his  old  hat  and  moved  [it]  in  a 
particular  manner  ?  '*  and  he  then  showed  me  how  it  was 
moved.  He  then  went  into  another  shop  where  he  was 
trusted,  and  asked  for  some  small  article,  moving  his  hat  in 
the  proper  manner,  and  of  course  obtained  it  without  pay- 
ment. When  we  came  out  he  said,  *^Now  if  you  like  to  go 
by  yourself  into  that  cake-shop  (how  well  I  remember  its 
exact  position)  I  will  lend  you  my  hat,  and  you  can  get  what- 
ever you  like  if  you  move  the  hat  on  your  head  properly.*' 
I  gladly  accepted  the  generous  offer,  and  went  in  and  asked 
for  some  cakes,  moved  the  old  hat  and  was  walking  out  of 
the  shop,  when  the  shopman  made  a  rush  at  me,  so  I  dropped 
the  cakes   and    ran   for   dear   life,  and   was  astonished    by 


28  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

being  greeted   with  shouts  cf  laughter  by  my  false  friend 
Garnett. 

I  can  say  in  my  own  favour  that  I  was  as  a  boy  humane, 
but  I  owed  this  entirely  to  the  instruction  and  example  of  my 
sisters.  I  doubt  indeed  whether  humanity  is  a  natural  or  in- 
nate quality.  I  was  very  fond  of  collecting  eggs,  but  I  never 
took  more  than  a  single  egg  out  of  a  bird's  nest,  except  on 
one  single  occasion,  when  I  took  all,  not  for  their  value,  but 
from  a  sort  of  bravado. 

I  had  a  strong  taste  for  angling,  and  would  sit  for  any  5| 
number  of  hours  on  the  bank  of  a  river  or  pond  watching 
the  float ;  when  at  Maer  *  I  was  told  that  I  could  kill  the 
worms  with  salt  and  water,  and  from  that  day  I  never  spitted 
a  living  worm,  though  at  the  expense  probably  of  some  loss 
of  success. 

Once  as  a  very  little  boy  whilst  at  the  day  school,  or  be- 
fore that  time,  I  acted  cruelly,  for  I  beat  a  puppy,  I  believe, 
simply  from  enjoying  the  sense  of  power ;  but  the  beating 
could  not  have  been  severe,  for  the  puppy  did  not  howl,  of 
which  I  feel  sure,  as  the  spot  was  near  the  house  This  act 
lay  heavily  on  my  conscience,  as  is  shown  by  my  remember- 
ing the  exact  spot  where  the  crime  was  committed.  It  prob- 
ably lay  all  the  heavier  from  my  love  of  dogs  being  then,  and 
for  a  long  time  afterwards,  a  passion.  Dogs  seemed  to  know 
this,  for  I  was  an  adept  in  robbing  their  love  from  their 
masters. 

I  remember  clearly  only  one  other  incident  during  this 
year  whilst  at  Mr.  Case's  daily  school, — namely,  the  burial  of 
a  dragoon  soldier ;  and  it  is  surprising  how  clearly  I  can  still 
see  the  horse  with  the  man's  empty  boots  and  carbine  sus- 
pended to  the  saddle,  and  the  firing  over  the  grave.  This 
scene  deeply  stirred  whatever  poetic  fancy  there  was  in  me. 

In  the  summer  of  1818  I  went  to  Dr.  Butler's  great  school 
in  Shrewsbury,  and  remained  there  for  seven  years  till  Mid- 
summer 1825,  when  I  was  sixteen  years  old.     I  boarded  at 


*  The  house  of  his  uncle,  Josiah  Wedgwood. 


BOYHOOD.  29 

this  school,  so  that  I  had  the  great  advantage  of  living  the 
life  of  a  true  schoolboy  ;  but  as  the  distance  was  hardly  more 
than  a  mile  to  my  home,  I  very  often  ran  there  in  the  longer 
intervals  between  the  callings  over  and  before  locking  up  at 
night.  This,  I  think,  was  in  many  ways  advantageous  to  me 
by  keeping  up  home  affections  and  interests.  I  remember 
in  the  early  part  of  my  school  life  that  I  often  had  to  run 
very  quickly  to  be  in  time,  and  from  being  a  fleet  runner  was 
generally  successful ;  but  when  in  doubt  I  prayed  earnestly 
to  God  to  help  me,  and  I  well  remember  that  I  attributed  my 
success  to  the  prayers  and  not  to  my  quick  running,  and 
marvelled  how  generally  I  was  aided. 

I  have  heard  my  father  and  elder  sister  say  that  I  had,  as 
a  very  young  boy,  a  strong  taste  for  long  solitary  walks ;  but 
what  I  thought  about  I  know  not.  I  often  became  quite 
absorbed,  and  once,  whilst  returning  to  school  on  the  summit 
of  the  old  fortifications  round  Shrewsbury,  which  had  been 
converted  into  a  public  foot-path  with  no  parapet  on  one 
side,  I  walked  off  and  fell  to  the  ground,  but  the  height  was 
only  seven  or  eight  feet.  Nevertheless  the  number  of  thoughts 
which  passed  through  my  mind  during  this  very  short,  but 
sudden  and  wholly  unexpected  fall,  was  astonishing,  and 
seem  hardly  compatible  with  what  physiologists  have,  I  be- 
lieve, proved  about  each  thought  requiring  quite  an  appreci- 
able amount  of  time. 

Nothing  could  have  been  worse  for  the  development  of 
my  mind  than  Dr.  Butler's  school,  as  it  was  strictly  classical, 
nothing  else  being  taught,  except  a  little  ancient  geography 
and  history.  The  school  as  a  means  of  education  to  me  was 
simply  a  blank.  During  my  whole  life  I  have  been  singularly 
incapable  of  mastering  any  language.  Especial  attention  was 
paid  to  verse-making,  and  this  I  could  never  do  well.  I  had 
many  friends,  and  got  together  a  good  collection  of  old 
verses,  which  by  patching  together,  sometimes  aided  by  other 
boys,  I  could  work  into  any  subject.  Much  attention  was 
paid  to  learning  by  heart  the  lessons  of  the  previous  day ; 
this  I  could  effect  with  great  facility,  learning  forty  or  fifty 


30  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

lines  of  Virgil  or  Homer,  whilst  I  was  in  morning  chapel ;  but 
this  exercise  was  utterly  useless,  for  every  verse  was  forgotten 
in  forty-eight  hours.  I  was  not  idle,  and  with  the  exception  of 
versification,  generally  worked  conscientiously  at  my  classics, 
not  using  cribs.  The  sole  pleasure  I  ever  received  from  such 
studies,  was  from  some  of  the  odes  of  Horace,  which  I  ad- 
mired greatly. 

When  I  left  the  school  I  was  for  my  age  neither  high  nor 
low  in  it ;  and  I  believe  that  I  was  considered  by  all  my  mas- 
ters and  by  my  father  as  a  very  ordinary  boy,  rather  below 
the  common  standard  in  intellect.  To  my  deep  mortification 
my  father  once  said  to  me,  "  You  care  for  nothing  but  shoot- 
ing, dogs,  and  rat-catching,  and  you  will  be  a  disgrace  to 
yourself  and  all  your  family.'*  But  my  father,  who  was  the 
kindest  man  I  ever  knew  and  whose  memory  I  love  with  all 
my  heart,  must  have  been  angry  and  somewhat  unjust  when 
he  used  such  words. 

Looking  back  as  well  as  I  can  at  my  character  during 
my  school  life,  the  only  qualities  which  at  this  period  promised 
well  for  the  future,  were,  that  I  had  strong  and  diversified 
tastes,  much  zeal  for  whatever  interested  me,  and  a  keen 
pleasure  in  understanding  any  complex  subject  or  thing.  I 
was  taught  Euclid  by  a  private  tutor,  and  I  distinctly  remem- 
ber the  intense  satisfaction  which  the  clear  geometrical  proofs 
gave  me.  1  remember,  with  equal  distinctness,  the  delight 
which  my  uncle  gave  me  (the  father  of  Francis  Galton)  by 
explaining  the  principle  of  the  vernier  of  a  barometer.  With 
respect  to  diversified  tastes,  independently  of  science,  I  was 
fond  of  reading  various  books,  and  I  used  to  sit  for  hours 
reading  the  historical  plays  of  Shakespeare,  generally  in  an 
old  window  in  the  thick  walls  of  the  school.  I  read  also  other 
poetry,  such  as  Thomson's  ^Seasons,'  and  the  recently  pub- 
lished poems  of  Byron  and  Scott.  I  mention  this  because 
later  in  life  I  wholly  lost,  to  my  great  regret,  all  pleasure  from 
poetry  of  any  kind,  including  Shakespeare.  In  connection 
with  pleasure  from  poetry,  I  may  add  that  in  1822  a  vivid 
delight  in  scenery  was  first  awakened  in  my  mind,  during  a 


BOYHOOD. 


31 


riding  tour  on  the  borders  of  Wales,  and  this  has  lasted  longer 
than  any  other  aesthetic  pleasure. 

Early  in  my  school  days  a  boy  had  a  copy  of  the  *  Won- 
ders of  the  World/  which  I  often  read,  and  disputed  with 
other  boys  about  the  veracity  of  some  of  the  statements  ;  and 
I  believe  that  this  book  first  gave  me  a  wish  to  travel  in  re- 
mote countries,  which  was  ultimately  fulfilled  by  the  voyage 
of  the  Beagle,  In  the  latter  part  of  my  school  life  1  became 
passionately  fond  of  shooting  ;  I  do  not  believe  that  any  one 
could  have  shown  more  zeal  for  the  most  holy  cause  than  I 
did  for  shooting  birds.  How  well  I  remember  killing  my  first 
snipe,  and  my  excitement  was  so  great  that  I  had  much  diffi- 
culty in  reloading  my  gun  from  the  trembling  of  my  hands. 
This  taste  long  continued,  and  I  became  a  very  good  shot. 
When  at  Cambridge  I  used  to  practise  throwing  up  my  gun 
to  my  shoulder  before  a  looking-glass  to  see  that  I  threw  it  up 
straight.  Another  and  better  plan  was  to  get  a  friend  to  wave 
about  a  lighted  candle,  and  then  to  fire  at  it  with  a  cap  on 
the  nipple,  and  if  the  aim  was  accurate  the  little  puff  of  air 
would  blow  out  the  candle.  The  explosion  of  the  cap  caused 
a  sharp  crack,  and  I  was  told  that  the  tutor  of  the  college  re- 
marked, ^^What  an  extraordinary  thing  it  is,  Mr.  Darwin 
seems  to  spend  hours  in  cracking  a  horse-whip  in  his  room, 
for  I  often  hear  the  crack  when  I  pass  under  his  windows.'* 

I  had  many  friends  amongst  the  schoolboys,  whom  I  loved 
dearly,  and  I  think  that  my  disposition  was  then  very  affec- 
tionate. 

With  respect  to  science,  I  continued  collecting  minerals 
with  much  zeal,  but  quite  unscientifically — all  that  I  cared 
about  was  a  ntw-named  mineral,  and  I  hardly  attempted  to 
classify  them.  I  must  have  observed  insects  with  some  little 
care,  for  when  ten  years  old  (18 19)  I  went  for  three  weeks  to 
Plas  Edwards  on  the  sea-coast  in  Wales,  I  was  very  much  in- 
terested and  surprised  at  seeing  a  large  black  and  scarlet 
Hemipterous  insect,  many  moths  (Zygaena),  and  a  Cicindela 
which  are  not  found  in  Shropshire.  I  almost  made  up  my 
mind  to  begin  collecting  all  the  insects  which  I  could  find 


32 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


dead,  for  on  consulting  my  sister  I  concluded  that  it  was  not 
right  to  kill    insects  for  the   sake   of   making   a    collection.  '' 
From  reading  White's  ^  Selborne/  I  took  much  pleasure  in  { 
watching  the  habits  of  birds,  and  even  made  notes  on  the  ^ 
subject.     In  my  simplicity  I  remember  wondering  why  every 
gentleman  did  not  become  an  ornithologist. 

Towards  the  close  of  my  school  life,  my  brother  worked 
hard  at  chemistry,  and  made  a  fair  laboratory  with  proper 
apparatus  in  the  tool-house  in  the  garden,  and  I  was  allowed  : 
to  aid  him  as  a  servant  in  most  of  his  experiments.    He  made  • 
all  the  gases  and  many  compounds,  and  I  read  with   great  \ 
care  several  books  on  chemistry,  such  as  Henry  and  Parkes'  { 
*  Chemical  Catechism/     The  subject  interested  me   greatly, 
and  we  often  used  to  go  on  working  till  rather  late  at  night. 
This  was  the  best  part  of  my  education  at  school,  for  it  showed 
me  practically  the  meaning  of  experimental  science.      The 
fact  that  we  worked  at  chemistry  somehow  got  known  at  school, 
and    as   it    was   an    unprecedented   fact,    I  was    nicknamed 
^'  Gas/'    I  was  also  once  publicly  rebuked  by  the  head-master. 
Dr.  Butler,  for  thus  wasting  my  time  on  such  useless  subjects; 
and  he  called  me  very  unjustly  a  "  poco  curante,"  and  as  I 
did  not  understand  what  he  meant,  it  seemed  to  me  a  fearful 
reproach. 

As  I  was  doing  no  good  at  school,  my  father  wisely  took 
me  away  at  a  rather  earlier  age  than  usual,  and  sent  me  (Oct. 
1825)  to  Edinburgh  University  with  my  brother,  where  I 
stayed  for  two  years  or  sessions.  My  brother  was  completing 
his  medical  studies,  though  I  do  not  believe  he  ever  really  in- 
tended to  practise,  and  I  was  sent  there  to  commence  them. 
But  soon  after  this  period  I  became  convinced  from  various 
small  circumstances  that  my  father  would  leave  me  property 
enough  to  subsist  on  with  some  comfort,  though  I  never 
imagined  that  I  should  be  so  rich  a  man  as  I  am ;  but  my 
belief  v/as  sufficient  to  check  any  strenuous  efforts  to  learn 
medicine. 

The  instruction  at  Edinburgh  was  altogether  by  lectures, 
and  these  were  intolerably  dull,  with  the  exception  of  thosQ 


EDINBURGH. 


33 


on  chemistry  by  Hope  ;  but  to  my  mind  there  are  no  advan- 
tages and  many  disadvantages  in  lectures  compared  with  read- 
ing. Dr.  Duncan's  lectures  on  Materia  Medica  at  8  o'clock 
on  a  winter's  morning  are  something  fearful  to  remember. 

Dr. made  his  lectures  on  human  anatomy  as  dull  as  he 

was  himself,  and  the  subject  disgusted  me.  It  has  proved 
one  of  the  greatest  evils  in  my  life  that  I  was  not  urged  to 
practise  dissection,  for  I  should  soon  have  got  over  my  dis- 
gust ;  and  the  practice  would  have  been  invaluable  for  all  my 
future  work.  This  has  been  an  irremediable  evil,  as  well  as 
my  incapacity  to  draw.  I  also  attended  regularly  the  clinical 
wards  in  the  hospital.  Some  of  the  cases  distressed  me  a 
good  deal,  and  I  still  have  vivid  pictures  before  me  of  some 
of  them  ;  but  I  was  not  so  foolish  as  to  allow  this  to  lessen 
my  attendance.  I  cannot  understand  why  this  part  of  my 
medical  course  did  not  interest  me  in  a  greater  degree  ;  for 
during  the  summer  before  coming  to  Edinburgh  I  began  at- 
tending some  of  the  poor  people,  chiefly  children  and  women 
in  Shrewsbury :  I  wrote  down  as  full  an  account  as  I  could 
of  the  case  with  all  the  symptoms,  and  read  them  aloud  to 
my  father,  who  suggested  further  inquiries  and  advised  me 
what  medicines  to  give,  which  I  made  up  myself.  At  one 
time  I  had  at  least  a  dozen  patients,  and  I  felt  a  keen  interest 
in  the  work.  My  father,  who  was  by  far  the  best  judge  of 
character  whom  I  ever  knew,  declared  that  I  should  make  a 
successful  physician, — meaning  by  this  one  who  would  get 
many  patients.  He  maintained  that  the  chief  element  of  suc- 
cess was  exciting  confidence  ;  but  what  he  saw  in  me  which 
convinced  him  that  I  should  create  confidence  I  know  not. 
I  also  attended  on  two  occasions  the  operating  theatre  in  the 
hospital  at  Edinburgh,  and  saw  two  very  bad  operations,  one 
on  a  child,  but  I  rushed  away  before  they  were  completed. 
Nor  did  I  ever  attend  again,  for  hardly  any  inducement 
would  have  been  strong  enough  to  make  me  do  so;  this  being 
long  before  the  blessed  days  of  chloroform.  The  two  cases 
fairly  haunted  me  for  many  a  long  year. 

My  brother  stayed  only  one  year  at  the  University,  so  that 


24  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

during  the  second  year  I  was  left  to  my  own  resources  ;  and 
this  was  an  advantage,  for  I  became  well  acquainted  with 
several  young  men  fond  of  natural  science.  One  of  these 
was  Ainsworth,  who  afterwards  published  his  travels  in  As- 
syria ;  he  was  a  Wernerian  geologist,  and  knew  a  little  about 
many  subjects.  Dr.  Coldstream  was  a  very  different  young 
man,  prim,  formal,  highly  religious,  and  most  kind-hearted  ; 
he  afterwards  published  some  good  zoological  articles.  A 
third  young  man  was  Hardie,  who  would,  I  think,  have  made 
a  good  botanist,  but  died  early  in  India.  Lastly,  Dr.  Grant, 
my  senior  by  several  years,  but  how  I  became  acquainted 
with  him  I  cannot  remember;  he  published  some  first-rate 
zoological  papers,  but  after  coming  to  London  as  Professor 
in  University  College,  he  did  nothing  more  in  science,  a  fact 
which  has  always  been  inexplicable  to  me.  I  knew  him  well ; 
he  was  dry  and  formal  in  manner,  with  much  enthusiasm 
beneath  this  outer  crust.  He  one  day,  when  we  were  walk- 
ing together,  burst  forth  in  high  admiration  of  Lamarck  and 
his  views  on  evolution.  I  listened  in  silent  astonishment,  and 
as  far  as  I  can  judge  without  any  effect  on  my  mind.  I  had 
previously  read  the  ^  Zoonomia  '  of  my  grandfather,  in  which 
similar  views  are  maintained,  but  without  producing. any  effect 
on  me.  Nevertheless  it  is  probable  that  the  hearing  rather 
early  in  life  such  views  maintained  and  praised  may  -have 
favoured  my  upholding  them  under  a  different  form  in  my 

*  Origin   of  Species.*      At  this   time   I    admired   greatly  the 

*  Zoonomia ;  *  but  on  reading  it  a  second  time  after  an  inter- 
val of  ten  or  fifteen  years,  I  was  much  disappointed  ;  the 
proportion  of  speculation  being  so  large  to  the  facts  given. 

Drs.  Grant  and  Coldstream  attended  much  to  marine 
Zoology,  and  I  often  accompanied  the  former  to  collect  ani- 
mals in  the  tidal  pools,  which  I  dissected  as  well  as  I  could. 
I  also  became  friends  with  some  of  the  Newhaven  fishermen, 
and  sometimes  accompanied  them  when  they  trawled  for 
oysters,  and  thus  got  many  specimens.  But  from  not  having 
had  any  regular  practice  in  dissection,  and  from  possessing 
only  a  wretched  microscope,  my  attempts  were  very  poor. 


EDINBURGH. 


35 


Nevertheless  I  made  one  interesting  little  discovery,  and  read, 
about  the  beginning  of  the  year  1826,  a  short  paper  on  the 
subject  before  the  Plinian  Society.  This  was  that  the  so- 
called  ova  of  Flustra  had  the  power  of  independent  move- 
ment by  means  of  cilia,  and  were  in  fact  larvae.  In  another 
short  paper  I  showed  that  the  little  globular  bodies  which  had 
been  supposed  to  be  the  young  state  of  Fucus  loreus  were  the 
egg-cases  of  the  wormlike  Pontobdella  muricata. 

The  Plinian  Society  was  encouraged  and,  I  believe, 
founded  by  Professor  Jameson  :  it  consisted  of  students  and 
met  in  an  underground  room  in  the  University  for  the  sake 
of  reading  papers  on  natural  science  and  discussing  them.  I 
used  regularly  to  attend,  and  the  meetings  had  a  good  effect 
on  me  in  stimulating  my  zeal  and  giving  me  new  congenial 
acquaintances.  One  evening  a  poor  young  man  got  up,  and 
after  stammering  for  a  prodigious  length  of  time,  blushing 
crimson,  he  at  last  slowly  got  out  the  words,  "  Mr.  President, 
I  have  forgotten  what  I  was  going  to  say."  The  poor  fellow 
looked  quite  overwhelmed,  and  all  the  members  were  so  sur- 
prised that  no  one  could  think  of  a  word  to  say  to  cover  his 
confusion.  The  papers  which  were  read  to  our  little  society 
were  not  printed,  so  that  I  had  not  the  satisfaction  of  seeing 
my  paper  in  print  ;  but  I  believe  Dr.  Grant  noticed  my  small 
discovery  in  his  excellent  memoir  on  Flustra. 

I  was  also  a  member  of  the  Royal  Medical  Society,  and 
attended  pretty  regularly;  but  as  the  subjects  were  exclusively 
medical,  I  did  not  much  care  about  them.  Much  rubbish 
was  talked  there  but  there  were  some  good  speakers,  of  whom 
the  best  was  the  present  Sir  J.  Kay-Shuttleworth.  Dr.  Grant 
took  me  occasionally  to  the  meetings  of  the  Wernerian  So- 
ciety, where  various  papers  on  natural  history  were  read,  dis- 
cussed, and  afterwards  published  in  the  *  Transactions.*  I 
heard  Audubon  deliver  there  some  interesting  discourses  on 
the  habits  of  N.  American  birds,  sneering  somewhat  unjustly 
at  Waterton.  By  the  way,  a  negro  lived  in  Edinburgh,  who 
had  travelled  with  Waterton,  and  gained  his  liveHhood  by 
stuffing  birds,  which  he  did  excellently  :  he  gave  me  lessons 


36  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

for  payment,  and  I  used  often  to  sit  with  him,  for  he  was  a 
very  pleasant  and  intelligent  man. 

Mr.  Leonard  Horner  also  took  me  once  to  a  meeting  of 
the  Royal  Society  of  Edinburgh,  where  I  saw  Sir  Walter 
Scott  in  the  chair  as  President,  and  he  apologised  to  the 
meeting  as  not  feeling  fitted  for  such  a  position.  I  looked  at 
him  and  at  the  whole  scene  with  some  awe  and  reverence, 
and  I  think  it  was  owing  to  this  visit  during  my  youth,  and 
to  my  having  attended  the  Royal  Medical  Society,  that  I  felt 
the  honour  of  being  elected  a  few  years  ago  an  honorary 
member  of  both  these  Societies,  more  than  any  other  similar 
honour.  If  I  had  been  told  at  that  time  that  I  should  one 
day  have  been  thus  honoured,  I  declare  that  I  should  have 
thought  it  as  ridiculous  and  improbable,  as  if  I  had  been  told 
that  I  should  be  elected  King  of  England. 

Daring  my  second  year  at  Edinburgh  I  attended *s 

lectures  on  Geology  and  Zoology,  but  they  were  incredibly 
dull.  The  sole  effect  they  produced  on  me  was  the  determi- 
nation never  as  long  as  I  lived  to  read  a  book  on  Geology, 
or  in  any  way  to  study  the  science.  Yet  I  feel  sure  that  I 
was  prepared  for  a  philosophical  treatment  of  the  subject  ; 
for  an  old  Mr.  Cotton  in  Shropshire,  who  knew  a  good  deal 
about  rocks,  had  pointed  out  to  me  two  or  three  years  previ- 
ously a  well-known  large  erratic  boulder  in  the  town  of 
Shrewsbury,  called  the  **  bell-stone  " ;  he  told  me  that  there 
was  no  rock  of  the  same  kind  nearer  than  Cumberland  or 
Scotland,  and  he  solemnly  assured  me  that  the  world  would 
come  to  an  end  before  any  one  would  be  able  to  explain  how 
this  stone  came  where  it  now  lay.  This  produced  a  deep 
impression  on  me,  and  I  meditated  over  this  wonderful  stone. 
So  that  I  felt  the  keenest  delight  when  I  first  read  of  the 
action  of  icebergs  in  transporting  boulders,  and  I  gloried  in 
the  progress  of  Geology.  Equally  striking  is  the  fact  that  I, 
though  now  only  sixty-seven  years  old,  heard  the  Professor, 
in  a  field  lecture  at  Salisbury  Craigs,  discoursing  on  a  trap- 
dyke,  with  amygdaloidal  margins  and  the  strata  indurated  on 
each  side,  with  volcanic  rocks  all  around  us,  say  that  it  was  a 


SHOOTING. 


37 


fissure  filled  with  sediment  from  above,  adding  with  a  sneer 
that  there  were  men  who  maintained  that  it  had  been  injected 
from  beneath  in  a  molten  condition.  When  I  think  of  this 
lecture,  I  do  not  wonder  that  I  determined  never  to  attend 
to  Geology. 

From  attending 's  lectures,  I  became  acquainted  with 

the  curator  of  the  museum,  Mr.  Macgillivray,  who  afterwards 
published  a  large  and  excellent  book  on  the  birds  of  Scotland. 
I  had  much  interesting  natural-history  talk  with  him,  and  he 
was  very  kind  to  me.  He  gave  me  some  rare  shells,  for  I  at 
that  time  collected  marine  mollusca,  but  with  no  great  zeal. 

My  summer  vacations  during  these  two  years  were  wholly 
given  up  to  amusements,  though  I  always  had  some  book  in 
hand,  which  I  read  with  interest.  During  the  summer  of 
1826  I  took  a  long  walking  tour  with  two  friends  with  knap- 
sacks on  our  backs  through  North  Wales.  We  walked  thirty 
miles  most  days,  including  one  day  the  ascent  of  Snowdon. 
I  also  went  with  my  sister  a  riding  tour  in  North  Wales,  a 
servant  with  saddle-bags  carrying  our  clothes.  The  autumns 
were  devoted  to  shooting  chiefly  at  Mr.  Owen's,  at  Woodhouse, 
and  at  my  Uncle  Jos's,*  at  Maer.  My  zeal  was  so  great  that  I 
used  to  place  my  shooting-boots  open  by  my  bed-side  when  I 
went  to  bed,  so  as  not  to  lose  half  a  minute  in  putting  them 
on  in  the  morning  ;  and  on  one  occasion  I  reached  a  distant 
part  of  the  Maer  estate,  on  the  20th  of  August  for  black-game 
shooting,  before  I  could  see  :  I  then  toiled  on  with  the  game- 
keeper the  whole  day  through  thick  heath  and  young  Scotch 
firs. 

I  kept  an  exact  record  of  every  bird  which  I  shot  through- 
out the  whole  season.  One  day  when  shooting  at  Wood- 
house  with  Captain  Owen,  the  eldest  son,  and  Major  Hill,  his 
cousin,  afterwards  Lord  Berwick,  both  of  whom  I  liked  very 
much,  I  thought  myself  shamefully  used,  for  every  time  after 
I  had  fired  and  thought  that  I  had  killed  a  bird,  one  of  the 
two  acted  as  if  loading  his  gun,  and  cried  out,  "You  must  not 

*  Josiah  Wedgwood,  the  son  of  the  founder  of  the  Etruria  Works. 


38  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

count  that  bird,  for  I  fired  at  the  same  time,'*  and  the  game- 
keeper, perceiving  the  joke,  backed  them  up.  After  some 
hours  they  told  me  the  joke,  but  it  was  no  joke  to  me,  for  I 
had  shot  a  large  number  of  birds,  but  did  not  know  how 
many,  and  could  not  add  them  to  my  list,  which  I  used  to  do 
by  making  a  knot  in  a  piece  of  string  tied  to  a  button-hole. 
This  my  wicked  friends  had  perceived. 

How  I  did  enjoy  shooting !  but  I  think  that  I  must  have 
been  half-consciously  ashamed  of  my  zeal,  for  I  tried  to  per- 
suade myself  that  shooting  was  almost  an  intellectual  employ- 
ment ;  it  required  so  much  skill  to  judge  where  to  find  most 
game  and  to  hunt  the  dogs  well. 

One  of  my  autumnal  visits  to  Maer  in  1827  was  memora- 
ble from  meeting  there  Sir  J.  Mackintosh,  who  was  the  best 
converser  I  ever  listened  to.  I  heard  afterwards  with  a 
glow  of  pride  that  he  had  said,  "  There  is  something  in  that 
young  man  that  interests  me."  This  must  have  been  chiefly 
due  to  his  perceiving  that  I  listened  with  much  interest  to 
everything  which  he  said,  for  I  was  as  ignorant  as  a  pig  about 
his  subjects  of  history,  politics,  and  moral  philosophy.  To 
hear  of  praise  from  an  eminent  person,  though  no  doubt  apt 
or  certain  to  excite  vanity,  is,  I  think,  good  for  a  young  man, 
as  it  helps  to  keep  him  in  the  right  course. 

My  visits  to  Maer  during  these  two  or  three  succeeding 
years  were  quite  delightful,  independently  of  the  autumnal 
shooting.  Life  there  was  perfectly  free  ;  the  country  was 
very  pleasant  for  walking  or  riding  ;  and  in  the  evening  there 
was  much  very  agreeable  conversation,  not  so  personal  as  it 
generally  is  in  large  family  parties,  together  with  music.  In 
the  summer  the  whole  family  used  often  to  sit  on  the  steps  of 
the  old  portico,  with  the  flower-garden  in  front,  and  with  the 
steep  wooded  bank  opposite  the  house  reflected  in  the  lake, 
with  here  and  there  a  fish  rising  or  a  water-bird  paddling 
about.  Nothing  has  left  a  more  vivid  picture  on  my  mind 
than  these  evenings  at  Maer.  I  was  also  attached  to  and 
greatly  revered  my  Uncle  Jos  ;  he  was  silent  and  reserved,  so 
as  to  be  a  rather  awful  man ;  but  he  sometimes  talked  openly 


CAMBRIDGE.  ^g 

with  me.  He  was  the  very  type  of  an  upright  man,  with  the 
clearest  judgment.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  power  on  earth 
'  could  have  made  him  swerve  an  inch  from  what  he  consid- 
ered the  right  course.  I  used  to  apply  to  him  in  my  mind 
the  well-known  ode  of  Horace,  now  forgotten  by  me,  in  which 
the  words  *^nec  vultus  tyranni,  &c.,'' *  come  in. 

Cambridge  1828-1831. — After  having  spent  two  sessions  in 
Edinburgh,  my  father  perceived,  or  he  heard  from  my  sisters, 
that  I  did  not  like  the  thought  of  being  a  physician,  so  he 
proposed  that  I  should  become  a  clergyman.  He  was  very 
properly  vehement  against  my  turning  into  an  idle  sporting 
man,  which  then  seemed  my  probable  destination.  I  asked 
for  some  time  to  consider,  as  from  what  little  I  had  heard  or 
thought  on  the  subject  I  had  scruples  about  declaring  my 
belief  in  all  the  dogmas  of  the  Church  of  England ;  though 
otherwise  I  liked  the  thought  of  being  a  country  clergyman. 
Accordingly  I  read  with  care  *  Pearson  on  the  Creeds,*  and  a 
few  other  books  on  divinity;  and  as  I  did  not  then  in  the 
least  doubt  the  strict  and  literal  truth  of  every  word  in  the 
Bible,  I  soon  persuaded  myself  that  our*Creed  must  be  fully 
accepted. 

Considering  how  fiercely  I  have  been  attacked  by  the 
orthodox,  it  seems  ludicrous  that  I  once  intended  to  be  a 
clergyman.  Nor  was  this  intention  and  my  father's  wish  ever 
formally  given  up,  but  died  a  natural  death  when,  on  leaving 
Cambridge,  I  joined  the  Beagle  as  naturalist.  If  the  phre- 
nologists are  to  be  trusted,  I  was  well  fitted  in  one  respect  to 
be  a  clergyman.  A  few  years  ago  the  secretaries  of  a  Ger- 
man psychological  society  asked  me  earnestly  by  letter  for 
a  photograph  of  myself ;  and  some  time  afterwards  I  received 
the  proceedings  of  one  of  the  meetings,  in  which  it  seemed  that 
the  shape  of  my  head  had  been  the  subject  of  a  public  discus- 


*  Justum  et  tenacem  propositi  virum 
Non  civium  ardor  prava  jubentium, 
Non  vultus  instantis  tyranni 
Mente  quatit  solida. 


40  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

sion,  and  one  of  the  speakers  declared  that  I  had  the  bump 
of  reverence  developed  enough  for  ten  priests. 

As  it  was  decided  that  I  should  be  a  clergyman,  it  was 
necessary  that  I  should  go  to  one  of  the  English  universities 
and  take  a  degree  ;  but  as  I  had  never  opened  a  classical 
book  since  leaving  school,  I  found  to  my  dismay,  that  in  the 
two  intervening  years  I  had  actually  forgotten,  incredible  as  it 
may  appear,  almost  everything  which  I  had  learnt,  even  to 
some  few  of  the  Greek  letters.  I  did  not  therefore  proceed 
to  Cambridge  at  the  usual  time  in  October,  but  worked  with 
a  private  tutor  in  Shrewsbury,  and  went  to  Cambridge  after 
the  Christmas  vacation,  early  in  1828.  I  soon  recovered  my 
school  standard  of  knowledge,  and  could  translate  easy  Greek 
books,  such  as  Homer  and  the  Greek  Testament,  with  moder- 
ate facility. 

During  the  three  years  which  I  spent  at  Cambridge  my 
time  was  wasted,  as  far  as  the  academical  studies  were  con- 
cerned, as  completely  as  at  Edinburgh  and  at  school.  I  at- 
tempted mathematics,  and  even  went  during  the  summer  of 
1828  with  a  private  tutor  (a  very  dull  man)  to  Barmouth,  but 
I  got  on  very  slowly.  The  work  was  repugnant  to  me,  chiefly 
from  my  not  being  able  to  see  any  meaning  in  the  early  steps 
in  algebra.  This  impatience  was  very  foolish,  and  in  after 
years  I  have  deeply  regretted  that  I  did  not  proceed  far 
enough  at  least  to  understand  something  of  the  great  leading 
principles  of  mathematics,  for  men  thus  endowed  seem  to 
have  an  extra  sense.  But  I  do  not  believe  that  I  should  ever 
have  succeeded  beyond  a  very  low  grade.  With  respect  to 
Classics  I  did  nothing  except  attend  a  few  compulsory  college 
lectures,  and  the  attendance  was  almost  nominal.  In  my 
second  year  I  had  to  work  for  a  month  or  two  to  pass  the 
Little-Go,  which  I  did  easily.  Again,  in  my  last  year  I 
worked  with  some  earnestness  for  my  final  degree  of  B.  A., 
and  brushed  up  my  Classics,  together  with  a  little  Algebra 
and  Euclid,  which  latter  gave  me  much  pleasure,  as  it  did  at 
school.  In  order  to  pass  the  B.  A.  examination,  it  was  also 
necessary  to  get  up  Paley's  *  Evidences  of  Christianity,'  and 


CAMBRIDGE.  41 


Ilis  ^  Moral  Philosophy/  This  was  done  in  a  thorough  man- 
ner, and  I  am  convinced  that  I  could  have  written  out  the 
v/hole  of  the  ^  Evidences '  with  perfect  correctness,  but  not  of 
course  in  the  clear  language  of  Paley.  The  logic  of  this 
book  and,  as  I  may  add,  of  his  ^  Natural  Theology,'  gave  me 
as  much  delight  as  did  Euclid.  The  careful  study  of  these 
works,  without  attempting  to  learn  any  part  by  rote,  was  the 
only  part  of  the  academical  course  which,  as  I  then  felt  and 
as  I  still  believe,  was  of  the  least  use  to  me  in  the  education 
of  my  mind.  I  did  not  at  that  time  trouble  myself  about 
Paley's  premises  ;  and  taking  these  on  trust,  I  was  charmed 
and  convinced  by  the  long  line  of  argumentation.  By  an- 
swering well  the  examination  questions  in  Paley,  by  doing 
[Euclid  well,  and  by  not  failing  miserably  in  Classics,  I  gained 
a  good  place  among  the  ol  ttoWoI  or  crowd  of  men  who  do 
not  go  in  for  honours.  Oddly  enough,  I  cannot  remember 
how  high  I  stood,  and  my  memory  fluctuates  between  the 
fifth,  tenth,  or  tv/elfth,name  on  the  list.* 

Public  lectures  on  several  branches  were  given  in  the 
University,  attendance  being  quite  voluntary  ;  but  I  was  so 
sickened  with  lectures  at  Edinburgh  that  I  did  not  even 
attend  Sedgwick's  eloquent  and  interesting  lectures.  Had  I 
done  so  I  should  probably  have  become  a  geologist  earlier 
than  I  did.  I  attended,  however,  Henslow's  lectures  on 
Botany,  and  liked  them  much  for  their  extreme  clearness,, 
and  the  admirable  illustrations  ;  but  I  did  not  study  botany. 
Henslow  used  to  take  his  pupils,  including  several  of  the 
older  members  of  the  University,  field  excursions,  on  foot  or 
in  coaches,  to  distant  places,  or  in  a  barge  down  the  river, 
and  lectured  on  the  rarer  plants  and  animals  which  were 
observed.     These  excursions  were  delightful. 

Although,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  there  were  some  re- 
deeming features  in  my  life  at  Cambridge,  my  time  was  sadly 
wasted  there,  and  worse  than  wasted.  From  my  passion  for 
shooting  and  for  hunting,  and,  when  this  failed,  for  riding 


» 


*  Tenth  in  the  list  of  January  1831. 


42  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

across  country,  I  got  into  a  sporting  set,  including  some  dis- 
sipated low-minded  young  men.  We  used  often  to  dine 
together  in  the  evening,  though  these  dinners  often  included 
men  of  a  higher  stamp,  and  we  sometimes  drank  too  much, 
with  jolly  singing  and  playing  at  cards  afterwards.  I  know 
that  I  ought  to  feel  ashamed  of  days  and  evenings  thus  spent, 
but  as  some  of  my  friends  were  very  pleasant,  and' we  were 
all  in  the  highest  spirits,  I  cannot  help  looking  back  to  these 
times  with  much  pleasure. 

But  I  am  glad  to  think  that  I  had  many  other  friends  of  a 
widely  different  nature.  I  was  very  intimate  with  Whitley,* 
who  was  afterwards  Senior  Wrangler,  and  we  used  continu- 
ally to  take  long  walks  together.  He  inoculated  me  with  a 
taste  for  pictures  and  good  engravings,  of  which  I  bought 
some.  I  frequently  went  to  the  Fitzwilliam  Gallery,  and  my 
taste  must  have  been  fairly  good,  for  I  certainly  admired  the 
best  pictures,  which  I  discussed  with  the  old  curator.  I  read 
also  with  much  interest  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds'  book.  This 
taste,  though  not  natural  to  me,  lasted  for  several  years,  and 
many  of  the  pictures  in  the  National  Gallery  in  London  gave 
me  much  pleasure  ;  that  of  Sebastian  del  Piombo  exciting  in 
me  a  sense  of  sublimity. 

I  also  got  into  a  musical  set,  I  believe  by  means  of  my 
warm-hearted  friend,  Herbert, f  who  took  a  high  wrangler's 
degree.  From  associating  with  these  men,  and  hearing  them 
play,  I  acquired  a  strong  taste  for  music,  and  used  very  often 
to  time  my  walks  so  as  to  hear  on  week  days  the  anthem  in 
King's  College  Chapel.  This  gave  me  intense  pleasure,  so 
that  my  backbone  would  sometimes  shiver.  I  am  sure  that 
there  was  no  affectation  or  mere  imitation  in  this  taste,  for  i 
used  generally  to  go  by  myself  to  King's  College,  and  I  some- 
times hired  the  chorister  boys  to  sing  in  my  rooms.     Never- 

*  Rev.  C.  Whitley,  Hon.  Canon  of  Durham,  formerly  Reader  in  Natii- 
rjil  Philosophy  in  Durham  University. 

f  The  late  John  Maurice  Herbert,  County  Court  Judge  of  Cardiff  and 
the  Monmouth  Circuit. 


CAMBRIDGE. 


43 


jtheless  I  am  so  utterly  destitute  of  an  ear,  that  I  cannot  per- 
ceive a  discord,  or  keep  time  and  hum  a  tune  correctly ;  and 
it  is  a  mystery  how  I  could  possibly  have  derived  pleasure 
from  music. 

My  musical  friends  soon  perceived  my  state,  and  some- 
times amused  themselves  by  making  me  pass  an  examination, 
which  consisted  in  ascertaining  how  many  tunes  I  could  rec- 
ognise when  they  were  played  rather  more  quickly  or  slowly 
than  usual.  '  God  save  the  King,'  when  thus  played,  was  a 
sore  puzzle.  There  was  another  man  with  almost  as  bad  an 
ear  as  I  had,  and  strange  to  say  he  played  a  little  on  the  flute. 
Once  I  had  the  triumph  of  beating  him  in  one  of  our  musical 
examinations. 

But  no  pursuit  at  Cambridge  was  followed  with  nearly  so 
much  eagerness  or  gave  me  so  much  pleasure  as  collecting 
beetles.  It  was  the  mere  passion  for  collecting,  for  I  did  not 
dissect  them,  and  rarely  compared  their  external  characters 
with  published  descriptions,  but  got  them  named  anyhow.  I 
will  give  a  proof  of  my  zeal :  one  day,  on  tearing  off  some  old 
bark,  I  saw  two  rare  beetles,  and  seized  one  in  each  hand ; 
then  I  saw  a  third  and  new  kind,  which  I  could  not  bear  to 
lose,  so  that  I  popped  the  one  which  I  held  in  my  right  hand 
into  my  mouth.  Alas !  it  ejected  some  intensely  acrid  fluid, 
which  burnt  my  tongue  so  that  I  was  forced  to  spit  the  beetle 
out,  which  was  lost,  as  was  the  third  one. 

I  was  very  successful  in  collecting,  and  invented  two  new 
methods  ;  I  employed  a  labourer  to  scrape  during  the  winter, 
moss  off  old  trees  and  place  it  in  a  large  bag,  and  likewise  to 
collect  the  rubbish  at  the  bottom  of  the  barges  in  which  reeds 
are  brought  from  the  fens,  and  thus  I  got  some  very  rare 
species.  No  poet  ever  felt  more  delighted  at  seeing  his  first 
poem  published  than  I  did  at  seeing,  in  Stephens'  *  Illustra- 
tions of  British  Insects,*  the  magic  words,  "captured  by  C. 
Darwin,  Esq."  I  was  introduced  to  entomology  by  my  sec- 
ond cousin,  W.  Darwin  Fox,  a  clever  and  most  pleasant  man, 
who  was  then  at  Christ's  College,  and  with  whom  I  became 
extremely  intimate.     Afterwards  I  became  well  acquainted, 


^  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

and  went  out  collecting,  with  Albert  Way  of  Trinity,  who  in 
after  years  became  a  well-known  archaeologist ;  also  with  H. 
Thompson  of  the  same  College,  afterwards  a  leading  agricult- 
urist, chairman  of  a  great  railway,  and  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment. It  seems  therefore  that  a  taste  for  collecting  beetles  is 
some  indication  of  future  success  in  life ! 

I  am  surprised  what  an  indelible  impression  many  of  the 
beetles  which  I  caught  at  Cambridge  have  left  on  my  mind. 
I  can  remember  the  exact  appearance  of  certain  posts,  old 
trees  and  banks  where  I  made  a  good  capture.  The  pretty 
Panagceiis  crux-major  was  a  treasure  in  those  days,  and  here 
at  Down  I  saw  a  beetle  running  across  a  walk,  and  on  picking 
it  up  instantly  perceived  that  it  differed  slightly  from  P.  crux- 
major,  and  it  turned  out  to  be  P,  quadripunctatus,  which  is  i 
only  a  variety  or  closely  allied  species,  differing  from  it  very 
shghtly  in  outline.  I  had  never  seen  in  those  old  days  Lici- 
nus  alive,  which  to  an  uneducated  eye  hardly  differs  from 
many  of  the  black  Carabidous  beetles  ;  but  my  sons  found 
here  a  specimen,  and  I  instantly  recognized  that  it  was  new 
to  me  ;  yet  I  had  not  looked  at  a  British  beetle  for  the  last 
twenty  years. 

I  have  not  as  yet  mentioned  a  circumstance  which  influ- 
enced my  whole  career  more  than  any  other.  This  was  my 
friendship  with  Professor  Henslow.  Before  coming  up  to 
Cambridge,  I  had  heard  of  him  from  my  brother  as  a  man 
who  knew  every  branch  of  science,  and  I  was  accordingly  pre- 
pared to  reverence  him.  He  kept  open  house  once  every 
week  when  all  undergraduates,  and  some  older  members  of 
the  University,  who  were  attached  to  science,  used  to  meet 
in  the  evening.  I  soon  got,  through  Fox,  an  invitation,  and 
\^ent  there  regularly.  Before  long  I  became  well  acquainted 
with  Henslow,  and  during  the  latter  half  of  my  time  at  Cam- 
bridge took  long  walks  with  him  on  most  days  ;  so  that  I  was 
called  by  some  of  the  dons  ^^  the  man  who  walks  with  Hens- 
low ;  '*  and  in  the  evening  I  was  very  often  asked  to  join  his 
family  dinner.  His  knowledge  was  great  in  botany,  ento- 
mology, chemistry,  mineralogy,  and  geology.     His  strongest^ 


CAMBRIDGE.  45 

taste  was  to  draw  conclusions  from  long-continued  minute 
observations.  His  judgment  was  excellent,  and  his  whole 
mind  well  balanced ;  but  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  one  would 
say  that  he  possessed  much  original  genius.  He  was  deeply 
religious,  and  so  orthodox  that  he  told  me  one  day  he  should 
be  grieved  if  a  single  word  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  were 
altered.  His  moral  qualities  were  in  every  way  admirable. 
He  was  free  from  every  tinge  of  vanity  or  other  petty  feeling  ; 
and  I  never  saw  a  man  who  thought  so  little  about  himself 
or  his  own  concerns.  His  temper  was  imperturbably  good, 
with  the  most  winning  and  courteous  manners  ;  yet,  as  I  have 
seen,  he  could  be  roused  by  any  bad  action  to  the  warmest 
indignation  and  prompt  action. 

I  once  saw  in  his  company  in  the  streets  of  Cambridge 
almost  as  horrid  a  scene  as  could  have  been  witnessed  during 
the  French  Revolution.  Two  body-snatchers  had  been  ar- 
rested, and  whilst  being  taken  to  prison  had  been  torn  from 
the  constable  by  a  crowd  of  the  roughest  men,  who  dragojed 
them  by  their  legs  along  the  muddy  and  stony  road.  They 
were  covered  from  head  to  foot  with  mud,  and  their  faces 
were  bleeding  either  from  having  been  kicked  or  from  the 
stones  ;  they  looked  like  corpses,  but  the  crowd  was  so  dense 
that  I  got  only  a  few  momentary  glimpses  of  the  wretched 
creatures.  Never  in  my  life  have  I  seen  such  wrath  painted 
on  a  man's  face  as  was  shown  by  Henslow  at  this  horrid 
scene.  He  tried  repeatedly  to  penetrate  the  mob  ;  but  it 
was  simply  impossible.  He  then  rushed  away  to  the  mayor, 
telling  me  not  to  follow  him,  but  to  get  more  policemen.  I 
forget  the  issue,  except  that  the  two  men  were  got  into  the 
prison  without  being  killed. 

Henslow's  benevolence  was  unbounded,  as  he  proved  by 
his  many  excellent  schemes  for  his  poor  parishioners,  when 
in  after  years  he  held  the  living  of  Hitcham.  My  intimacy 
with  such  a  man  ought  to  have  been,  and  I  hope  was,  an 
inestimable  benefit.  I  cannot  resist  mentioning  a  trifling 
incident,  which  showed  his  kind  consideration.  Whilst  ex- 
amining some  pollen-grains  on  a  damp  surface,  I    saw   the 


46  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

tubes  exserted,  and  instantly  rushed  off  to  communicate  my 
surprising  discovery  to  him.  Now  I  do  not  suppose  any 
other  professor  of  botany  could  have  helped  laughing  at  my 
coming  in  such  a  hurry  to  make  such  a  communication.  But 
he  agreed  how  interesting  the  phenomenon  was,  and  explained 
its  meaning,  but  made  me  clearly  understand  how  well  it  was 
known;  so  I  left  him  not  in  the  least  mortified,  but  well 
pleased  at  having  discovered  for  myself  so  remarkable  a  fact, 
but  determined  not  to  be  in  such  a  hurry  again  to  communi- 
cate my  discoveries. 

Dr.  Whewell  was  one  of  the  older  and  distinguished  men 
who  sometimes  visited  Henslow,  and  on  several  occasions  I 
walked  home  with  him  at  night.  Next  to  Sir  J.  Mackintosh 
he  was  the  best  converser  on  grave  subjects  to  whom  I  ever 
listened.  Leonard  Jenyns,*  who  afterwards  published  some 
good  essays  in  Natural  History,t  often  stayed  with  Henslow, 
who  was  his  brother-in-law.  I  visited  him  at  his  parsonage 
on  the  borders  of  the  Fens  [Swaffham  Bulbeck],  and  had 
many  a  good  walk  and  talk  with  him  about  Natural  History. 
I  became  also  acquainted  with  several  other  men  older  than 
me,  who  did  not  care  much  about  science,  but  were  friends 
of  Henslow.  One  was  a  Scotchman,  brother  of  Sir  Alexander 
Ramsay,  and  tutor  of  Jesus  College  :  he  was  a  delightful  man, 
but  did  not  live  for  many  years.  Another  was  Mr.  Dawes, 
afterwards  Dean  of  Hereford,  and  famous  for  his  success  in 
the  education  of  the  poor.  These  men  and  others  of  the 
same  standing,  together  with  Henslow,  used  sometimes  to 
take  distant  excursions  into  the  country,  which  I  was  allowed 
to  join,  and  they  were  most  agreeable. 

Looking  back,  I  infer  that  there  must  have  been  some- 
thing in  me  a  little  superior  to  the  common  run  of  youths, 
otherwise  the  above-mentioned  men,  so  much  older  than  me 
and  higher  in  academical  position,  would  never  have  allowed 

*  The  well-known  Soame  Jenyns  was  cousin  to  Mr.  Jenyns'  father, 
f  Mr.  Jenyns  (now  Blomefield)  described  the  fish  for  the  Zoology  of 
the  Beagle ;  and  is  author  of  a  long  series  of  papers,  chiefly  Zoological. 


GEOLOGY. 


47 


me  to  associate  with  them.     Certainly  I  was  not  aware  of 
I  any  such  superiority,  and   I   remember  one  of  my  sporting 

friends,  Turner,  who  saw  me  at  work  with  my  beetles,  saying 

that  I  should  some  day  be  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  and 

the  notion  seemed  to  me  preposterous. 

During  my  last  year  at  Cambridge,  I  read  with  care  and 
profound  interest  Humboldt's  ^Personal  Narrative/  This 
work,  and  Sir  J.  Herschel's  ^Introduction  to  the  Study  of 
Natural  Philosophy,'  stirred  up  in  me  a  burning  zeal  to  add 
even  the  most  humble  contribution  to  the  noble  structure  of 
Natural  Science.  No  one  or  a  dozen  other  books  influenced 
me  nearly  so  much  as  these  two.  I  copied  out  from  Hum- 
boldt long  passages  about  Teneriife,  and  read  them  aloud 
on  one  of  the  above-mentioned  excursions,  to  (I  think)  Hens- 
low,  Ramsay,  and  Dawes,  for  on  a  previous  occasion  1  had 
talked  about  the  glories  of  Teneriffe,  and  some  of  the  party 
declared  they  would  endeavour  to  go  there ;  but  I  think  that 
they  were  only  half  in  earnest.  I  was,  however,  quite  in  ear- 
nest, and  got  an  introduction  to  a  merchant  in  London  to 
enquire  about  ships;  but  the  scheme  was,  of  course,  knocked 
on  the  head  by  the  voyage  of  the  Beagle, 

My  summer  vacations  were  given  up  to  collecting  beetles, 
to  some  reading,  and  short  tours.  In  the  autumn  my  whole 
time  was  devoted  to  shooting,  chiefly  at  Woodhouse  and 
Maer,  and  sometimes  with  young  Eyton  of  Eyton.  Upon 
the  whole  the  three  years  which  I  spent  at  Cambridge  v/ere 
the  most  joyful  in  my  happy  life  ;  for  I  was  then  in  excellent 
health,  and  almost  always  in  high  spirits. 

As  I  had  at  first  come  up  to  Cambridge  at  Christmas,  I 
was  forced  to  keep  two  terms  after  passing  my  final  exami- 
nation, at  the  commencement  of  1831  ;  and  Henslow  then 
persuaded  me  to  begin  the  study  of  geology.  Therefore  on 
my  return  to  Shropshire  I  examined  sections,  and  coloured 
a  map  of  parts  round  Shrewsbury.  Professor  Sedgwick  in- 
tended to  visit  North  Wales  in  the  beginning  of  August  to 
pursue  his  famous  geological  investigations  amongst  the 
older  rocks,  and  Henslow  asked  him  to  allow  me  to  accom- 


48  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

pany  him.*  Accordingly  he  came  and  slept  at  my  father's 
house. 

A  short  conversation  with  him  during  this  evening  pro- 
duced a  strong  impression  on  my  mind.  Whilst  examining 
an  old  gravel-pit  near  Shrewsbury,  a  labourer  told  me  that  he 
had  found  in  it  a  large  worn  tropical  Volute  shell,  such  as 
may  be  seen  on  the  chimney-pieces  of  cottages  ;  and  as  he 
would  not  sell  the  shell,  I  was  convinced  that  he  had  really 
found  it  in  the  pit.  I  told  Sedgwick  of  the  fact,  and  he  at 
once  said  (no  doubt  truly)  that  it  must  have  been  thrown 
away  by  some  one  into  the  pit ;  but  then  added,  if  really  em- 
bedded there  it  would  be  the  greatest  misfortune  to  geology, 
as  it  would  overthrow  all  that  we  know  about  the  superficial 
deposits  of  the  Midland  Counties.  These  gravel-beds  belong 
in  fact  to  the  glacial  period,  and  in  after  years  I  found  in  them 
broken  arctic  shells.  But  I  was  then  utterly  astonished  at 
Sedgwick  not  being  delighted  at  so  wonderful  a  fact  as  a 
tropical  shell  being  found  near  the  surface  in  the  middle  of 
England.  Nothing  before  had  ever  made  me  thoroughly 
realise,  though  I  had  read  various  scientific  books,  that 
science  consists  in  grouping  facts  so  that  general  laws  or  con- 
clusions may  be  drawn  from  them. 

Next  morning  we  started  for  Llangollen,  Conway,  Bangor, 
and  Capel  Curig.  This  tour  was  of  decided  use  in  teaching 
me  a  little  how  to  make  out  the  geology  of  a  country.  Sedg- 
wick often  sent  me  on  a  line  parallel  to  his,  telling  me  to 
bring  back  specimens  of  the  rocks  and  to  mark  the  stratifica- 
tion on  a  map.  I  have  little  doubt  that  he  did  this  for  my 
good,  as  I  was  too  ignorant  to  have  aided  him.     On  this  tour 


*  In  connection  with  this  tour  my  father  used  to  tell  a  story  about 
Sedgwick  :  they  had  started  from  their  inn  one  morning,  and  had  walked 
a  mile  or  two,  when  Sedgwick  suddenly  stopped,  and  vowed  that  he  would 
return,  being  certain  '*  that  damned  scoundrel  "  (the  waiter)  had  not  given 
the  chambermaid  the  sixpence  intrusted  to  him  for  the  purpose.  He  was 
ultimately  persuaded  to  give  up  the  project,  seeing  that  there  was  no 
reason  for  suspecting  the  waiter  of  especial  perfidy. — F.  D. 


THE   VOYAGE. 


49 


I  had  a  striking  instance  of  how  easy  it  is  to  overlook  phe- 
nomena, however  conspicuous,  before  they  have  been  observed 
by  any  one.  We  spent  many  hours  in  Cwm  Idwal,  examin- 
ing all  the  rocks  with  extreme  care,  as  Sedgwick  was  anxious 
to  find  fossils  in  them  ;  but  neither  of  us  saw  a  trace  of  the 
wonderful  glacial  phenomena  all  around  us  ;  we  did  not 
notice  the  plainly  scored  rocks,  the  perched  boulders,  the 
lateral  and  terminal  moraines.  Yet  these  phenomena  are  so 
conspicuous  that,  as  I  declared  in  a  paper  published  many 
years  afterwards  in  the  '  Philosophical  Magazine,'  *  a  house 
burnt  down  by  fire  did  not  tell  its  story  more  plainly  than  did 
this  valley.  If  it  had  still  been  filled  by  a  glacier,  the  phe- 
nomena would  have  been  less  distinct  than  they  now  are. 

At  Capel  Curig  I  left  Sedgwick  and  went  in  a  straight  line 
by  compass  and  map  across  the  mountains  to  Barmouth, 
never  following  any  track  unless  it  coincided  with  my  course. 
I  thus  came  on  some  strange  wild  places,  and  enjoyed  much 
this  manner  of  travelling.  I  visited  Barmouth  to  see  some 
Cambridge  friends  who  were  reading  there,  and  thence  re- 
turned to  Shrewsbury  and  to  Maer  for  shooting;  for  at  that 
time  I  should  have  thought  myself  mad  to  give  up  the  first 
days  of  partridge-shooting  for  geology  or  any  other  science. 

Voyage  of  the  ^Beagle  *  from  December  27,  1831,  to  October  2, 

1836. 

On  returning  home  from  my  short  geological  tour  in  North 
Wales,  I  found  a  letter  from  Henslow,  informing  me  that 
Captain  Fitz-Roy  was  willing  to  give  up  part  of  his  own 
cabin  to  any  young  man  who  would  volunteer  to  go  with  him 
without  pay  as  naturalist  to  the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle.  I 
have  given,  as  I  believe,  in  my  MS.  Journal  an  account  of 
all  the  circumstances  which  then  occurred;  I  will  here  only 
say  that  I  was  instantly  eager  to  accept  the  offer,  but  my 
father  strongly  objected,  adding  the  words,  fortunate  for  me. 


'  Philosophical  Magazine,'  1842. 


so 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


'^  If  you  can  find  any  man  of  common  sense  who  advises  you 
to  go  I  will  give  my  consent.'*  So  I  wrote  that  evening  and 
refused  the  offer.  On  the  next  morning  I  went  to  Maer  to  be 
ready  for  September  ist,  and,  whilst  out  shooting,  my  uncle* 
sent  for  me,  offering  to  drive  me  over  to  Shrewsbury  and 
talk  with  my  father,  as  my  uncle  thought  it  would  be  wise  in 
me  to  accept  the  offer.  My  father  always  maintained  that  he 
was  one  of  the  most  sensible  men  in  the  world,  and  he  at 
once  consented  in  the  kindest  manner.  I  had  been  rather 
extravagant  at  Cambridge,  and  to  console  my  father,  said, 
"that  I  should  be  deuced  clever  to  spend  more  than  my 
allowance  whilst  on  board  the  Beagle  ;''  but  he  answered  with 
a  smile,  "  But  they  tell  me  you  are  very  clever." 

Next  day  I  started  for  Cambridge  to  see  Henslow,  and 
thence  to  London  to  see  Fitz-Roy,  and  all  was  soon  arranged. 
Afterwards,  on  becoming  very  intimate  with  Fitz-Roy,  I 
heard  that  I  had  run  a  very  narrow  risk  of  being  rejected,  on 
account  of  the  shape  of  my  nose  I  He  was  an  ardent  dis- 
ciple of  Lavater,  and  was  convinced  that  he  could  judge  of  a 
man's  character  by  the  outline  of  his  features  ;  and  he  doubted 
whether  any  one  with  my  nose  could  possess  sufficient  energy 
and  determination  for  the  voyage.  But  I  think  he  was  after- 
wards well  satisfied  that  my  nose  had  spoken  falsely. 

Fitz- Roy's  character  was  a  singular  one,  with  very  many 
noble  features :  he  was  devoted  to  his  duty,  generous  to  a 
fault,  bold,  determined,  and  indomitably  energetic,  and  an 
ardent  friend  to  all  under  his  sway.  He  would  undertake 
any  sort  of  trouble  to  assist  those  whom  he  thought  deserved 
assistance.  He  was  a  handsome  man,  strikingly  like  a  gentle- 
man, with  highly  courteous  manners,  which  resembled  those 
of  his  maternal  uncle,  the  famous  Lord  Castlereagh,  as  I  was 
told  by  the  Minister  at  Rio.  Nevertheless  he  must  have 
inherited  much  in  his  appearance  from  Charles  H.,  for  Dr. 
Wallich  gave  me  a  collection  of  photogrphs  which  he  had 
made,  and  I  was  struck  with  the  resemblance  of  one  to  Fitz- 

*  Josiab  Wedgwood. 


THE   VOYAGE. 


51 


Roy;  and  on  looking  at  the  name,  I  found  it  Ch.  E.  Sobieski 
Stuart,  Count  d'Albanie,  a  descendant  of  the  same  mon- 
arch. 

Fitz-Roy's  temper  was  a  most  unfortunate  one.  It  was 
usually  worst  in  the  early  morning,  and  with  his  eagle  eye  he 
could  generally  detect  something  amiss  about  the  ship,  and 
was  then  unsparing  in  his  blame.  He  was  very  kind  to  me, 
but  was  a  man  very  difficult  to  live  with  on  the  intimate  terms 
which  necessarily  followed  from  our  messing  by  ourselves  in 
the  same  cabin.  We  had  several  quarrels  ;  for  instance,  early 
in  the  voyage  at  Bahia,  in  Brazil,  he  defended  and  praised 
slavery,  which  I  abominated,  and  told  me  that  he  had  just 
visited  a  great  slave-owner,  who  had  called  up  many  of  his 
slaves  and  asked  them  whether  they  were  happy,  and  whether 
they  wished  to  be  free,  and  all  answered  "  No.*'  I  then  asked 
him,  perhaps  with  a  sneer,  whether  he  thought  that  the 
answer  of  slaves  in  the  presence  of  their  master  was  worth 
anything?  This  made  him  excessively  angry,  and  he  said 
that  as  I  doubted  his  word  we  could  not  live  any  longer 
together.  I  thought  that  I  should  have  been  compelled  to 
leave  the  ship  ;  but  as  soon  as  the  news  spread,  which  it  did 
quickly,  as  the  captain  sent  for  the  first  lieutenant  to  assuage 
his  anger  by  abusing  me,  I  was  deeply  gratified  by  receiving 
an  invitation  from  all  the  gun-room  officers  to  mess  with 
them.  But  after  a  few  hours  Fitz-Roy  showed  his  usual  mag- 
nanimity by  sending  an  officer  to  me  with  an  apology  and  a 
request  that  I  would  continue  to  live  with  him. 

His  character  was  in  several  respects  one  of  the  most 
noble  which  I  have  ever  known. 

The  voyage  of  the  Beagle  has  been  by  far  the  most  impor- 
tant event  in  my  life,  and  has  determined  my  whole  career; 
yet  it  depended  on  so  small  a  circumstance  as  my  uncle  offer- 
ing to  diive  me  thirty  miles  to  Shrewsbury,  which  few  uncles 
would  have  done,  and  on  such  a  trifle  as  the  shape  of  my 
nose.  I  have  always  felt  that  I  owe  to  the  voyage  the  first 
real  training  or  education  of  my  mind ;  I  was  led  to  attend 
closely  to  several  branches  of  natural  history,  and  thus  my 


C2  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

powers  of  observation  were  improved,  though  they  were 
always  fairly  developed. 

The  investigation  of  the  geology  of  all  the  places  visited 
was  far  more  important,  as  reasoning  here  comes  into  play. 
On  first  examining  a  new  district  nothing  can  appear  more 
hopeless  than  the  chaos  of  rocks  ;  but  by  recording  the  strati- 
fication and  nature  of  the  rocks  and  fossils  at  many  points, 
always  reasoning  and  predicting  what  will  be  found  else- 
where, light  soon  begins  to  dawn  on  the  district,  and  the 
structure  of  the  whole  becomes  more  or  less  intelligible.  I 
had  brought  with  me  the  first  volume  of-  Lyell's  ^  Principles 
of  Geology,' which  I  studied  attentively;  and  the  book  was 
of  the  highest  service  to  me  in  many  ways.  The  very  first 
place  which  I  examined,  namely  St.  Jago  in  the  Cape  de 
Verde  islands,  showed  me  clearly  the  wonderful  superiority 
of  LyelFs  manner  of  treating  geology,  compared  with  that  of 
any  other  author,  whose  works  I  had  with  me  or  ever  after- 
wards read. 

Another  of  my  occupations  was  collecting  animals  of  all 
classes,  briefly  describing  and  roughly  dissecting  many  of  the 
marine  ones ;  but  from  not  being  able  to  draw,  and  from  not 
having  sufficient  anatomical  knowledge,  a  great  pile  of  MS. 
which  I  made  during  the  voyage  has  proved  almost  useless. 
I  thus  lost  much  time,  with  the  exception  of  that  spent  in 
acquiring  some  knowledge  of  the  Crustaceans,  as  this  was  of 
service  when  in  after  years  I  undertook  a  monograph  of  the 
Cirripedia. 

During  some  part  of  the  day  I  wrote  my  Journal,  and 
took  much  pains  in  describing  carefully  and  vividly  all  that 
I  had  seen  ;  and  this  was  good  practice.  My  Journal  served 
also,  in  part,  as  letters  to  my  home,  and  portions  were  sent 
to  England  whenever  there  was  an  opportunity. 

The  above  various  special  studies  were,  however,  of  no 
importance  compared  with  the  habit  of  energetic  industry 
and  of  concentrated  attention  to  whatever  I  was  engaged  in, 
which  I  then  acquired.  Everything  about  which  I  thought 
or  read  was  made  to  bear  directly  on  what  I  had  seen  or  was 


THE   VOYAGE.  53 

likely  to  see  ;  and  this  habit  of  mind  was  continued  during 
the  five  years  of  the  voyage.  I  feel  sure  that  it  was  this  train- 
ing which  has  enabled  me  to  do  whatever  I  have  done  in 
science. 

Looking  backwards,  I  can  now  perceive  how  my  love  for 
science  gradually  preponderated  over  every  other  taste.  Dur- 
ing the  first  two  years  my  old  passion  for  shooting  survived 
in  nearly  full  force,  and  I  shot  myself  all  the  birds  and  ani- 
mals for  my  collection  ;  but  gradually  I  gave  up  my  gun  more 
and  more,  and  finally  altogether,  to  my  servant,  as  shooting 
interfered  with  my  work,  more  especially  with  making  out  the 
geological  structure  of  a  country.  I  discovered,  though  un- 
consciously and  insensibly,  that  the  pleasure  of  observing  and 
reasoning  was  a  much  higher  one  than  that  of  skill  and  sport. 
That  my  mind  became  developed  through  my  pursuits  during 
the  voyage  is  rendered  probable  by  a  remark  made  by  my 
father,  who  was  the  most  acute  observer  whom  I  ever  saw,  of 
a  sceptical  disposition,  and  far  from  being  a  believer  in  phre- 
nology ;  for  on  first  seeing  me  after  the  voyage,  he  turned 
round  to  my  sisters,  and  exclaimed,  "  Why,  the  shape  of  his 
head  is  quite  altered.'* 

To  return  to  the  voyage.  On  September  nth  (1831),  I 
paid  a  flying  visit  with  Fitz-Roy  to  the  Beagle  at  Plymouth. 
Thence  to  Shrewsbury  to  wish  my  father  and  sisters  a  long 
farewell.  On  October  24th  I  took  up  my  residence  at  Plym- 
outh, and  remained  there  until  December  27th,  when  the 
Beagle  finally  left  the  shores  of  England  for  her  circumnavi- 
gation of  the  world.  We  made  two  earlier  attempts  to  sail, 
but  were  driven  back  each  time  by  heavy  gales.  These  two 
months  at  Plymouth  were  the  most  miserable  which  I  ever 
spent,  though  I  exerted  myself  in  various  ways.  I  was  out 
of  spirits  at  the  thought  of  leaving  all  my  family  and  friends 
for  so  long  a  time,  and  the  weather  seemed  to  me  inexpressi- 
bly gloomy.  1  was  also  troubled  with  palpitation  and  pain 
about  the  heart,  and  like  many  a  young  ignorant  man,  espe- 
cially one  with  a  smattering  of  medical  knowledge,  was  con- 
vinced that  I  had  heart  disease.     I  did  not  consult  any  doc- 


54  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

tor,  as  I  fully  expected  to  hear  the  verdict  that  I  was 
not  fit  for  the  voyage,  and  I  was  resolved  to  go  at  all 
hazards. 

I  need  not  here  refer  to  the  events  of  the  voyage — where 
we  went  and  what  we  did — as  I  have  given  a  sufficiently  full 
account  in  my  published  Journal.  The  glories  of  the  vege- 
tation of  the  Tropics  rise  before  my  mind  at  the  present  time 
more  vividly  than  anything  else  ;  though  the  sense  of  sub- 
limity, which  the  great  deserts  of  Patagonia  and  the  forest- 
clad  mountains  of  Tierra  del  Fuego  excited  in  me,  has  left 
an  indelible  impression  on  my  mind.  The  sight  of  a  naked 
savage  in  his  native  land  is  an  event  which  can  never  be  for- 
gotten. Many  of  my  excursions  on  horseback  through  wild 
countries,  or  in  the  boats,  some  of  which  lasted  several  weeks, 
were  deeply  interesting:  their  discomfort  and  some  degree 
of  danger  were  at  that  time  hardly  a  drawback,  and  none  at 
all  afterwards.  I  also  reflect  with  high  satisfaction  on  some 
of  my  scientific  work,  such  as  solving  the  problem  of  coral 
islands,  and  making  out  the  geological  structure  of  certain 
islands,  for  instance,  St.  Helena.  Nor  must  I  pass  over 
the  discovery  of  the  singular  relations  of  the  animals  and 
plants  inhabiting  the  several  islands  of  the  Galapagos  archi- 
pelago, and  of  all  of  them  to  the  inhabitants  of  South 
America. 

As  far  as  I  can  judge  of  myself,  I  worked  to  the  utmost 
during  the  voyage  from  the  mere  pleasure  of  investigation, 
and  from  my  strong  desire  to  add  a  few  facts  to  the  great  mass 
of  facts  in  Natural  Science.  But  I  was  also  ambitious  to  take 
a  fair  place  among  scientific  men, — whether  more  ambitious 
or  less  so  than  most  of  my  fellow- workers,  I  can  form  no 
opinion. 

The  geology  of  St.  Jago  is  very  striking,  yet  simple  :  a 
stream  of  lava  formerly  flowed  over  the  bed  of  the  sea,  formed 
of  triturated  recent  shells  and  corals,  which  it  has  baked  into 
a  hard  white  rock.  Since  then  the  whole  island  has  been  up- 
heaved. But  the  line  of  white  rock  revealed  to  me  a  new  and 
important  fact,  namely,  that  there  had  been  afterwards  subsi- 


THE    VOYAGE. 


55 


eiice  round  the  craters,  which  had  since  been  in  action,  and 
ad  poured  forth  lava.  It  then  first  dawned  on  me  that  I 
light  perhaps  write  a  book  on  the  geology  of  the  various 
ountries  visited,  and  this  made  me  thrill  with  delight.  That 
^as  a  memorable  hour  to  me,  and  how  distinctly  I  can  call  to 
lind  the  low  cliff  of  lava  beneath  which  I  rested,  with  the 
un  glaring  hot,  a  few  strange  desert  plants  growing  near,  and 
/ith  living  corals  in  the  tidal  pools  at  my  feet.  Later  in  the 
oyage,  Fitz-Roy  asked  me  to  read  some  of  my  Journal,  and 
leclared  it  would  be  worth  publishing ;  so  here  was  a  second 
)Ook  in  prospect ! 

Towards  the  close  of  our  voyage  I  received  a  letter  whilst 
Lt  Ascension,  in  which  my  sisters  told  me  that  Sedgwick  had 
:alled  on  my  father,  and  said  that  I  should  take  a  place  among 
he  leading  scientific  men.     I  could  not  at  the  time  under- 
itand  how  he  could  have  learnt  anything  of  my  proceedings, 
)ut  I  heard  (I  believe  afterwards)  that   Henslow  had  read 
ome  of  the  letters  which  I  wrote  to  him  before  the  Philo- 
ophical  Society  of  Cambridge,*  and  had  printed    them  for 
private   distribution.      My  collection  of  fossil  bones,  which 
lad  been  sent  to   Henslow,  also  excited   considerable  atten- 
:ion  amongst  palaeontologists.     After  reading   this   letter,   I 
:lambered  over  the  mountains  of  Ascension  with  a  bounding 
step,  and  made  the  volcanic  rocks  resound  under  my  geologi- 
cal hammer.     All  this  shows  how  ambitious  I  was  ;  but  I  think 
that  I  can  say  with  truth  that  in  after  years,  though  I  cared 
in.  the  highest  degree  for  the  approbation    of  such  men  as 
Lyell  and  Hooker,  who  were  my  friends,  I  did  not  care  much 
about  the  general  public.     I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  a  favour- 
able review  or  a  large  sale   of  my  books  did  not  please  me 
greatly,  but  the  pleasure  was  a  fleeting  one,  and  I  am  sure 
that  I  have  never  turned  one  inch  out  of  my  course  to  gain 
fame. 


*  Read  at  the  meeting  held  November  i6,  1835,  and  printed  in  a  pam- 
phlet of  31  pp.  for  distribution  among  the  members  of  the  Society. 


56 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


From  my  return  to  England  {October  2,  1836)  to  my  marriage 

{^January  29,  1839). 

These  two  years  and  three  months  were  the  most  active 
ones  which  I  ever  spent,  though  I  was  occasionally  unwell, 
and  so  lost  some  time.  After  going  backwards  and  forwards 
several  times  between  Shrewsbury,  Maer,  Cambridge,  and 
London,  I  settled  in  lodgings  at  Cambridge*  on  December 
13th,  where  all  my  collections  were  under  the  care  of  Hens- 
low.  I  stayed  here  three  months,  and  got  my  minerals  and 
rocks  examined  by  the  aid  of  Professor  Miller. 

I  began  preparing  my  'Journal  of  Travels/  which  was  not 
hard  work,  as  my  MS.  Journal  had  been  written  with  care, 
and  my  chief  labour  was  making  an  abstract  of  my  more  in- 
teresting scientific  results.  I  sent  also,  at  the  request  of 
Lyell,  a  short  account  of  my  observations  on  the  elevation  of 
the  coast  of  Chile  to  the  Geological  Society. f 

On  March  7th,  1837,  1  took  lodgings  in  Great  Marlborough 
Street  in  London,  and  remained  there  for  nearly  two  years, 
until  I  was  married.  During  these  two  years  I  finished  my 
Journal,  read  several  papers  before  the  Geological  Society, 
began  preparing  the  MS.  for  my  '  Geological  Observations,' 
and  arranged  for  the  publication  of  the  '  Zoology  of  the  Voy- 
age of  the  Beagle.*  In  July  I  opened  my  first  note-book  for 
facts  in  relation  to  the  Origin  of  Species,  about  which  I  had 
long  reflected,  and  never  ceased  working  for  the  next  twenty 
years. 

During  these  two  years  I  also  went  a  little  into  society, 
and  acted  as  one  of  the  honorary  secretaries  of  the  Geological 
Society.  I  saw  a  great  deal  of  Lyell.  One  of  his  chief  char- 
acteristics was  his  sympathy  with  the  work  of  others,  and  I 
was  as  much  astonished  as  delighted  at  the  interest  which  he 
showed  when,  on  my  return  to  England,  I  explained  to  him 
my  views  on  coral  reefs.  This  encouraged  me  greatly,  and 
his  advice  and  example  had  much  influence  on  me.     During 

*  In  Fitzwilliam  Street. 

f  ♦  Geolog.  Soc.  Proc'  ii.  1838,  pp.  446-449. 


LONDON. 


57 


this  time  I  saw  also  a  good  deal  of  Robert  Brown;  I  used 
often  to  call  and  sit  with  him  during  his  breakfast  on  Sunday 
mornings,  and  he  poured  forth  a  rich  treasure  of  curious  ob- 
servations and  acute  remarks,  but  they  almost  always  related 
to  minute  points,  and  he  never  with  me  discussed  large  or 
general  questions  in  science. 

During  these  two  years  I  took  several  short  excursions  as 
a  relaxation,  and  one  longer  one  to  the  Parallel  Roads  of  Glen 
Roy,  an  account  of  which  was  published  in  the  *  Philosoph- 
ical Transactions.'*  This  paper  was  a  great  failure,  and  I 
am  ashamed  of  it.  Having  been  deeply  impressed  with  what 
I  had  seen  of  the  elevation  of  the  land  of  South  America,  I 
attributed  the  parallel  lines  to  the  action  of  the  sea ;  but  I  had 
to  give  up  this  view  when  Agassiz  propounded  his  glacier- 
lake  theory.  Because  no  other  explanation  was  possible  under 
our  then  state  of  knowledge,  I  argued  in  favor  of  sea-action  ; 
and  my  error  has  been  a  good  lesson  to  me  never  to  trust  in 
science  to  the  principle  of  exclusion. 

As  I  was  not  able  to  work  all  day  at  science,  I  read  a 
good  deal  during  these  two  years  on  various  subjects,  includ- 
ing some  metaphysical  books  ;  but  I  was  not  well  fitted  for 
such  studies.  About  this  time  I  took  much  delight  in  Words- 
worth's and  Coleridge's  poetry ;  and  can  boast  that  I  read  the 
*  Excursion '  twice  through.  Formerly  Milton's  *  Paradise 
Lost '  had  been  my  chief  favourite,  and  in  my  excursions  dur- 
ing the  voyage  of  the  Beagle^  when  I  could  take  only  a  single 
volume,  I  always  chose  Milton. 

From  my  marriage,  January  29,  1839,  ^^^  residence  in  Upper 
Gower  Street,  to  our  leaving  London  and  settling  at  Down^ 
September  14,  1842. 

After  speaking  of  his  happy  married  life,  and  of  his  children,  he 
continues  : — 

During  the  three  years  and  eight  months  whilst  we  resided 
in  London,  I  did  less  scientific  work,  though  I  worked  as 

*  1839,  pp. 39-82. 


S8 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


hard  as  I  possibly  could,  than  during  any  other  equal  length 
of  time  in  my  life.  This  was  owing  to  frequently  recurring 
unwellness,  and  to  one  long  and  serious  illness.  The  greater 
part  of  my  time,  when  I  could  do  anything,  was  devoted  to 
my  work  on  *  Coral  Reefs,'  which  I  had  begun  before  my 
marriage,  and  of  which  the  last  proof-sheet  was  corrected  on 
May  6th,  1842.  This  book,  though  a  small  one,  cost  me 
twenty  months  of  hard  work,  as  I  had  to  read  every  work  on 
the  islands  of  the  Pacific  and  to  consult  many  charts.  It  was 
thought  highly  of  by  scientific  men,  and  the  theory  therein 
giv^en  is,  I  think,  now  well  established. 

No  other  work  of  mine  was  begun  in  so  deductive  a  spirit 
as  this,  for  the  whole  theory  was  thought  out  on  the  west 
coast  of  South  America,  before  I  had  seen  a  true  coral  reef. 
I  had  therefore  only  to  verify  and  extend  my  views  by  a  care- 
ful examination  of  living  reefs.  But  it  should  be  observed 
that  I  had  during  the  two  previous  years  been  incessantly  at- 
tending to  the  effects  on  the  shores  of  South  America  of  the 
intermittent  elevation  of  the  land,  together  with  denudation 
and  the  deposition  of  sediment.  This  necessarily  led  me  to 
reflect  much  on  the  effects  of  subsidence,  and  it  was  easy  to 
replace  in  imagination  the  continued  deposition  of  sediment 
by  the  upward  growth  of  corals.  To  do  this  was  to  form 
my  theory  of  the  formation  of  barrier-reefs  and  atolls. 

Besides  my  work  on  coral-reefs,  during  my  residence  in 
London,  I  read  before  the  Geological  Society  papers  on  the 
P2rratic  Boulders  of  South  America,*  on  Earthquakes,!  and 
on  the  Formation  by  the  Agency  of  Earth-worms  of  Mould.J 
I  also  continued  to  superintend  the  publication  of  the  ^  Zoology 
of  the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle  J  Nor  did  I  ever  intermit  col- 
lecting facts  bearing  on  the  origin  of  species  ;  and  I  could 
sometimes  do  this  when  I  could  do  nothing  else  from  illness. 

In  the  summer  of  1842  I  was  stronger  than  I  had  been  for 
some  time,  and  took  a  little  tour  by  myself  in  North  Wales, 

* '  Geolog.  Soc.  Proc'  iii.  1842.  f  *  Geolog.  Trans.'  v.  1840. 

X  '  Geolog.  Soc.  Proc'  ii.  1838. 


LONDON. 


59 


for  the  sake  of  observing  the  effects  of  the  old  glaciers  which 
formerly  filled  all  the  larger  valleys.  I  published  a  short  ac- 
count of  what  I  saw  in  the  ^Philosophical  Magazine.'^  This 
(excursion  interested  me  greatly,  and  it  was  the  last  time  I 
was  ever  strong  enough  to  climb  mountains  or  to  take  long 
walks  such  as  are  necessary  for  geological  work. 
I  During  the  early  part  of  our  life  in  London,  I  was  strong 
enough  to  go  into  general  society,  and  saw  a  good  deal  of 
jseveral  scientific  men,  and  other  more  or  less  distinguished 
men.  I  will  give  my  impressions  with  respect  to  some  of 
them,  though  I  have  little  to  say  worth  saying. 

I  saw  more  of  Lyell  than  of  any  other  man,  both  before 
and  after  my  marriage.  His  mind  was  characterised,  as  it 
appeared  to  me,  by  clearness,  caution,  sound  judgment,  and 
la  good  deal  of  originality.  When  I  made  any  remark  to  him 
on  Geology,  he  never  rested  until  he  saw  the  whole  case 
clearly,  and  often  made  me  see  it  more  clearly  than  I  had 
done  before.  He  would  advance  all  possible  objections  to  my 
suggestion,  and  even  after  these  were  exhausted  would  long 
remain  dubious.  A  second  characteristic  was  his  hearty 
sympathy  with  the  work  of  other  scientific  men.f 

On  my  return  from  the  voyage  of  the  Beagle^  I  explained 
to  him  my  views  on  coral-reefs,  which  differed  from  his,  and 
I  was  greatly  surprised  and  encouraged  by  the  vivid  interest 
which  he  showed.  His  delight  in  science  was  ardent,  and  he 
felt  the  keenest  interest  in  the  future  progress  of  mankind. 
He  was  very  kind-hearted,  and  thoroughly  liberal  in  his 
religious  beliefs,  or  rather  disbeliefs ;  but  he  was  a  strong 
theist.  His  candour  was  highly  remarkable.  He  exhibited 
this  by  becoming  a  convert  to  the  Descent  theory,  though  he 
had  gained  much  fame  by  opposing  Lamarck's  views,  and 
this  after  he  had  grown  old.     He  reminded  me  that  I  had 

*' Philosophical  Magazine,'  1842. 

t  The  slight  repetition  here  observable  is  accounted  for  by  the  notes 
on  Lyell,  &c.,  having  been  added  in  April,  1881,  a  few  years  after  the  rest 
of  the  '  Recollections  '  were  written. 


6(J  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

many  years  before  said  to  him,  when  discussing  the  opposition 
of  the  old  school  of  geologists  to  his  new  views,  "What  a 
good  thing  it  would  be  if  every  scientific  man  was  to  die  when 
sixty  years  old,  as  afterwards  he  would  be  sure  to  oppose  all 
new  doctrines."  But  he  hoped  that  now  he  might  be  allowed 
to  live. 

The  science  of  Geology  is  enormously  indebted  to  T>yell — 
more  so,  as  I  believe,  than  to  any  other  man  who  ever  lived. 
When  [I  was]  starting  on  the  voyage  of  the  Beagle^  the  saga- 
cious Henslow,  who,  like  all  other  geologists,  believed  at  that 
time  in  successive  cataclysms,  advised  me  to  get  and  study 
the  first  volume  of  the  ^  Principles,*  which  had  then  just  been 
published,  but  on  no  account  to  accept  the  views  therein  ad- 
vocated. How  differently  would  any  one  now  speak  of  the 
^Principles' !  I  am  proud  to  remember  that  the  first  place, 
namely,  St.  Jago,  in  the  Cape  de  Verde  archipelago,  in  which 
I  geologised,  convinced  me  of  the  infinite  superiority  of 
Lyeirs  views  over  those  advocated  in  any  other  work  known 
to  me. 

The  powerful  effects  of  LyelFs  works  could  formerly  be 
plainly  seen  in  the  different  progress  of  the  science  in  France 
and  England.  The  present  total  oblivion  of  Elie  de  Beau- 
mont's wild  hypotheses,  such  as  his  '  Craters  of  Elevation ' 
and  '  Lines  of  Elevation '  (which  latter  hypothesis  I  heard 
Sedgwick  at  the  Geological  Society  lauding  to  the  skies),  may 
be  largely  attributed  to  Lyell. 

I  saw  a  good  deal  of  Robert  Brown,  "  facile  Princeps  Bo- 
tanicorum,"  as  he  was  called  by  Humboldt.  He  seemed  to 
me  to  be  chiefly  remarkable  for  the  minuteness  of  his  obser- 
vations, and  their  perfect  accuracy.  His  knowledge  was 
extraordinarily  great,  and  much  died  with  him,  owing  to  his 
excessive  fear  of  ever  making  a  mistake.  He  poured  out  his 
knowledge  to  me  in  the  most  unreserved  manner,  yet  was 
strangely  jealous  on  some  points.  I  called  on  him  two  or 
three  times  before  the  voyage  of  the  Beagle^  and  on  one  oc- 
casion he  asked  me  to  look  through  a  microscope  and  de- 
scribe what  I  saw.     This  I  did,  and  believe  now  that  it  was 


LONDON.  6l 

the  marvellous  currents  of  protoplasm  in  some  vegetable  cell. 
I  then  asked  him  what  I  had  seen  ;  but  he  answered  me, 
*'That  is  my  little  secret/' 

He  was  capable  of  the  most  generous  actions.  When  old, 
much  out  of  health,  and  quite  unfit  for  any  exertion,  he  daily 
visited  (as  Hooker  told  me)  an  old  man-servant,  who  lived  at 
a  distance  (and  whom  he  supported),  and  read  aloud  to  him. 
This  is  enough  to  make  up  for  any  degree  of  scientific  penuri- 
ousness  or  jealousy. 

I  may  here  mention  a  few  other  eminent  men,  whom  I 
have  occasionally  seen,  but  I  have  little  to  say  about  them 
worth  saying.  I  felt  a  high  reverence  for  Sir  J.  Herschel, 
and  was  delighted  to  dine  with  him  at  his  charming  house  at 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  afterwards  at  his  London  house. 
I  saw  him,  also,  on  a  few  other  occasions.  He  never  talked 
much,  but  every  word  which  he  uttered  was  worth  listen- 
ing to. 

I  once  met  at  breakfast  at  Sir  R.  Murchison's  house  the 
illustrious  Humboldt,  who  honoured  me  by  expressing  a  wish 
to  see  me.  I  was  a  little  disappointed  with  the  great  man,  but 
my  anticipations  probably  were  too  high.  I  can  remember 
nothing  distinctly  about  our  interview,  except  that  Humboldt 
was  very  cheerful  and  talked  much. 

reminds  me  of  Buckle  whom  I  once  met  at  Hens- 

leigh  Wedgwood's.  I  was  very  glad  to  learn  from  him  his 
system  of  collecting  facts.  He  told  me  that  he  bought  all  the 
books  which  he  read,  and  made  a  full  index,  to  each,  of  the 
facts  which  he  thought  might  prove  serviceable  to  him,  and 
that  he  could  always  remember  in  what  book  he  had  read 
anything,  for  his  memory  was  wonderful.  I  asked  him  how 
at  first  he  could  judge  what  facts  would  be  serviceable,  and 
he  answered  that  he  did  not  know,  but  that  a  sort  of  instinct 
guided  him.  From  this  habit  of  making  indices,  he  was  en- 
abled to  give  the  astonishing  number  of  references  on  all  sorts 
of  subjects,  which  may  be  found  in  his  *  History  of  Civilisa- 
tion.' This  book  I  thought  most  interesting,  and  read  it 
twice,  but  I  doubt  whether  his  generalisations  are  worth  any- 


6^  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

thing.  Buckle  was  a  great  talker,  and  I  listened  to  him  say- 
ing hardly  a  word,  nor  indeed  could  I  have  done  so  for  he 
left  no  gaps.  When  Mrs.  Farrer  began  to  sing,  I  jumped  up 
and  said  that  I  must  listen  to  her  ;  after  I  had  moved  away 
he  turned  around  to  a  friend  and  said  (as  was  overheard  by 
my  brother),  '^  Well,  Mr.  Darwin's  books  are  much  better  than 
his  conversation." 

Of  other  great  literary  men,  I  once  met  Sydney  Smith 
at  Dean  Milman's  house.  There  was  something  inexplicably 
amusing  in  every  word  which  he  uttered.  Perhaps  this  was 
partly  due  to  the  expectation  of  being  amused.  He  was  talk- 
ing about  Lady  Cork,  who  was  then  extremely  old.  This  was 
the  lady  who,  as  he  said,  was  once  so  much  affected  by  one 
of  his  charity  sermons,  that  she  borrowed  a  guinea  from  a 
friend  to  put  in  the  plate.  He  now  said  "  It  is  generally  be- 
lieved that  my  dear  old  friend  Lady  Cork  has  been  over- 
looked," and  he  said  this  in  such  a  manner  that  no  one  could 
for  a  moment  doubt  that  he  meant  that  his  dear  old  friend 
had  been  overlooked  by  the  devil.  How  he  managed  to  ex- 
press this  I  know  not. 

I  likewise  once  met  Macaulay  at  Lord  Stanhope's  (the 
historian's)  house,  and  as  there  was  only  one  other  man  at 
dinner,  I  had  a  grand  opportuni'^y  of  hearing  him  converse, 
and  he  was  very  agreeable.  He  did  not  talk  at  all  too  much  ; 
nor  indeed  could  such  a  man  talk  too  much,  as  long  as  he  al- 
lowed others  to  turn  the  stream  of  his  conversation,  and  this 
he  did  allow. 

Lord  Stanhope  once  gave  me  a  curious  little  proof  of  the 
accuracy  and  fulness  of  Macaulay's  memory :  many  his- 
torians used  often  to  meet  at  Lord  Stanhope's  house,  and  in 
discussing  various  subjects  they  would  sometimes  differ  from 
Macaulay,  and  formerly  they  often  referred  to  some  book  to 
see  who  was  right ;  but  latterly,  as  Lord  Stanhope  noticed, 
no  historian  ever  took  this  trouble,  and  whatever  Macaulay 
said  was  final. 

On  another  occasion  I  met  at  Lord  Stanhope's  house, 
one  of  his  parties  of  historians  and  other  literary  men,  and 


LONDON.  63 

amongst  them  were  Motley  and  Grote.  After  luncheon  I 
walked  about  Chevening  Park  for  nearly  an  hour  with  Grote, 
and  was  much  interested  by  his  conversation  and  pleased  by 
the  simplicity  and  absence  of  all  pretension  in  his  manners. 

Long  ago  I  dined  occasionally  with  the  old  Earl,  the 
father  of  the  historian ;  he  was  a  strange  man,  but  what  little 
I  knew  of  him  I  liked  much.  He  was  frank,  genial,  and 
pleasant.  He  had  strongly  marked  features,  with  a  brown 
complexion,  and  his  clothes,  when  I  saw  him,  were  all  brown- 
He  seemed  to  believe  in  everything  which  was  to  others  utter- 
ly incredible.  He  said  one  day  to  me,  "  Why  don't  you  give 
up  your  fiddle-faddle  of  geology  and  zoology,  and  turn  to  the 
occult  sciences  ? "     The  historian,  then  Lord  Mahon,  seemed 

I  shocked  at  such  a  speech  to  me,  and  his  charming  wife  much 
amused. 
The  last  man  whom  I  will  mention  is  Carlyle,  seen  by  me 
several  times  at  my  brother's  house,  and  two  or  three  times 
at  my  own  house.  His  talk  was  very  racy  and  interesting, 
just  like  his  writings,  but  he  sometimes  went  on  too  long  on 
the  same  subject.  I  remember  a  funny  dinner  at  my  broth- 
er's, where,  amongst  a  few  others,  were  Babbage  and  Lyell, 
both  of  whom  liked  to  talk.  Carlyle,  however,  silenced  every 
one  by  haranguing  during  the  whole  dinner  on  the  advantages 
of  silence.  After  dinner  Babbage,  in  his  grimmest  manner, 
thanked  Carlyle  for  his  very  interesting  lecture  on  silence. 

Carlyle  sneered  at  almost  every  one  :  one  day  in  my  house 
he  called  Grote's  '  History  '  "  a  fetid  quagmire,  with  nothing 
spiritual  about  it."  I  always  thought,  until  his  *  Reminis- 
cences '  appeared,  that  his  sneers  were  partly  jokes,  but  this 
now  seems  rather  doubtful.  His  expression  was  that  of  a 
depressed,  almost  despondent  yet  benevolent,  man  ;  and  it 
is  notorious  how  heartily  he  laughed.  I  believe  that  his 
benevolence  was  real,  though  stained  by  not  a  little  jealousy. 
No  one  can  doubt  about  his  extraordinary  power  of  drawing 
pictures  of  things  and  men — far  more  vivid,  as  it  appears  to 
me,  than  any  drawn  by  Macaulay.  Whether  his  pictures  of 
men  were  true  ones  is  another  question. 


64 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


I 


He  has  been  all-powerful  in  impressing  some  grand  moral 
truths  on  the  minds  of  men.  On  the  other  hand,  his  views 
about  slavery  were  revolting.  In  his  eyes  might  was  right. 
His  mind  seemed  to  me  a  very  narrow  one ;  even  if  all 
branches  of  science,  w^hich  he  despised,  are  excluded.  It 
is  astonishing  to  me  that  Kingsley  should  have  spoken  of  him 
as  a  man  well  fitted  to  advance  science.  He  laughed  to 
scorn  the  idea  that  a  mathematician,  such  as  Whewell,  could 
judge,  as  I  maintained  he  could,  of  Goethe's  views  on  light. 
He  thought  it  a  most  ridiculous  thing  that  any  one  should 
care  whether  a  glacier  moved  a  little  quicker  or  a  little 
slower,  or  moved  at  all.  As  far  as  I  could  judge,  I  never 
met  a  man  with  a  mind  so  ill  adapted  for  scientific  re- 
search. 

Whilst  living  in  London,  I  attended  as  regularly  as  I  could 
the  meetings  of  several  scientific  socities,  and  acted  as  secre- 
tary to  the  Geological  Society.  But  such  attendance,  and 
ordinary  society,  suited  my  health  so  badly  that  we  resolved 
to  live  in  the  country,  which  we  both  preferred  and  have 
never  repented  of. 

Residence  at  Down  from  Septeinber  14,  1842,  /^  the  present  time, 

1876. 

After  several  fruitless  searches  in  Surrey  and  elsewhere, 
we  found  this  house  and  purchased  it.  I  was  pleased  with 
the  diversified  appearance  of  vegetation  proper  to  a  chalk 
district,  and  so  unlike  what  I  had  been  accustomed  to  in  the 
Midland  counties;  and  still  more  pleased  with  the  extreme 
quietness  and  rusticity  of  the  place.  It  is  not,  however, 
quite  so  retired  a  place  as  a  writer  in  a  German  periodical 
makes  it,  who  says  that  my  house  can  be  approached  only  by 
a  mule-track !  Our  fixing  ourselves  here  has  answered  ad- 
mirably in  one  way,  which  we  did  not  anticipate,  .namely,  by 
being  very  convenient  for  frequent  visits  from  our  chil- 
dren. 

Few  persons  can  have  lived  a  more  retired  life  than  we 


PUBLICATIONS.  6$ 

have  done.  Besides  short  visits  to  the  houses  of  relations, 
and  occasionally  to  the  seaside  or  elsewhere,  we  have  gone 
nowhere.  During  the  first  part  of  our  residence  we  went  a 
jlittle  into  society,  and  received  a  few  friends  here  ;  but  my 
health  almost  always  suffered  from  the  excitement,  violent 
shivering  and  vomiting  attacks  being  thus  brought  on.  I 
|have  therefore  been  compelled  for  many  years  to  give  up  all 
dinner-parties  ;  and  this  has  been  somewhat  of  a  deprivation 
to  me,  as  such  parties  always  put  me  into  high  spirits.  From 
the  same  cause  I  have  been  able  to  invite  here  very  few  sci- 
entific acquaintances. 

My  chief  enjoyment  and  sole  employment  throughout  life 
has  been  scientific  work ;  and  the  excitement  from  such  work 
makes  me  for  the  time  forget,  or  drives  quite  away,  my  daily 
discomfort.  I  have  therefore  nothing  to  record  during 
the  rest  of  my  life,  except  the  publication  of  my  several 
books.  Perhaps  a  few  details  how  they  arose  may  be  worth 
giving. 

My  several  Publications, — In  the  early  part  of  1844,  ^7 
observations  on  the  volcanic  islands  visited  during  the  voyage 
of  the  Beagle  were  published.  In  1845,  I  took  much  pains 
in  correcting  a  new  edition  of  my  ^  Journal  of  Researches,' 
which  was  originally  published  in  1839  as  part  of  Fitz-Roy's 
work.  The  success  of  this,  my  first  literary  child,  always 
tickles  my  vanity  more  than  that  of  any  of  my  other  books. 
Even  to  this  day  it  sells  steadily  in  England  and  the  United 
States,  and  has  been  translated  for  the  second  time  into  Ger- 
man, and  into  French  and  other  languages.  This  success  of 
a  book  of  travels,  especially  of  a  scientific  one,  so  many  years 
after  its  first  publication,  is  surprising.  Ten  thousand  copies 
have  been  sold  in  England  of  the  second  edition.  In  1846 
my  '  Geological  Observations  on  South  America  '  were  pub- 
lished. I  record  in  a  little  diary,  which  I  have  always  kept, 
that  my  three  geological  books  (*  Coral  Reefs'  included)  con- 
sumed four  and  a  half  years'  steady  work  ;  "  and  now  it  is 
ten  years  since  my  return  to  England.  How  much  time  have 
I  lost  by  illness.^''     I  have  nothing  to  say  about  these  three 


66  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

books  except  that  to  my  surprise  new  editions  have  lately 
been  called  for.^' 

In  October,  1846,  I  began  to  work  on  '  Cirripedia/  When 
on  the  coast  of  Chile,  I  found  a  most  curious  form,  which 
burrowed  into  the  shells  of  Concholepas,  and  which  differed 
so  much  from  all  other  Cirripedes  that  I  had  to  form  a  new 
sub-order  for  its  sole  reception.  Lately  an  allied  burrowing 
genus  has  been  found  on  the  shores  of  Portugal.  To  under- 
stand the  structure  of  my  new  Cirripede  I  had  to  examine 
and  dissect  many  of  the  common  forms  ;  and  this  gradually 
led  me  on  to  take  up  the  whole  group.  I  worked  steadily  on 
this  subject  for  the  next  eight  years,  and  ultimately  published 
two  thick  volumes,!  describing  all  the  known  living  species, 
and  two  thin  quartos  on  the  extinct  species.  I  do  not  doubt 
that  Sir  E.  Lytton  Bulwer  had  me  in  his  mind  when  he  intro- 
duced in  one  of  his  novels  a  Professor  Long,  who  had  written 
tv/o  huge  volumes  on  limpets. 

Although  I  was  employed  during  eight  years  on  this 
work,  yet  I  record  in  my  diary  that  about  two  years  out  of 
this  time  was  lost  by  illness.  On  this  account  I  went  in  1848 
for  some  months  to  Malvern  for  hydropathic  treatment,  which 
did  me  much  good,  so  that  on  my  return  home  I  was  able  to 
resume  work.  So  much  was  I  out  of  health  that  when  my 
dear  father  died  on  November  13th,  1848,  I  was  unable  to 
attend  his  funeral  or  to  act  as  one  of  his  executors. 

My  work  on  the  Cirripedia  possesses,  I  think,  considera- 
ble value,  as  besides  describing  several  new  and  remarkable 
forms,  I  made  out  \he  homologies  of  the  various  parts — I  dis- 
covered the  cementing  apparatus,  though  I  blundered  dread- 
fully about  the  cement  glands — and  lastly  I  proved  the  exist- 
ence in  certain  genera  of  minute  males  complemental  to  and 
parasitic  on  the  hermaphrodites.  This  latter  discovery  has 
at  last  been  fully  confirmed;  though  at  one  time  a  German 


*  'Geological  Observations,*  2nd  Edit.  1876.     *  Coral  Reef^;,'  2nd  Edit. 
1874. 

f  Published  by  the  Ray  Society. 


CIRRIPEDES. 


67 


atelj|yriter  was  pleased  to  attribute  the  whole  account  to  my  fer- 
ile  imagination.  The  Cirripedes  form  a  highly  varying  and 
Icn  iifficult  group  of  species  to  class  ;  and  my  work  was  of  con- 
jiderable  use  to  me,  when  I  had  to  discuss  in  the  ^  Origin  of 
Species  '  the  principles  of  a  natural  classification.  Neverthe- 
ess,  I  doubt  whether  the  work  was  worth  the  consumption  of 
50  much  time. 

From  September  1854  I  devoted  my  whole  time  to  arrang- 
ng  my  huge  pile  of  notes,  to  observing,  and  to  experiment- 
ing in  relation  to  the  transmutation  of  species.     During  the 
voyage  of  the  Beagle  I  had  been  deeply  impressed  by  discov- 
ering in  the  Pampean  formation  great  fossil  animals  covered 
ith  armour  like  that  on  the  existing  armadillos  ;  secondly, 
by  the  manner  in  which  closely  allied  animals  replace  one 
another  in  proceeding  southwards  over  the  Continent ;  and 
thirdly,  by  the  South  American  character  of  most  of  the  pro- 
ductions of  the  Galapagos  archipelago,  and  more  especially 
isBby  the  manner  in  which  they  differ  slightly  on  each  island  of 
i  |the  group  ;  none  of  the  islands  appearing  to  be  very  ancient 
in  a  geological  sense. 

It  was  evident  that  such  facts  as  these,  as  well  as  many 
others,  could  only  be  explained  on  the  supposition  that 
|r|species  gradually  become  modified  ;  and  the  subject  haunted 
me.  But  it  was  equally  evident  that  neither  the  action  of  the 
surrounding  conditions,  nor  the  will  of  the  organisms  (espe- 
cially in  the  case  of  plants)  could  account  for  the  innumera- 
ble cases  in  which  organisms  of  every  kind  are  beautifully 
adapted  to  their  habits  of  life — for  instance,  a  woodpecker  or 
a  tree-frog  to  climb  trees,  or  a  seed  for  dispersal  by  hooks  or 
plumes.  I  had  always  been  much  struck  by  such  adaptations, 
and  until  these  could  be  explained  it  seemed  to  me  almost 
useless  to  endeavour  to  prove  by  indirect  evidence  that 
species  have  been  modified. 

After  my  return  to  England  it  appeared  to  me  that  by 
following  the  example  of  Lyell  in  Geology,  and  by  collecting 
all  facts  which  bore  in  any  way  on  the  variation  of  animals 
and  plants  under  domestication  and  nature,  some  light  might 


68  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

perhaps  be  thrown  on  the  whole  subject.  My  first  note-book 
was  opened  in  July  1837.  I  worked  on  true  Baconian  prin- 
ciples, and  without  any  theory  collected  facts  on  a  wholesale 
scale,  more  especially  with  respect  to  domesticated  produc- 
tions, by  printed  enquiries,  by  conversation  with  skilful 
breeders  and  gardeners,  and  by  extensive  reading.  When  I 
see  the  list  of  books  of  all  kinds  which  I  read  and  abstracted, 
including  whole  series  of  Journals  and  Transactions,  I  am 
surprised  at  my  industry.  I  soon  perceived  that  selection 
was  the  keystone  of  man's  success  in  making  useful  races  of 
animals  and  plants.  But  how  selection  could  be  applied  to 
organisms  living  in  a  state  of  nature  remained  for  some  time 
a  mystery  to  me. 

In  October  1838,  that  is,  fifteen  months  after  I  had  begun 
my  systematic  enquiry,  I  happened  to  read  for  amusement 
*  Malthus  on  Population,'  and  being  well  prepared  to  appre- 
ciate the  struggle  for  existence  which  everywhere  goes  on 
from  long-continued  observation  of  the  habits  of  animals  and 
plants,  it  at  once  struck  me  that  under  these  circumstances 
favourable  variations  would  tend  to  be  preserved,  and  unfa- 
vourable ones  to  be  destroyed.  The  result  of  this  would  be 
the  formation  of  new  species.  Here  then  I  had  at  last  got  a 
theory  by  which  to  work  ;  but  I  was  so  anxious  to  avoid 
prejudice,  that  I  determined  not  for  some  time  to  write  even 
the  briefest  sketch  of  it.  In  June  1842  I  first  allowed  myself 
the  satisfaction  of  writing  a  very  brief  abstract  of  my  theory 
in  pencil  in  35  pages  ;  and  this  was  enlarged  during  the  sum- 
mer of  1844  into  one  of  230  pages,  which  I  had  fairly  copied 
out  and  still  possess. 

But  at  that  time  I  overlooked  one  problem  of  great  impor- 
tance ;  and  it  is  astonishing  to  me,  except  on  the  principle  of 
Columbus  and  his  egg,  how  I  could  have  overlooked  it  and 
its  solution.  This  problem  is  the  tendency  in  organic  beings 
descended  from  the  same  stock  to  diverge  in  character  as 
they  become  modified.  That  they  have  diverged  greatly  is 
obvious  from  the  manner  in  which  species  of  all  kinds  can  be 
classed  under  genera,  genera  under  families,  families  under 


lie 


an 


*  ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES.'  69 

^flsub-orders  and  so  forth  ;  and  I  can  remember  the  very  spot 
^^™'in  the  road,  whilst  in  my  carriage,  when  to  my  joy  the  solu- 
tion occurred  to  me  ;  and  this  was  long  after  I  had  come  to 
Down.  The  solution,  as  I  believe,  is  that  the  modified  off- 
spring of  all  dominant  and  increasing  forms  tend  to  become 
adapted  to  many  and  highly  diversified  places  in  the  economy 
^  of  nature. 

Early  in  1856  Lyell  advised  me  to  write  out  my  views 
pretty  fully,  and  I  began  at  once  to  do  so  on  a  scale  three  or 
four  times  as  extensive  as  that  which  was  afterwards  followed 
in  my  *  Origin  of  Species  ; '  yet  it  was  only  an  abstract  of  the 
materials  which  I  had  collected,  and  I  got  through  about 
half  the  work  on  this  scale.  But  my  plans  were  over- 
thrown, for  early  in  the  summer  of  1858  Mr.  Wallace,  who 
was  then  in  the  Malay  archipelago,  sent  me  an  essay  ''  On 
the  Tendency  of  Varieties  to  depart  indefinitely  from  the 
Original  Type ; "  and  this  essay  contained  exactly  the 
same  theory  as  mine.  Mr.  Wallace  expressed  the  wish  that 
if  I  thought  well  of  his  essay,  I  should  send  it  to  Lyell  for 
perusal. 

The  circumstances  under  which  I  consented  at  the  re- 
quest of  Lyell  and  Hooker  to  allow  of  an  abstract  from  my 
MS.,  together  with  a  letter  to  Asa  Gray,  dated  September  5, 
1857,  to  be  published  at  the  same  time  with  Wallace's  Essay, 
are  given  in  the  '  Journal  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Linnean 
Society/  1858,  p.  45.  I  was  at  first  very  unwilling  to  consent, 
as  I  thought  Mr.  Wallace  might  consider  my  doing  so  un- 
justifiable, for  I  did  not  then  know  how  generous  and  noble 
was  his  disposition.  The  extract  from  my  MS.  and  the  letter 
to  Asa  Gray  had  neither  been  intended  for  publication,  and 
were  badly  written.  Mr.  Wallace's  essay,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  admirably  expressed  and  quite  clear.  Nevertheless,  our 
joint  productions  excited  very  little  attention,  and  the  only 
published  notice  of  them  which  I  can  remember  was  by 
Professor  Haughton  of  Dublin,  whose  verdict  was  that  all 
that  was  new  in  them  was  false,  and  what  was  true  was  old. 
This  shows  how  necessary  it  is  that  any  new  view  should  be 


70 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


explained  at  considerable  length  in  order  to  arouse  public 
attention. 

In  September  1858  I  set  to  work  by  the  strong  advice  of 
Lyell  and  Hooker  to  prepare  a  volume  on  the  transmutation  of 
species,  but  was  often  interrupted  by  ill-health,  and  short  visits 
to  Dr.  Lane's  delightful  hydropathic  establishment  at  Moor 
Park.  I  abstracted  the  MS.  begun  on  a  much  larger  scale  in 
1856,  and  completed  the  volume  on  the  same  reduced  scale. 
It  cost  me  thirteen  months  and  ten  days' hard  labour.  It  was 
published  under  the  title  of  the  *  Origin  of  Species,'  in  Novem- 
ber 1859.  Though  considerably  added  to  and  corrected  in  the 
later  editions,  it  has  remained  substantially  the  same  book. 

It  is  no  doubt  the  chief  work  of  my  life.  It  was  from  the 
first  highly  successful.  The  first  small  edition  of  1250  copies 
was  sold  on  the  day  of  publication,  and  a  second  edition  of 
3000  copies  soon  afterwards.  Sixteen  thousand  copies  have 
now  (1876)  been  sold  in  England  ;  and  considering  how  stiff 
a  book  it  is,  this  is  a  large  sale.  It  has  been  translated  into 
almost  every  European  tongue,  even  into  such  languages  as 
Spanish,  Bohemian,  Polish,  and  Russian.  It  has  also,  accord- 
ing to  Miss  Bird,  been  translated  into  Japanese,*  and  is  there 
much  studied.  Even  an  essay  in  Hebrew  has  appeared  on 
it,  showing  that  the  theory  is  contained  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment !  The  reviews  were  very  numerous  ;  for  some  time  I 
collected  all  that  appeared  on  the  ^  Origin  *  and  on  my  related 
books,  and  these  amount  (excluding  newspaper  reviews)  to 
265  ;  but  after  a  time  I  gave  up  the  attempt  in  despair. 
Many  separate  essays  and  books  on  the  subject  have  ap-  ' 
peared  ;  and  in  Germany  a  catalogue  or  bibliography  on 
'^  Darwinismus  '*  has  appeared  every  year  or  two. 

The  success  of  the  '  Origin '  may,  I  think,  be  attributed  in 
large  part  to  my  having  long  before  written  two  condensed  ,| 
sketches,  and  to  my  having  finally  abstracted  a  much  larger 
manuscript,  which  was  itself  an  abstract.     By  this  means  I 
was  enabled  to  select  the  more  striking  facts  and  conclusions. 

*  Miss  Bird  is  mistaken,  as  I  learn  from  Prof.  Mitsukuri. — F.  D. 


*  ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES.'  7 1 

I  had,  also,  during  many  years  followed  a  golden  rule,  namely, 
that  whenever  a  published  fact,  a  new  observation  or  thought 
came  across  me,  which  was  opposed  to  my  general  results,  to 
make  a  memorandum  of  it  without  fail  and  at  once  ;  for  I 
had  found  by  experience  that  such  facts  and  thoughts  were 
far  more  apt  to  escape  from  the  memory  than  favourable 
ones.  Owing  to  this  habit,  very  few  objections  were  raised 
against  my  views  which  I  had  not  at  least  noticed  and  at- 
tempted to  answer. 

It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  the  success  of  the  *  Ori- 
gin '  proved  "  that  the  subject  was  in  the  air,*'  or  '*  that  men's 
minds  were  prepared  for  it."  I  do  not  think  that  this  is 
strictly  true,  for  I  occasionally  sounded  not  a  few  naturalists, 
and  never  happened  to  come  across  a  single  one  who  seemed 
to  doubt  about  the  permanence  of  species.  Even  Lyell  and 
Hooker,  though  they  would  listen  with  interest  to  me,  never 
seemed  to  agree.  I  tried  once  or  twice  to  explain  to  able 
men  what  I  meant  by  Natural  Selection,  but  signally  failed. 
What  I  believe  was  strictly  true  is  that  innumerable  well- 
observed  facts  were  stored  in  the  minds  of  naturalists  ready 
to  take  their  proper  places  as  soon  as  any  theory  which  would 
receive  them  was  sufficiently  explained.  Another  element  in 
the  success  of  the  book  v/as  its  moderate  size ;  and  this  I  owe 
to  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Wallace's  essay  ;  had  I  published 
on  the  scale  in  which  I  began  to  write  in  1856,  the  book 
would  have  been  four  or  five  times  as  large  as  the  *  Origin,' 
and  very  few  would  have  had  the  patience  to  read  it. 

I  gained  much  by  my  delay  in  publishing  from  about 
1839,  when  the  theory  was  clearly  conceived,  to  1859  »  ^^d  I 
lost  nothing  by  it,  for  I  cared  very  little  whether  men  at- 
tributed most  originality  to  me  or  Wallace  ;  and  his  essay  no 
doubt  aided  in  the  reception  of  the  theory.  I  was  forestalled 
in  only  one  important  point,  which  my  vanity  has  always 
made  me  regret,  namely,  the  explanation  by  means  of  the 
Glacial  period  of  the  presence  of  the  same  species  of  plants 
and  of  some  few  animals  on  distant  mountain  summits  and 
in  the  arctic  regions.     This  view  pleased  me  so  much  that  I 


72 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 


wrote  it  out  in  extenso,  and  I  believe  that  it  was  read  by 
Hooker  some  years  before  E.  Forbes  published  his  celebrated 
memoir*  on  the  subject.  In  the  very  few  points  in  which 
we  differed,  I  still  think  that  I  was  in  the  right.  I  have 
never,  of  course,  alluded  in  print  to  my  having  independently 
worked  out  this  view. 

Hardly  any  point  gave  me  so  much  satisfaction  when  I 
was  at  work  on  the  ^  Origin,'  as  the  explanation  of  the  wide 
difference  in  many  classes  between  the  embryo  and  the  adult 
animal,  and  of  the  close  resemblance  of  the  embryos  within 
the  same  class.  No  notice  of  this  point  was  taken,  as  far  as 
I  remember,  in  the  early  reviews  of  the  *  Origin,*  and  I  recol- 
lect expressing  my  surprise  on  this  head  in  a  letter  to  Asa 
Gray.  Within  late  years  several  reviewers  have  given  the 
whole  credit  to  Fritz  Miiller  and  Hackel,  who  undoubtedly 
have  worked  it  out  much  more  fully,  and  in  some  respects 
more  correctly  than  I  did.  I  had  materials  for  a  whole  chap- 
ter on  the  subject,  and  I  ought  to  have  made  the  discussion 
longer  ;  for  it  is  clear  that  I  failed  to  impress  my  readers  ; 
and  he  who  succeeds  in  doing  so  deserves,  in  my  opinion,  all 
the  credit. 

This  leads  me  to  remark  that  I  have  almost  always  been 
treated  honestly  by  my  reviewers,  passing  over  those  without 
scientific  knowledge  as  not  worthy  of  notice.  My  views  have 
often  been  grossly  misrepresented,  bitterly  opposed  and  ridi- 
culed, but  this  has  been  generally  done,  as  I  believe,  in  good 
faith.  On  the  whole  I  do  not  doubt  that  my  works  have  been 
over  and  over  again  greatly  overpraised.  I  rejoice  that  I  have 
avoided  controversies,  and  this  I  owe  to  Lyell,  who  many 
years  ago,  in  reference  to  my  geological  works,  strongly  ad- 
vised me  never  to  get  entangled  in  a  controversy,  as  it  rarely 
did  any  good  and  caused  a  miserable  loss  of  time  and  temper. 

Whenever  I  have  found  out  that  I  have  blundered,  or  that 
my  work  has  been  imperfect,  and  when  I  have  been  con- 
temptuously criticised,   and   even  v/hen    I   have  been  over- 


*  « n 


Geolog.  Survey  Mem.,'  1846. 


PUBLICATIONS.  73 

raised,  so  that  I  have  felt  mortified,  it  has  been  my  greatest 
omfort  to  say  hundreds  of  times  to  myself  that  "  I  have 
iicliftvorked  as  hard  and  as  well  as  I  could,  and  no  man  can  do 
avelnore  than  this/'  I  remember  when  in  Good  Success  Bay, 
In  Tierra  del  Fuego,  thinking  (and,  I  believe,  that  I  wrote 
home  to  the  effect)  that  I  could  not  employ  my  life  better 
jthan  in  adding  a  little  to  Natural  Science.  This  I  have  done 
to  the  best  of  my  abilities,  and  critics  may  say  what  they  like, 
but  they  cannot  destroy  this  conviction. 

During  the  two  last  months  of  1859  I  was  fully  occupied 
in  preparing  a  second  edition  of  the  ^  Origin,'  and  by  an 
enormous  correspondence.  On  January  ist,  i860,  I  began 
arranging  my  notes  for  my  work  on  the  *  Variation  of  Ani- 
mals and  Plants  under  Domestication;  '  but  it  was  not  pub- 
lished until  the  beginning  of  1868  ;  the  delay  having  been 
caused  partly  by  frequent  illnesses,  one  of  which  lasted  seven 
months,  and  partly  by  being  tempted  to  publish  on  other  sub- 
jects which  at  the  time  interested  me  more. 

On  May  isth,  1862,  my  little  book  on  the  '  Fertilisation  of 
Orchids,'  which  cost  me  ten  months'  work,  was  published  : 
most  of  the  facts  had  been  slowly  accumulated  during  several 
previous  years.  During  the  summer  of  1839,  ^^^»  I  believe, 
during  the  previous  summer,  I  was  led  to  attend  to  the  cross- 
fertilisation  of  flowers  by  the  aid  of  insects,  from  having  come 
to  the  conclusion  in  my  speculations  on  the  origin  of  species, 
that  crossing  played  an  important  part  in  keeping  specific 
forms  constant.  I  attended  to  the  subject  more  or  less  dur- 
ing every  subsequent  summer ;  and  my  interest  in  it  was 
greatly  enhanced  by  having  procured  and  read  in  November 
1841,  through  the  advice  of  Robert  Brown,  a  copy  of  C.  K. 
Sprengel's  wonderful  book,  '  Das  entdeckte  Geheimniss  der 
Natur.'  For  some  years  before  1862  I  had  specially  attended 
to  the  fertilisation  of  our  British  orchids  ;  and  it  seemed  to 
me  the  best  plan  to  prepare  as  complete  a  treatise  on  this 
group  of  plants  as  well  as  I  could,  rather  than  to  utilise  the 
great  mass  of  matter  which  I  had  slowly  collected  with  re- 
spect to  other  plants. 
5 


74 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


My  resolve  proved  a  wise  one ;  for  since  the  appearance 
of  my  book,  a  surprising  number  of  papers  and  separate 
works  on  the  fertilisation  of  all  kinds  of  flowers  have  ap- 
peared :  and  these  are  far  better  done  than  I  could  possibly 
have  effected.  The  merits  of  poor  old  Sprengel,  so  long 
overlooked,  are  now  fully  recognised  many  years  after  his 
death. 

During  the  same  year  I  published  in  the  *  Journal  of  the 
Linnean  Society  '  a  paper  **  On  the  Two  Forms,  or  Dimor- 
phic Condition  of  Primula,"  and  during  the  next  five  years, 
five  other  papers  on  dimorphic  and  trimorphic  plants.  I  do 
not  think  anything  in  my  scientific  life  has  given  me  so  much 
satisfaction  as  making  out  the  meaning  of  the  structure  of: 
these  plants.  I  had  noticed  in  1838  or  1839  the  dimorphism  | 
of  Linum  flavum,  and  had  at  first  thought  that  it  was  merely 
a  case  of  unmeaning  variability.  But  on  examining  the  com- 
mon species  of  Primula  I  found  that  the  two  forms  were  much 
too  regular  and  constant  to  be  thus  viewed.  I  therefore  be- 
came almost  convinced  that  the  common  cowslip  and  prim- 
rose were  on  the  high  road  to  become  dioecious  ; — that  the 
short  pistil  in  the  one  form,  and  the  short  stamens  in  the 
other  form  were  tending  towards  abortion.  The  plants  were 
therefore  subjected  under  this  point  of  view  to  trial  ;  but  as 
soon  as  the  flowers  with  short  pistils  fertilised  with  pollen 
from  the  short  stamens,  were  found  to  yield  more  seeds  than 
any  other  of  the  four  possible  unions,  the  abortion- theory  was 
knocked  on  the  head.  After  some  additional  experiment,  it 
became  evident  that  the  two  forms,  though  both  were  perfect 
hermaphrodites,  bore  almost  the  same  relation  to  one  another 
as  do  the  two  sexes  of  an  ordinary  animal.  With  Lythrum 
we  have  the  still  more  wonderful  case  of  three  forms  standing 
in  a  similar  relation  to  one  another.  I  afterwards  found  that 
the  offspring  from  the  union  of  two  plants  belonging  to  the 
same  forms  presented  a  close  and  curious  analogy  with  hy- 
brids from  the  union  of  two  distinct  species. 

In  the  autumn  of  1864  I  finished  a  long  paper  on  '  Climb- 
ing Plants,'  and  sent  it  to  the  Linnean  Society.     The  writing 


PUBLICATIONS.  75 

of  this  paper  cost  me  four  months ;  but  I  was  so  unwell  when 
I  received  the  proof-sheets  that  I  was  forced  to  leave  them 
very  badly  and  often  obscurely  expressed.  The  paper  was 
little  noticed,  but  when  in  1875  it  was  corrected  and  published 
as  a  separate  book  it  sold  well.  I  was  led  to  take  up  this  sub- 
ject by  reading  a  short  paper  by  Asa  Gray,  pubUshed  in  1858. 
He  sent  me  seeds,  and  on  raising  some  plants  I  was  so  much 
fascinated  and  perplexed  by  the  revolving  movements  of  the 
tendrils  and  stems,  which  movements  are  really  very  simple, 
though  appearing  at  first  sight  very  complex,  that  I  procured 
various  other  kinds  of  climbing  plants,  and  studied  the  whole 
subject.  I  was  all  the  more  attracted  to  it,  from  not  being  at 
all  satisfied  with  the  explanation  which  Henslow  gave  us  in 
his  lectures,  about  twining  plants,  namely,  that  they  had  a 
natural  tendency  to  grow  up  in  a  spire.  This  explanation 
proved  quite  erroneous.  Some  of  the  adaptations  displayed 
by  Climbing  Plants  are  as  beautiful  as  those  of  Orchids  for 
ensuring  cross-fertilisation. 

My  *  Variation  of  Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestica- 
tion* was  begun,  as  already  stated,  in  the  beginning  of  i860, 
but  was  not  published  until  the  beginning  of  1868.  It  was  a 
big  book,  and  cost  me  four  years  and  two  months*  hard  labour. 
It  gives  all  my  observations  and  an  immense  number  of  facts 
collected  from  various  sources,  about  our  domestic  produc- 
tions. In  the  second  volume  the  causes  and  laws  of  variation, 
inheritance,  &c.,  are  discussed  as  far  as  our  present  state  of 
knowledge  permits.  Towards  the  end  of  the  work  I  give  my 
well-abused  hypothesis  of  Pangenesis.  An  unverified  hypothe- 
sis is  of  little  or  no  value  ;  but  if  any  one  should  hereafter  be 
led  to  make  observations  by  which  some  such  hypothesis 
could  be  established,  I  shall  have  done  good  service,  as  an 
astonishing  number  of  isolated  facts  can  be  thus  connected 
together  and  rendered  intelligible.  In  1875  a  second  and 
largely  corrected  edition,  which  cost  -me  a  good  deal  of  labour, 
was  brought  out. 

My  ^Descent  of  Man  '  was  published  in  February,  1871, 
As  soon  as  I  had  become,  in  the  year  1837  ^^  "^^3^^  convinced 


j6 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


that  species  were  mutable  productions,  I  could  not  avoid  the 
belief  that  man  must  come  under  the  same  law.  Accordingly 
I  collected  notes  on  the  subject  for  my  own  satisfaction,  and 
not  for  a  long  time  with  any  intention  of  publishing.  Although 
in  the  ^  Origin  of  Species  '  the  derivation  of  any  particular 
species  is  never  discussed,  yet  I  thought  it  best,  in  order  that 
no  honourable  man  should  accuse  me  of  concealing  my  views, 
to  add  that  by  the  work  ^'  light  would  be  thrown  on  the  origin 
of  man  and  his  history.'*  It  would  have  been  useless  and  in- 
jurious to  the  success  of  the  book  to  have  paraded,  without 
giving  any  evidence,  my  conviction  with  respect  to  his  origin. 

But  when  I  found  that  many  naturalists  fully  accepted  the 
doctrine  of  the  evolution  of  species,  it  seemed  to  me  advisable 
to  work  up  such  notes  as  I  possessed,  and  to  publish  a  special 
treatise  on  the  origin  of  man.  I  was  the  more  glad  to  do  so, 
as  it  gave  me  an  opportunity  of  fully  discussing  sexual  selec- 
tion— a  subject  which  had  always  greatly  interested  me.  This 
subject,  and  that  of  the  variation  of  our  domestic  productions, 
together  with  the  causes  and  laws  of  variation,  inheritance, 
and  the  intercrossing  of  plants,  are  the  sole  subjects  which  I 
have  been  able  to  write  about  in  full,  so  as  to  use  all  the  ma- 
terials which  I  have  collected.  The  'Descent  of  Man'  took 
me  three  years  to  write,  but  then  as  usual  some  of  this  time' 
was  lost  by  ill  health,  and  some  was  consumed  by  preparing 
new  editions  and  other  minor  works.  A  second  and  largely 
corrected  edition  of  the  *  Descent '  appeared  in  1874. 

My  book  on  the  *  Expression  of  the  Emotions  in  Men  and 
Animals*  was  published  in  the  autumn  of  1872.  I  had  in- 
tended to  give  only  a  chapter  on  the  subject  in  the  *  Descent 
of  Man,*  but  as  soon  as  I  began  to  put  my  notes  together,  I 
saw  that  it  would  require  a  separate  treatise. 

My  first  child  was  born  on  December  27th,  1839,  ^^d  I  at 
once  commenced  to  make  notes  on  the  first  dawn  of  the  vari- 
ous expressions  which  he  exhibited,  for  I  felt  convinced,  even 
at  this  early  period,  that  the  most  complex  and  fine  shades  of 
expression  must  all  have  had  a  gradual  and  natural  origin. 
During  the  summer  of  the  following  year,  1840,  I  read  Sir  C. 


PUBLICATIONS. 


77 


Beirs  admirable  work  on  expression,  and  this  greatly  increased 
the  interest  which  I  felt  in  the  subject,  though  I  could  not  at 
all  agree  with  his  belief  that  various  muscles  had  been  spe- 
cially created  for  the  sake  of  expression.  From  this  time  for- 
ward I  occasionally  attended  to  the  subject,  both  with  respect 
to  man  and  our  domesticated  animals.  My  book  sold  largely; 
5267  copies  having  been  disposed  of  on  the  day  of  publication. 

In  the  summer  of  i860  I  was  idling  and  resting  near  Hart- 
field,  where  two  species  of  Drosera  abound  ;  and  I  noticed 
that  numerous  insects  had  been  entrapped  by  the  leaves.  I 
carried  home  some  plants,  and  on  giving  them  insects  saw  the 
movements  of  the  tentacles,  and  this  made  me  think  it  proba- 
ble that  the  insects  were  caught  for  some  special  purpose. 
•Fortunately  a  crucial  test  occurred  to  me,  that  of  placing  a 
large  number  of  leaves  in  various  nitrogenous  and  non-nitro- 
genous fluids  of  equal  density  ;  and  as  soon  as  I  found  that 
the  former  alone  excited  energetic  movements,  it  was  obvious 
that  here  was  a  fine  new  field  for  investigation. 

During  subsequent  years,  whenever  I  had  leisure,  I  pur- 
sued my  experiments,  and  my  book  on  ^  Insectivorous  Plants  ' 
was  published  in  July  1875 — that  is,  sixteen  years  after  my 
first  observations.  The  delay  in  this  case,  as  with  all  my 
other  books,  has  been  a  great  advantage  to  me ;  for  a  man 
after  a  long  interval  can  criticise  his  own  work,  almost  as  well 
as  if  it  were  that  of  another  person.  The  fact  that  a  plant 
should  secrete,  when  properly  excited,  a  fluid  containing  an 
acid  and  ferment,  closely  analogous  to  the  digestive  fluid  of 
an  animal,  was  certainly  a  remarkable  discovery. 

During  this  autumn  of  1876  I  shall  publish  on  the  *  Effects 
of  Cross  and  Self- Fertilisation  in  the  Vegetable  Kingdom.' 
This  book  will  form  a  complement  to  that  on  the  '  Fertilisa- 
tion of  Orchids,'  in  which  I  showed  how  perfect  were  the 
means  for  cross-fertilisation,  and  here  I  shall  show  how  im- 
portant are  the  results.  I  was  led  to  make,  during  eleven 
years,  the  numerous  experiments  recorded  in  this  volume,  by 
a  mere  accidental  observation ;  and  indeed  it  required  the 
accident  to  be  repeated  before  my  attention  was  thoroughly 


78 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


aroused  to  the  remarkable  fact  that  seedlings  of  self- fertilised 
parentage  are  inferior,  even  in  the  first  generation,  in  height 
and  vigour  to  seedlings  of  cross-fertilised  parentage.  I  hope 
also  to  republish  a  revised  edition  of  my  book  on  Orchids, 
and  hereafter  my  papers  on  dimorphic  and  trimorphic  plants, 
together  with  some  additional  observations  on  allied  points 
which  I  never  have  had  time  to  arrange.  My  strength  will 
then  probably  be  exhausted,  and  I  shall  be  ready  to  exclaim 
**Nunc  dimittis." 

Written  May  ist,  1881.— '  The  Effects  of  Cross  and  Self- 
Fertilisation  '  was  published  in  the  autumn  of  1876  ;  and  the 
results  there  arrived  at  explain,  as  I  believe,  the  endless  and 
wonderful  contrivances  for  the  transportal  of  pollen  from  one 
plant  to  another  of  the  same  species.  I  now  believe,  however, 
chiefly  from  the  observations  of  Hermann  Miiller,  that  I  ought 
to  have  insisted  more  strongly  than  I  did  on  the  many  adapta- 
tions for  self -fertilisation  ;  though  I  was  well  aware  of  many 
such  adaptations.  A  much  enlarged  edition  of  my  *  Fertilisa- 
tion of  Orchids'  was  published  in  1877. 

In  this  same  year  *  The  Different  Forms  of  Flowers,  &c.,* 
appeared,  and  in  1880  a  second  edition.  This  book  consists 
chiefly  of  the  several  papers  on  Heterostyled  flowers  originally 
published  by  the  Linnean  Society,  corrected,  with  much  new 
matter  added,  together  with  observations  on  some  other  cases 
in  which  the  same  plant  bears  two  kinds  of  flowers.  As  be- 
fore remarked,  no  little  discovery  of  mine  ever  gave  me  so 
much  pleasure  as  the  making  out  the  meaning  of  heterostyled 
flowers.  The  results  of  crossing  such  flowers  in  an  illegiti- 
mate manner,  I  believe  to  be  very  important,  as  bearing  on 
the  sterility  of  hybrids  ;  although  these  results  have  been 
noticed  by  only  a  few  persons. 

In  1879,  I  l^^<i  a  translation  of  Dr.  Ernst  Krause's  ^  Life  of 
Erasmus  Darwin'  published,  and  I  added  a  sketch  of  his 
character  and  habits  from  material  in  my  possession.  Many 
persons  have  been  much  interested  by  this  little  life,  and  I 
am  surprised  that  only  800  or  900  copies  were  sold. 

In  1880  I  published,  with  [my  son]  Frank's  assistance,  our 


PUBLICATIONS. 


79 


^Power  of  Movement  in  Plants/  This  was  a  tough  piece  of 
work.  The  book  bears  somewhat  the  same  relation  to  my 
little  book  on  '  Climbing  Plants/  which  '  Cross-Fertilisation  ' 
did  to  the  '  Fertilisation  of  Orchids  ; '  for  in  accordance  with 
the  principle  of  evolution  it  was  impossible  to  account  for 
climbing  plants  having  been  developed  in  so  many  widely 
different  groups  unless  all  kinds  of  plants  possess  some  slight 
power  of  movement  of  an  analogous  kind.  This  I  proved  to 
be  the  case  ;  and  I  was  further  led  to  a  rather  wide  general- 
isation, viz.  that  the  great  and  important  classes  of  move- 
ments, excited  by  light,  the  attraction  of  gravity,  &c.,  are  all 
modified  forms  of  the  fundamental  movement  of  circumnuta- 
tion.  It  has  always  pleased  me  to  exalt  plants  in  the  scale  of 
organised  beings  ;  and  I  therefore  felt  an  especial  pleasure  in 
showing  how  many  and  what  admirably  well  adapted  move- 
ments the  tip  of  a  root  possesses. 

I  have  now  (May  i,  1881)  sent  to  the  printers  the  MS.  of 
a  Httle  book  on  '  The  Formation  of  Vegetable  Mould,  through 
the  Action  of  Worms.*  This  is  a  subject  of  but  small  im- 
portance ;  and  I  know  not  whether  it  will  interest  any  readers,* 
but  it  has  interested  me.  It  is  the  completion  of  a  short 
paper  read  before  the  Geological  Society  more  than  forty 
years  ago,  and  has  revived  old  geological  thoughts. 

I  have  now  mentioned  all  the  books  which  I  have  pub- 
lished, and  these  have  been  the  milestones  in  my  life,  so 
that  little  remains  to  be  said.  I  am  not  conscious  of  any 
change  in  my  mind  during  the  last  thirty  years,  excepting  in 
one  point  presently  to  be  mentioned  ;  nor,  indeed,  could  any 
change  have  been  expected  unless  one  of  general  deterioration. 
But  my  father  lived  to  his  eighty-third  year  with  his  mind  as 
lively  as  ever  it  was,  and  all  his  faculties  undimmed  ;  and  I 
hope  that  I  may  die  before  my  mind  fails  to  a  sensible  ex- 
tent. I  think  that  I  have  become  a  little  more  skilful  in 
guessing   right    explanations   and    in    devising   experimental 


sold 


*  Between  November  1881  and  February  1884,  8500  copies  have  been 


8o  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

tests  ;  but  this  may  probably  be  the  result  of  mere  practice 
and  of  a  larger  store  of  knowledge.  I  have  as  much  difficult) 
as  ever  in  expressing  myself  clearly  and  concisely  ;  and  thi 
difficulty  has  caused  me  a  very  great  loss  of  time  ;  but  it  ha{ 
had  the  compensating  advantage  of  forcing  me  to  think  lon^ 
and  intently  about  every  sentence,  and  thus  I  have  been  leci 
to  see  errors  in  reasoning  and  in  my  own  observations  oi 
those  of  others. 

There  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  fatality  in  my  mind  leading! 
me  to  put  at  first  my  statement  or  proposition  in  a  wrong  oi 
awkward  form.  Formerly  I  used  to  think  about  my  sen- 
tences before  writing  them  down  ;  but  for  several  years  I  have 
found  that  it  saves  time  to  scribble  in  a  vile  hand  whole  pages 
as  quickly  as  I  possibly  can,  contracting  half  the  words ;  and 
then  correct  deliberately.  Sentences  thus  scribbled  down 
are  often  better  ones  than  I  could  have  written  deliberately. 

Having  said  thus  much  about  my  manner  of  writing,  I 
will  add  that  with  my  large  books  I  spend  a  good  deal  of 
time  over  the  general  arrangement  of  the  matter.  I  first 
make  the  rudest  outline  in  two  or  three  pages,  and  then  a 
larger  one  in  several  pages,  a  few  words  or  one  word  stand- 
ing for  a  whole  discussion  or  series  of  facts.  Each  one  of 
these  headings  is  again  enlarged  and  often  transferred  be- 
fore I  begin  to  write  in  extenso.  As  in  several  of  my  books 
facts  observed  by  others  have  been  very  extensively  used, 
and  as  I  have  always  had  several  quite  distinct  subjects  in 
hand  at  the  same  time,  I  may  mention  that  I  keep  from 
thirty  to  forty  large  portfolios,  in  cabinets  with  labelled 
shelves,  into  which  I  can  at  once  put  a  detached  reference 
or  memorandum.  I  have  bought  many  books,  and  at  their 
ends  I  make  an  index  of  all  the  facts  that  concern  my  work  ; 
or,  if  the  book  is  not  my  own,  write  out  a  separate  abstract, 
and  of  such  abstracts  I  have  a  large  drawer  full.  Before 
beginning  on  any  subject  I  look  to  all  the  short  indexes  and 
make  a  general  and  classified  index,  and  by  taking  the  one 
or  more  proper  portfolios  I  have  all  the  information  collected 
during  my  life  ready  for  use. 


MENTAL   QUALITIES.  gj 

I  have  said  that  in  one  respect  my  mind  has  changed 
during  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years.  ^'Up  to  the  age  of 
thirty,  or  beyond  it,  poetry  of  many  kinds,  such  as  the  works 
of  Milton,  Gray,  Byron,  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  Shelley, 
gave  me  great  pleasure,  and  even  as  a  schoolboy  I  took 
intense  delight  in  Shakespeare,  especially  in  the  historical 
plays.  I  have  also  said  that  formerly  pictures  gave  me  con- 
siderable, and  music  very  great  delight.  But  now  for  many 
years  I  cannot  endure  to  read  a  line  of  poetry :  I  have  tried 
lately  to  read  Shakespeare,  and  found  it  so  intolerably  dull 
that  it  nauseated  me.  I  have  also  almost  lost  my  taste  for 
pictures  or  music.^  Music  generally  sets  me  thinking  too  en- 
ergetically on  what  I  have  been  at  work  on,  instead  of  giving 
me  pleasure.  I  retain  some  taste  for  fine  scenery,  but  it  does 
not  cause  me  the  exquisite  delight  which  it  formerly  did. 
On  the  other  hand,  novels  which  are  works  of  the  imagina- 
tion, though  not  of  a  very  high  order,  have  been  for  years 
a  wonderful  relief  and  pleasure  to  me,  and  I  often  bless  all 
novelists.  A  surprising  number  have  been  read  aloud  to  me, 
and  I  like  all  if  moderately  good,  and  if  they  do  not  end  un- 
happily— against  which  a  law  ought  to  be  passed.  A  novel, 
according  to  my  taste,  does  not  come  into  the  first  class 
unless  it  contains  some  person  whom  one  can  thoroughly 
love,  and  if  a  pretty  woman  all  the  better. 

This  curious  and  lamentable  loss  of  the  higher  aesthetic 
tastes  is  all  the  odder,  as  books  on  history,  biographies,  and 
travels  (independently  of  any  scientific  facts  which  they  may 
contain),  and  essays  on  all  sorts  of  subjects  interest  me  as 
much  as  ever  they  did.  My  mind  seems  to  have  become  a 
kind  of  machine  for  grinding  general  laws  out  of  large  collec- 
tions of  facts,  but  why  this  should  have  caused  the  atrophy 
of  that  part  of  the  brain  alone,  on  which  the  higher  tastes 
depend,  I  cannot  conceive.  A  man  with  a  mind  more  highly 
organised  or  better  constituted  than  mine,  would  not,  I  sup- 
pose, have  thus  suffered  ;  and  if  I  had  to  live  my  life  again, 
I  would  have  made  a  rule  to  read  some  poetry  and  listen  to 
some  music  at  least  once  every  week  ;  for  perhaps  the  parts 


82  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

of  my  brain  now  atrophied  would  thus  have  been  kept  active 
through  use.  The  loss  of  these  tastes  is  a  loss  of  happiness, 
and  may  possibly  be  injurious  to  the  intellect,  and  more 
probably  to  the  moral  character,  by  enfeebling  the  emotional 
part  of  our  nature. 

My  books  have  sold  largely  in  England,  have  been  trans- 1 ; 
lated  into  many  languages,  and  passed  through  several 
editions  in  foreign  countries.  I  have  heard  it  said  that 
the  success  of  a  work  abroad  is  the  best  test  of  its  endur- 
ing value.  I  doubt  whether  this  is  at  all  trustworthy;  but 
judged  by  this  standard  my  name  ought  to  last  for  a  few 
years.  Therefore  it  may  be  worth  while  to  try  to  analyse 
the  mental  qualities  and  the  conditions  on  which  my  suc- 
cess has  depended  ;  though  I  am  aware  that  no  man  can  do 
this  correctly. 

I  have  no  great  quickness  of  apprehension  or  wit  which  is 
so  remarkable  in  some  clever  men,  for  instance,  Huxley.  I 
am  therefore  a  poor  critic :  a  paper  or  book,  when  first  read, 
generally  excites  my  admiration,  and  it  is  only  after  consider- 
able reflection  that  I  perceive  the  weak  points.  My  power  to 
follow  a  long  and  purely  abstract  train  of  thought  is  very 
limited;  and  therefore  I  could  never  have  succeeded  with 
metaphysics  or  mathematics.  My  memory  is  extensive,  yet 
hazy :  it  suffices  to  make  me  cautious  by  vaguely  telling  me 
that  I  have  observed  or  read  something  opposed  to  the  con- 
clusion which  I  am  drawing,  or  on  the  other  hand  in  favour 
of  it ;  and  after  a  time  I  can  generally  recollect  where  to 
search  for  my  authority.  So  poor  in  one  sense  is  my  memory, 
that  I  have  never  been  able  to  remember  for  more  than  a  few 
days  a  single  date  or  a  line  of  poetry. 

Some  of  my  critics  have  said,  "  Oh,  he  is  a  good  observer, 
but  he  has  no  power  of  reasoning !  '*  I  do  not  think  that  this 
can  be  true,  for  the  *  Origin  of  Species '  is  one  long  argument 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  and  it  has  convinced  not  a 
few  able  men.  No  one  could  have  written  it  without  having 
some  power  of  reasoning.  I  have  a  fair  share  of  invention, 
and  of  common  sense  or  judgment,  such  as  every  fairly  sue- 


MENTAL   QUALITIES.  83 

cessful  lawyer  or  doctor  must  have,  but  not,  I  believe,  in  any 
higher  degree. 

On  the  favourable  side  of  the  balance,  I  think  that  I  am 
superior  to  the  common  run  of  men  in  noticing  things  which 
easily  escape  attention,  and  in  observing  them  carefully. 
My  industry  has  been  nearly  as  great  as  it  could  have  been 
in  the  observation  and  collection  of  facts.  What  is  far  more 
important,  rny  love  of  natural  science  has  been  steady  and 
ardent. 

This  pure  love  has,  however,  been  much  aided  by  the 
ambition  to  be  esteemed  by  my  fellow  naturalists.  From  my 
early  youth  I  have  had  the  strongest  desire  to  understand  or 
explain  whatever  I  observed, — that  is,  to  group  all  facts 
under  some  general  laws.  These  causes  combined  have 
given  me  the  patience  to  reflect  or  ponder  for  any  number 
of  years  over  any  unexplained  problem.  As  far  as  I  can 
judge,  I  am  not  apt  to  follow  blindly  the  lead  of  other  men. 
I  have  steadily  endeavoured  to  keep  my  mind  free  so  as  to 
give  up  any  hypothesis,  however  much  beloved  (and  I  cannot 
resist  forming  one  on  every  subject),  as  soon  as  facts  are 
shown  to  be  opposed  to  it.  Indeed,  I  have  had  no  choice 
but  to  act  in  this  manner,  for  with  the  exception  of  the  Coral 
Reefs,  I  cannot  remember  a  single  first-formed  hypothesis 
which  had  not  after  a  time  to  be  given  up  or  greatly  modified. 
This  has  naturally  led  me  to  distrust  greatly  deductive  reason- 
ing in  the  mixed  sciences.  On  the  other  hand,  I  am  not 
very  sceptical, — a  frame  of  mind  which  I  believe  to  be  inju- 
rious to  the  progress  of  science.  A  good  deal  of  scepticism 
in  a  scientific  man  is  advisable  to  avoid  much  loss  of  time, 
for  I  have  met  with  not  a  few  men,  who,  I  feel  sure,  have 
often  thus  been  deterred  from  experiment  or  observations, 
which  would  have  proved  directly  or  indirectly  serviceable. 

In  illustration,  I  will  give  the  oddest  case  which  I  have 
known.  A  gentleman  (who,  as  I  afterwards  heard,  is  a  good 
local  botanist)  wrote  to  me  from  the  Eastern  counties  that 
the  seed  or  beans  of  the  common  field-bean  had  this  year 
everywhere  grown  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  pod.     I  wrote 


84  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

back,  asking  for  further  information,  as  I  did  not  understand 
what  was  meant ;  but  I  did  not  receive  any  answer  for  a  very- 
long  time.  I  then  saw  in  two  newspapers,  one  published  in 
Kent  and  the  other  in  Yorkshire,  paragraphs  stating  that  it 
was  a  most  remarkable  fact  that  ^*  the  beans  this  year  had  all 
grown  on  the  wrong  side.**  So  I  thought  there  must  be  some 
foundation  for  so  general  a  statement.  Accordingly,  I  went 
to  my  gardener,  an  old  Kentish  man,  and  asked  him  whether 
he  had  heard  anything  about  it,  and  he  answered,  ^*  Oh,  no, 
sir,  it  must  be  a  mistake,  for  the  beans  grow  on  the  wrong 
side  only  on  leap-year,  and  this  is  not  leap-year."  I  then 
asked  him  how  they  grew  in  common  years  and  how  on  leap- 
years,  but  soon  found  that  he  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  how 
they  grew  at  any  time,  but  he  stuck  to  his  belief. 

After  a  time  I  heard  from  my  first  informant,  who,  with 
many  apologies,  said  that  he  should  not  have  written  to  me 
had  he  not  heard  the  statement  from  several  intelligent  farm- 
ers ;  but  that  he  had  since  spoken  again  to  every  one  of  them, 
and  not  one  knew  in  the  least  what  he  had  himself  meant. 
So  that  here  a  belief — if  indeed  a  statement  with  no  definite 
idea  attached  to  it  can  be  called  a  belief — had  spread  over  al- 
most the  whole  of  England  without  any  vestige  of  evidence. 

I  have  known  in  the  course  of  my  life  only  three  inten- 
tionally falsified  statements,  and  one  of  these  may  have  been 
a  hoax  (and  there  have  been  several  scientific  hoaxes)  which, 
however,  took  in  an  American  Agricultural  Journal.  It  re- 
lated to  the  formation  in  Holland  of  a  new  breed  of  oxen  by 
the  crossing  of  distinct  species  of  Bos  (some  of  which  I  hap- 
pen to  know  are  sterile  together),  and  the  author  had  the  im- 
pudence to  state  that  he  had  corresponded  with  me,  and  that 
I  had  been  deeply  impressed  with  the  importance  of  his  re- 
sult. The  article  was  sent  to  me  by  the  editor  of  an  English 
Agricultural  Journal,  asking  for  my  opinion  before  republish- 
ing it. 

A  second  case  was  an  account  of  several  varieties,  raised 
by  the  author  from  several  species  of  Primula,  which  had 
spontaneously  yielded  a  full  complement  of  seed,  although 


MENTAL   QUALITIES.  85 

the  parent  plants  had  been  carefully  protected  from  the  ac- 
cess of  insects.  This  account  was  published  before  I  had  dis- 
covered the  meaning  of  heterostylism,  and  the  whole  state- 
ment must  have  been  fraudulent,  or  there  was  neglect  in  ex- 
cluding insects  so  gross  as  to  be  scarcely  credible. 

The  third  case  was  more  curious  :  Mr.  Huth  published  in 
his  book  on  '  Consanguineous  Marriage '  some  long  extracts 
from  a  Belgian  author,  who  stated  that  he  had  interbred  rab- 
bits in  the  closest  manner  for  very  many  generations,  without 
the  least  injurious  effects.  The  account  was  published  in  a 
most  respectable  Journal,  that  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Bel- 
gium ;  but  I  could  not  avoid  feeling  doubts — I  hardly  know 
why,  except  that  there  were  no  accidents  of  any  kind,  and  my 
experience  in  breeding  animals  made  me  think  this  very  im- 
probable. 

So  with  much  hesitation  I  wrote  to  Professor  Van  Ben- 
eden,  asking  him  whether  the  author  was  a  trustworthy  man. 
I  soon  heard  in  answer  that  the  Society  had  been  greatly 
shocked  by  discovering  that  the  whole  account  was  a  fraud.* 
The  writer  had  been  publicly  challenged  in  the  Journal  to 
say  where  he  had  resided  and  kept  his  large  stock  of  rabbits 
while  carrying  on  his  experiments,  which  must  have  con- 
sumed several  years,  and  no  answer  could  be  extracted  from 
him. 

My  habits  are  methodical,  and  this  has  been  of  not  a  little 
use  for  my  particular  line  of  work.  Lastly,  I  have  had  ample 
leisure  from  not  having  to  earn  my  own  bread.  Even  ill- 
health,  though  it  has  annihilated  several  years  of  my  life,  has 
saved  me  from  the  distractions  of  society  and  amusement. 

Therefore  my  success  as  a  man  of  science,  whatever  this 
may  have  amounted  to,  has  been  determined,  as  far  as  I  can 
judge,  by  complex  and  diversified  mental  qualities  and  con- 
ditions.    Of  these,  the  most  important  have  been — the  love 


*  The  falseness  of  the  published  statements  on  which  Mr.  Huth  relied 
has  been  pointed  out  by  himself  in  a  slip  inserted  in  all  the  copies  of  his 
book  which  then  remained  unsold. 


86  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

of  science — unbounded  patience  in  long  reflecting  over  any 
subject — industry  in  observing  and  collecting  facts — and  a 
fair  share  of  invention  as  well  as  of  common  sense.  With 
such  moderate  abilities  as  I  possess,  it  is  truly  surprising  that 
I  should  have  influenced  to  a  considerable  extent  the  belief 
of  scientific  men  on  some  important  points. 


^ 


DOWN    HOUSE,    FROM    THE   GARDEN. 

\^From  the  Century  Magazine, 


CHAPTER  III. 

REMINISCENCES    OF    MY    FATHER*S   EVERYDAY    LIFE. 

It  is  my  wish  in  the  present  chapter  to  give  some  idea  of 
my  father's  everyday  life.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  I  might 
carry  out  this  object  in  the  form  of  a  rough  sketch  of  a  day's 
life  at  Down,  interspersed  with  such  recollections  as  are  called 
up  by  the  record.  Many  of  these  recollections,  which  have  a 
meaning  for  those  who  knew  my  father,  will  seem  colourless 
or  trifling  to  strangers.  Nevertheless,  I  give  them  in  the  hope 
that  they  may  help  to  preserve  that  impression  of  his  personal- 
ity which  remains  on  the  minds  of  those  who  knew  and  loved 
him — an  impression  at  once  so  vivid  and  so  untranslatable 
into  words. 

Of  his  personal  appearance  (in  these  days  of  multiplied 
photographs)  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  much.  He  was 
about  six  feet  in  height,  but  scarcely  looked  so  tall,  as  he 
stooped  a  good  deal ;  in  later  days  he  yielded  to  the  stoop  ; 
but  I  can  remember  seeing  him  long  ago  swinging  his  arms 
back  to  open  out  his  chest,  and  holding  himself  upright  with 
a  jerk.  He  gave  one  the  idea  that  he  had  been  active  rather 
than  strong;  his  shoulders  were  not  broad  for  his  height, 
though  certainly  not  narrow.  As  a  young  man  he  must  have 
had  much  endurance,  for  on  one  of  the  shore  excursions  from 
the  Beagle^  when  all  were  suffering  from  want  of  water,  he  was 
one  of  the  two  who  were  better  able  than  the  rest  to  struggle 
on  in  search  of  it.  As  a  boy  he  was  active,  and  could  jump 
a  bar  placed  at  the  height  of  the  "  Adam's  apple "  in  his 
neck. 


88  REMINISCENCES. 

He  walked  with  a  swinging  action,  using  a  stick  heavily 
shod  with  iron,  which  he  struck  loudly  against  the  ground, 
producing  as  he  went  round  the  *^  Sand-walk"  at  Down,  a' 
rhythmical  click  which  is  with  all  of  us  a  very  distinct  re- 
membrance.    As  he  returned  from  the  midday  walk,  often 
carrying  the  waterproof  or  cloak  which  had  proved   too  hot, 
one  could  see  that  the  swinging  step  w^as  kept  up  by  some-i 
thing  of   an    effort.     Indoors  his   step  was   often   slow   and 
laboured,  and  as  he  went  upstairs  in  the   afternoon  he  might! 
be  heard  mounting  the  stairs  with  a  heavy  footfall,  as  if  each 
step  were  an  effort.     When  interested  in  his  work  he  moved  i 
about  quickly  and  easily  enough,  and  often  in  the  middle  of 
dictating  he  went  eagerly  into  the  hall  to  get  a  pinch  of  snuff^  I 
leaving  the  study  door  open,  and  calling  out  the  last  words  of 
his  sentence  as  he  went.     Indoors  he  sometimes  used  an  oak 
stick  like  a  little  alpenstock,  and  this  was  a  sign  that  he  felt 
giddiness. 

In  spite  of  his  strength  and  activity,  I  think  he  must 
always  have  had  a  clumsiness  of  movement.  He  was  natu- 
rally awkward  with  his  hands,  and  was  unable  to  draw  at  all ! 
well.*  This  he  always  regretted  much,  and  he  frequently 
urged  the  paramount  necessity  of  a  young  naturalist  making 
himself  a  good  draughtsman. 

He  could  dissect  well  under  the  simple  microscope,  but  I 
think  it  was  by  dint  of  his  great  patience  and  carefulness.  It 
was  characteristic  of  him  that  he  thought  many  little  bits  of 
skilful  dissection  something  almost  superhuman.  He  used  to 
speak  with  admiration  of  the  skill  with  which  he  saw  New- 
port dissect  a  humble  bee,  getting  out  the  nervous  system 
with  a  few  cuts  of  a  line  pair  of  scissors,  held,  as  my  father 
used  to  show,  with  the  elbow  raised,  and  in  an  attitude  which 
certainly  would  render  great  steadiness  necessary.  He  used 
to  consider  cutting  sections  a  great  feat,  and  in  the  last  year 
of  his  life,  with  wonderful  energy,  took  the  pains  to  learn  to 

*  The  figure  representing  the  aggregated  cell-contents  in  *  Insectivo- 
rous Plants '  was  drawn  by  him. 


HABITS   AND   APPEARANCE. 


89 


cut  sections  of  roots  and  leaves.  His  hand  was  not  steady 
enough  to  hold  the  object  to  be  cut,  and  he  employed  a 
cominon  microtome,  in  which  the  pith  for  holding  the  object 
was  clamped,  and  the  razor  slid  on  a  glass  surface  in  making 
the  sections.  He  used  to  laugh  at  himself,  and  at  his  own 
skill  in  section-cutting,  at  which  he  would  say  he  was  "speech- 
less with  admiration/'  On  the  other  hand,  he  must  have  had 
accuracy  of  eye  and  power  of  co-ordinating  his  movements, 
since  he  was  a  good  shot  with  a  gun  as  a  young  man,  and  as 
a  boy  was  skilful  in  throwing.  He  once  killed  a  hare  sitting 
in  the  flower-garden  at  Shrewsbury  by  throwing  a  marble  at 
it,  and,  as  a  man,  he  once  killed  a  cross-beak  with  a  stone. 
He  was  so  unhappy  at  having  uselessly  killed  the  cross-beak 
that-  he  did  not  mention  it  for  years,  and  then  explained  that 
he  should  never  have  thrown  at  it  if  he  had  not  felt  sure  that 
his  old  skill  had  gone  from  him. 

When  walking  he  had  a  fidgetting  movement  with  his 
fingers,  which  he  has  described  in  one  of  his  books  as  the 
habit  of  an  old  man.  When  he  sat  still  he  often  took  hold  of 
one  wrist  with  the  other  hand  ;  he  sat  with  his  legs  crossed, 
and  from  being  so  thin  they  could  be  crossed  very  far,  as 
may  be  seen  in  one  of  the  photographs.  He  had  his  chair  in 
the  study  and  in  the  drawing-room  raised  so  as  to  be  much 
higher  than  ordinary  chairs ;  this  was  done  because  sitting  on 
a  low  or  even  an  ordinary  chair  caused  him  some  discomfort. 
We  used  to  laugh  at  him  for  making  his  tall  drawing-room 
chair  still  higher  by  putting  footstools  on  it,  and  then  neu- 
tralising the  result  by  resting  his  feet  on  another  chair. 

His  beard  was  full  and  almost  untrimmed,  the  hair  being 
grey  and  white,  fine  rather  than  coarse,  and  wavy  or  frizzled. 
His  moustache  was  somewhat  disfigured  by  being  cut  short 
and  square  across.  He  became  very  bald,  having  only  a 
fringe  cf  dark  hair  behind. 

His  face  was  ruddy  in  colour,  and  this  perhaps  made 
people  think  him  less  of  an  invalid  than  he  was.  He  wrote 
to  Dr.  Hooker  (June  13,  1849),  "  Every  one  tells  me  that  I 
look  quite  blooming  and  beautiful  ;  and  most  think  I  am 


go  REMINISCENCES. 

shamming,  but  you  have  never  been  one  of  those."  And  it 
must  be  remembered  that  at  this  time  he  was  miserably  ill, 
far  worse  than  in  later  years.  His  eyes  were  bluish  grey 
under  deep  overhanging  brows,  with  thick  bushy  projecting 
eyebrows.  His  high  forehead  was  much  wrinkled,  but  other- 
wise his  face  was  not  much  marked  or  lined.  His  expression 
showed  no  signs  of  the  continual  discomfort  he  suffered. 

When  he  was  excited  with  pleasant  talk  his  whole  manner 
was  wonderfully  bright  and  animated,  and  his  face  shared  to 
the  full  in  the  general  animation.  His  laugh  was  a  free  and 
sounding  peal,  like  that  of  a  man  who  gives  himself  sym  a- 
thetically  and  with  enjoyment  to  the  person  and  the  thing 
which  have  amused  him.  He  often  used  some  sort  of  gesture 
with  his  laugh,  lifting  up  his  hands  or  bringing  one  down  with 
a  slap.  I  think,  generally  speaking,  he  was  given  to  gesture, 
and  often  used  his  hands  in  explaining  anything  {e.g,  the 
fertilisation  of  a  flower)  in  a  way  that  seemed  rather  an  aid 
to  himself  than  to  the  listener.  He  did  this  on  occasions 
when  most  people  would  illustrate  their  explanations  by 
means  of  a  rough  pencil  sketch. 

He  wore  dark  clothes,  of  a  loose  and  easy  fit.  Of  late 
years  he  gave  up  the  tall  hat  even  in  London,  and  wore  a 
soft  black  one  in  winter,  and  a  big  straw  hat  in  summer.  His 
usual  out-of-doors  dress  was  the  short  cloak  in  which  Elliot 
and  Fry*s  photograph  represents  him  leaning  against  the 
pillar  of  the  verandah.  Two  peculiarities  of  his  indoor  dress 
were  that  he  almost  always  wore  a  shawl  over  his  shoulders, 
and  that  he  had  great  loose  cloth  boots  lined  with  fur  which 
he  could  slip  on  over  his  indoor  shoes.  Like  most  delicate 
people  he  suffered  from  heat  as  well  as  from  chilliness ;  it 
was  as  if  he  could  not  hit  the  balance  between  too  hot  and 
too  cold ;  often  a  mental  cause  would  make  him  too  hot,  so 
that  he  would  take  off  his  coat  if  anything  went  wrong  in  the 
course  of  his  work. 

He  rose  early,  chiefly  because  he  could  not  lie  in  bed,  and 
I  think  he  would  have  liked  to  get  up  earlier  than  he  did. 
He  took  a  short  turn  before  breakfast,  a  habit  which  began 


DOGS.  QI 

when  he  went  for  the  first  time  to  a  water-cure  establishment. 
This  habit  he  kept  up  till  almost  the  end  of  his  life.  I  used, 
as  a  little  boy,  to  like  going  out  with  him,  and  I  have  a  vague 
sense  of  the  red  of  the  winter  sunrise,  and  a  recollection  of 
the  pleasant  companionship,  and  a  certain  honour  and  glory- 
in  it.  He  used  to  delight  me  as  a  boy  by  telling  me  how,  in 
still  earlier  walks,  on  dark  winter  mornings,  he  had  once  or 
twice  met  foxes  trotting  home  at  the  dawning. 

After  breakfasting  alone  about  7*45,  he  went  to  work  at 
once,  considering  the  i-J  hour  between  8  and  9*30  one  of  his 
best  working  times.  At  9*30  he  came  into  the  drawing-room 
for  his  letters — rejoicing  if  the  post  was  a  light  one  and  being 
sometimes  much  worried  if  it  was  not.  He  would  then  hear 
any  family  letters  read  aloud  as  he  lay  on  the  sofa. 

The  reading  aloud^  which  also  included  part  of  a  novel, 
lasted  till  about  half-past  ten,  when  he  went  back  to  work 
till  twelve  or  a  quarter  past.  By  this  time  he  considered  his 
day's  work  over,  and  would  often  say,  in  a  satisfied  voice, 
"7V^  done  a  good  day's  work."  He  then  went  out  of  doors 
whether  it  was  wet  or  fine  ;  Polly,  his  white  terrier,  went  with 
him  in  fair  weather,  but  in  rain  she  refused  or  might  be  seen 
hesitating  in  the  verandah,  with  a  mixed  expression  of  disgust 
and  shame  at  her  own  want  of  courage  ;  generally,  however, 
her  conscience  carried  the  day,  and  as  soon  as  he  was  evi- 
dently gone  she  could  not  bear  to  stay  behind. 

My  father  was  always  fond  of  dogs,  and  as  a  young  man 
had  the  power  of  stealing  away  the  affections  of  his  sister's 
pets;  at  Cambridge,  he  won  the  love  of  his  cousin  W.  D. 
Fox's  dog,  and  this  may  perhaps  have  been  the  little  beast 
which  used  to  creep  down  inside  his  bed  and  sleep  at  the 
foot  every  night.  My  father  had  a  surly  dog,  who  was  de- 
voted to  him,  but  unfriendly  to  every  one  else,  and  when  he 
came  back  from  the  Beagle  voyage,  the  dog  remembered 
him,  but  in  a  curious  way,  which  my  father  was  fond  of  tell- 
ing. He  went  into  the  yard  and  shouted  in  his  old  manner; 
the  dog  rushed  out  and  set  off  with  him  on  his  walk,  show- 
ing no  more  emotion  or  excitement  than  if  the  same  thing 


Q2  REMINISCENCES. 

had   happened   the    day  before,  instead   of   five  years   age 
This  story  is  made  use  of  in  the  *  Descent  of  Man/  2nd  Edit 

p.  74. 

In  my  memory  there  were  only  two  dogs  which  had  mucl 

connection  with  my  father.    One  was  a  large  black  and  whit 
half-bred  retriever,  called  Bob,  to  which  we,  as  children,  wer 
much  devoted.     He  was  the  dog  of  whom  the  story  of  th 
"  hot-house  face  **  is  told  in  the  ^  Expression  of  the  Emotions 
But  the  dog  most  closely  associated  with  my  father  wa 
the  above-mentioned  Polly,  a  rough,  white  fox-terrier.     Sh 
was  a  sharp-witted,  affectionate  dog  ;  when  her  master  wa 
going  away  on  a  journey,  she  always  discovered  the  fact  b] 
the  signs  of  packing  going  on  in  the  study,  and  became  low 
spirited  accordingly.     She  began,  too,  to  be  excited  by  seeing 
the  study  prepared  for  his  return  home.     She  was  a  cunning 
little  creature,  and  used  to  tremble  or  put  on  an  air  of  misery 
when  my  father  passed,  while  she  was  waiting  for  dinner,  jus 
as  if  she  knew  that  he  would  say  (as  he  did  often  say)  tha 
"she  was  famishing."     My  father  used  to  make  her  catcl 
biscuits  off  her  nose,  and  had  an    affectionate   and  mock 
solemn  way  of  explaining  to  her  before-hand  that  she  mus 
"  be  a  very  good  girl."     She  had  a  mark  on  her  back  when 
she  had  been  burnt,  and  where  the  hair  had  re-grown  rec 
instead  of  white,  and  my  father  used  to  commend  her  foi 
this  tuft  of  hair  as  being  in  accordance  with  his  theory  o: 
pangenesis ;  her  father  had  been  a  red  bull-terrier,  thus  the 
red  hair  appearing  after  the  burn  showed  the  presence  oj 
latent  red  gemmules.     He  was  delightfully  tender  to  Polly 
and  never  showed  any  impatience  at  the  attentions  she  re- 
quired, such  as  to  be  let  in  at  the  door,  or  out  at  the  veran 
dah  window,  to  bark  at  "naughty  people,"  a  self-imposed 
duty  she  much  enjoyed.    She  died,  or  rather  had  to  be  killed 
a  few  days  after  his  death.* 


*  The  basket  in  which  she  usually  lay  curled  up  near  the  fire  in  his 
study  is  faithfully  represented  in  Mr.  Parson's  drawing,  '*  The  Study  at 
Down,"  facing  this  chapter. 


WALKS.  53 

My  father's  midday  walk  generally  began  by  a  call  at  the 
greenhouse,  where  he  looked  at  any  germinating  seeds  or 
experimental  plants  which  required  a  casual  examination,  but 
he  hardly  ever  did  any  serious  observing  at  this  time.  Then 
he  went  on  for  his  constitutional — either  round  the  '*  Sand- 
walk/*  or  outside  his  own  grounds  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  house.  The  "  Sand-walk  **  was  a  narrow 
strip  of  land  i^  acres  in  extent,  with  a  gravel-walk  round  it. 
On  one  side  of  it  was  a  broad  old  shaw  with  fair-sized  oaks 
in  it,  which  made  a  sheltered  shady  walk  ;  the  other  side  was 
separated  from  a  neighbouring  grass  field  by  a  low  quickset 
hedge,  over  which  you  could  look  at  what  view  there  w^as,  a 
quiet  little  valley  losing  itself  in  the  upland  country  towards 
the  edge  of  the  Westerham  hill,  with  hazel  coppice  and  larch 
wood,  the  remnants  of  what  was  once  a  large  wood,  stretch- 
ing away  to  the  Westerham  road.  I  have  heard  my  father 
say  that  the  charm  of  this  simple  little  valley  helped  to  make 
him  settle  at  Down. 

The  Sand-walk  was  planted  by  my  father  with  a  variety 
of  trees,  such  as  hazel,  alder,  lime,  hornbeam,  birch,  privet, 
and  dogwood,  and  with  a  long  line  of  hollies  all  down  the 
exposed  side.  In  earlier  times  he  took  a  certain  number  of 
turns  every  day,  and  used  to  count  them  by  means  of  a  heap 
of  flints,  one  of  which  he  kicked  out  on  the  path  each  time 
he  passed.  Of  late  years  I  think  he  did  not  keep  to  any 
fixed  number  of  turns,  but  took  as  many  as  he  felt  strength 
for.  The  Sand-walk  was  our  play-ground  as  children,  and 
here  we  continually  saw  my  father  as  he  walked  round.  He 
liked  to  see  what  we  were  doing,  and  was  ever  ready  to  sym- 
pathize in  any  fun  that  was  going  on.  It  is  curious  to  think 
how,  with  regard  to  the  Sand-walk  in  connection  with  my 
father,  my  earliest  recollections  coincide  with  my  latest  ;  it 
shows  how  unvarying  his  habits  have  been. 

Sometimes  when  alone  he  stood  still  or  walked  stealthily 
to  observe  birds  or  beasts.  It  was  on  one  of  these  occasions 
that  some  young  squirrels  ran  up  his  back  and.  legs,  while 
their  mother  barked  at  them  in  an  agony  from  the  tree.     He 


p4  REMINISCENCES. 

always  found  birds*  nests  even  up  to  the  last  years  of  his  life, 
and  we,  as  children,  considered  that  he  had  a  special  genius 
in  this  direction.  In  his  quiet  prowls  he  came  across  the  less 
common  birds,  but  I  fancy  he  used  to  conceal  it  from  me,  as 
a  little  boy,  because  he  observed  the  agony  of  mind  which  I 
endured  at  not  having  seen  the  siskin  or  goldfinch,  or  what- 
ever it  might  have  been.  He  used  to  tell  us  how,  when  he 
was  creeping  noiselessly  along  in  the  "Big-Woods,''  he  came 
upon  a  fox  asleep  in  the  daytime,  which  was  so  much  aston 
ished  that  it  took  a  good  stare  at  him  before  it  ran  off.  A 
Spitz  dog  which  accompanied  him  showed  no  sign  of  excite 
ment  at  the  fox,  and  he  used  to  end  the  story  by  wondering 
how  the  dog  could  have  been  so  faint-hearted. 

Another  favourite  place  was  "Orchis  Bank,"  above  the 
quiet  Cudham  valley,  where  fly-  and  musk-orchis  grew  among 
the  junipers,  and  Cephalanthera  and  Neottia  under  the  beech 
boughs  ;  the  little  wood  "  Hangrove,"  just  above  this,  he  was 
also  fond  of,  and  here  I  remember  his  collecting  grasses; 
when  he  took  a  fancy  to  make  out  the  names  of  all  the  com 
mon  kinds.  He  was  fond  of  quoting  the  saying  of  one  oi 
his  little  boys,  who,  having  found  a  grass  that  his  father  had 
not  seen  before,  had  it  laid  by  his  own  plate  during  dinner 
remarking,  *^  I  are  an  extraordinary  grass-finder  ! " 

My  father  much  enjoyed  wandering  slowly  in  the  garder 
with  my  mother  or  some  of  his  children,  or  making  one  of  a 
party,  sitting  out  on  a  bench  on  the  lawn  ;  he  generally  sat, 
however,  on  the  grass,  and  I  remember  him  often  lying  undei 
one  of  the  big  lime-trees,  with  his  head  on  the  green  mounc 
at  its  foot.  In  dry  summer  weather,  when  we  often  sat  out 
the  big  fly-wheel  of  the  well  was  commonly  heard  spinning 
round,  and  so  the  sound  became  associated  with  those  pleas- 
ant days.  He  used  to  like  to  watch  us  playing  at  lawn-ten 
nis,  and  often  knocked  up  a  stray  ball  for  us  with  the  curvec 
handle  of  his  stick. 

Though  he  took  no  personal  share  in  the  management  oj 
the  garden,  he  had  great  delight  in  the  beauty  of  flowers— 
for  instance,  in  the  mass  of  Azaleas  which  generally  stood  ir 


RIDING. 


95 


the  drawing-room.  I  think  he  sometimes  fused  together  his 
admiration  of  the  structure  of  a  flower  and  of  its  intrinsic 
beauty  ;  for  instance,  in  the  case  of  the  big  pendulous  pink 
and  white  flowers  of  Dielytra.  In  the  same  way  he  had  an 
affection,  half-artistic,  half-botanical,  for  the  little  blue  Lo- 
belii.  In  admiring  flowers,  he  would  often  laugh  at  the  dingy 
high-art  colours,  and  contrast  them  with  the  bright  tints  of 
nature.  I  used  to  like  to  hear  him  admire  the  beauty  of  a 
flower;  it  was  a  kind  of  gratitude  to  the  flower  itself,  and  a 
personal  love  for  its  delicate  form  and  colour.  I  seem  to 
remember  him  gently  touching  a  flower  he  delighted  in  ;  it 
was  the  same  simple  admiration  that  a  child  might  have. 

He  could  not  help  personifying  natural  things.  This  feel- 
ing came  out  in  abuse  as  well  as  in  praise — e.g.  of  some  seed- 
lings— **  The  little  beggars  are  doing  just  what  I  don't  want 
them  to.*'  He  would  speak  in  a  half-provoked,  half-admiring 
way  of  the  ingenuity  of  a  Mimosa  leaf  in  screwing  itself  out 
of  a  basin  of  water  in  which  he  had  tried  to  fi^  it.  One 
might  see  the  same  spirit  in  his  way  of  speaking  of  Sundew, 
earth-worms,  &c.* 

Within  my  memory,  his  only  outdoor  recreation,  besides 
walking,  was  riding,  which  he  took  to  on  the  recommendation 
of  Dr.  Bence  Jones,  and  we  had  the  luck  to  find  for  him  the 
easiest  and  quietest  cob  in  the  world,  named  '*  Tommy."  He 
enjoyed  these  rides  extremely,  and  devised  a  number  of  short 
rounds  which  brought  him  home  in  time  for  lunch.  Our 
country  is  good  for  this  purpose,  owing  to  the  number  of 
small  valleys  which  give  a  variety  to  what  in  a  flat  country 
would  be  a  dull  loop  of  road.  He  was  not,  I  think,  naturally 
fond  of  horses,  nor  had  he  a  high  opinion  of  their  intelli- 
gence, and  Tommy  was  often  laughed  at  for  the  alarm  he 
showed  at  passing  and  repassing  the  same  heap  of  hedge- 

*  Cf  Leslie  Stephen's  *  Swift/  1882,  p.  200,  where  Swift's  inspection  of 
the  manners  and  customs  of  servants  are  compared  to  my  father's  observa- 
tions on  worms,  "  The  difference  is,''  says  Mr.  Stephen,  "  that  Darwin  had 
none  but  kindly  feelings  for  worms." 


96 


REMINISCENCES. 


clippings  as  he  went  round  the  field.  I  think  he  used  to  fe 
surprised  at  himself,  when  he  remembered  how  bold  a  rid( 
he  had  been,  and  how  utterly  old  age  and  bad  health  ha 
taken  away  his  nerve.  He  would  say  that  riding  preventc 
him  thinking  much  more  effectually  than  walking — that  ha^ 
ing  to  attend  to  the  horse  gave  him  occupation  sufficient  t 
prevent  any  really  hard  thinking.  And  the  change  of  seer 
which  it  gave  him  was  good  for  spirits  and  health. 

Unluckily,  Tommy  one  day  fell  heavily  with  him  c 
Keston  common.  This,  and  an  accident  with  another  hors 
upset  his  nerves,  and  he  was  advised  to  give  up  riding. 

If   I  go  beyond  my  own  experience,   and  recall  what 
have  heard  him  say  of  his  love  for  sport,  &c.,  I  can  think  of 
good  deal,  but  much  of  it  would  be  a  repetition  of  what 
contained  in  his  *  Recollections.*     At  school  he  was  fond  > 
bat-fives,  and  this  was  the  only  game  at  which  he  v/as  skilfu 
He  was  fond  of  his  gun  as  quite  a  boy,  and  became  a  go 
shot ;  he  used  to  tell  how  in  South  America  he  killed  twent^ 
three  snipe  in  twenty-four  shots.     In  telling  the  story  he  w 
careful  to  add  that  he  thought  they  were  not  quite  so  wild 
English  snipe. 

Luncheon  at  Down  came  after  his  midday  walk  ;  an 
here  I  may  say  a  word  or  two  about  his  meals  generally.  I: 
had  a  boy-like  love  of  sweets,  unluckily  for  himself,  since  1 
was  constantly  forbidden  to  take  them.  He  was  not  particii 
larly  successful  in  keeping  the  "vows,'*  as  he  called  ther 
which  he  made  against  eating  sweets,  and  never  considerc 
them  binding  unless  he  made  them  aloud. 

He  drank  very  little  wine,  but  enjoyed,  and  was  revive 
by,  the  little  he  did  drink.  He  had  a  horror  of  drinkin 
and  constantly  warned  his  boys  that  any  one  might  be  k 
into  drinking  too  much.  I  remember,  in  my  innocence  as 
small  boy,  asking  him  if  he  had  been  ever  tipsy  ;  and  1 
answered  very  gravely  that  he  was  ashamed  to  say  he  h^ 
once  drunk  too  much  at  Cambridge.  I  was  much  impresse 
so  that  I  know  now  the  place  where  the  question  was  aske- 

After  his  lunch,  he  read  the  newspaper,  lying  on  the  so 


CORRESPONDENCE.  ^7 

in  the  drawing-room.  I  think  the  paper  was  the  only  non- 
scicntific  matter  which  he  read  to  himself.  Everything  else, 
novels,  travels,  history,  was  read  aloud  to  him.  He  took  so 
wide  an  interest  in  life,  that  there  was  much  to  occupy  him 
in  newspapers,  though  he  laughed  at  the  wordiness  of  the 
debates  ;  reading  them,  I  think,  only  in  abstract.  His  inter- 
est in  politics  was  considerable,  but  his  opinion  on  these 
matters  was  formed  rather  by  the  way  than  with  any  serious 
amount  of  thought. 

After  he  had  read  his  paper,  came  his  time  for  writing 
letters.  These,  as  well  as  the  MS.  of  his  books,  were  written 
by  him  as  he  sat  in  a  huge  horse-hair  chair  by  the  fire,  his 
paper  supported  on  a  board  resting  on  the  arms  of  the  chair. 
When  he  had  many  or  long  letters  to  write,  he  would  dictate 
them  from  a  rough  copy  ;  these  rough  copies  were  written  on 
the  backs  of  manuscript  or  of  proof-sheets,  and  were  almost 
illegible,  sometimes  even  to  himself.  He  made  a  rule  of 
keeping  all  letters  that  he  received  ;  this  was  a  habit  which 
he  learnt  from  his  father,  and  which  he  said  had  been  of 
great  use  to  him. 

He  received  many  letters  from  foolish,  unscrupulous  people, 
and  all  of  these  received  replies.  He  used  to  say  that  if  he 
did  not  answer  them,  he  had  it  on  his  conscience  afterwards, 
and  no  doubt  it  was  in  great  measure  the  courtesy  with  which 
he  answered  every  one,  which  produced  the  universal  and 
widespread  sense  of  his  kindness  of  nature,  which  was  so 
evident  on  his  death. 

He  was  considerate  to  his  correspondents  in  other  and 
lesser  things,  for  instance  when  dictating  a  letter  to  a  foreigner 
he  hardly  ever  failed  to  say  to  me,  "You'd  better  try  and 
write  well,  as  it's  to  a  foreigner."  His  letters  were  generally 
written  on  the  assumption  that  they  would  be  carelessly  read  ; 
thus,  when  he  was  dictating,  he  was  careful  to  tell  me  to  make 
an  important  clause  begin  with  an  obvious  paragraph  **to 
catch  his  eye,*'  as  he  often  said.  How  much  he  thought  of 
the  trouble  he  gave  others  by  asking  questions,  will  be  well 
enough  shown  by  his  letters.     It  is  difficult  to  say  anything 


98 


REMINISCENCES. 


about  the  general  tone  of  his  letters,  they  will  speak  for  them 
selves.  The  unvarying  courtesy  of  them  is  very  striking, 
had  a  proof  of  this  quality  in  the  feeling  with  which  Mr.  Hacon 
his  solicitor,  regarded  him.  He  had  never  seen  my  fathei 
yet  had  a  sincere  feeling  of  friendship  for  him,  and  spob 
especially  of  his  letters  as  being  such  as  a  man  seldom  receive 
in  the  way  of  business  : — "  Everything  I  did  was  right,  an( 
everything  was  profusely  thanked  for." 

He  had  a  printed  form  to  be  used  in  replying  to  trouble 
some  correspondents,  but  he  hardly  ever  used  it ;  I  suppos 
he  never  found  an  occasion  that  seemed  exactly  suitable, 
remember  an  occasion  on  which  it  might  have  been  used  wit] 
advantage.  He  received  a  letter  from  a  stranger  stating  tha 
the  writer  had  undertaken  to  uphold  Evolution  at  a  debatin: 
society,  and  that  being  a  busy  young  man,  without  time  fo 
reading,  he  wished  to  have  a  sketch  of  my  father's  views 
Even  this  wonderful  young  man  got  a  civil  answer,  though 
think  he  did  not  get  much  material  for  his  speech.  His  rul 
was  to  thank  the  donors  of  books,  but  not  of  pamphlets.  H 
sometimes  expressed  surprise  that  so  few  people  thanked  hir 
for  his  books  which  he  gave  away  liberally ;  the  letters  tha 
he  did  receive  gave  him  much  pleasure,  because  he  habituall 
formed  so  humble  an  estimate  of  the  value  of  all  his  workj 
that  he  was  generally  surprised  at  the  interest  which  the 
excited. 

In  money  and  business  matters  he  was  remarkably  carefi 
and  exact.  He  kept  accounts  with  great  care,  classifyin 
them,  and  balancing  at  the  end  of  the  year  like  a  merchant 
I  remember  the  quick  way  in  which  he  would  reach  out  fc 
his  account-book  to  enter  each  cheque  paid,  as  though  h 
were  in  a  hurry  to  get  it  entered  before  he  had  forgotten  i 
His  father  must  have  allowed  him  to  believe  that  he  woul 
be  poorer  than  he  really  was,  for  some  of  the  difficulty  expe 
rienced  in  finding  a  house  in  the  country  must  have  arise 
from  the  modest  sum  he  felt  prepared  to  give.  Yet  he  knev 
of  course,  that  he  would  be  in  easy  circumstances,  for  in  hi 
^  Recollections  '  he  mentions  this  as  one  of  the  reasons  for  hi 


BUSINESS.  gg 

not  having  worked  at  medicine  with  so  much  zeal  as  he  would 
have  done  if  he  had  been  obliged  to  gain  his  living. 

He  had  a  pet  economy  in  paper,  but  it  w^as  rather  a  hobby 
than  a  real  economy.  All  the  blank  sheets  of  letters  received 
were  kept  in  a  portfolio  to  be  used  in  making  notes;  it  was 
his  respect  for  paper  that  made  him  write  so  much  on  the 
backs  of  his  old  MS.,  and  in  this  way,  unfortunately,  he  de- 
stroyed large  parts  of  the  original  MS.  of  his  books.  His 
feeling  about  paper  extended  to  waste  paper,  and  he  objected, 
half  in  fun,  to  the  careless  custom  of  throwing  a  spill  into  the 
fire  after  it  had  been  used  for  lighting  a  candle. 

My  father  was  wonderfully  liberal  and  generous  to  all  his 
children  in  the  matter  of  money,  and  I  have  special  cause  to 
remember  his  kindness  when  I  think  of  the  way  in  which  he 
paid  some  Cambridge  debts  of  mine — making  it  almost  seem 
a  virtue  in  me  to  have  told  him  of  them.  In  his  later  years 
he  had  the  kind  and  generous  plan  of  dividing  his  surplus  at 
the  yearns  end  among  his  children. 

He  had  a  great  respect  for  pure  business  capacity,  and 
often  spoke  with  admiration  of  a  relative  who  had  doubled 
his  fortune.  And  of  himself  w^ould  often  say  in  fun  that 
what  he  really  was  proud  of  was  the  money  he  had  saved. 
He  also  felt  satisfaction  in  the  money  he. made  by  his  books. 
His  anxiety  to  save  came  in  a  great  measure  from  his  fears 
that  his  children  would  not  have  health  enough  to  earn  their 
own  livings,  a  foreboding  which  fairly  haunted  him  for  many 
years.  And  I  have  a  dim  recollection  of  his  saying,  "  Thank 
God,  you'll  have  bread  and  cheese,"  when  I  was  so  young 
that  I  was  rather  inclined  to  take  it  literally. 

When  letters  were  finished,  about  three  in  the  afternoon, 
he  rested  in  his  bedroom,  lying  on  the  sofa  and  smoking  a 
cigarette,  and  listening  to  a  novel  or  other  book,  not  scientific. 
He  only  smoked  when  resting,  whereas  snuff  was  a  stimulant, 
and  was  taken  during  working  hours.  He  took  snuff  for 
many  years  of  his  life,  having  learnt  the  habit  at  Edinburgh 
as  a  student.  He  had  a  nice  silver  snuff-box  given  him  by 
Mrs.  Wedgwood  of  Maer,  which  he  valued  much — but  he 


lOO  REMINISCENCES. 

rarely  carried  it,  because  it  tempted  him  to  take  too  man 
pinches.  In  one  of  his  early  letters  he  speaks  of  having  give 
up  snuff  for  a  month,  and  describes  himself  as  feeling  ''  mot 
lethargic,  stupid,  and  melancholy.'*  Our  former  neighbou 
and  clergyman,  Mr.  Brodie  Innes,  tells  me  that  at  one  tim 
my  father  made  a  resolve  not  to  take  snuff  except  away  fror 
home,  ^'a  most  satisfactory  arrangement  for  me,'*  he  add: 
'^  as  I  kept  a  box  in  my  study  to  which  there  was  access  fror 
the  garden  without  summoning  servants,  and  I  had  more  frc 
quently,  than  might  have  been  otherwise  the  case,  the  privileg 
of  a  few  minutes'  conversation  with  my  dear  friend."  H 
generally  took  snuff  from  a  jar  on  the  hall  table,  becaus 
having  to  go  this  distance  for  a  pinch  was  a  slight  check ;  th 
clink  of  the  lid  of  the  snuff  jar  was  a  very  familiar  sounc 
Sometimes  when  he  was  in  the  drawing-room,  it  would  occu 
to  him  that  the  study  fire  must  be  burning  low,  and  whe 
some  of  us  offered  to  see  after  it,  it  would  turn  out  that  h 
also  wished  to  get  a  pinch  of  snuff. 

Smoking  he  only  took  to  permanently  of  late  years,  thoug 
on  his  Pampas  rides  he  learned  to  smoke  with  the  Gaucho 
and  I  have  heard  him  speak  of  the  great  comfort  of  a  cup  c 
mafe  and  a  cigarette  when  he  halted  after  a  long  ride  an 
was  unable  to  get  food  for  some  time. 

The  reading  aloud  often  sent  him  to  sleep,  and  he  used  t 
regret  losing  parts  of  a  novel,  for  my  mother  went  steadily  o 
lest  the  cessation  of  the  sound  might  wake  him.  He  cam 
down  at  four  o'clock  to  dress  for  his  walk,  and  he  was  so  re^ 
ular  that  one  might  be  quite  certain  it  was  within  a  few  mir 
utes  of  four  when  his  descending  steps  were  heard. 

From  about  half-past  four  to  half-past  five  he  worked 
then  he  came  to  the  drawing-room,  and  v/as  idle  till  it  w^ 
time  (about  six)  to  go  up  for  another  rest  with  novel-readin 
and  a  cigarette. 

Latterly  he  gave  up  late  dinner,  and  had  a  simple  tea  i 
half-past  seven  (while  we  had  dinner),  with  an  egg  or  a  sma 
piece  of  meat.  After  dinner  he  never  stayed  in  the  roon 
and  used  to  apologise  by  saying  he  was  an  old  woman,  wh 


m 


THE    STUDY   AT   DOWN. 


[Fro7n  the  Century  Mag 


MUSIC.  lOi 

must  be  allowed  to  leave  with  the  ladies.  This  was  one  of 
the  many  signs  and  results  of  his  constant  weakness  and  ill- 
health.  Half  an  hour  more  or  less  conversation  would  make 
to  him  the  difference  of  a  sleepless  night,  and  of  the  loss 
perhaps  of  half  the  next  day's  work. 

After  dinner  he  played  backgammon  with  my  mother,  two 
games  being  played  every  night ;  for  many  years  a  score  of 
the  games  which  each  won  was  kept,  and  in  this  score  he  took 
the  greatest  interest.  He  became  extremely  animated  over 
these  games,  bitterly  lamenting  his  bad  luck  and  exploding 
with  exaggerated  mock-anger  at  my  mother's  good  fortune. 

After  backgammon  he  read  some  scientific  book  to  him- 
self, either  in  the  drawing-room,  or,  if  much  talking  was  going 
on,  in  the  study. 

In  the  evening,  that  is,  after  he  had  read  as  much  as  his 
strength  would  allow,  and  before  the  reading  aloud  began,  he 
would  often  lie  on  the  sofa  and  listen  to  my  mother  playing 
the  piano.  He  had  not  a  good  ear,  yet  in  spite  of  this  he  had 
a  true  love  of  fine  music.  He  used  to  lament  that  his  enjoy- 
ment of  music  had  become  dulled  with  age,  yet  within  my 
recollection,  his  love  of  a  good  tune  was  strong.  I  never 
heard  him  hum  more  than  one  tune,  the  Welsh  song  "  Ar  hyd 
y  nos,"  which  he  went  through  correctly ;  he  used  also,  I  be- 
lieve, to  hum  a  little  Otaheitan  song.  From  his  want  of  ear 
he  was  unable  to  recognize  a  tune  when  he  heard  it  again,  but 
he  remained  constant  to  what  he  liked,  and  would  often  say, 
when  an  old  favourite  was  played,  "  That's  a  fine  thing ;  what 
is  it }  "  He  liked  especially  parts  of  Beethoven's  symphonies, 
and  bits  of  Handel.  He  made  a  little  list  of  all  the  pieces 
which  he  especially  liked  among  those  which  my  mother 
played — giving  in  a  few  words  the  impression  that  each  one 
made  on  him — ^but  these  notes  are  unfortunately  lost.  He 
was  sensitive  to  differences  in  style,  and  enjoyed  the  late  Mrs. 
Vernon  Lushington's  playing  intensely,  and  in  June  1881, 
when  Hans  Richter  paid  a  visit  at  Down,  he  was  roused  to 
strong  enthusiasm  by  his  magnificent  performance  on  the 
piano.     He  much  enjoyed  good  singing,  and  was  moved  al- 


I02  REMINISCENCES. 

most  to  tears  by  grand  or  pathetic  songs.  His  niece  Lady 
Farrer^s  singing  of  Sullivan's  '^  Will  he  come ''  was  a  never- 
failing  enjoyment  to  him.  He  was  humble  in  the  extreme 
about  his  own  taste,  and  correspondingly  pleased  when  he 
found  that  others  agreed  with  him. 

He  became  much  tired  in  the  evenings,  especially  of  late 
years,  when  he  left  the  drawing-room  about  ten,  going  to  bed 
at  half-past  ten.  His  nights  were  generally  bad,  and  he  often 
lay  awake  or  sat  up  in  bed  for  hours,  suffering  much  discom- 
fort. He  was  troubled  at  night  by  the  activity  of  his  thoughts, 
and  would  become  exhausted  by  his  mind  working  at  some 
problem  which  he  would  willingly  have  dismissed.  At  night 
too,  anything  which  had  vexed  or  troubled  him  in  the  day 
would  haunt  him,  and  I  think  it  was  then  that  he  suffered  if 
he  had  not  answered  some  troublesome  person's  letter. 

The  regular  readings,  which  I  have  mentioned,  continued 
for  so  many  years,  enabled  him  to  get  through  a  great  deal 
of  the  lighter  kinds  of  literature.  He  was  extremely  fond  of 
novels,  and  I  remember  well  the  way  in  which  he  would  an 
ticipate  the  pleasure  of  having  a  novel  read  to  him,  as  he  lay 
down,  or  lighted  his  cigarette.  He  took  a  vivid  interest  both 
in  plot  and  characters,  and  would  on  no  account  know  before- 
hand, how  a  story  finished  ;  he  considered  looking  at  the  end 
of  a  novel  as  a  feminine  vice.  He  could  not  enjoy  any  story 
with  a  tragical  end,  for  this  reason  he  did  not  keenly  appreci- 
ate George  Eliot,  though  he  often  spoke  warmly  in  praise  of 
*  Silas  Marner.'  Walter  Scott,  Miss  Austen,  and  Mrs.  Gaskell, 
were  read  and  re-read  till  they  could  be  read  no  more.  He 
had  two  or  three  books  in  hand  at  the  same  time — a  novel 
and  perhaps  a  biogra*phy  and  a  book  of  travels.  He  did  not 
often  read  out-of-the-way  or  old  standard  books,  but  gener 
ally  kept  to  the  books  of  the  day  obtained  from  a  circulating 
library. 

I  do  not  think  that  his  literary  tastes  and  opinions  were 
on  a  level  with  the  rest  of  his  mind.  He  himself,  though  hei 
was  clear  as  to  what  he  thought  good,  considered  that  in 
matters  of  literary  taste,  he  was  quite  outside  the  pale,  and 


1 


PICTURES.  103 

often  spoke  of  what  those  within  it  liked  or  disliked,  as  if 
they  formed  a  class  to  which  he  had  no  claim  to  belong. 

In  all  matters  of  art  he  was  inclined  to  laugh  at  professed 
critics,  and  say  that  their  opinions  were  formed  by  fashion. 
Thus  in  painting,  he  would  say  how  in  his  day  every  one 
admired  masters  who  are  now  neglected.  His  love  of  pict- 
ures as  a  young  man  is  almost  a  proof  that  he  must  have  had 
an  appreciation  of  a  portrait  as  a  work  of  art,  not  as  a  like- 
ness. Yet  he  often  talked  laughingly  of  the  small  worth  of 
portraits,  and  said  that  a  photograph  was  worth  any  number 
of  pictures,  as  if  he  were  blind  to  the  artistic  quality  in  a 
painted  portrait.  But  this  was  generally  said  in  his  attempts 
to  persuade  us  to  give  up  the  idea  of  having  his  portrait 
painted,  an  operation  very  irksome  to  him. 

This  way  of  looking  at  himself  as  an  ignoramus  in  all 
matters  of  art,  was  strengthened  by  the  absence  of  pretence, 
which  was  part  of  his  character.  With  regard  to  questions  of 
taste,  as  well  as  to  more  serious  things,  he  always  had  the 
courage  of  his  opinions.  I  remember,  however,  an  instance 
that  sounds  like  a  contradiction  to  this  :  when  he  was  look- 
ing at  the  Turners  in  Mr.  Ruskin*s  bedroom,  he  did  not  con- 
fess, as  he  did  afterwards,  that  he  could  make  out  absolutely 
nothing  of  what  Mr.  Ruskin  saw  in  them.  But  this  little 
pretence  was  not  for  his  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  cour- 
tesy to  his  host.  He  was  pleased  and  amused  when  subse- 
quently Mr.  Ruskin  brought  him  some  photographs  of  pict- 
ures (I  think  Vandyke  portraits),  and  courteously  seemed  to 
value  my  father's  opinion  about  them. 

Much  of  his  scientific  reading  was  in  German,  and  this 
was  a  great  labour  to  him  ;  in  reading  a  book  after  him,  I 
was  often  struck  at  seeing,  from  the  pencil-marks  made  each 
day  where  he  left  off,  how  little  he  could  read  at  a  time.  He 
used  to  call  German  the  "  Verdammte,*'  pronounced  as  if  in 
EngHsh.  He  was  especially  indignant  with  Germans,  because 
he  was  convinced  that  they  could  write  simply  if  they  chose, 
and  often  praised  Dr.  F.  Hildebrand  for  writing  German 
which  was  as  clear  as  French.    He  sometimes  gave  a  German 


I04 


REMINISCENCES. 


sentence  to  a  friend,  a  patriotic  German  lady,  and  used  to 
laugh  at  her  if  she  did  not  translate  it  fluently.  He  himself 
learnt  German  simply  by  hammering  away  with  a  dictionary; 
he  would  say  that  his  only  way  was  to  read  a  sentence  a 
great  many  times  over,  and  at  last  the  meaning  occurred  to 
him.  When  he  began  German  long  ago,  he  boasted  of  the 
fact  (as  he  used  to  tell)  to  Sir  J.  Hooker,  who  replied, 
"Ah,  my  dear  fellow,  that's  nothing;  I've  begun  it  many 
times." 

In  spite  of  his  want  of  grammar,  he  managed  to  get  on 
wonderfully  with  German,  and  the  sentences  that  he  failed  to 
make  out  were  generally  really  difficult  ones.  He  never 
attempted  to  speak  German  correctly,  but  pronounced  the 
words  as  though  they  were  English ;  and  this  made  it  not  a 
little  difficult  to  help  him,  when  he  read  out  a  German  sen- 
tence and  asked  for  a  translation.  He  certainly  had  a  bad 
ear  for  vocal  sounds,  so  that  he  found  it  impossible  to  per- 
ceive small  differences  in  pronunciation. 

His  wide  interest  in  branches  of  science  that  were  not 
specially  his  own  was  remarkable.  In  the  biological  sciences 
his  doctrines  make  themselves  felt  so  widely  that  there  was 
something  interesting  to  him  in  most  departments  of  it.  He 
read  a  good  deal  of  many  quite  special  works,  and  large  parts 
of  text  books,  such  as  Huxley's  ^Invertebrate  Anatomy,'  or 
such  a  book  as  Balfour's  '  Embryology,'  where  the  detail,  at 
any  rate,  was  not  specially  in  his  own  line.  And  in  the  case 
of  elaborate  books  of  the  monograph  type,  though  he  did  not 
make  a  study  of  them,  yet  he  felt  the  strongest  admiration  for 
them. 

In  the  non-biological  sciences  he  felt  keen  sympathy  with 
work  of  which  he  could  not  really  judge.  For  instance,  he 
used  to  read  nearly  the  whole  of  '  Nature,'  though  so  much 
of  it  deals  with  mathematics  and  physics.  I  have  often  heard 
him  say  that  he  got  a  kind  of  satisfaction  in  reading  articles 
which  (according  to  himself)  he  could  not  understand.  I 
wish  I  could  reproduce  the  manner  in  which  he  would  laugh 
at  himself  for  it. 


READING. 


lOS 


It  was  remarkable,  too,  how  he  kept  up  his  interest  in 
subjects  at  which  he  had  formerly  worked.  This  was  strik- 
ingly the  case  with  geology.  In  one  of  his  letters  to  Mr. 
Judd  he  begs  him  to  pay  him  a  visit,  saying  that  since  Lyell's 
death  he  hardly  ever  gets  a  geological  talk.  His  observa- 
tions, made  only  a  few  years  before  his  death,  on  the  upright 
pebbles  in  the  drift  at  Southampton,  and  discussed  in  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Geikie,  afford  another  instance.  Again,  in  the  letters 
to  Dr.  Dohrn,  he  shows  how  his  interest  in  barnacles  remained 
ilive.  I  think  it  was  all  due  to  the  vitality  and  persistence  of 
lis  mind — a  quality  I  have  heard  him  speak  of  as  if  he  felt 
:hat  he  was  strongly  gifted  in  that  respect.  Not  that  he  used 
my  such  phrases  as  these  about  himself,  but  he  would  say 
that  he  had  the  power  of  keeping  a  subject  or  question  more 
Dr  less  before  him  for  a  great  many  years.  The  extent  to 
ivhich  he  possessed  this  power  appears  when  we  consider  the 
[lumber  of  different  problems  which  he  solved,  and  the  early 
period  at  which  some  of  them  began  to  occupy  him. 

It  was  a  sure  sign  that  he  was  not  well  when  he  was  idle 
It  any  times  other  than  his  regular  resting  hours  ;  for,  as  long 
is  he  remained  moderately  well,  there  was  no  break  in  the 
regularity  of  his  life.  Week-days  and  Sundays  passed  by 
ilike,  each  with  their  stated  intervals  of  work  and  rest.  It 
IS  almost  impossible,  except  for  those  who  watched  his  daily 
life,  to  realise  how  essential  to  his  well-being  was  the  regular 
routine  that  I  have  sketched :  and  with  what  pain  and  diffi- 
culty anything  beyond  it  was  attempted.  Any  public  appear- 
ance, even  of  the  most  modest  kind,  was  an  effort  to  him. 
In  187 1  he  went  to  the  little  village  church  for  the  wedding 
of  his  elder  daughter,  but  he  could  hardly  bear  the  fatigue  of 
being  present  through  the  short  service.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  few  other  occasions  on  which  he  was  present  at 
similar  ceremonies. 

I  remember  him  many  years  ago  at  a  christening ;  a 
memory  which  has  remained  with  me,  because  to  us  children 
It  seemed  an  extraordinary  and  abnormal  occurrence.  I 
remember  his  look  most  distinctly  at  his  brother  Erasmus's 


I06  REMINISCENCES. 

funeral,  as  he  stood  in  the  scattering  of  snow,  wrapped  in  a 
long  black  funeral  cloak,  with  a  grave  look  of  sad  reverie. 

When,  after  an  interval  of  many  years,  he  again  attended 
a  meeting  of  the  Linnean  Society,  it  was  felt  to  be,  and  was 
in  fact,  a  serious  undertaking  ;  one  not  to  be  determined  on 
without  much  sinking  of  heart,  and  hardly  to  be  carried  into 
effect  without  paying  a  penalty  of  subsequent  suffering.  In 
the  same  way  a  breakfast-party  at  Sir  James  Paget's,  with 
some  of  the  distinguished  visitors  to  the  Medical  Congress 
(1881),  was  to  him  a  severe  exertion. 

The  early  morning  was  the  only  time  at  which  he  coulc 
make  any  effort  of  the  kind,  with  comparative  impunity 
Thus  it  came  about  that  the  visits  he  paid  to  his  scientific 
friends  in  London  were  by  preference  made  as  early  as  ten  in 
the  morning.  For  the  same  reason  he  started  on  his  journeys 
by  the  earliest  possible  train,  and  used  to  arrive  at  the  houses 
of  relatives  in  London  when  they  were  beginning  their 
day. 

He  kept  an  accurate  journal  of  the  days  on  which  he 
worked  and  those  on  which  his  ill  health  prevented  him  from 
working,  so  that  it  would  be  possible  to  tell  how  many  were 
idle  days  in  any  given  year.  In  this  journal — a  little  yellow 
Letts's  Diary,  which  lay  open  on  his  mantel-piece,  piled  on 
the  diaries  of  previous  years — he  also  entered  the  day  on 
which  he  started  for  a  holiday  and  that  of  his  return. 

The  most  frequent  holidays  were  visits  of  a  week  to  Lon- 
don, either  to  his  brother's  house  (6  Queen  Anne  Street),  or 
to  his  daughter's  (4  Bryanston  Street).  He  was  generally 
persuaded  by  my  mother  to  take  these  short  holidays,  when 
it  became  clear  from  the  frequency  of  "  bad  days,"  or  from 
the  swimming  of  his  head,  that  he  was  being  overworked. 
He  went  unwillingly,  and  tried  to  drive  hard  bargains,  stipu 
lating,  for  instance,  that  he  should  come  home  in  five  day! 
instead  of  six.  Even  if  he  were  leaving  home  for  no  more 
than  a  week,  the  packing  had  to  be  begun  early  on  the  pre- 
vious day,  and  the  chief  part  of  it  he  would  do  himself.  Th( 
discomfort  of  a  journey  to  him  was,  at  least  latterly,  chiefly  in 


HOLIDAYS. 


107 


the  anticipation,  and  in  the  miserable  sinking  feeling  from 
which  he  suffered  immediately  before  the  start  ;  even  a  fairly 
long  journey,  such  as  that  to  Coniston,  tired  him  wonderfully 
little,  considering  how  much  an  invalid  he  was  ;  and  he  cer- 
tainly enjoyed  it  in  an  almost  boyish  w^ay,  and  to  a  curious 
extent. 

Although,  as  he  has  said,  some  of  his  aesthetic  tastes  had 
suffered  a  gradual  decay,  his  love  of  scenery  remained  fresh 
and  strong.  Every  walk  at  Coniston  was  a  fresh  delight,  and 
he  was  never  tired  of  praising  the  beauty  of  the  broken  hilly 
country  at  the  head  of  the  lake. 

One  of  the  happy  memories  of  this  time  [1879]  is  that  of 
a  delightful  visit  to  Grasmere  :  "  The  perfect  day,"  my  sister 
writes,  "  and  my  father's  vivid  enjoyment  and  flow  of  spirits, 
form  a  picture  in  my  mind  that  I  like  to  think  of.  He  could 
hardly  sit  still  in  the  carriage  for  turning  round  and  getting 
up  to  admire  the  view  from  each  fresh  point,  and  even  in  re- 
turning he  was  full  of  the  beauty  of  Rydal  Water,  though  he 
would  not  allow  that  Grasmere  at  all  equalled  his  beloved 
Coniston." 

Besides  these  longer  holidays,  there  were  shorter  visits  to 
various  relatives — to  his  brother-in-law's  house,  close  to  Leith 
Hill,  and  to  his  son  near  Southampton.  He  always  particu- 
larly enjoyed  rambling  over  rough  open  country,  such  as  the 
commons  near  Leith  Hill  and  Southampton,  the  heath-covered 
wastes  of  Ashdown  Forest,  or  the  delightful  "  Rough  "  near 
the  house  of  his  friend  Sir  Thomas  Farrar.  He  never  was 
quite  idle  even  on  these  holidays,  and  found  things  to  ob- 
serve. At  Hartfield  he  watched  Drosera  catching  insects, 
&c.  ;  at  Torquay  he  observed  the  fertilisation  of  an  orchid 
{Spiranthes),  and  also  made  out  the  relations  of  the  sexes  in 
Thyme. 

He  was  always  rejoiced  to  get  home  after  his  holidays  ; 
he  used  greatly  to  enjoy  the  welcome  he  got  from  his  dog 
Polly,  who  would  get  wild  with  excitement,  panting,  squeak- 
ing, rushing  round  the  room,  and  jumping  on  and  off  the 
chairs  ;  and  he  used  to  stoop  down,  pressing  her  face  to  his, 


I08  REMINISCENCES. 

letting  her  lick  him,  and  speaking  to  her  with  a  peculiarly 
tender,  caressing  voice. 

My  father  had  the  power  of  giving  to  these  summer  holi- 
days a  charm  which  was  strongly  felt  by  all  his  family.  The 
pressure  of  his  work  at  home  kept  him  at  the  utmost  stretch 
of  his  powers  of  endurance,  and  when  released  from  it,  he 
entered  on  a  holiday  with  a  youthfulness  of  enjoyment  that 
made  his  companionship  delightful ;  we  felt  that  we  saw  more 
of  him  in  a  week's  holiday  than  in  a  month  at  home. 

Some  of  these  absences  from  home,  however,  had  a  de- 
pressing effect  on  him  ;  when  he  had  been  previously  much 
overworked  it  seemed  as  though  the  absence  of  the  custom- 
ary strain  allowed  him  to  fall  into  a  peculiar  condition  of 
miserable  health. 

Besides  the  holidays  which  I  have  mentioned,  there  were 
his  visits  to  water-cure  establishments.  In  1849,  when  very 
ill,  suffering  from  constant  sickness,  he  was  urged  by  a  friend 
to  try  the  water-cure,  and  at  last  agreed  to  go  to  Dr.  Gully's 
establishment  at  Malvern.  His  letters  to  Mr.  Fox  show  how 
much  good  the  treatment  did  him  ;  he  seems  to  have  thought 
that  he  had  found  a  cure  for  his  troubles,  but,  like  all  other 
remedies,  it  had  only  a  transient  effect  on  him.  However,  he 
found  it,  at  first,  so  good  for  him  that  when  he  came  home 
he  built  himself  a  douche-bath,  and  the  butler  learnt  to  be 
his  bathman. 

He  paid  many  visits  to  Moor  Park,  Dr.  Lane's  water-cure 
establishment  in  Surrey,  not  far  from  Aldershot.  These  visits 
were  pleasant  ones,  and  he  always  looked  back  to  them  with 
pleasure.  Dr.  Lane  has  given  his  recollections  of  my  father 
in  Dr.  Richardson's  '  Lecture  on  Charles  Darwin,'  October 
22,  1882,  from  which  I  quote  : — 

"  In  a  public  institution  like  mine,  he  was  surrounded,  of 
course,  by  multifarious  types  of  character,  by  persons  of  both 
sexes,  mostly  very  different  from  himself — commonplace  peo- 
ple, in  short,  as  the  majority  are  everywhere,  but  like  to  him 
at  least  in  this,  that  they  were  fellow-creatures  and  fellow- 


WITH    HIS   CHILDREN.  lOg 

patients.  And  never  was  any  one  more  genial,  more  con- 
siderate, more  friendly,  more  altogether  charming  than  he 
universally  was."  ....  He  "never  aimed,  as  too  often  hap- 
pens with  good  talkers,  at  monopolising  the  conversation.  It 
was  his  pleasure  rather  to  give  and  take,  and  he  was  as  good 
a  listener  as  a  speaker.  He  never  preached  nor  prosed,  but 
his  talk,  whether  grave  or  gay  (and  it  was  each  by  turns),  was 
full  of  life  and  salt — racy,  bright,  and  animated." 

Some  idea  of  his  relation  to  his  family  and  his  friends  may 
be  gathered  from  what  has  gone  before  ;  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  attempt  a  complete  account  of  these  relationships, 
but  a  slightly  fuller  outline  may  not  be  out  of  place.  Of  his 
married  life  I  cannot  speak,  save  in  the  briefest  manner.  In 
his  relationship  towards  my  mother,  his  tender  and  sympa- 
thetic nature  was  shown  in  its  most  beautiful  aspect.  In  her 
presence  he  found  his  happiness,  and  through  her,  his  life, — 
which  might  have  been  overshadowed  by  gloom, — became 
one  of  contei\^t  and  quiet  gladness. 

The  ^  Expression  of  the  Emotions*  shows  how  closely  he 
watched  his  children ;  it  was  characteristic  of  him  that  (as  I 
have  heard  him  tell),  although  he  was  so  anxious  to  observe 
accurately  the  expression  of  a  crying  child,  his  sympathy  with 
the  grief  spoiled  his  observation.  His  note-book,  in  which  are 
recorded  sayings  of  his  young  children,  shows  his  pleasure  in 
them.  He  seemed  to  retain  a  sort  of  regretful  memory  of  the 
childhoods  which  had  faded  away,  and  thus  he  wrote  in  his 
*  Recollections  '  : — '^  When  you  were  very  young  it  was  my 
delight  to  play  with  you  all,  and  I  think  with  a  sigh  that  such 
days  can  never  return." 

I  may  quote,  as  showing  the  tenderness  of  his  nature,  some 
sentences  from  an  account  of  his  little  daughter  Annie,  writ- 
ten a  few  days  after  her  death  : — 

'^  Our  poor  child,  Annie,  was  born  in  Gower  Street,  on 
March  2,  1841,  and  expired  at  Malvern  at  mid-day  on  the 
23rd  of  April,  1851. 


no  ^         REMINISCENCES. 

"  I  write  these  few  pages,  as  I  think  in  after  years,  if  we 
live,  the  impressions  now  put  down  will  recall  more  vividly 
her  chief  characteristics.  From  whatever  point  I  look  back 
at  her,  the  main  feature  in  her  disposition  which  at  once  rises 
before  me,  is  her  buoyant  joyousness,  tempered  by  two  other 
characteristics,  namely,  her  sensitiveness,  which  might  easily 
have  been  overlooked  by  a  stranger,  and  her  strong  affection. 
Her  joyousness  and  animal  spirits  radiated  from  her  whole 
countenance,  and  rendered  every  movement  elastic  and  full  of  1 1 
life  and  vigour.  It  was  delightful  and  cheerful  to  behold  her. 
Her  dear  face  now  rises  before  me,  as  she  used  sometimes  to 
come  running  downstairs  with  a  stolen  pinch  of  snuff  for  me  i  j 
her  whole  form  radiant  with  the  pleasure  of  giving  pleasure. 
Even  when  playing  with  her  cousins,  when  her  joyousness 
almost  passed  into  boisterousness,  a  single  glance  of  my  eye, 
not  of  displeasure  (for  I  thank  God  I  hardly  ever  cast  one  on  ; 
her),  but  of  want  of  sympathy,  would  for  some  minutes  alter 
her  whole  countenance. 

"  The  other  point  in  her  character,  which  made  her  joy- 
ousness and   spirits  so  delightful,  was  her  strong  affection,  | 
which  was  of  a  most  clinging,  fondling  nature.     When  quite 
a  baby,  this  showed  itself  in  never  being  easy  without  touch- 
ing her  mother,  when  in  bed  with  her  ;  and  quite  lately  she 
would,  when  poorly,  fondle  for  any  length  of  time  one  of  her 
mother's  arms.     When  very  unwell,  her  mother  lying  down 
beside  her  seemed  to  soothe  her  in  a  manner  quite  different 
from  what  it  would  have  done  to  any  of  our  other  children. , 
So,  again,  she  would  at  almost  any  time  spend  half  an  hour  in  | 
arranging  my  hair,  ^  making  it,'  as  she  called  it,  *  beautiful,' 
or  in  smoothing,  the  poor  dear  darling,  my  collar  or  cuffs — in  ; 
short,  in  fondling  me. 

"  Besides  her  joyousness  thus  tempered,  she  was  in  her 
manners  remarkably  cordial,  frank,  open,  straightforward, 
natural,  and  without  any  shade  of  reserve.  Her  whole  mind 
was  pure  and  transparent.  One  felt  one  knew  her  thoroughly 
and  could  trust  her.  I  always  thought,  that  come  what  might, 
we  should  have  had  in  our  old  age  at  least  one  loving  soul 


WITH    HIS   CHILDREN.  HI 

which  nothing  could  have  changed.  All  her  movements 
were  vigorous,  active,  and  usually  graceful.  When  going 
round  the  Sand-walk  with  me,  although  I  walked  fast,  yet  she 
often  used  to  go  before,  pirouetting  in  the  most  elegant 
way,  her  dear  face  bright  all  the  time  with  the  sweetest  smiles. 
Occasionally  she  had  a  pretty  coquettish  manner  towards  me, 
the  memory  of  which  is  charming.  She  often  used  exagger- 
ated language,  and  when  I  quizzed  her  by  ex2ggerating  what 
she  had  said,  how  clearly  can  I  now  see  the  little  toss  of  the 
head,  and  exclamation  of  *  Oh,  papa  what  a  shame  of  you !  ' 
In  the  last  short  illness  her  conduct  in  simple  truth  was  an- 
gelic. She  never  once  complained ;  never  became  fretful ; 
was  ever  considerate  of  others,  and  was  thankful  in  the  most 
gentle,  pathetic  manner  for  everything  done  for  her.  When 
so  exhausted  that  she  could  hardly  speak,  she  praised  every- 
thing that  was  given  her,  and  said  some  tea  ^  was  beautifully 
good.*  When  I  gave  her  some  water  she  said,  *  I  quite  thank 
you; '  and  these,  I  believe,  were  the  last  precious  words  ever 
addressed  by  her  dear  lips  to  me. 

"We  have  lost  the  joy  of  the  household,  and  the  solace 
of  our  old  age.  She  must  have  known  how  we  loved  her. 
Oh,  that  she  could  now  know  how  deeply,  how  tenderly, 
we  do  still  and  shall  ever  love  her  dear  joyous  face  !  Bless- 
ings on  her  ! 

"April  30,  1851.'* 

We  his  children  all  took  especial  pleasure  in  the  games  he 
played  at  with  us,  but  I  do  not  think  he  romped  much  with 
us  ;  I  suppose  his  health  prevented  any  rough  play.  He  used 
sometimes  to  tell  us  stories,  which  were  considered  especially 
delightful,  partly  on  account  of  their  rarity. 

The  way  he  brought  us  up  is  shown  by  a  little  story  about 
my  brother  Leonard,  which  my  father  was  fond  of  telling. 
He  came  into  the  drawing-room  and  found  Leonard  dancing 
about  on  the  sofa,  which  was  forbidden,  for  the  sake  of  the 
springs,  and  said,  "Oh,  Lenny,  Lenny,  that's  against  all  rules,'* 
and  received  for  answer,  "  Then  I  think  you*d  better  go  out 


1 12  REMINISCENCES. 

of  the  room."  I  do  not  believe  he  ever  spoke  an  angry  word 
to  any  of  his  children  in  his  life  ;  but  I  am  certain  that  it 
never  entered  our  heads  to  disobey  him.  I  well  remember 
one  occasion  when  my  father  reproved  me  for  a  piece  of  care- 
lessness ;  and  I  can  still  recall  the  feeling  of  depression  which 
came  over  me,  and  the  care  which  he  took  to  disperse  it  by 
speaking  to  me  soon  afterwards  with  especial  kindness.  He 
kept  up  his  delightful,  affectionate  manner  towards  us  all  his 
life.  I  sometimes  wonder  that  he  could  do  so,  with  such  an 
undemonstrative  race  as  we  are  ;  but  I  hope  he  knew  how 
much  we  delighted  in  his  loving  words  and  manner.  How 
often,  when  a  man,  I  have  wished  when  my  father  was  behind 
my  chair,  that  he  would  pass  his  hand  over  my  hair,  as  he 
used  to  do  when  I  was  a  boy.  He  allowed  his  grown-up  chil- 
dren to  laugh  with  and  at  him,  and  was,  generally  speaking, 
on  terms  of  perfect  equality  with  us. 

He  was  always  full  of  interest  about  each  one's  plans  or 
successes.  We  used  to  laugh  at  him,  and  say  he  would  not 
believe  in  his  sons,  because,  for  instance,  he  would  be  a  little 
doubtful  about  their  taking  some  bit  of  work  for  which  he  did 
not  feel  sure  that  they  had  knowledge  enough.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  only  too  much  inclined  to  take  a  favourable  view 
of  our  work.  When  I  thought  he  had  set  too  high  a  value  on 
anything  that  I  had  done,  he  used  to  be  indignant  and  inclined 
to  explode  in  mock  anger.  His  doubts  were  part  of  his  hu- 
mility concerning  what  was  in  any  way  connected  with 
himself ;  his  too  favourable  view  of  our  work  was  due  to  his 
sympathetic  nature,  which  made  him  lenient  to  every  one. 

He  kept  up  towards  his  children  his  delightful  manner  of 
expressing  his  thanks;  and  I  never  wTote  a  letter,  or  read  a 
page  aloud  to  him,  without  receiving  a  few  kind  words  of 
recognition.  His  love  and  goodness  towards  his  little  grand- 
son Bernard  were  great  ;  and  he  often  spoke  of  the  pleasure 
it  was  to  him  to  see  "  his  little  face  opposite  to  him  "  at  lunch- 
eon. He  and  Bernard  used  to  compare  their  tastes  ;  e.  g.y  in 
liking  brown  sugar  better  than  white,  &c.;  the  result  being, 
^*  We  always  agree,  don't  we  1 " 


WITH    HIS   CHILDREN.  II3 

My  sister  writes  : — 

*^  My  first  remembrances  of  my  father  are  of  the  delights 
of  his  playing  with  us.  He  was  passionately  attached  to  his 
own  children,  although  he  was  not  an  indiscriminate  child- 
lover.  To  all  of  us  he  was  the  most  delightful  play-fellow, 
and  the  most  perfect  sympathiser.  Indeed  it  is  impossible 
adequately  to  describe  how  delightful  a  relation  his  was  to  his 
family,  whether  as  children  or  in  their  later  life. 

'^  It  is  a  proof  of  the  terms  on  which  we  were,  and  also  of 
how  much  he  was  valued  as  a  play-fellow,  that  one  of  his  sons 
when  about  four  years  old  tried  to  bribe  him  with  sixpence 
to  come  and  play  in  working  hours.  We  all  knew  the  sacred- 
ness  of  working-time,  but  that  any  one  should  resist  sixpence 
seemed  an  impossibility. 

^^He  must  have  been  the  most  patient  and  delightful  of 
nurses.  I  remember  the  haven  of  peace  and  comfort  it 
seemed  to  me  when  I  was  unwell,  to  be  tucked  up  on  the 
study  sofa,  idly  considering  the  old  geological  map  hung  on 
the  wall.  This  must  have  been  in  his  working  hours,  for  I 
always  picture  him  sitting  in  the  horsehair  arm-chair  by  the 
corner  of  the  fire. 

"Another  mark  of  his  unbounded  patience  was  the  way  in 
which  we  were  suffered  to  make  raids  into  the  study  when  we 
had  an  absolute  need  of  sticking-plaster,  string,  pins,  scissors, 
stamps,  foot-rule,  or  hammer.  These  and  other  such  neces- 
saries were  always  to  be  found  in  the  study,  and  it  was  the 
only  place  where  this  was  a  certainty.  We  used  to  feel  it 
wrong  to  go  in  during  work-time;  still,  when  the  necessity 
was  great  we  did  so.  I  remember  his  patient  look  when  he 
said  once,  ^  Don't  you  think  you  could  not  come  in  again,  I 
have  been  interrupted  very  often.'  We  used  to  dread  going 
in  for  sticking-plaster,  because  he  disliked  to  see  that  we  had 
cut  ourselves,  both  for  our  sakes  and  on  account  of  his  acute 
sensitiveness  to  the  sight  of  blood.  I  well  remember  lurking 
about  the  passage  till  he  was  safe  away,  and  then  stealing  in 
for  the  plaster. 


J  J.  REMINISCENCES. 

"  Life  seems  to  me,  as  I  look  back  upon  it,  to  have  been 
very  regular  in  those  early  days,  and  except  relations  (and  a 
few  intimate  friends),  I  do  not  think  any  one  came  to  the 
house.  After  lessons,  we  were  always  free  to  go  where  we 
would,  and  that  was  chiefly  in  the  drawing-room  and  about 
the  garden,  so  that  we  were  very  much  with  both  my  father 
and  mother.  We  used  to  think  it  most  delightful  when  he 
told  us  any  stories  about  the  Beagle^  or  about  early  Shrews- 
bury days — little  bits  about  school-life  and  his  boyish  tastes. 
Sometimes  too  he  read  aloud  to  his  children  such  books  as 
Scott's  novels,  and  I  remember  a  few  little  lectxires  on  the 
steam-engine. 

"  I  was  more  or  less  ill  during  the  five  years  between  my 
thirteenth  and  eighteenth  years,  and  for  a  long  time  (years  it 
seems  to  me)  he  used  to  play  a  couple  of  games  of  back- 
gammon with  me  every  afternoon.  He  played  them  with  the 
greatest  spirit,  and  I  remember  we  used  at  one  time  to  keep 
account  of  the  games,  and  as  this  record  came  out  in  favour 
of  him,  we  kept  a  list  of  the  doublets  thrown  by  each,  as  I 
was  convinced  that  he  threw  better  than  myself. 

"  His  patience  and  sympathy  were  boundless  during  this 
weary  illness,  and  sometimes  when  most  miserable  I  felt  his 
sympathy  to  be  almost  too  keen.  When  at  my  worst,  we 
went  to  my  aunt's  house  at  Hartfield,  in  Sussex,  and  as  soon 
as  we  had  made  the  move  safely  he  went  on  to  Moor  Park 
for  a  fortnight's  water-cure.  I  can  recall  now  how  on  his 
return  I  could  hardly  bear  to  have  him  in  the  room,  the 
expression  of  tender  sympathy  and  emotion  in  his  face  was 
too  agitating,  coming  fresh  upon  me  after  his  little  absence. 

*'  He  cared  for  all  our  pursuits  and  interests,  and  lived  our 
lives  with  us  in  a  way  that  very  few  fathers  do.  But  I  am 
certain  that  none  of  us  felt  that  this  intimacy  interfered  the 
least  with  our  respect  or  obedience.  Whatever  he  said  was 
absolute  truth  and  law  to  us.  He  always  put  his  whole  mind 
into  answering  any  of  our  questions.  One  trifling  instance 
makes  me  feel  how  he  cared  for  what  we  cared  for.  He  had 
no  special  taste  for  cats,  though  he  admired  the  pretty  ways 


WITH    HIS   FAMILY. 


115 


of  a  kitten.  But  yet  he  knew  and  remembered  the  individu- 
alities of  my  many  cats,  and  would  talk  about  the  habits  and 
characters  of  the  more  remarkable  ones  years  after  they  had 
died. 

"Another  characteristic  of  his  treatment  of  his  children 
was  his  respect  for  their  liberty,  and  for  their  personality. 
Even  as  quite  a  girl,  I  remember  rejoicing  in  this  sense  of 
freedom.  Our  father  and  mother  would  not  even  wish  to 
know  what  we  were  doing  or  thinking  unless  we  wished  to 
tell.  He  always  made  us  feel  that  we  were  each  of  us  creat- 
ures whose  opinions  and  thoughts  were  valuable  to  him,  so 
that  whatever  there  was  best  in  us  came  out  in  the  sunshine 
of  his  presence. 

"  I  do  not  think  his  exaggerated  sense  of  our  good  quali- 
ties, intellectual  or  moral,  made  us  conceited,  as  might  perhaps 
have  been  expected,  but  rather  more  humble  and  grateful  to 
him.  The  reason  being  no  doubt  that  the  influence  of  his 
character,  of  his  sincerity  and  greatness  of  nature,  had  a 
much  deeper  and  more  lasting  effect  than  any  small  exalta- 
tion which  his  praises  or  admiration  may  have  caused  to  our 
vanity." 

As  head  of  a  household  he  was  much  loved  and  respected ; 
he  always  spoke  to  servants  with  politeness,  using  the  expres- 
sion, "would  you  be  so  good,"  in  asking  for  anything.  He 
was  hardly  ever  angry  with  his  servants  ;  it  shows  how  seldom 
this  occurred,  that  when,  as  a  small  boy,  I  overheard  a  servant 
being  scolded,  and  my  father  speaking  angrily,  it  impressed 
me  as  an  appalling  circumstance,  and  I  remember  running  up 
stairs  out  of  a  general  sense  of  awe.  He  did  not  trouble  him- 
self about  the  management  of  the  garden,  cows,  &c.  He 
considered  the  horses  so  little  his  concern,  that  he  used  to  ask 
doubtfully  whether  he  might  have  a  horse  and  cart  to  send  to 
Keston  for  Drosera,  or  to  the  Westerham  nurseries  for  plants, 
or  the  like. 

As  a  host  my  father  had  a  peculiar  charm  :  the  presence 
of  visitors  excited  him,  and  made  him  appear  to  his  best 


Il6  REMINISCENCES. 

advantage.  At  Shrewsbury,  he  used  to  say,  it  was  his  father's 
wish  that  the  guests  should  be  attended  to  constantly,  and  in 
one  of  the  letters  to  Fox  he  speaks  of  the  impossibility  of 
writing  a  letter  while  the  house  was  full  of  company.  I  think 
he  always  felt  uneasy  at  not  doing  more  for  the  entertainment 
of  his  guests,  but  the  result  was  successful ;  and,  to  make  up 
for  any  loss,  there  was  the  gain  that  the  guests  felt  perfectly 
free  to  do  as  they  liked.  The  most  usual  visitors  were  those 
who  stayed  from  Saturday  till  Monday ;  those  who  remained 
longer  were  generally  relatives,  and  were  considered  to  be 
rather  more  my  mother's  affair  than  his. 

Besides  these  visitors,  there  were  foreigners  and  other 
strangers,  who  came  down  for  luncheon  and  went  away  in 
the  afternoon.  He  used  conscientiously  to  represent  to  them 
the  enormous  distance  of  Down  from  London,  and  the  labour 
it  would  be  to  come  there,  unconsciously  taking  for  granted 
that  they  would  find  the  journey  as  toilsome  as  he  did  him- 
self. If,  however,  they  were  not  deterred,  he  used  to  arrange 
their  journeys  for  them,  telling  them  when  to  come,  and  prac- 
tically when  to  go.  It  was  pleasant  to  see  the  way  in  which 
he  shook  hands  with  a  guest  who  was  being  welcomed  for  the 
first  time ;  his  hand  used  to  shoot  out  in  a  way  that  gave  one 
the  feeling  that  it  was  hastening  to  meet  the  guest's  hands. 
With  old  friends  his  hand  came  down  with  a  hearty  swing 
into  the  other  hand  in  a  way  I  always  had  satisfaction  in  see- 
ing. His  good-bye  was  chiefly  characterised  by  the  pleasant 
way  in  which  he  thanked  his  guests,  as  he  stood  at  the  door, 
for  having  come  to  see  him. 

These  luncheons  were  very  successful  entertainments, 
there  was  no  drag  or  flagging  about  them,  my  father  was 
bright  and  excited  throughout  the  w^iole  visit.  Professor  De 
CandoUe  has  described  a  visit  to  Down,  in  his  admirable  and 
sympathetic  sketch  of  my  father.*  He  speaks  of  his  manner 
as  resembling  that  of  a  *' savant  "  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge. 

*  *  Darwin  considere  au  point  de  vue  des  causes  de  son  succ^s.' — 
Geneva,  1882. 


MANNER. 


117 


This  does  not  strike  me  as  quite  a  good  comparison ;  in  his 
ease  and  naturalness  there  was  more  of  the  manner  of  some 
soldiers ;  a  manner  arising  from  total  absence  of  pretence  or 
affectation.  It  was  this  absence  of  pose,  and  the  natural  and 
simple  way  in  which  he  began  talking  to  his  guests,  so  as  to 
get  them  on  their  own  lines,  which  made  him  so  charming  a 
host  to  a  stranger.  His  happy  choice  of  matter  for  talk 
seemed  to  flow  out  of  his  sympathetic  nature,  and  humble, 
vivid  interest  in  other  people's  work. 

To  some,  I  think,  he  caused  actual  pain  by  his  modesty  ; 
I  have  seen  the  late  Francis  Balfour  quite  discomposed  by 
having  knowledge  ascribed  to  himself  on  a  point  about  which 
my  father  claimed  to  be  utterly  ignorant. 

It  is  difficult  to  seize  on  the  characteristics  of  my  father's 
conversation. 

He  had  more  dread  than  have  most  people  of  repeating 
his  stories,  and  continually  said,  "You  must  have  heard  me 
tell,"  or  "  I  dare  say  I've  told  you."  One  peculiarity  he  had, 
which  gave  a  curious  effect  to  his  conversation.  The  first 
few  words  of  a  sentence  would  often  remind  him  of  some 
exception  to,  or  some  reason  against,  what  he  was  going  to 
say  ;  and  this  again  brought  up  some  other  point,  so  that  the 
sentence  would  become  a  system  of  parenthesis  within  paren- 
thesis, and  it  was  often  impossible  to  understand  the  drift  of 
what  he  was  saying  until  he  came  to  the  end  of  his  sentence. 
He  used  to  say  of  himself  that  he  was  not  quick  enough  to 
hold  an  argument  with  any  one,  and  I  think  this  was  true. 
Unless  it  was  a  subject  on  which  he  was  just  then  at  work, 
he  could  not  get  the  train  of  argument  into  working  order 
quickly  enough.  This  is  shown  even  in  his  letters  ;  thus,  in 
the  case  of  two  letters  to  Prof.  Semper  about  the  effect  of 
isolation,  he  did  not  recall  the  series  of  facts  he  wanted  until 
some  days  after  the  first  letter  had  been  sent  off. 

When  puzzled  in  talking,  he  had  a  peculiar  stammer  on 
the  first  word  of  a  sentence.  I  only  recall  this  occurring  with 
words  beginning  with  w  ;  possibly  he  had  a  special  difficulty 
with  this  letter,  for  I  have  heard  him  say  that  as  a  boy  he 


Il8  REMINISCENCES. 

could  not  pronounce  w,  and  that  sixpence  was  offered  him  if 
he  could  say  *'  white  wine,"  which  he  pronounced  '^  rite  rine." 
Possibly  he  may  have  inherited  this  tendency  from  Erasmus 
Darwin,  who  stammered.* 

He  sometimes  combined  his  metaphors  in  a  curious  way, 
using  such  a  phrase  as  ^'holding  on  like  life," — a  mixture  of 
^*  holding  on  for  his  life,"  and  *^  holding  on  like  grim  death." 
It  came  from  his  eager  way  of  putting  emphasis  into  what  he 
was  saying.  This  sometimes  gave  an  air  of  exaggeration 
where  it  was  not  intended;  but  it  gave,  too,  a  noble  air  of 
strong  and  generous  conviction ;  as,  for  instance,  when  he 
gave  his  evidence  before  the  Royal  Commission  on  vivisection 
and  came  out  with  his  words  about  cruelty,  *^  It  deserves 
detestation  and  abhorrence."  When  he  felt  strongly  about 
any  similar  question,  he  could  hardly  trust  himself  to  speak, 
as  he  then  easily  became  angry,  a  thing  which  he  disliked 
excessively.  He  was  conscious  that  his  anger  had  a  tendency 
to  multiply  itself  in  the  utterance,  and  for  this  reason  dreaded 
(for  example)  having  to  scold  a  servant. 

It  was  a  great  proof  of  the  modesty  of  his  style  of  talking, 
that,  when,  for  instance,  a  number  of  visitors  came  over  from 
Sir  John  Lubbock's  for  a  Sunday  afternoon  call  he  never 
seemed  to  be  preaching  or  lecturing,  although  he  had  so  much 
of  the  talk  to  himself.  He  was  particularly  charming  when 
"  chaffing  "  any  one,  and  in  high  spirits  over  it.  His  manner 
at  such  times  was  light-hearted  and  boyish,  and  his  refine- 
ment of  nature  came  out  most  strongly.  So,  when  he  was 
talking  to  a  lady  who  pleased  and  amused  him,  the  combina- 
tion of  raillery  and  deference  in  his  manner  was  delightful 
to  see. 

When  my  father  had  several  guests  he  managed  them  well, 
getting  a  talk  with  each,  or  bringing  two  or  three  together 

*  My  father  related  a  Johnsonian  answer  of  Erasmus  Darwin's  :  "  Don't 
you  find  it  very  inconvenient  stammering,  Dr.  Darwin  ?  "  "  No,  sir,  be- 
cause I  have  time  to  think  before  I  speak,  and  don't  ask  impertinent  ques- 
tions." 


FRIENDS.  IIQ 

round  his  chair.  In  these  conversations  there  was  always 
a  good  deal  of  fun,  and,  speaking  generally,  there  was  either 
a  humorous  turn  in  his  talk,  or  a  sunny  geniality  which 
served  instead.  Perhaps  my  recollection  of  a  pervading  ele- 
ment of  humour  is  the  more  vivid,  because  the  best  talks  were 
with  Mr.  Huxley,  in  whom  there  is  the  aptness  which  is  akin 
to  humour,  even  when  humour  itself  is  not  there.  My  father 
enjoyed  Mr.  Huxley's  humour  exceedingly,  and  would  often 
say,  ^^  What  splendid  fun  Huxley  is  !  '*  I  think  he  probably 
had  more  scientific  argument  (of  the  nature  of  a  fight)  with 
Lyell  and  Sir  Joseph  Hooker. 

He  used  to  say  that  it  grieved  him  to  find  that  for  the 
friends  of  his  later  life  he  had  not  the  warm  affection  of 
his  youth.  Certainly  in  his  early  letters  from  Cambridge 
he  gives  proofs  of  very  strong  friendship  for  Herbert  and 
Fox  ;  but  no  one  except  himself  would  have  said  that  his 
affection  for  his  friends  was  not,  throughout  life,  of  the 
warmest  possible  kind.  In  serving  a  friend  he  would  not 
spare  himself,  and  precious  time  and  strength  were  willingly 
given.  He  undoubtedly  had,  to  an  unusual  degree,  the  power 
of  attaching  his  friends  to  him.  He  had  many  warm  friend- 
ships, but  to  Sir  Joseph  Hooker  he  was  bound  by  ties  of 
affection  stronger  than  we  often  see  among  men.  He  wrote 
'I  in  his  ^  Recollections,*  ^^  I  have  known  hardly  any  man  more 
lovable  than  Hooker." 

His  relationship  to  the  village  people  was  a  pleasant  one  ; 
he  treated  them,  one  and  all,  with  courtesy,  when  he  came  in 
contact  with  them,  and   took  an    interest  in  all  relating  to 
their  welfare.     Some  time  after  he  came  to  live  at  Down  he 
\  helped  to  found  a  Friendly  Club,  and  served  as  treasurer  for 
1  thirty  years.     He  took  much  trouble  about  the  club,  keep- 
ing its  accounts  with  minute  and  scrupulous  exactness,  and 
I  taking   pleasure  in  its  prosperous  condition.      Every  Whit- 
j  Monday  the  club  used  to  march  round  with  band  and  banner, 
I  and  paraded  on  the  lawn  in  front  of  the  house.    There  he  met 
I  them,  and  explained  to  them  their  financial  position  in  a  little 
speech  seasoned  with  a  few  well  worn  jokes.     He  v/as  often 


I20  REMINISCENCES. 

unwell  enough  to  make  even  this  little  ceremony  an  exertion, 
but  I  think  he  never  failed  to  meet  them. 

He  was  also  treasurer  of  the  Coal  Club,  which  gave  him 
some  work,  and  he  acted  for  some  years  as  a  County  Magis- 
trate. 

With  regard  to  my  father's  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the 
village,  Mr.  Brodie  Innes  has  been  so  good  as  to  give  me  his 
recollections  : — 

*' On  my  becoming  Vicar  of  Down  in  1846,  we  became, 
friends,  and  so  continued  till  his  death.  His  conduct  towards 
me  and  my  family  was  one  of  unvarying  kindness,  and  we 
repaid  it  by  warm  affection. 

"  In  all  parish  matters  he  was  an  active  assistant ;  in 
matters  connected  with  the  schools,  charities,  and  other  busi- 
ness, his  liberal  contribution  was  ever  ready,  and  in  the 
differences  which  at  times  occurred  in  that,  as  in  other 
parishes,  I  was  always  sure  of  his  support.  He  held  that 
where  there  was  really  no  important  objection,  his  assistance 
should  be  given  to  the  clergyman,  who  ought  to  know  the 
circumstances  best,  and  was  chiefly  responsible.'* 

His  intercourse  with  strangers  was  marked  with  scrupulous 
and  rather  formal  politeness,  but  in  fact  he  had  few  oppor- 
tunities of  meeting  strangers. 

Dr.  Lane  has  described*  how,  on  the  rare  occasion  of 
my  father  attending  a  lecture  (Dr.  Sanderson's)  at  the  Royal 
Institution,  "the  whole  assembly  .  .  .  rose  to  their  feet  to 
welcome  him,"  while  he  seemed  "  scarcely  conscious  that 
such  an  outburst  of  applause  could  possibly  be  intended  for 
himself."  The  quiet  life  he  led  at  Down  made  him  feel  con- 
fused in  a  large  society  ;  for  instance,  at  the  Royal  Society's 
soirees  he  felt  oppressed  by  the  numbers.  The  feeling  that  he 
ought  to  know  people,  and  the  difficulty  he  had  in  remember- 
ing faces  in  his  latter  years,  also  added  to  his  discomfort  on 


*  Lecture  by  Dr.  B.  W.  Richardson,  in  St.  George's  Hall,  Oct.  22,  1882. 


WORK.  121 

such  occasions.  He  did  not  realise  that  he  would  be  recog- 
nised from  his  photographs,  and  I  remember  his  being  uneasy 
at  being  obviously  recognised  by  a  stranger  at  the  Crystal 
Palace  Aquarium. 

I  must  say  something  of  his  manner  of  working  :  one 
characteristic  of  it  was  his  respect  for  time  ;  he  never  forgot 
how  precious  it  was.  This  was  shown,  for  instance,  in  the 
way  in  which  he  tried  to  curtail  his  holidays ;  also,  and  more 
clearly,  with  respect  to  shorter  periods.  He  would  often  say, 
that  saving  the  minutes  was  the  way  to  get  work  done  ;  he 
showed  this  love  of  saving  the  minutes  in  the  difference  he 
felt  between  a  quarter  of  an  hour  and  ten  minutes'  work ;  he 
never  wasted  a  few  spare  minutes  from  thinking  that  it  was 
not  worth  while  to  set  to  work.  I  was  often  struck  by  his 
way  of  working  up  to  the  very  limit  of  his  strength,  so  that 
lie  suddenly  stopped  in  dictating,  with  the  words,  ''  I  believe 
[  mustn't  do  any  more.'*  The  same  eager  desire  not  to  lose 
rime  was  seen  in  his  quick  movements  when  at  work.  I 
particularly  remember  noticing  this  when  he  was  making  an 
experiment  on  the  roots  of  beans,  which  required  some  care 
in  manipulation ;  fastening  the  little  bits  of  card  upon  the 
roots  was  done  carefully  and  necessarily  slowly,  but  the  in- 
termediate movements  were  all  quick  ;  taking  a  fresh  bean, 
seeing  that  the  root  was  healthy,  impaling  it  on  a  pin,  fixing 
it  on  a  cork,  and  seeing  that  it  was  vertical,  &c. ;  all  these 
processes  were  performed  with  a  kind  of  restrained  eagerness. 
He  always  gave  one  the  impression  of  working  with  pleasure, 
md  not  with  any  drag.  I  have  an  image,  too,  of  him  as  he 
recorded  the  result  of  some  experiment,  looking  eagerly  at 
sach  root,  &c.,  and  then  writing  with  equal  eagerness.  I 
remember  the  quick  movement  of  his  head  up  and  down  as 
lie  looked  from  the  object  to  the  notes. 

He  saved  a  great  deal  of  time  through  not  having  to  do 
things  twice.  Although  he  would  patiently  go  on  repeating 
experiments  where  there  was  any  good  to  be  gained,  he  could 
not  endure  having  to  repeat  an  experiment  which  ought,  if 
complete  care  had  been  taken,  to  have  succeeded  the  first 
7 


122  REMINISCENCES. 

time — and  this  gave  him  a  continual  anxiety  that  the  experi- 
ment  should  not  be  wasted;  he  felt  the  experiment  to  be 
sacred,  however  slight  a  one  it  was.  He  wished  to  learn  as 
much  as  possible  from  an  experiment,  so  that  he  did  not  con- 
fine himself  to  observing  the  single  point  to  which  the  experi- 
ment was  directed,  and  his  power  of  seeing  a  number  of  other 
things  was  wonderful.  I  do  not  think  he  cared  for  prelimi- 
nary or  rough  observation  intended  to  serve  as  guides  and 
to  be  repeated.  Any  experiment  done  was  to  be  of  some  use, 
and  in  this  connection  I  remember  how  strongly  he  urged  the 
necessity  of  keeping  the  notes  of  experiments  which  failed, 
and  to  this  rule  he  always  adhered. 

In  the  literary  part  of  his  work  he  had  the  same  horror  of 
losing  time,  and  the  same  zeal  in  what  he  was  doing  at  the 
moment,  and  this  made  him  careful  not  to  be  obliged  unneces- 
sarily to  read  anything  a  second  time. 

His  natural  tendency  was  to  use  simple  methods  and  few 
instruments.  The  use  of  the  compound  microscope  has  much 
increased  since  his  youth,  and  this  at  the  expense  of  the 
simple  one.  It  strikes  us  nowadays  as  extraordinary  that  he 
should  have  had  no  compound  microscope  when  he  went  his 
Beagle  voyage ;  but  in  this  he  followed  the  advice  of  Robt. 
Brown,  who  was  an  authority  in  such  matters.  He  always 
had  a  great  liking  for  the  simple  microscope,  and  maintained 
that  nowadays  it  was  too  much  neglected,  and  that  one  ought 
always  to  see  as  much  as  possible  with  the  simple  before 
taking  to  the  compound  microscope.  In  one  of  his  letters 
he  speaks  on  this  point,  and  remarks  that  he  always  sus- 
pects the  work  of  a  man  who  never  uses  the  simple  micro- 
scope. 

His  dissecting  table  was  a  thick  board,  let  into  a  window 
of  the  study ;  it  was  lower  than  an  ordinary  table,  so  that  he 
could  not  have  worked  at  it  standing  ;  but  this,  from  wishing 
to  save  his  strength,  he  would  not  have  done  in  any  case.  He 
sat  at  his  dissecting-table  on  a  curious  low  stool  which  had 
belonged  to  his  father,  with  a  seat  revolving  on  a  vertical 
spindle,  and  mounted  on  large  castors,  so  that  he  could  turn 


WORK. 


123 


easily  from  side  to  side.  His  ordinary  tools,  &c.,  were  lying 
about  on  the  table,  but  besides  these  a  number  of  odds  and 
ends  were  kept  in  a  round  table  full  of  radiating  drawers,  and 
turning  on  a  vertical  axis,  which  stood  close  by  his  left  side, 
as  he  sat  at  his  microscope-table.  The  drawers  were  labelled, 
"best  tools,"  *^ rough  tools,"  "specimens,"  "preparations  for 
specimens,"  &c.  The  most  marked  peculiarity  of  the  con- 
tents of  these  drawers  was  the  care  with  which  little  scraps 
and  almost  useless  things  were  preserved;  he  held  the  well- 
known  belief,  that  if  you  threw  a  thing  away  you  were  sure 
to  want  it  directly — and  so  things  accumulated. 

If  any  one  had  looked  at  his  tools,  &c.,  lying  on  the  table, 
he  would  have  been  struck  by  an  air  of  simpleness,  make-shift, 
and  oddness. 

At  his  right  hand  were  shelves,  with  a  number  of  other 
odds  and  ends,  glasses,  saucers,  tin  biscuit  boxes  for  germi- 
nating seeds,  zinc  labels,  saucers  full  of  sand,  &c.,  &c.  Con- 
sidering how  tidy  and  methodical  he  was  in  essential  things, 
it  is  curious  that  he  bore  with  so  many  make-shifts :  for  in- 
stance, instead  of  having  a  box  made  of  a  desired  shape,  and 
stained  black  inside,  he  would  hunt  up  something  like  what 
he  wanted  and  get  it  darkened  inside  with  shoe-blacking ; 
he  did  not  care  to  have  glass  covers  made  for  tumblers  in 
which  he  germinated  seeds,  but  used  broken  bits  of  irregular 
shape,  with  perhaps  a  narrow  angle  sticking  uselessly  out  on 
one  side.  But  so  much  of  his  experimenting  was  of  a  simple 
kind,  that  he  had  no  need  for  any  elaboration,  and  I  think 
his  habit  in  this  respect  was  in  great  measure  due  to  his 
desire  to  husband  his  strength,  and  not  waste  it  on  inessential 
things. 

His  way  of  marking  objects  may  here  be  mentioned.  If 
he  had  a  number  of  things  to  distinguish,  such  as  leaves, 
flowers,  &c.,  he  tied  threads  of  different  colours  round  them. 
In  particular  he  used  this  method  when  he  had  only  two 
classes  of  objects  to  distinguish;  thus  in  the  case  of  crossed 
and  self-fertilised  flowers,  one  set  would  be  marked  with 
black  and  one  with  white  thread,  tied  round  the  stalk  of  the 


124  REMINISCENCES. 

flower.  I  remember  well  the  look  of  two  sets  of  capsules, 
gathered  and  waiting  to  be  weighed,  counted,  &c.,  with  pieces 
of  black  and  of  white  thread  to  distinguish  the  trays  in  which 
they  lay.  When  he  had  to  compare  two  sets  of  seedlings, 
sowed  in  the  same  pot,  he  separated  them  by  a  partition  of 
zinc-plate  ;  and  the  zinc  label,  which  gave  the  necessary  de- 
tails about  the  experiment,  was  always  placed  on  a  certain 
side,  so  that  it  became  instinctive  with  him  to  know  without 
reading  the  label  which  were  the  '^crossed  "  and  which  were 
the  "self-fertilised/' 

His  love  of  each  particular  experiment,  and  his  eager  zeal 
not  to  lose  the  fruit  of  it,  came  out  markedly  in  these  cross- 
ing experiments — in  the  elaborate  care  he  took  not  to  make 
any  confusion  in  putting  capsules  into  wrong  trays,  &c.,  &c. 
I  can  recall  his  appearance  as  he  counted  seeds  under  the 
simple  microscope  with  an  alertness  not  usually  characterising 
such  mechanical  work  as  counting.  I  think  he  personified 
each  seed  as  a  small  demon  trying  to  elude  him  by  getting 
into  the  wrong  heap,  or  jumping  away  altogether  ;  and  this 
gave  to  the  work  the  excitement  of  a  game.  He  had  great 
faith  in  instruments,  and  I  do  not  think  it  naturally  occurred 
to  him  to  doubt  the  accuracy  of  a  scale  or  measuring  glass, 
&c.  He  was  astonished  when  we  found  that  one  of  his  mi- 
crometers differed  from  the  other.  He  did  not  require  any 
great  accuracy  in  most  of  his  measurements,  and  had  not 
good  scales;  he  had  an  old  three-foot  rule,  which  was  the 
common  property  of  the  household,  and  was  constantly  being 
borrowed,  because  it  was  the  only  one  which  was  certain  to 
be  in  its  place — unless,  indeed,  the  last  borrower  had  forgot- 
ten to  put  it  back.  For  measuring  the  height  of  plants  he 
had  a  seven-foot  deal  rod,  graduated  by  the  village  carpenter. 
Latterly  he  took  to  using  paper  scales  graduated  to  milli- 
meters. For  small  objects  he  used  a  pair  of  compasses  and 
an  ivory  protractor.  It  was  characteristic  of  him  that  he  took 
scrupulous  pains  in  making  measurements  with  his  somewhat  f 
rough  scales.  A  trifling  example  of  his  faith  in  authority  is 
that  he  took  his  ''  inch  in  terms  of  millimeters  *'  from  an  old 


WORK.  j2- 

book,  in  which  it  turned  out  to  be  inaccurately  given.  He 
had  a  chemical  balance  which  dated  from  the  days  when  he 
worked  at  chemistry  with  his  brother  Erasmus.  Measure- 
ments of  capacity  were  made  with  an  apothecary's  measuring 
glass  :  I  remember  well  its  rough  look  and  bad  graduation. 
With  this,  too,  I  remember  the  great  care  he  took  in  getting 
the  fluid-line  on  to  the  graduation.  I  do  not  mean  by  this 
account  of  his  instruments  that  any  of  his  experiments  suffered 
from  want  of  accuracy  in  measurement,  I  give  them  as  exam- 
ples of  his  simple  methods  and  faith  in  others — faith  at 
least  in  instrument-makers,  whose  whole  trade  was  a  mystery 
to  him. 

A  few  of  his  mental  characteristics,  bearing  especially  on 
his  mode  of  working,  occur  to  me.  There  was  one  quality  of 
mind  which  seemed  to  be  of  special  and  extreme  advantage 
in  leading  him  to  make  discoveries.  It  was  the  power  of  never 
letting  exceptions  pass  unnoticed.  Everybody  notices  a  fact 
as  an  exception  when  it  is  striking  or  frequent,  but  he  had  a 
special  instinct  for  arresting  an  exception.  A  point  appar- 
ently slight  and  unconnected  with  his  present  work  is  passed 
over  by  many  a  man  almost  unconsciously  with  some  half- 
considered  explanation,  which  is  in  fact  no  explanation.  It 
was  just  these  things  that  he  seized  on  to  make  a  start  from. 
In  a  certain  sense  there  is  nothing  special  in  this  procedure, 
many  discoveries  being  made  by  means  of  it.  I  only  mention 
it  because,  as  I  watched  him  at  work,  the  value  of  this 
power  to  an  experimenter  was  so  strongly  impressed  upon 
me. 

Another  quality  which  was  shown  in  his  experimental 
works  was  his  power  of  sticking  to  a  subject ;  he  used  almost 
to  apologise  for  his  patience,  saying  that  he  could  not  bear  to 
be  beaten,  as  if  this  were  rather  a  sign  of  weakness  on  his 
part.  He  often  quoted  the  saying,  '^  It's  dogged  as  does  it ; '' 
and  I  think  doggedness  expresses  his  frame  of  mind  almost 
j  better  than  perseverance.  Perseverance  seems  hardly  to  ex- 
1  press  his  almost  fierce  desire  to  force  the  truth  to  reveal  itself. 
He  often  said  that  it  was  important  that  a  man  should  know 


1 26  REMINISCENCES. 

the  right  point  at  which  to  give  up  an  inquiry.  And  I  think 
it  was  his  tendency  to  pass  this  point  that  inclined  him  to 
apologise  for  his  perseverance,  and  gave  the  air  of  doggedness 
to  his  work. 

He  often  said  that  no  one  could  be  a  good  observer  unless 
he  was  an  active  theoriser.  This  brings  me  back  to  what 
I  said  about  his  instinct  for  arresting  exceptions  :  it  was  as 
though  he  were  charged  with  theorising  power  ready  to  flow 
into  any  channel  on  the  slightest  disturbance,  so  that  no  fact, 
however  small,  could  avoid  releasing  a  stream  of  theory,  and 
thus  the  fact  became  magnified  into  importance.  In  this  way 
it  naturally  happened  that  many  untenable  theories  occurred 
to  him;  but  fortunately  his  richness  of  imagination  was 
equalled  by  his  power  of  judging  and  condemning  the 
thoughts  that  occurred  to  him.  He  was  just  to  his  theories^ 
and  did  not  condemn  them  unheard  ;  and  so  it  happened 
that  he  was  willing  to  test  what  would  seem  to  most  people 
not  at  all  worth  testing.  These  rather  wild  trials  he  called 
"fool's  experiments,"  and  enjoyed  extremely.  As  an  exam- 
ple I  may  mention  that  finding  the  cotyledons  of  Biophytum 
to  be  highly  sensitive  to  vibrations  of  the  table,  he  fancied 
that  they  might  perceive  the  vibrations  of  sound,  and  there- 
fore made  me  play  my  bassoon  close  to  a  plant.  * 

The  love  of  experiment  was  very  strong  in  him,  and  I  can 
remember  the  way  he  would  say,  "  I  shan't  be  easy  till  I  have 
tried  it,"  as  if  an  outside  force  were  driving  him.  He  enjoyed 
experimenting  much  more  than  work  which  only  entailed 
reasoning,  and  when  he  was  engaged  on  one  of  his  books 
which  required  argument  and  the  marshalling  of  facts,  he  felt 
experimental  work  to  be  a  rest  or  holiday.  Thus,  while  work- 
ing upon  the  *  Variations  of  Animals  and  Plants,'  in  1 860-6 r, 
he  made  out  the  fertilisation  of  Orchids,  and  thought  himself 
idle  for  giving  so  much  time  to  them.  It  is  interesting  to 
think  that  so  important  a  piece  of  research  should  have  been 

*  This  is  not  so  much  an  example  of  superabundant  theorising  from  a 
small  cause,  but  only  of  his  wish  to  test  the  most  improbable  ideas. 


WORK. 


127 


undertaken  and  largely  worked  out  as  a  pastime  in  place  of 
more  serious  work.  The  letters  to  Hooker  of  this  period  con- 
tain expressions  such  as,  ''  God  forgive  me  for  being  so  idle ; 
I  am  quite  sillily  interested  in  this  work/'  The  intense  pleas- 
ure he  took  in  understanding  the  adaptations  for  fertilisation 
is  strongly  shown  in  these  letters.  He  speaks  in  one  of  his 
letters  of  his  intention  of  working  at  Drosera  as  a  rest  from 
the  *  Descent  of  Man/  He  has  described  in  his  ^  Recollec- 
tions '  the  strong  satisfaction  he  felt  in  solving  the  problem  of 
heterostylism.  And  I  have  heard  him  mention  that  the  Geol- 
ogy of  South  America  gave  him  almost  more  pleasure  than 
anything  else.  It  was  perhaps  this  delight  in  work  requiring 
keen  observation  that  made  him  value  praise  given  to  his 
observing  powers  almost  more  than  appreciation  of  his  other 
qualities. 

For  books  he  had  no  respect,  but  merely  considered  them 
as  tools  to  be  worked  with.  Thus  he  did  not  bind  them,  and 
even  when  a  paper  book  fell  to  pieces  from  use,  as  happened 
to  Mailer's  '  Befruchtung,'  he  preserved  it  from  complete  dis- 
solution by  putting  a  metal  clip  over  its  back.  In  the  same 
way  he  would  cut  a  heavy  book  in  half,  to  make  it  more  con- 
venient to  hold.  He  used  to  boast  that  he  made  Lyell  pub- 
lish the  second  edition  of  one  of  his  books  in  two  volumes  in- 
stead of  in  one,  by  telling  him  how  he  had  been  obliged  to 
cut  it  in  half.  Pamphlets  were  often  treated  even  more  severe- 
ly than  books,  for  he  would  tear  out,  for  the  sake  of  saving 
room,  all  the  pages  except  the  one  that  interested  him.  The 
consequence  of  all  this  was,  that  his  library  was  not  orna- 
mental, but  was  striking  from  being  so  evidently  a  working 
collection  of  books. 

He  was  methodical  in  his  manner  of  reading  books  and 
pamphlets  bearing  on  his  own  work.  He  had  one  shelf  on 
which  were  piled  up  the  books  he  had  not  yet  read,  and  an- 
other to  which  they  were  transferred  after  having  been  read, 
and  before  being  catalogued.  He  would  often  groan  over  his 
unread  books,  because  there  were  so  many  which  he  knew  he 
should  never  read.     Many  a  book  was  at  once  transferred  to 


128  REMINISCENCES. 

the  other  heap,  either  marked  with  a  cypher  at  the  end,  to 
show  that  it  contained  no  marked  passages,  or  inscribed,  per- 
haps, ^^  not  read,''  or  "  only  skimmed."  The  books  accumu- 
lated in  the  ^*  read  "  heap  until  the  shelves  overflowed,  and 
then,  with  much  lamenting,  a  day  was  given  up  to  the  cata- 
loguing. He  disliked  this  work,  and  as  the  necessity  of  under- 
taking the  work  became  imperative,  would  often  say,  in  a 
voice  of  despair,  "We  really  must  do  these  books  soon.'* 

In  each  book,  as  he  read  it,  he  marked  passages  bearing 
on  his  work.  In  reading  a  book  or  pamphlet,  &c.,  he  made 
pencil-lines  at  the  side  of  the  page,  often  adding  short 
remarks,  and  at  the  end  made  a  list  of  the  pages  marked. 
When  it  was  to  be  catalogued  and  put  away,  the  marked 
pages  were  looked  at,  and  so  a  rough  abstract  of  the  book 
was  made.  This  abstract  would  perhaps  be  written  under 
three  or  four  headings  on  different  sheets,  the  facts  being 
sorted  out  and  added  to  the  previously  collected  facts  in  dif- 
ferent subjects.  He  had  other  sets  of  abstracts  arranged,  not 
according  to  subject,  but  according  to  periodical.  When  col- 
lecting facts  on  a  large  scale,  in  earlier  years,  he  used  to  read 
through,  and  make  abstracts,  in  this  way,  of  whole  series  of 
periodicals. 

In  some  of  his  early  letters  he  speaks  of  filling  several 
note-books  with  facts  for  his  book  on  species ;  but  it  was 
certainly  early  that  he  adopted  his  plan  of  using  portfolios 
as  described  in  the  *  Recollections.'*  My  father  and  M.  de 
Candolle  were  mutually  pleased  to  discover  that  they  had 
adopted  the  same  plan  of  classifying  facts.  De  Candolle  de- 
scribes the  method  in  his  *  Phytologie,'  and  in  his  sketch  of 
my  father  mentions  the  satisfaction  he  felt  in  seeing  it  in 
action  at  Down. 

Besides  these  portfolios,  of  which  there  are  some  dozens 
full  of  notes,  there  are  large  bundles  of  MS.  marked  "used" 

*  The  racks  on  which  the  portfolios  were  placed  are  shown  in  the  illus- 
tration at  the  head  of  the  chapter,  in  the  recess  at  the  right-hand  side  of 
the  fire-place.  ^ 


STYLE. 


129 


and  put  away.  He  felt  the  value  of  his  notes,  and  had  a 
horror  of  their  destruction  by  fire.  I  remember,  when  some 
alarm  of  fire  had  happened,  his  begging  me  to  be  especially 
careful,  adding  very  earnestly,  that  the  rest  of  his  life  would 
be  miserable  if  his  notes  and  books  were  to  be  destroyed. 

He  shows  the  same  feeling  in  writing  about  the  loss  of  a 
manuscript,  the  purport  of  his  words  being,  *'  I  have  a  copy, 
or  the  loss  would  have  killed  me.*'  In  writing  a  book  he 
would  spend  much  time  and  labour  in  making  a  skeleton  or 
plan  of  the  whole,  and  in  enlarging  and  sub-classing  each 
heading,  as  described  in  his  ^Recollections.'  I  think  this 
careful  arrangement  of  the  plan  was  not  at  all  essential  to  the 
building  up  of  his  argument,  but  for  its  presentment,  and  for 
the  arrangement  of  his  facts.  In  his  Xife  of  Erasmus  Darwin,* 
as  it  was  first  printed  in  slips,  the  growth  of  the  book  from  a 
skeleton  was  plainly  visible.  The  arrangement  was  altered 
afterwards,  because  it  was  too  formal  and  categorical^  and 
seemed  to  give  the  character  of  his  grandfather  rather  by 
means  of  a  list  of  qualities  than  as  a  complete  picture. 

It  was  only  within  the  last  few  years  that  he  adopted  a  plan 
of  writing  which  he  was  convinced  suited  him  best,  and  which 
is  described  in  the  '  Recollections  ; '  namely,  writing  a  rough 
copy  straight  off  without  the  slightest  attention  to  style.  It 
was  characteristic  of  him  that  he  felt  unable  to  write  with 
sufficient  want  of  care  if  he  used  his  best  paper,  and  thus  it 
was  that  he  wrote  on  the  backs  of  old  proofs  or  manuscript. 
The  rough  copy  was  then  reconsidered,  and  a  fair  copy  was 
made.  For  this  purpose  he  had  foolscap  paper  ruled  at  wide 
li  intervals,  the  lines  being  needed  to  prevent  him  writing  so 
I  closely  that  correction  became  difficult.  The  fair  copy  was 
then  corrected,  and  was  recopied  before  being  sent  to  the 
I  printers.  The  copying  was  done  by  Mr.  E.  Norman,  who 
began  this  work  many  years  ago  when  village  schoolmaster  at 
Down.  My  father  became  so  used  to  Mr.  Norman's  hand- 
writing, that  he  could  not  correct  manuscript,  even  when 
clearly  written  out  by  one  of  his  children,  until  it  had  been 
recopied  by  Mr.  Norman.     The  MS.,  on  returning  from  Mr. 


I30  REMINISCENCES. 

Norman,  was  once  more  corrected,  and  then  sent  off  to  the 
printers.  Then  came  the  work  of  revising  and  correcting  the 
proofs,  which  my  father  found  especially  wearisome. 

It  was  at  this  stage  that  he  first  seriously  considered  the 
style  of  what  he  had  written.  When  this  was  going  on  he 
usually  started  some  other  piece  of  work  as  a  relief.  The 
correction  of  slips  consisted  in  fact  of  two  processes,  for  the 
correction  were  first  written  in  pencil,  and  then  re-considered 
and  written  in  ink. 

When  the  book  was  passing  through  the  "  slip  "  stage  he 
was  glad  to  have  corrections  and  suggestions  from  others. 
Thus  my  mother  looked  over  the  proofs  of  the  ^Origin.'  In 
some  of  the  later  works  my  sister,  Mrs.  Litchfied,  did  much 
of  the  correction.  After  my  sister's  marriage  perhaps  most 
of  the  work  fell  to  my  share. 

My  sister,  Mrs.  Litchfield,  writes  : — 

"  This  work  was  very  interesting  in  itself,  and  it  was  inex- 
pressibly exhilarating  to  work  for  him.  He  was  always  so 
ready  to  be  convinced  that  any  suggested  alteration  was  an 
improvement,  and  so  full  of  gratitude  for  the  trouble  taken. 
I  do  not  think  that  he  ever  used  to  forget  to  tell  me  what  im- 
provement he  thought  that  I  had  made,  and  he  used  almost 
to  excuse  himself  if  he  did  not  agree  with  any  correction.  I 
think  I  felt  the  singular  modesty  and  graciousness  of  his 
nature  through  thus  working  for  him  in  a  way  I  never  should 
otherwise  have  done, 

"  He  did  not  write  with  ease,  and  was  apt  to  invert  his 
sentences  both  in  writing  and  speaking,  putting  the  qualifying 
clause  before  it  was  clear  what  it  was  to  qualify.  He  corrected 
a  great  deal,  and  was  eager  to  express  himself  as  well  as  he 
possibly  could." 

Perhaps  the  commonest  corrections  needed  were  of  obscu- 
rities due  to  the  omission  of  a  necessary  link  in  the  reasoning, 
something  which  he  had  evidently  omitted  through  familiarity 
with  the  subject.    Not  that  there  was  any  fault  in  the  sequence 


STYLE.  131 

of  the  thoughts,  but  that  from  familiarity  with  his  argument 
he  did  not  notice  when  the  words  failed  to  reproduce  his 
thought.  He  also  frequently  put  too  much  matter  into  one 
sentence,  so  that  it  had  to  be  cut  up  into  two. 

On  the  whole,  I  think  the  pains  which  my  father  took  over 
the  literary  part  of  the  work  was  very  remarkable.  He  often 
laughed  or  grumbled  at  himself  for  the  difficulty  which  he 
found  in  writing  English,  saying,  for  instance,  that  if  a  bad 
arrangement  of  a  sentence  was  possible,  he  should  be  sure  to 
adopt  it.  He  once  got  much  amusement  and  satisfaction  out 
of  the  difficulty  which  one  of  the  family  found  in  writing  a 
short  circular.  He  had  the  pleasure  of  correcting  and  laugh- 
ing at  obscurities,  involved  sentences,  and  other  defects,  and 
thus  took  his  revenge  for  all  the  criticism  he  had  himself 
to  bear  with.  He  used  to  quote  with  astonishment  Miss 
Martineau's  advice  to  young  authors,  to  write  straight  off 
and  send  the  MS.  to  the  printer  without  correction.  But  in 
some  cases  he  acted  in  a  somewhat  similar  manner.  When 
a  sentence  got  hopelessly  involved,  he  would  ask  himself, 
"now  what  do  you  want  to  say?"  and  his  answer  written 
down,  would  often  disentangle  the  confusion. 

His  style  has  been  much  praised ;  on  the  other  hand,  at 
least  one  good  judge  has  remarked  to  me  that  it  is  not  a  good 
style.  It  is,  above  all  things,  direct  and  clear ;  and  it  is 
characteristic  of  himself  in  its  simplicity,  bordering  on  naivete, 
and  in  its  absence  of  pretence.  He  had  the  strongest  disbelief 
in  the  common  idea  that  a  classical  scholar  must  write  good 
English  ;  indeed,  he  thought  that  the  contrary  was  the  case. 
In  writing,  he  sometimes  showed  the  same  tendency  to  strong 
expressions  as  he  did  in  conversation.  Thus  in  the  '  Origin,' 
p.  440,  there  is  a  description  of  a  larval  cirripede,  '*  with 
six  pairs  of  beautifully  constructed  natatory  legs,  a  pair  of 
magnificent  compound  eyes,  and  extremely  complex  antennae." 
We  used  to  laugh  at  him  for  this  sentence,  which  we  com- 
pared to  an  advertisement.  This  tendency  to  give  himself 
up  to  the  enthusiastic  turn  of  his  thought,  without  fear  of 
being  ludicrous,  appears  elsewhere  in  his  writings. 


122  REMINISCENCES. 

His  courteous  and  conciliatory  tone  towards  his  reader  is 
remarkable,  and  it  must  be  partly  this  quality  which  revealed 
his  personal  sweetness  of  character  to  so  many  who  had 
never  seen  him.  I  have  always  felt  it  to  be  a  curious  fact, 
that  he  who  had  altered  the  face  of  Biological  Science, 
and  is  in  this  respect  the  chief  of  the  moderns,  should 
have  written  and  worked  in  so  essentially  a  non-modern  spirit 
and  manner.  In  reading  his  books  one  is  reminded  of  the 
older  naturalists  rather  than  of  the  modern  school  of  writers. 
He  was  a  Naturalist  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word,  that  is,  a 
man  who  works  at  many  branches  of  the  science,  not  merely 
a  specialist  in  one.  Thus  it  is,  that,  though  he  founded  whole 
new  divisions  of  special  subjects — such  as  the  fertilisation  of 
flowers,  insectivorous  plants,  dimorphism,  &c. — yet  even  in 
treating  these  very  subjects  he  does  not  strike  the  reader  as  a 
specialist.  The  reader  feels  like  a  friend  who  is  being  talked 
to  by  a  courteous  gentleman,  not  like  a  pupil  being  lectured 
by  a  professor.  The  tone  of  such  a  book  as  the  '  Origin  *  is 
charming,  and  almost  pathetic ;  it  is  the  tone  of  a  man  who, 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  his  own  views,  hardly  expects  to 
convince  others ;  it  is  just  the  reverse  of  the  style  of  a  fanatic, 
who  wants  to  force  people  to  believe.  The  reader  is  never 
scorned  for  any  amount  of  doubt  which  he  may  be  imagined 
to  feel,  and  his  scepticism  is  treated  with  patient  respect.  A 
sceptical  reader,  or  perhaps  even  an  unreasonable  reader, 
seems  to  have  been  generally  present  to  his  thoughts.  It  was 
in  consequence  of  this  feeling,  perhaps,  that  he  took  much 
trouble  over  points  which  he  imagined  would  strike  the  reader, 
or  save  him  trouble,  and  so  tempt  him  to  read. 

For  the  same  reason  he  took  much  interest  in  the  illustra- 
tions of  his  books,  and  I  think  rated  rather  too  highly  their 
value.  The  illustrations  for  his  earlier  books  were  drawn  by 
professional  artists.  This  was  the  case  in  ^Animals  and 
Plants,'  the  ^  Descent  of  Man,'  and  the  ^  Expression  of  the 
Emotions.'  On  the  other  hand,  ^  Climbing  Plants,'  *  Insec- 
tivorous Plants,'  the  'Movements  of  Plants,'  and  *  Forms  of 
Flowers,'  were,  to  a  large  extent,  illustrated  by  some  of  his 


STYLE. 


133 


children — my  brother  George  having  drawn  by  far  the  most. 
It  was  delightful  to  draw  for  him,  as  he  was  enthusiastic  in 
his  praise  of  very  moderate  performances.  I  remember  well 
his  charming  manner  of  receiving  the  drawings  of  one  of  his 
daughters-in-law,  and  how  he  would  finish  his  words  of  praise 

by  saying,  "  Tell  A ,  Michael  Angelo  is  nothing  to  it.'* 

Though  he  praised  so  generously,  he  always  looked  closely  at 
the  drawing,  and  easily  detected  mistakes  or  carelessness. 

He  had  a  horror  of  being  lengthy,  and  seems  to  have 
been  really  much  annoyed  and  distressed  when  he  found  how 
the  'Variations  of  Animals  and  Plants'  was  growing  under 
his  hands.  I  remember  his  cordially  agreeing  with  *  Tristram 
Shandy's '  words,  '*  Let  no  man  say,  '  Come,  1*11  write  a 
duodecimo.' " 

His  consideration  for  other  authors  was  as  marked  a  char- 
acteristic as  his  tone  towards  his  reader.  He  speaks  of  all 
other  authors   as   persons   deserving   of  respect.     In  cases 

where,  as  in  the  case  of 's  experiments  on  Drosera,  he 

thought  lightly  of  the  author,  he  speaks  of  him  in  such  a  way 
that  no  one  would  suspect  it.  In  other  cases  he  treats  the 
confused  writings  of  ignorant  persons  as  though  the  fault  lay 
with  himself  for  not  appreciating  or  understanding  them. 
Besides  this  general  tone  of  respect,  he  had  a  pleasant  way  of 
expressing  his  opinion  on  the  value  of  a  quoted  work,  or  his 
obligation  for  a  piece  of  private  information. 

His  respectful  feeling  was  not  only  morally  beautiful,  but 
was  I  think  of  practical  use  in  making  him  ready  to  consider 
the  ideas  and  observations  of  all  manner  of  people.  He  used 
almost  to  apologise  for  this,  and  would  say  that  he  was  at 
first  inclined  to  rate  everything  too  highly. 

It  was  a  great  merit  in  his  mind  that,  in  spite  of  having  so 
strong  a  respectful  feeling  towards  what  he  read,  he  had  the 
keenest  of  instincts  as  to  whether  a  man  was  trustworthy  or 
not.  He  seemed  to  form  a  very  definite  opinion  as  to  the 
accuracy  of  the  men  whose  books  he  read ;  and  made  use  of 
this  judgment  in  his  choice  of  facts  for  use  in  argument  or 
as  illustrations.     I  gained  the  impression    that   he  felt   this 


134  REMINISCENCES. 

power  of  judging  of  a  man's  trustworthiness  to  be  of  much 
value. 

He  had  a  keen  feeling  of  the  sense  of  honour  that  ought 
to  reign  among  authors,  and  had  a  horror  of  any  kind  of  lax- 
ness  in  quoting.  He  had  a  contempt  for  the  love  of  honour 
and  glory,  and  in  his  letters  often  blames  himself  for  the 
pleasure  he  took  in  the  success  of  his  books,  as  though  he 
were  departing  from  his  ideal — a  love  of  truth  and  careless- 
ness about  fame.  Often,  when  writing  to  Sir  J.  Hooker  what 
he  calls  a  boasting  letter,  he  laughs  at  himself  for  his  conceit 
and  want  of  modesty.  There  is  a  wonderfully  interesting 
letter  which  he  wrote  to  my  mother  bequeathing  to  her,  in 
case  of  his  death,  the  care  of  publishing  the  manuscript  of  his 
first  essay  on  evolution.  This  letter  seems  to  me  full  of  the 
intense  desire  that  his  theory  should  succeed  as  a  contribu- 
tion to  knowledge,  and  apart  from  any  desire  for  personal 
fame.  He  certainly  had  the  healthy  desire  for  success  which 
a  man  of  strong  feelings  ought  to  have.  But  at  the  time  of 
the  publication  of  the  ^  Origin '  it  is  evident  that  he  was  over- 
whelmingly satisfied  with  the  adherence  of  such  men  as  Lyell, 
Hooker,  Huxley,  and  Asa  Gray,  and  did  not  dream  of  or 
desire  any  such  wide  and  general  fame  as  he  attained  to. 

Connected  with  his  contempt  for  the  undue  love  of  fame, 
was  an  equally  strong  dislike  of  all  questions  of  priority.  The 
letters  to  Lyell,  at  the  time  of  the  *  Origin,'  show  the  anger  he 
felt  with  himself  for  not  being  able  to  repress  a  feeling  of  dis- 
appointment at  what  he  thought  was  Mr.  Wallace's  forestall- 
ing of  all  his  years  of  work.  His  sense  of  literary  honour 
comes  out  strongly  in  these  letters  ;  and  his  feeling  about 
priority  is  again  shown  in  the  admiration  expressed  in  his 
'  Recollections '  of  Mr.  Wallace's  self-annihilation. 

His  feeling  about  reclamations,  including  answers  to  at- 
tacks and  all  kinds  of  discussions,  was  strong.  It  is  simply 
expressed  in  a  letter  to  Falconer  (1863.?),  *'If  I  ever  felt 
angry  towards  you,  for  whom  I  have  a  sincere  friendship,  I 
should  begin  to  suspect  that  I  was  a  little  mad.  I  was  very 
sorry  about  your  reclamation,  as  I  think  it  is  in  every  case  a 


ILL-HEALPH. 


135 


mistake  and  should  be  left  to  others.  Whether  I  should  so 
act  myself  under  provocation  is  a  different  question.*'  It  was 
a  feeling  partly  dictated  by  instinctive  delicacy,  and  partly 
by  a  strong  sense  of  the  waste  of  time,  energy,  and  temper 
thus  caused.  He  said  that  he  owed  his  determination  not  to 
get  into  discussions  *  to  the  advice  of  Lyell, — advice  which 
he  transmitted  to  those  among  his  friends  who  were  given  to 
paper  warfare. 

If  the  character  of  my  father's  working  life  is  to  be  under- 
stood, the  conditions  of  ill-health,  under  which  he  worked, 
must  be  constantly  borne  in  mind.  He  bore  his  illness  with 
such  uncomplaining  patience,  that  even  his  children  can 
hardly,  I  believe,  realise  the  extent  of  his  habitual  suffering. 
In  their  case  the  difficulty  is  heightened  by  the  fact  that, 
from  the  days  of  their  earliest  recollections,  they  saw  him  in 
constant  ill-health, — and  saw  him,  in  spite  of  it,  full  of  pleas- 
ure in  what  pleased  them.  Thus,  in  later  life,  their  percep- 
tion of  what  he  endured  had  to  be  disentangled  from  the 
impression  produced  in  childhood  by  constant  genial  kind- 
ness under  conditions  of  unrecognised  difficulty.  No  one 
indeed,  except  my  mother,  knows  the  full  amount  of  suffering 
he  endured,  or  the  full  amount  of  his  wonderful  patience. 
For  all  the  latter  years  of  his  life  she  never  left  him  for  a 
night ;  and  her  days  were  so  planned  that  all  his  resting 
hours  might  be  shared  with  her.  She  shielded  him  from 
every  avoidable  annoyance,  and  omitted  nothing  that  might 
save  him  trouble,  or  prevent  him  becoming  overtired,  or  that 
might  alleviate  the  many  discomforts  of  his  ill-health.  I  hesi- 
tate to  speak  thus  freely  of  a  thing  so  sacred  as  the  life-long 


*  He  departed  from  his  rule  in  his  **  Note  on  the  Habits  of  the  Pampas 
Woodpecker,  Colaptes  campesUisy'  '  Proc.  Zool.  Soc./  1870,  p.  705  :  also  in 
a  letter  published  in  the  *  Athenaeum'  (1863,  p.  554),  in  which  case  he 
afterwards  regretted  that  he  had  not  remained  silent.  His  replies  to  criti- 
cisms, in  the  later  editions  of  the  *  Origin,'  can  hardly  be  classed  as  infrac- 
tions of  his  rule. 


136  REMINISCENCES. 

devotion  which  prompted  all  this  constant  and  tender  care. 
But  it  is,  I  repeat,  a  principal  feature  of  his  life,  that  for 
nearly  forty  years  he  never  knew  one  day  of  the  health  of 
ordinary  men,  and  that  thus  his  life  was  one  long  struggle 
against  the  weariness  and  strain  of  sickness.  And  this  cannot 
be  told  without  speaking  of  the  one  condition  which  enabled 
him  to  bear  the  strain  and  fight  out  the  struggle  to  the  end. 


i 


■B      The  earliest  letters  to  which    I   have   access  are    those 
written  by  my  father  when  an  undergraduate  at  Cambridge. 

The  history  of  his   life,  as  told  in  his  correspondence, 
must  therefore  begin  with  this  period. 


LETTERS 


CHAPTER   IV. 

CAMBRIDGE    LIFE. 

[My  father's  Cambridge  life  comprises  the  time  between 
the  Lent  Term,  1828,  when  he  came  up  as  a  Freshman,  and 
the  end  of  the  May  Term,  1831,  when  he  took  his  degree  and 
left  the  University. 

It  appears  from  the  College  books,  that  my  father  '^admis- 
sus  est  pensionarius  minor  sub  Magistro  Shaw  "  on  Oct.  15, 

1827.  He  did  not  come  into  residence  till  the  Lent  Term, 

1828,  so  that,  although  he  passed  his  examination  in  due  sea- 
son, he  was  unable  to  take  his  degree  at  the  usual  time, — the 
beginning  of  the  Lent  Term,  1831.  In  such  a  case  a  man 
usually  took  his  degree  before  Ash-Wednesday,  when  he  was 
called  *'  Baccalaureus  ad  Diem  Cinerum,"  and  ranked  with 
the  B.  A.'s  of  the  year.  My  father's  name,  however,  occurs 
in  the  list  of  Bachelors  "ad  Baptistam,"  or  those  admitted 
between  Ash-Wednesday  and  St.  John  Baptist's  Day  (June 
24th)  ;  *  he  therefore  took  rank  among  the  Bachelors  of  1832. 

He  "kept"  for  a  term  or  two  in  lodgings,  over  Bacon  the 
tobacconist's ;  not,  however,  over  the  shop  in  the  Market 
Place,  now  so  well  known  to  Cambridge  men,  but  in  Sidney 
Street.  For  the  rest  of  his  time  he  had  pleasant  rooms  on 
the  south  side  of  the  first  court  of  Christ's,  f 

*  "  On  Tuesday  last  Charles  Danvin,  of  Christ's  College,  was  admitted 
B.A." — Cambridge  Chronicle,  Friday,  April  29,  1S31. 

t  The  rooms  are  on  the  first  floor,  on  the  west  side  of  the  middle  stair- 
case. A  medallion  (given  by  my  brother)  has  recently  been  let  into  the 
wall  of  the  sitting-room. 


J  .Q  CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.  19-22. 

What  determined  the  choice  of  this  college  for  his  brother 
Erasmus  and  himself  I  have  no  means  of  knowing.  Erasmus 
the  elder,  their  grandfather,  had  been  at  St.  John's,  and  this 
college  might  have  been  reasonably  selected  for  them,  being 
connected  with  Shrewsbury  School.  But  the  life  of  an  under- 
graduate at  St.  John's  seems,  in  those  days,  to  have  been  a 
troubled  one,  if  I  may  judge  from  the  fact  that  a  relative  of 
mine  migrated  thence  to  Christ's  to  escape  the  harassing  dis- 
cipline of  the  place.  A  story  told  by  Mr.  Herbert  *  illustrates 
the  same  state  of  things  : — 

"In  the  beginning  of  the  October  Term  of  1830,  an  inci- 
dent occurred  which  was  attended  with  somewhat  disagree- 
able, though  ludicrous  consequences  to  myself.  Darwin  asked 
me  to  take  a  long  walk  with  him  in  the  Fens,  to  search  for 
some  natural  objects  he  was  desirous  of  having.  After  a 
very  long,  fatiguing  day's  work,  we  dined  together,  late  in  the 
evening,  at  his  rooms  in  Christ's  College ;  and  as  soon  as  our 
dinner  was  over  we  threw  ourselves  into  easy  chairs  and  fell 
sound  asleep.  I  was  the  first  to  awake,  about  three  in  the 
morning,  when,  having  looked  at  my  watch,  and  knowing  the 
strict  rule  of  St.  John's,  which  required  men  in  statu  pupillari 
to  come  into  college  before  midnight,  I  rushed  homeward  at 
the  utmost  speed,  in  fear  of  the  consequences,  but  hoping 
that  the  Dean  would  accept  the  excuse  as  sufficient  when  I 
told  him  the  real  facts.  He,  however,  was  inexorable,  and 
refused  to  receive  my  explanations,  or  any  evidence  I  could 
bring;  and  although  during  my  undergraduateship  I  had 
never  been  reported  for  coming  late  into  College,  now,  when 
I  was  a  hard-working  B.  A.,  and  had  five  or  six  pupils,  he 
sentenced  me  to  confinement  to  the  College  walls  for  the  rest 
of  the  term.  Darwin's  indignation  knew  no  bounds,  and  the 
stupid  injustice  and  tyranny  of  the  Dean  raised  not  only  a  per- 
fect ferment  among  my  friends,  but  was  the  subject  of  expostu- 
lation from  some  of  the  leading  members  of  the  University." 
.     My  father  seems  to  have  found  no  difficulty  in  living  at 

*  See  p.  42. 


CHRIST'S   COLLEGE. 


141 


peace  with  all  men  in  and  out  of  office  at  Lady  Margaret's 
other  foundation.  The  impression  of  a  contemporary  of 
my  father's  is  that  Christ's  in  their  day  was  a  pleasant,  fairly 
quiet  college,  with  some  tendency  towards  ^'  horsiness  "  ;  many 
of  the  men  made  a  custom  of  going  to  Newmarket  during  the 
races,  though  betting  was  not  a  regular  practice.  In  this  they 
were  by  no  means  discouraged  by  fhe  Senior  Tutor,  Mr. 
Shaw,  who  was  himself  generally  to  be  seen  on  the  Heath  on 
these  occasions.  There  was  a  somewhat  high  proportion  of 
Fellow-Commoners, — eight  or  nine,  to  sixty  or  seventy  Pen- 
sioners, and  this  would  indicate  that  it  was  not  an  unpleasant 
college  for  men  with  money  to  spend  and  with  no  great  love 
of  strict  discipline. 

The  way  in  which  the  service  was  conducted  in  chapel 
shows  that  the  Dean,  at  least,  was  not  over  zealous.  I  have 
heard  my  father  tell  how  at  evening  chapel  the  Dean  used  to 
read  alternate  verses  of  the  Psalms,  without  making  even  a 
pretence  of  waiting  for  the  congregation  to  take  their  share. 
And  when  the  Lesson  was  a  lengthy  one,  he  would  rise  and 
go  on  with  the  Canticles  after  the  scholar  had  read  fifteen  or 
twenty  verses. 

It  is  curious  that  my  father  often  spoke  of  his  Cambridge 
life  as  if  it  had  been  so  much  time  wasted,  forgetting  that, 
although  the  set  studies  of  the  place  were  barren  enough  for 
him,  he  yet  gained  in  the  highest  degree  the  best  advantages 
of  a  University  life — the  contact  with  men  and  an  opportunity 
for  his  mind  to  grow  vigorously.  It  is  true  that  he  valued 
at  its  highest  the  advantages  which  he  gained  from  associating 
with  Professor  Henslow  and  some  others,  but  he  seemed  to 
consider  this  as  a  chance  outcome  of  his  life  at  Cambridge, 
not  an  advantage  for  which  A/ma  Mater  could  claim  any 
credit.  One  of  my  father's  Cambridge  friends  was  the  late 
Mr.  J.  M.  Herbert,  County  Court  Judge  for  South  Wales, 
from  whom  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  some  notes 
which  help  us  to  gain  an  idea  of  how  my  father  impressed 
his  contemporaries.  Mr.  Herbert  writes  :  **  I  think  it  was  in 
the   spring  of  1828  that  I  first  met   Darwin,  either   at   my 


142  CAMBRIDGE.     .ETAT.   19-22. 

cousin  Whitley's  rooms  in  St  John's,  or  at  the  rooms  of  some 
other  of  his  old  Shrewsbury  schoolfellows,  with  many  of 
whom  I  was  on  terms  of  great  intimacy.  But  it  certainly  was 
in  the  summer  of  that  year  that  our  acquaintance  ripened 
into  intimacy,  when  we  happened  to  be  together  at  Barmouth, 
for  the  Long  Vacation,  reading  with  private  tutors, — he  with 
Betterton  of  St.  John's,  his  Classical  and  Mathematical  Tutor, 
and  I  with  Yate  of  St.  John's." 

The  intercourse  between  them  practically  ceased  in  1831, 
when  my  father  said  good-bye  to  Herbert  at  Cambridge,  on 
starting  on  his  Beagle  voyage.  I  once  met  Mr.  Herbert,  then 
almost  an  old  man,  and  I  was  much  struck  by  the  evident 
warmth  and  freshness  of  the  affection  with  which  he  remem- 
bered my  father.  The  notes  from  which  I  quote  end  with 
this  warm-hearted  eulogium  :  "  It  would  be  idle  for  me  to 
speak  of  his  vast  intellectual  powers  .  .  .  but  I  cannot  end 
this  cursory  and  rambling  sketch  without  testifying,  and  I 
doubt  not  all  his  surviving  college  friends  would  concur  with 
me,  that  he  was  the  most  genial,  warm-hearted,  generous,  and 
affectionate  of  friends ;  that  his  sympathies  were  with  all  that 
was  good  and  true;  and  that  he  had  a  cordial  hatred  for 
everything  false,  or  vile,  or  cruel,  or  mean,  or  dishonourable. 
He  was  not  only  great,  but  pre-eminently  good,  and  just,  and 
loveable." 

Two  anecdotes  told  by  Mr.  Herbert  show  that  my  father's 
feeling  for  suifering,  whether  of  man  or  beast,  was  as  strong 
in  him  as  a  young  man  as  it  was  in  later  years  :  "  Before  he 
left  Cambridge  he  told  me  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  not 
to  shoot  any  more  ;  that  he  had  had  two  days'  shooting  at  his| 
friend's,  Mr.  Owen  of  Woodhouse  :  and  that  on  the  second 
day,  when  going  over  some  of  the  ground  they  had  beaten 
on  the  day  before,  he  picked  up  a  bird  not  quite  dead,  but 
lingering  from  a  shot  it  had  received  on  the  previous  day;; 
and  that  it  had  made  and  left  such  a  painful  impression  on 
his  mind,  that  he  could  not  reconcile  it  to  his  conscience  toj 
continue  to  derive  pleasure  from  a  sport  w^hich  inflicted  such| 
cruel  suffering." 


MR.    HERBERT'S   RECOLLECTIONS.  I43 

To  realise  the  strength  of  the  feeling  that  led  to  this  re- 
solve, we  must  remember  how  passionate  was  his  love  of  sport. 
We  must  recall  the  boy  shooting  his  first  snipe,*  and  trembling 
with  excitement  so  that  he  could  hardly  reload  his  gun.  Or 
think  of  such  a  sentence  as,  "  Upon  my  soul,  it  is  only  about 
a  fortnight  to  the  *  First,'  then  if  there  is  a  bliss  on  earth  that 

isit."t 

Another  anecdote  told  by  Mr.  Herbert  illustrates  again 

his  tenderness  of  heart: — 

'*  When  at  Barmouth  he  and  I  went  to  an  exhibition  of 
Mearned  dogs.*  In  the  middle  of  the  entertainment  one  of 
the  dogs  failed  in  performing  the  trick  his  master  told  him  to 
do.  On  the  man  reproving  him,  the  dog  put  on  a  most 
piteous  expression,  as  if  in  fear  of  the  whip.  Darwin  seeing 
it,  asked  me  to  leave  with  him,  saying,  'Come  along,  I  can*t 
stand  this  any  longer ;  how  those  poor  dogs  must  have  been 
licked.'" 

It  is  curious  that  the  same  feeling  recurred  to  my  father 
more  than  fifty  years  afterwards,  on  seeing  some  performing 
dogs  at  the  Westminster  Aquarium  ;  on  this  occasion  he  was 
reassured  by  the  manager  telling  him  that  the  dogs  were 
taught  more  by  reward  than  by  punishment.  Mr.  Herbert 
goes  on  : — ''  It  stirred  one's  inmost  depth  of  feeling  to  hear 
him  descant  upon,  and  groan  over,  the  horrors  of  the  slave- 
trade,  or  the  cruelties  to  which  the  suffering  Poles  were  sub- 
jected to  at  Warsaw.  .  .  .  These,  and  other  like  proofs  have 
t  left  on  my  mind  the  conviction  that  a  more  humane  or  tender- 
hearted man  never  lived." 

His  old  college  friends  agree  in  speaking  with  affectionate 
warmth  of  his  pleasant,  genial  temper  as  a  young  man.  From 
what  they  have  been  able  to  tell  me,  I  gain  the  impression  of 
a  young  man  overflowing  with  animal  spirits — leading  a  varied 
healthy  life — not  over-industrious  in  the  set  studies  of  the 
place,  but  full  of  other  pursuits,  which  were  followed  with  a 


*  *  Recollections,*  p.  34. 

t  Letter  from  C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox. 


lAA  CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.   19-22. 

rejoicing  enthusiasm.  Entomology,  riding,  shooting  in  the 
fens,  suppers  and  card-playing,  music  at  King's  Chapel,  en- 
gravings at  the  Fitzwilliam  Museum,  walks  with  Professor 
Henslow — all  combined  to  fill  up  a  happy  life.  He  seems  to 
have  infected  others  with  his  enthusiasm.  Mr.  Herbert  re- 
lates how,  during  the  same  Barmouth  summer,  he  was  pressed 
into  the  service  of  "  the  science  '' — as  my  father  called  col- 
lecting beetles.  They  took  their  daily  walks  together  among 
the  hills  behind  Barmouth,  or  boated  in  the  Mawddach  estu- 
ary, or  sailed  to  Sam  Badrig  to  land  there  at  low  water,  or 
went  fly-fishing  in  the  Cors-y-gedol  lakes.  *^  On  these  occa- 
sions Darwin  entomologized  most  industriously,  picking  up 
creatures  as  he  walked  along,  and  bagging  everything  which 
seemed  worthy  of  being  pursued,  or  of  further  examination. 
And  very  soon  he  armed  me  with  a  bottle  of  alcohol,  in  which 
I  had  to  drop  any  beetle  which  struck  me  as  not  of  a  common 
kind.  I  performed  this  duty  with  some  diligence  in  my  con- 
stitutional walks ;  but  alas  !  my  powers  of  discrimination  sel- 
dom enabled  me  to  secure  a  prize — the  usual  result,  on  his 
examining  the  contents  of  my  bottle,  being  an  exclamation, 
*  Well,  old  Cherbury '  *  (the  nickname  he  gave  me,  and  by 
which  he  usually  addressed  me),  ^  none  of  these  will  do.'  " 
Again,  the  Rev.  T.  Butler,  who  was  one  of  the  Barmouth 
reading-party  in  1828,  says  :  ^*  He  inoculated  me  with  a  taste. 
for  Botany  which  has  stuck  by  me  all  my  life." 

Archdeacon  Watkins,  another  old  college  friend  of  my 
father's,  remembers  him  unearthing  beetles  in  the  willows 
between  Cambridge  and  Grantchester,  and  speaks  of  a  certain 
beetle  the  remembrance  of  whose  name  is  "  Crux  major."  f 
How  enthusiastically  must  my  father  have  exulted  over  this 
beetle  to  have  impressed  its  name  on  a  companion  so  that  he 
remembers  it  after  half  a  century !  Archdeacon  Watkins  goes 
on  :  "I  do  not  forget  the  long  and  very  interesting  conversa- 
tions that  we  had  about  Brazilian  scenery  and  tropical  vege- 

*  No  doubt  in  allusion  to  the  title  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury. 
f  FanagcBus  crux-major. 


FRIENDS.  1^5 

tation  of  all  sorts.  Nor  do  I  forget  the  way  and  the  vehe- 
mence with  which  he  rubbed  his  chin  when  he  got  excited 
on  such  subjects,  and  discoursed  eloquently  of  lianas,  or- 
chids, &c/' 

He  became  intimate  with  Henslow,  the  Professor  of 
Botany,  and  through  him  with  some  other  older  members  of 
the  University.  "  But,'*  Mr.  Herbert  writes,  "  he  always  kept 
up  the  closest  connection  with  the  friends  of  his  own  standing ; 
and  at  our  frequent  social  gatherings — at  breakfast,  wine  or 
upper  parties — he  was  ever  one  of  the  most  cheerful,  the 
most  popular,  and  the  most  welcome." 

My  father  formed  one  of  a  club  for  dining  once  a  week, 
ailed  the  Gourmet  ^  Club,  the  members,  besides  himself  and 
Mr.  Herbert  (from  whom  I  quote),  being  Whitley  of  St.  John's, 
ow  Honorary  Canon  of  Durham  ;  f  Heaviside  of  Sidney, 
now  Canon  of  Norwich ;  Lovett  Cameron  of  Trinity,  now 
vicar  of  Shoreham ;  Blane  of  Trinity,  who  held  a  high  post 
during  the  Crimean  war;  H.  Lowe  J  (now  Sherbrooke)  of 
Trinity  Hall  ;  and  Watkins  of  Emmanuel,  now  Archdeacon 
Df  York.  The  origin  of  the  club's  name  seems  already  to 
lave  become  involved  in  obscurity.  Mr.  Herbert  says  that  it 
iivas  chosen  in  derision  of  another  ''  set  of  men  who  called 
hemselves  by  along  Greek  name  signifying  '  fond  of  dainties,' 
ut  who  falsified  their  claim  to  such  a  designation  by  their 
eekly  practice  of  dining  at  some  roadside  inn,  six  miles  from 
ambridge,  on  mutton  chops  or  beans  and  bacon."  Another 
)ld  member  of  the  club  tells  me  that  the  name  arose  because 
:he  members  were  given  to  making  experiments  on  '^  birds 
|ind  beasts,  which  were  before  unknown  to  human  palate." 
e  says  that  hawk  and  bittern  were  tried,  and  that  their  zeal 
roke  down  over  an  old  brown  owl,  ''  which  was  indescrib- 
ble."  At  any  rate,  the  meetings  seemed  to  have  been  suc- 
cessful, and  to  have  ended  with  ''  a  game  of  mild  vingt-et-un." 

*  Mr.  Herbert  mentions  the  name  as  *  The  Glutton  Club.' 
f  Formerly  Reader  in  Natural  Philosophy  at  Durham  University. 
X  Brother  of  Lord  Sherbrooke. 
3 


1^6  CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.   19-22. 

Mr.  Herbert  gives  an  amusing  account  of  the  musical 
examinations  described  by  my  father  in  his  ^Recollections.' 
Mr.  Herbert  speaks  strongly  of  his  love  of  music,  and  adds, 
*'  What  gave  him  the  greatest  delight  was  some  grand  sym- 
phony or  overture  of  Mozart's  or  Beethoven's,  with  their  full 
harmonies.  On  one  occasion  Herbert  remembers  "  accom- 
panying him  to  the  afternoon  service  at  King's,  when  we  heard 
a  very  beautiful  anthem.  At  the  end  of  one  of  the  parts, 
which  was  exceedingly  impressive,  he  turned  round  to  me 
and  said,  with  a  deep  sigh,  *  How's  your  backbone  }  '  "  He 
often  spoke  of  a  feeling  of  coldness  or  shivering  in  his  back 
on  hearing  beautiful  music. 

Besides  a  love  of  music,  he  had  certainly  at  this  time  a 
love  of  fine  literature  ;  and  Mr.  Cameron  tells  me  that  he  used 
to  read  Shakespeare  to  my  father  in  his  rooms  at  Christ's, 
who  took  much  pleasure  in  it.  He  also  speaks  of  his  "great 
liking  for  first-class  line  engravings,  especially  those  of  Ra- 
phael Morghen  and  Miiller  ;  and  he  spent  hours  in  the  Fitz- 
william  Museum  in  looking  over  the  prints  in  that  collection." 

My  father's  letters  to  Fox  show  how  sorely  oppressed 
he  felt  by  the  reading  of  an  examination  :  *'  I  am  reading 
very  hard,  and  have  spirits  for  nothing.  I  actually  have  not 
stuck  a  beetle  this  term."  His  despair  over  mathematics  must 
have  been  profound,  when  he  expressed  a  hope  that  Fox's 
silence  is  due  to  "  your  being  ten  fathoms  deep  in  the  Mathe- 
matics ;  and  if  you  are,  God  help  you,  for  so  am  I,  only  with 
this  difference,  I  stick  fast  in  the  mud  at  the  bottom,  and 
there  I  shall  remain."  Mr.  Herbert  says  :  "  He  had,  I  im- 
agine, no  natural  turn  for  mathematics,  and  he  gave  up  his 
mathematical  reading  before  he  had  mastered  the  first  part 
of  Algebra,  having  had  a  special  quarrel  with  Surds  and  the 
Binomial  Theorem." 

We  get  some  evidence  from  his  letters  to  Fox  of  my 
father's  intention  of  going  into  the  Church.  '^  I  am  glad," 
he  writes,*  "  to  hear  that  you  are  reading  divinity.     I  should 

*  March  18,  1829. 


W.    D.    FOX.  147 

like  to  know  what  books  you  are  reading,  and  your  opinions 
about  them ;  you  need  not  be  afraid  of  preaching  to  me  pre- 
maturely.** Mr.  Herbert's  sketch  shows  how  doubts  arose  in 
my  father's  mind  as  to  the  possibility  of  his  taking  Orders. 
He  writes,  "  We  had  an  earnest  conversation  about  going  into 
Holy  Orders ;  and  I  remember  his  asking  me,  with  reference 
to  the  question  put  by  the  Bishop  in  the  ordination  service, 
*  Do  you  trust  that  you  are  inwardly  moved  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  &c.,'  whether  I  could  answer  in  the  affirmative,  and  on 
my  saying  I  could  not,  he  said,  *  Neither  can  I,  and  therefore 
I  cannot  take  orders.'  "  This  conversation  appears  to  have 
taken  place  in  1829,  and  if  so,  the  doubts  here  expressed 
must  have  been  quieted,  for  in  May  1830,  he  speaks  of  having 
some  thoughts  of  reading  divinity  with  Henslow. 

The  greater  number  of  the  following  letters  are  addressed 
by  my  father  to  his  cousin,  William  Darwin  Fox.  Mr.  Fox's 
relationship  to  my  father  is  shown  in  the  pedigree  given  in 
Chapter  I.  The  degree  of  kinship  appears  to  have  remained 
a  problem  to  my  father,  as    he    signs  himself  in  one  letter 

*^  Their  friendship  was,  in  fact,  due  to  their  being 


fi" 


undergraduates  together.  My  father's  letters  show  clearly 
enough  how  genuine  the  friendship  was.  In  after  years,  dis- 
tance, large  families,  and  ill-health  on  both  sides,  checked  the 
intercourse  ;  but  a  warm  feeling  of  friendship  remained.  The 
correspondence  was  never  quite  dropped  and  continued  till 
Mr.  Fox's  death  in  1880.  Mr.  Fox  took  orders,  and  worked 
as  a  country  clergyman  until  forced  by  ill-health  to  leave 
his  living  in  Delamere  Forest.  His  love  of  natural  history 
remained  strong,  and  he  became  a  skilled  fancier  of  many 
kinds  of  birds,  &c.  The  index  to  ^  Animals  and  Plants,'  and 
my  father's  later  correspondence,  show  how  much  help  he 
received  from  his  old  College  friend.] 


148  CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.   19-22.  [182S. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  M,  Herbert. 

Saturday  Evening 

[September  14,  1828]."^ 

My  dear  old  Cherbury, 

I  am  about  to  fulfil  my  promise  of  writing  to  you,  but 
I  am  sorry  to  add  there  is  a  very  selfish  motive  at  the  bottom. 
I  am  going  to  ask  you  a  great  favour,  and  you  cannot  imagine 
how  much  you  will  oblige  me  by  procuring  some  more  speci- 
mens of  some  insects  which  I  dare  say  I  can  describe.  In 
the  first  place,  I  must  inform  you  that  I  have  taken  some  of 
the  rarest  of  the  British  Insects,  and  their  being  found  near 
Barmouth,  is  quite  unknown  to  the  Entomological  world  :  I 
think  I  shall  write  and  inform  some  cf  the  crack  entomol- 
ogists. 

But  now  for  business.  Several  vaoxQ  specimens,  if  you  can 
procure  them  without  much  trouble,  of  the  following  insects: — 
The  violet-black  coloured  beetle,  found  on  Craig  Storm,f 
under  stones,  also  a  large  smooth  black  one  very  like  it  ;  a 
bluish  metallic-coloured  dung-beetle,  which  is  very  common 
on  the  hill-sides ;  also,  if  you  would  be  so  very  kind  as  to 
cross  the  ferry,  and  you  will  find  a  great  number  under  the 
stones  on  the  waste  land  of  a  long,  smooth,  jet-black  beetle 
(a  great  many  of  these) ;  also,  in  the  same  situation,  a  very 
small  pinkish  insect,  with  black  spots,  with  a  curved  thorax 
projecting  beyond  the  head;  also,  upon  the  marshy  land  over 
the  ferry,  near  the  sea,  under  old  sea-weed,  stones,  &c.,  you 
will  find  a  small  yellowish  transparent  beetle,  with  two  or  four 
blackish  marks  on  the  back.  Under  these  stones  there  are 
two  sorts,  one  much  darker  than  the  other  ;  the  lighter-col- 
oured is  that  which  I  want.  These  last  two  insects  are  ex- 
cessively rare^  and  you  will  really  extremely  oblige  me  by  taking 
all  this  trouble  pretty  soon.     Remember  me  most  kindly  to 

*  The  postmark  being  Derby  seems  to  show  that  the  letter  was  written 
from  his  cousin,  W.  D.  Fox's  house,  Osmaston,  near  Derby. 

f  The  top  of  the  hill  immediately  behind  Barmouth  was  called  Craig- 
Storm,  a  hybrid  Cambro-English  word. 


1829]  SHOOTING.  I^g 

Butler,  tell  him  of  my  success,  and  I  dare  say  both  of  you  will 
easily  recognise  these  insects.  I  hope  his  caterpillars  go  on 
well.  I  think  many  of  the  Chrysalises  are  well  worth  keeping. 
I  really  am  quite  ashamed  [of]  so  long  a  letter  all  about  my 
own  concerns  ;  but  do  return  good  for  evil,  and  send  me  a 
long  account  of  all  your  proceedings. 

In  the  first  week  I  killed  seventy-five  head  of  game — a 
very  contemptible  number — but  there  are  very  few  birds.  I 
killed,  however,  a  brace  of  black  game.  Since  then  I  have 
been  staying  at  the  Fox's,  near  Derby  ;  it  is  a  very  pleasant 
house,  and  the  music  meeting  went  off  very  well.  I  want  to 
hear  how  Yates  likes  his  gun,  and  what  use  he  has  made  of  it. 

If  the  bottle  is  not  large   you  can  buy  another  for  me, 

and  when  you  pass  through  Shrewsbury  you  can  leave  these 

treasures,  and  I  hope,  if  you  possibly  can,  you  will  stay  a  day 

or  two  with  me,  as  I  hope  I  need  not  say  how  glad  I  shall  be 

to  see  you  again.     Fox  remarked  what  deuced  good-natured 

fellows  your  friends  at  Barmouth  must  be  ;   and  if  I  did  not 

know  that  you  and  Butler  were  so,  I  would  not  think  of  giving 

you  so  much  trouble. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  Herbert, 

Yours,  most  sincerely, 

Charles  Darwin. 
Remember  me  to  all  friends. 

[In  the  following  January  we  find  him  looking  forward 
with  pleasure  to  the  beginning  of  another  year  of  his  Cam- 
bridge life  :  he  writes  to  Fox — 

"  I  waited  till  to-day  for  the  chance  of  a  letter,  but  I 
will  wait  no  longer.  I  must  most  sincerely  and  cordially 
congratulate  you  on  having  finished  all  your  labours.  I  think 
your  place  a  very  good  one  considering  by  how  much  you 
have  beaten  many  men  who  had  the  start  of  you  in  reading. 
I  do  so  wish  I  were  now  in  Cambridge  (a  very  selfish  wish, 
however,  as  I  was  not  with  you  in  all  your  troubles  and 
misery),  to  join  in  all  the  glory  and  happiness,  which  dangers 


I50  CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.   19-22.  [1829. 

gone  by  can  give.  How  we  would  talk,  walk,  and  entomolo- 
gise  !  Sappho  should  be  the  best  of  bitches,  and  Dash,  of 
dogs  :  then  should  be  ^  peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men,' — 
which,  by  the  way,  I  always  think  the  most  perfect  descrip- 
tion of  happiness  that  words  can  give."] 


C.  Darwin  to  W,  D.  Fox, 

Cambridge,  Thursday  [February  26,  1S29]. 

My  dear  Fox, 

When  I  arrived  here  on  Tuesday  I  found  to  my  great 
grief  and  surprise,  a  letter  on  my  table  which  I  had  written  to 
you  about  a  fortnight  ago,  the  stupid  porter  never  took  the 
trouble  of  getting  the  letter  forwarded.  I  suppose  you  have 
been  abusing  me  for  a  most  ungrateful  wretch ;  but  I  am  sure 
you  will  pity  me  now,  as  nothing  is  so  vexatious  as  having 
written  a  letter  in  vain. 

Last  Thursday  I  left  Shrewsbury  for  London,  and  stayed 
there  till  Tuesday,  on  which  I  came  down  here  by  the  ^  Times.* 
The  first  two  days  I  spent  entirely  with  Mr.  Hope,*  and  did 
little  else  but  talk  about  and  look  at  insects ;  his  collection  is 
most  magnificent,  and  he  himself  is  the  most  generous  of 
entomologists  ;  he  has  given  me  about  160  new  species,  and 
actually  often  wanted  to  give  me  the  rarest  insects  of  which 
he  had  only  two  specimens.  He  made  many  civil  speeches, 
and  hoped  you  will  call  on  him  some  time  with  me,  whenever 
we  should  happen  to  be  in  London.  He  greatly  compliments 
our  exertions  in  Entomology,  and  says  we  have  taken  a  won- 
derfully great  number  of  good  insects.  On  Sunday  I  spent 
the  day  with  Holland,  who  lent  me  a  horse  to  ride  in  the  Park 
with. 

On  Monday  evening  I  drank  tea   with  Stephens  ;  f    his 


*  Founder  of  the  Chair  of  Zoology  at  Oxford. 
.     t  J-  F.  Stephens,  author  of   *  A  Manual  of  British  Colcoptera/  1839: 
and  other  works. 


1829.]  SHOOTING.  151 

cabinet  is  more  magnificent  than  the  most  zealous  entomolo- 
gist could  dream  of;  he  appears  to  be  a  very  good-humoured 
pleasant  little  man.  Whilst  in  town  I  went  to  the  Royal 
Institution,  Linnean  Society,  and  Zoological  Gardens,  and 
many  other  places  where  naturalists  are  gregarious.  If  you 
had  been  with  me,  I  think  London  would  be  a  very  delightful 
place  ;  as  things  were,  it  was  much  pleasanter  than  I  could 
have  supposed  such  a  dreary  wilderness  of  houses  to  be. 

I  shot  whilst  in  Shrewsbury  a  Dundiver  (female  Goo- 
sander, as  I  suppose  you  know).  Shaw  has  stuffed  it,  and 
when  I  have  an  opportunity  I  will  send  it  to  Osmaston. 
There  have  been  shot  also  five  Waxen  Chatterers,  three  of 
which  Shaw  has  for  sale  ;  would  you  like  to  purchase  a 
specimen?  I  have  not  yet  thanked  you  for  your  last  very 
long  and  agreeable  letter.  It  would  have  been  still  more 
agreeable  had  it  contained  the  joyful  intelligence  that  you 
were  coming  up  here  ;  my  two  solitary  breakfasts  have  already 
made  me  aware  how  very  very  much  I  shall  miss  you. 

*  *  4V  *  * 

Believe  me, 

•    My  dear  old  Fox, 

Most  sincerely  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

[Later  on  in  the  Lent  term  he  writes  to  Fox  : — 

**  I  am  leading  a  quiet  everyday  sort  of  a  life  ;  a  little  of 
Gibbon's  History  in  the  morning,  and  a  good  deal  of  Van 
John  in  the  evening ;  this,  with  an  occasional  ride  with  Sim- 
cox  and  constitutional  with  Whitley,  makes  up  the  regular 
routine  of  my  days.  I  see  a  good  deal  both  of  Herbert  and 
Whitley,  and  the  more  I  see  of  them  increases  every  day  the 
respect  I  have  for  their  excellent  understandings  and  disposi- 
tions. They  have  been  giving  some  very  gay  parties,  nearly 
sixty  men  there  both  evenings."] 


152  CAMBRIDGE.     .-ETAT.   19-22.  [1829. 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  £>.  Fox. 

Christ's  College  [Cambridge],  April  i  [1829]. 

My  dear  Fox, 

In  your  letter  to  Holden  you  aie  pleased  to  observe  '^that 
of  all  the  blackguards  you  ever  met  with  I  am  the  greatest.'* 
Upon  this  observation  I  shall  make  no  remarks,  excepting 
that  I  must  give  you  all  due  credit  for  acting  on  it  most  rig- 
idly. And  now  I  should  like  to  know  in  what  one  particular 
are  you  less  of  a  blackguard  than  I  am  ?  You  idle  old  wretch, 
why  have  you  not  answered  my  last  letter,  which  I  am  sure 
I  forwarded  to  Clifton  nearly  three  weeks  ago  ?  If  I  was  not 
really  very  anxious  to  hear  what  you  are  doing,  I  should  have 
allowed  you  to  remain  till  you  thought  it  worth  while  to  treat 
me  like  a  gentleman.  And  now  having  vented  my  spleen  in 
scolding  you,  and  having  told  you,  what  you  must  know,  how 
very  much  and  how  anxiously  I  want  to  hear  how  you  and 
your  family  are  getting  on  at  Clifton,  the  purport  of  this  letter 
is  finished.  If  you  did  but  know  how  often  I  think  of  you, 
and  how  often  I  regret  your  absence,  I  am  sure  1  should  have 
heard  from  you  long  enough  ago. 

I  find  Cambridge  rather  stupid,  and  as  I  know  scarcely  any 
one  that  walks,  and  this  joined  with  my  lips  not  being  quite 
so  well,  has  reduced  me  to  a  sort  of  hybernation.  ...  I  have 

caught  Mr.  Harbour  letting have  the  first  pick  of  the 

beetles ;  accordingly  we  have  made  our  final  adieus,  my  part 
in  the  affecting  scene  consisted  in  telling  him  he  was  a  d — d 
rascal,  and  signifying  I  should  kick  him  down  the  stairs  if 
ever  he  appeared  in  my  rooms  again.  It  seemed  altogether 
mightily  to  surprise  the  young  gentleman.  I  have  no  news 
to  tell  you  ;  indeed,  when  a  correspondence  has  been  broken 
off  like  ours  has  been,  it  is  difficult  to  make  the  first  start 
again.  Last  night  there  was  a  terrible  fire  at  Linton,  eleven 
miles  from  Cambridge.  Seeing  the  reflection  so  plainly  in 
the  sky,  Hall,  Woodyeare,  Turner,  and  myself  thought  we 
would  ride  and  see  it.  We  set  out  at  half-past  nine,  and  rode 
like  incarnate  devils  there,  and  did  not  return  till  two  in  the 


1829.]  CONDOLENCE.  1 53 

morning.  Altogether  it  was  a  most  awful  sight.  I  cannot 
conclude  without  telling  you,  that  of  all  the  blackguards  I 
ever  met  with,  you  are  the  greatest  and  the  best. 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox, 

[Cambridge,  Thursday,  April  23,  1829.] 

My  dear  Fox, 

I  have  delayed  answering  your  last  letter  for  these  few 
days,  as  I  thought  that  under  such  melancholy  circumstances 
my  writing  to  you  would  be  probably  only  giving  you  trouble. 
This  morning  I  received  a  letter  from  Catherine  informing  me 
of  that  event,^  which,  indeed,  from  your  letter,  I  had  hardly 
dared  to  hope  would  have  happened  otherwise.  I  feel  most 
sincerely  and  deeply  for  you  and  all  your  family  ;  but  at  the 
same  time,  as  far  as  any  one  can,  by  his  own  good  principles 
and  religion,  be  supported  under  such  a  misfortune,  you,  I 
am  assured,  will  know  where  to  look  for  such  support.  And 
after  so  pure  and  holy  a  comfort  as  the  Bible  affords,  I  am 
equally  assured  how  useless  the  sympathy  of  all  friends  must 
appear,  although  it  be  as  heartfelt  and  sincere,  as  I  hope  you 
believe  me  capable  of  feeling.  At  such  a  time  of  deep  dis- 
tress I  will  say  nothing  more,  excepting  that  I  trust  your  father 
and  Mrs.  Fox  bear  this  blow  as  well  as,  under  such  circum- 
stances, can  be  hoped  for. 

I  am  afraid  it  will  be  a  long  time,  my  dear  Fox,  before 
we  meet ;  till  then,  believe  me  at  all  times. 

Yours  most  affectionately, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox. 

Shrewsbury,  Friday  [July  4,  1829]. 

My  dear  Fox, 

I  should  have  written  to  you  before  only  that  whilst  our 
expedition  lasted  I  was  too  much  engaged,  and  the  conclu- 

*  The  death  of  Fox's  sister,  Mrs.  Bristowe. 


154  CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.   19-22.  [182Q. 

sion  was  so  unfortunate,  that  I  was  too  unhappy  to  write  to 
you  till  this  week's  quiet  at  home.  The  thoughts  of  Wood- 
house  next  week  has  at  last  given  me  courage  to  relate  my 
unfortunate  case. 

I  started  from  this  place  about  a  fortnight  ago  to  take  an 
entomological  trip  with  Mr.  Hope  through  all  North  Wales ; 
and  Barmouth  was  our  first  destination.  The  two  first  days 
I  went  on  pretty  well,  taking  several  good  insects  ;  but  for 
the  rest  of  that  week  my  lips  became  suddenly  so  bad,*  and 
I  myself  not  very  well,  that  I  was  unable  to  leave  the  room, 
and  on  the  Monday  I  retreated  with  grief  and  sorrow  back 
again  to  Shrewsbury.  The  first  two  days  I  took  some  good 
insects.  .  .  .  But  the  days  that  I  was  unable  to  go  out,  Mr. 
Hope  did  wonders  ....  and  to-day  I  have  received  another 
parcel  of  insects  from  him,  such  Colymbetes,  such  Carabi,  and 
such  magnificent  Elaters  (two  species  of  the  bright  scarlet 
sort).  I  am  sure  you  will  properly  sympathise  with  my  un- 
fortunate situation  :  I  am  determined  I  will  go  over  the  same 
ground  that  he  does  before  autumn  comes,  and  if  working 
hard  will  procure  insects  I  will  bring  home  a  glorious  stock. 
***** 

My  dear  Fox, 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

Chas.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  B,  Fox. 

Shrewsbury,  July  18,  1829. 
I  am  going  to  Maer  next  week  in  order  to  entomologise, 
and  shall  stay  there  a  week,  and  for  the  rest  of  this  summer 
I  intend  to  lead  a  perfectly  idle  and  wandering  life.  .  .  . 
You  see  I  am  much  in  the  same  state  that  you  are,  with  this 
difference,  you  make  good  resolutions  and  never  keep  them  ; 
I  never  make  them,  so  cannot  keep  them  ;  it  is  all  very  well 
writing  in  this  manner,  but  I  must  read  for  my  Little-go. 
Graham  smiled  and  bowed  so  very  civilly,  when  he  told  nie 

*  Probably  with  eczema,  from  which  he  often  suffered. 


1829.1  MUSIC.  i»55 

that  he  was  one  of  the  six  appointed  to  make  the  examination 
stricter,  and  that  they  were  determined  this  would  make  it  a 
very  different  thing  from  any  previous  examination,  that  from 
all  this  I  am  sure  it  will  be  the  very  devil  to  pay  amongst  all 
idle  men  and  entomologists.  Erasmus,  we  expect  home  in  a 
few  weeks'  time  :  he  intends  passing  next  winter  in  Paris.  Be 
sure  you  order  the  two  lists  of  insects  published  by  Stephens, 
one  printed  on  both  sides,  and  the  other  only  on  one  ;  you 
will  find  them  very  useful  in  many  points  of  view. 

Dear  old  Fox,  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 


C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox. 

Christ's  College,  Thursday  [October  16,  1829]. 

My  dear  Fox, 

I  am  afraid  you  will  be  very  angry  with  me  for  not  having 
written  during  the  Music  Meeting,  but  really  I  was  worked 
so  hard  that  I  had  no  time  ;  I  arrived  here  on  Monday  and 
found  my  rooms  in  dreadful  confusion,  as  they  have  been 
taking  up  the  floor,  and  you  may  suppose  that  I  have  had 
plenty  to  do  for  these  two  days.  The  Music  Meeting  *  was 
the  most  glorious  thing  I  ever  experienced  ;  and  as  for  Mali- 
bran,  words  cannot  praise  her  enough,  she  is  quite  the  most 
charming  person  I  ever  saw.  We  had  extracts  out  of  several 
of  the  best  operas,  acted  in  character,  and  you  cannot  imagine 
how  very  superior  it  made  the  concerts  to  any  I  ever  heard 
before.  J.  de  Begnis  \  acted  ^  II  Fanatico  '  in  character  ;  be- 
ing dressed  up  an  extraordinary  figure  gives  a  much  greater 
effect  to  his  acting.  He  kept  the  whole  theatre  in  roars  of 
laughter.  I  liked  Madame  Blasis  very  much,  but  nothing 
will  do  after  Malibran,  who  sung  some  comic  songs,  and  [a] 
person's  heart  must  have  been  made  of  stone  not  to  have  lost 
it  to  her.  I  lodged  very  near  the  Wedgwoods,  and  lived 
entirely  with  them,  which  was  very  pleasant,  and  had  you 


*  At  Birmingham.  f  De  Begnis's  Christian  name  was  Giuseppe. 


156  CAMBRIDGE,     .-ETAT.   19-22.  [1830. 

been  there  it  would  have  been  quite  perfect.     It  knocked  me 

up  most  dreadfully,  and  I  will  never  attempt  again  to  do  two 

things  the  same  day. 

*  ^  *  *  * 

C.  Darwin  to  W,  D,  Fox. 

[Cambridge]  Thursday  [March,  1830]. 
My  dear  Fox, 

I  am  through  my  Little-Go  !  !  !  I  am  too  much  exalted  to 
humble  myself  by  apologising  for  not  having  written  before. 
But  I  assure  you  before  I  went  in,  and  when  my  nerves  were 
in  a  shattered  and  weak  condition,  your  injured  person  often 
rose  before  my  eyes  and  taunted  me  with  my  idleness.  But  I 
am  through,  through,  through.  I  could  write  the  whole  sheet 
full  with  this  delightful  word.  I  went  in  yesterday,  and  have 
just  heard  the  joyful  news.  I  shall  not  know  for  a  week 
which  class  I  am  in.  The  whole  examination  is  carried  on  in 
a  different  system.  It  has  one  grand  advantage — being  over 
in  one  day.  They  are  rather  strict,  and  ask  a  wonderful 
number  of  questions. 

And  now  I  want  to  know  something  about  your  plans ;  of 
course  you  intend  coming  up  here  :  what  fun  we  will  have 
together ;  what  beetles  we  will  catch ;  it  will  do  my  heart 
good  to  go  once  more  together  to  some  of  our  old  haunts.  I 
have  two  very  promising  pupils  in  Entomology,  and  we  will 
make  regular  campaigns  into  the  Fens.  Heaven  protect  the 
beetles  and  Mr.  Jenyns,  for  we  won't  leave  him  a  pair  in  the 
whole  country.  My  new  Cabinet  is  come  down,  and  a  gay 
little  affair  it  is. 

And  now  for  the  time — I  think  I  shall  go  for  a  few  days 
to  town  to  hear  an  opera  and  see  Mr.  Hope ;  not  to  mention 
my  brother  also,  whom  I  should  have  no  objection  to  see. 
If  I  go  pretty  soon,  you  can  come  afterwards,  but  if  you  will 
settle  your  plans  definitely,  I  will  arrange  mine,  so  send  me  a 
letter  by  return  of  post.  And  I  charge  you  let  it  be  favour- 
able— that  is  to  say,  come  directly.  Holden  has  been  or- 
dained, and  drove  the  Coach  out  on  the  Monday.     I  do  not 


l830.]  BEETLE   COLLECTING.  1 57 

think  he  is  looking  very  well.  Chapman  wants  you  and 
myself  to  pay  him  a  visit  when  you  come  up,  and  begs  to  be 
remembered  to  you.  You  must  excuse  this  short  letter,  as  I 
have  no  end  more  to  send  off  by  this  day's  post.  I  long  to 
see  you  again,  and  till  then. 

My  dear  good  old  Fox, 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

[In  August  he  was  in  North  Wales  and  wrote  to  Fox : — 
"  I  have  been  intending  to  write  every  hour  for  the  last 
fortnight,  but  really  have  had  no  time.  I  left  Shrewsbury  this 
day  fortnight  ago,  and  have  since  that  time  been  working 
from  morning  to  night  in  catching  fish  or  beetles.  This  is 
literally  the  first  idle  day  I  have  had  to  myself ;  for  on  the 
rainy  days  I  go  fishing,  on  the  good  ones  entomologising. 
You  may  recollect  that  for  the  fortnight  previous  to  all  this, 
you  told  me  not  to  write,  so  that  I  hope  I  have  made  out 
some  sort  of  defence  for  not  having  sooner  answered  your 
two  long  and  very  agreeable  letters."] 

C.  Darwin  to  W,  D.  Fox. 

[Cambridge,  November  5,  1830.] 

My  dear  Fox, 

I  have  so  little  time  at  present,  and  am  so  disgusted  by 
reading  that  I  have  not  the  heart  to  write  to  anybody.  I 
have  only  written  once  home  since  I  came  up.  This  must 
excuse  me  for  not  having  answered  your  three  letters,  for 
which  I  am  really  very  much  obliged.  .  .  . 

I  have  not  stuck  an  insect  this  term,  and  scarcely  opened 
a  case.  If  I  had  time  I  would  have  sent  you  the  insects  which 
I  have  so  long  promised ;  but  really  I  have  not  spirits  or  time 
to  do  anything.  Reading  makes  me  quite  desperate ;  the 
plagae  of  getting  up  all  my  subjects  is  next  thing  to  intoler- 
able. Henslow  is  my  tutor,  and  a  most  admirable -oxi^  he 
makes  ;  the  hour  with  him  is  the  pleasantest  in  the  whole  day. 


158  CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.  iq-22.  [1831. 

I  think  he  is  quite  the  most  perfect  man  I  ever  met  with.  I 
have  been  to  some  very  pleasant  parties  there  this  term.  His 
good-nature  is  unbounded. 

I  am  sure  you  will  be  sorry  to  hear  poor  old  Whitley*s 
father  is  dead.  In  a  worldly  point  of  view  it  is  of  great  con- 
sequence to  him,  as  it  will  prevent  him  going  to  the  Bar  for 
some  time. — (Be  sure  answer  this  :)  What  did  you  pay  for  the 
iron  hoop  you  had  made  in  Shrewsbury  ?  Because  I  do  not 
mean  to  pay  the  whole  of  the  Cambridge  man's  bill.  You 
need  not  trouble  yourself  about  the  Phallus,  as  I  have  bought 
up  both  species.  I  have  heard  men  say  that  Henslow  has 
some  curious  religious  opinions.  I  never  perceived  anything 
of  it,  have  you  ?  I  am  very  glad  to  hear,  after  all  your  delays, 
you  have  heard  of  a  curacy  where  you  may  read  all  the  com- 
mandments without  endangering  your  throat.  I  am  also  still 
more  glad  to  hear  that  your  mother  continues  steadily  to 
improve.  I  do  trust  that  you  will  have  no  further  cause  for 
uneasiness.  With  every  wish  for  your  happiness,  my  dear 
old  Fox, 

Believe  me  yours  most  sincerely, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  W,  D.  Fox. 

Cambridge,  Sunday,  January  23,  1831. 

My  dear  Fox, 

I  do  hope  you  will  excuse  my  not  writing  before  I  took 
my  degree.  I  felt  a  quite  inexplicable  aversion  to  write 
to  anybody.  But  now  I  do  most  heartily  congratulate  you 
upon  passing  your  examination,  and  hope  you  find  your 
curacy  comfortable.  If  it  is  my  last  shilling  (I  have  not 
many),  I  will  come  and  pay  you  a  visit. 

I  do  not  know  why  the  degree  should  make  one  so 
miserable,  both  before  and  afterwards.  I  recollect  you  were 
sufficiently  wretched  before,  and  I  can  assure  [you]  I  am  now, 
and  what  makes  it  the  more  ridiculous  is,  I  know  not  what 
about.  I  believe  it  is  a  beautiful  provision  of  nature  to  make 
one  regret  the  less  leaving  so  pleasant  a  place  as  Cambridge ; 


i83i.]  DEGREE.  Ijg 

and  amongst  all  its  pleasures — I  say  it  for  once  and  for  all — 
none  so  great  as  my  friendship  with  you.  I  sent  you  a  news- 
paper yesterday,  in  which  you  will  see  what  a  good  place 
[loth]  I  have  got  in  the  Poll.  As  for  Christ's,  did  you  ever 
see  such  a  college  for  producing  Captains  and  Apostles  ?  * 
There  are  no  men  either  at  Emmanuel  or  Christ's  plucked. 
Cameron  is  gulfed,  together  with  other  three  Trinity  scholars! 
My  plans  are  not  at  all  settled.  I  think  I  shall  keep  this  term, 
and  then  go  and  economise  at  Shrewsbury,  return  and  take 
my  degree. 

A  man  may  be  excused  for  writing  so  much  about  himself 
when  he  has  just  passed  the  examination ;  so  you  must  excuse 
[me].  And  on  the  same  principle  do  you  write  a  letter 
brimful  of  yourself  and  plans.  I  want  to  know  something 
about  your  examination.  Tell  me  about  the  state  of  your 
nerves  ;  what  books  you  got  up,  and  how  perfect.  I  take  an 
interest  about  that  sort  of  thing,  as  the  time  will  come  when 
I  must  suffer.  Your  tutor,  Thompson,  begged  to  be  remem- 
bered to  you,  and  so  does  Whitley.  If  you  will  answer  this, 
I  will  send  as  many  stupid  answers  as  you  can  desire. 

Believe  me,  dear  Fox, 

Chas.  Darwin. 


*  The  "  Captain  "  is  at  the  head  of  the  •*  Poll  "  :  the  "  Apostles  "  are 
the  last  twelve  in  the  Mathematical  Tripos. 


CHAPTER   V. 


THE     APPOINTMENT    TO    THE    ^BEAGLE.' 


[In  a  letter  addressed  to  Captain  Fitz-Roy,  before  the 
Beagle  sailed,  my  father  wrote,  "What  a  glorious  day  the 
4th  of  November  ^  will  be  to  me — my  second  life  will  then 
commence,  and  it  shall  be  as  a  birthday  for  the  rest  of  my 
life." 

The  circumstances  which  led  to  this  second  birth — so 
much  more  important  than  my  father  then  imagined — are  con- 
nected with  his  Cambridge  life,  but  may  be  more  appropri 
ately  told  in  the  present  chapter.  Foremost  in  the  chain  of 
circumstances  which  led  to  his  appointment  to  the  Beagle 
was  my  father's  friendship  with  Professor  Henslow.  He 
wrote  in  a  pocket-book  or  diary,  which  contain  a  brief  record 
of  dates,  &c.,  throughout  his  life  : — 

*^i83i.  Christmas, — Passed  my  examination  for  B.  A.  de- 
gree and  kept  the  two  following  terms. 

"  During  these  months  lived  much  with  Professor  Hens- 
low,  often  dining  with  him  and  walking  with  him  ;  became 
slightly  acquainted  with  several  of  the  learned  men  in  Cam- 
bridge, which  much  quickened  the  zeal  which  dinner  parties 
and  hunting  had  not  destroyed. 

'^  In  the  spring  paid  Mr.  Davv'es  a  visit  with  Ramsay  and 
Kirby,  and  talked  over  an  excursion  to  Teneriffe.     In  the 

*  The  Beagle  did  not  however  make  her  final  and  successful  start  until 
December  27. 


L 


W 


THE    BEAGLE    LAID    ASHORE,    RIVER    SANTA    CRUZ 


HENSLOW.  l6l 

spring  Henslow  persuaded  me  to  think  of  Geology,  and  intro- 
[iduced  me  to  Sedgwick.     During    Midsummer   geologised  a 
little  in  Shropshire. 

^'August. —  Went  on  Geological  tour*  by  Llangollen, 
Ruthin,  Conway,  Bangor,  and  Capel  Curig,  where  I  left  Pro- 
fessor Sedgwick,  and  crossed  the  mountain  to  Barmouth.'* 

In  a  letter  to  Fox  (May,  1831),  my  father  writes  : — ''  I  am 
very  busy  .  .  .  and  see  a  great  deal  of  Henslow,  whom  I  do 
not  know  whether  I  love  or  respect  most."  His  feeling  for 
this  admirable  man  is  finely  expressed  in  a  letter  which  he 
wrote  to  Rev.  L.  Blomefield  (then  Rev.  L.  Jenyns),  when  the 
latter  was  engaged  in  his  ^  Memoir  of  Professor  Henslow  ' 
(published  1862).  The  passage  f  has  been  made  use  of  in  the 
first  of  the  memorial  notices  written  for  *  Nature,'  and  Mr. 
Romanes  points  out  that  my  father,  "while  describing  the 
character  of  another,  is  unconsciously  giving  a  most  accurate 
description  of  his  own  '*  : — 

^'  I  went  to  Cambridge  early  in  the  year  1828,  and  soon 
became  acquainted,  through  some  of  my  brother  entomolo- 
gists, with  Professor  Henslow,  for  all  who  cared  for  any 
branch  of  natural  history  were  equally  encouraged  by  him. 
Nothing  could  be  more  simple,  cordial,  and  unpretending 
than  the  encouragement  which  he  afforded  to  all  young 
naturalists.  I  soon  became  intimate  with  him,  for  he  had  a 
remarkable  power  of  making  the  young  feel  completely  at  ease 
with  him  ;  though  we  were  all  awe-struck  with  the  amount  of 
his  knowledge.  Before  I  saw  him,  I  heard  one  young  man 
sum  up  his  attaintments  by  simply  saying  that  he  knew  every- 
thing. When  I  reflect  how  immediately  we  felt  at  perfect  ease 
with  a  man  older,  and  in  every  way  so  immensely  our  superior, 
I  think  it  was  as  much  owing  to  the  transparent  sincerity  of 


*  Mentioned  by  Sedgwick  in  his  preface  to  Salter's  'Catalogue  of  Cam- 
brian and  Silurian  Fossils,'  1873. 

t  *  Memoir  of  the  Rev.  John  Stevens  Henslow,  M.  A.,'  by  the  Rev. 
Leonard  Jenyns.     8vo.     London,  1862,  p.  51. 


l62      APPOINTMENT   TO    THE   *  BEAGLE.'     ^TAT.  22. 

his  character  as  to  his  kindness  of  heart  ;  and,  perhaps,  even 
still  more,  to  a  highly  remarkable  absence  in  him  of  all  self- 
consciousness.  One  perceived  at  once  that  he  never  thought 
of  his  own  varied  knowledge  or  clear  intellect,  but  solely  on 
the  subject  in  hand.  Another  charm,  which  must  have  struck 
every  one,  w^as  that  his  manner  to  old  and  distinguished 
persons  and  to  the  youngest  student  was  exactly  the  same : 
and  to  all  he  showed  the  same  winning  courtesy.  He  would 
receive  with  interest  the  most  trifling  observation  in  any 
branch  of  natural  history  ;  and  however  absurd  a  blunder  one 
might  make,  he  pointed  it  out  so  clearly  and  kindly,  that  one 
left  him  no  w^ay  disheartened,  but  only  determined  to  be 
more  accurate  the  next  time.  In  short,  no  man  could  be 
better  formed  to  win  the  entire  confidence  of  the  young,  and 
to  encourage  them  in  their  pursuits. 

''  His  lectures  on  Botany  were  universally  popular,  and  as 
clear  as  daylight.  So  popular  were  they,  that  several  of  the 
older  members  of  the  University  attended  successive  courses. 
Once  every  week  he  kept  open  house  in  the  evening,  and  all 
who  cared  for  natural  history  attended  these  parties,  which, 
by  thus  favouring  inter-communication,  did  the  same  good  in 
Cambridge,  in  a  very  pleasant  manner,  as  the  Scientific  So- 
cieties do  in  London.  At  these  parties  many  of  the  most 
distinguished  members  of  the  University  occasionally  attend- 
ed ;  and  when  only  a  few  were  present,  I  have  listened  to 
the  great  men  of  those  days,  conversing  on  all  sorts  of  sub- 
jects, with  the  most  varied  and  brilliant  powers.  This  was 
no  small  advantage  to  some  of  the  younger  men,  as  it  stimu- 
lated their  mental  activity  and  ambition,  Tw^o  or  three  times 
in  each  session  he  took  excursions  with  his  botanical  class ; 
either  a  long  walk  to  the  habitat  of  some  rare  plant,  or  in  a 
barge  down  the  river  to  the  fens,  or  in  coaches  to  some 
more  distant  place,  as  to  Gamlingay,  to  see  the  wild  lily  of 
the  valley,  and  to  catch  on  the  heath  the  rare  natter-jack. 
These  excursions  have  left  a  deHghtful  impression  on  my 
mind.  He  was,  on  such  occasions,  in  as  good  spirits  as  a 
boy,  and  laughed  as  heartily  as  a  boy  at  the  misadventures 


HENSLOW. 


163 


Df  those  who  chased  the  splendid  swallow-tail  butterflies 
across  the  broken  and  treacherous  fens.  He  used  to  pause 
ivery  now  and  then  to  lecture  on  some  plant  or  other  object ; 
.nd  something  he  could  tell  us  on  every  insect,  shell,  or  fossil 
ollected,  for  he  had  attended  to  every  branch  of  natural 
listory.  After  our  day's  work  we  used  to  dine  at  some 
nn  or  house,  and  most  jovial  we  then  were.  I  believe 
ill  who  joined  these  excursions  will  agree  with  me  that 
they  have  left  an  enduring  impression  of  delight  on  our 
inds. 
'^  As  time  passed  on  at  Cambridge  I  became  very  inti- 
nate  with  Professor  Henslow,  and  his  kindness  was  un- 
bounded ;  he  continually  asked  me  to  his  house,  and  allowed 
e  to  accompany  him  in  his  walks.  He  talked  on  all  sub- 
ects,  including  his  deep  sense  of  religion,  and  was  entirely 
open.  I  owe  more  than  I  can  express  to  this  excellent 
man.  .  .  . 

"  During  the  years  when  I  associated  so  much  with  Pro- 
fessor Henslow,  I  never  once  saw  his  temper  even  ruffled. 
He  never  took  an  ill-natured  view  of  any  one's  character, 
though  very  far  from  blind  to  the  foibles  of  others.  It  always 
struck  me  that  his  mind  could  not  be  even  touched  by  any 
3altry  feeling  of  vanity,  envy,  or  jealousy.  With  all  this 
equability  of  temper  and  remarkable  benevolence,  there  was 
no  insipidity  of  character.  A  man  must  have  been  blind  not 
to  have  perceived  that  beneath  this  placid  exterior  there  was 
a  vigorous  and  determined  will.  When  principle  came  into 
3lay,  no  power  on  earth  could  have  turned  him  one  hair's- 
Dreadth.  .  .  . 

*^  Reflecting  over  his  character  with  gratitude  and  rever- 
[ence,  his  moral  attributes  rise,  as  they  should  do  in  the 
"highest  character,  in  pre-eminence  over  his  intellect.** 

In  a  letter  to  Rev.  L.  Blomefield  (Jenyns),  May  24,  1862, 
my  father  wrote  with  the  same  feelings  that  he  had  expressed 
in  his  letters  thirty  years  before  : — 

'^  I  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  your  kind  present  of  your 
■Memoir  of   Henslow.     I  have  read  about  half,  and  it  has 


164        APPOINTMENT   TO   THE  'BEAGLE.'     ^TAT.  22. 

interested  me  much.  I  did  not  think  that  I  could  have 
venerated  him  more  than  I  did  ;  but  your  book  has  even 
exalted  his  character  in  my  eyes.  From  turning  over  the 
pages  of  the  latter  half,  I  should  think  your  account  would 
be  invaluable  to  any  clergyman  who  wished  to  follow  poor 
dear  Henslow's  noble  example.  What  an  admirable  man  he 
was.'* 

The  geological  work  mentioned  in  the  quotation  from  my 
father's  pocket-book  was  doubtless  of  importance  as  giving 
him  some  practical  experience,  and  perhaps  of  more  impor- 
tance in  helping  to  give  him  some  confidence  in  himself.  In 
July  of  the  same  year,  1831,  he  was  "working  like  a  tiger" 
at  Geology,  and  trying  to  make  a  map  of  Shropshire,  but  not 
finding  it  "as  easy  as  I  expected." 

In  writing  to  Henslow  about  the  same  time,  he  gives  some 
account  of  his  work  : — 

"  I  should  have  written  to  you  some  time  ago,  only  I  was 
determined  to  wait  for  the  clinometer,  and  I  am  very  glad  to 
say  I  think  it  will  answer  admirably.  I  put  all  the  tables  in 
my  bedroom  at  every  conceivable  angle  and  direction.  I  will 
venture  to  say  I  have  measured  them  as  accurately  as  any 
geologist  going  could  do  ....  I  have  been  working  at  so 
many  things  that  I  have  not  got  on  much  with  geology.  I 
suspect  the  first  expedition  I  take,  clinometer  and  hammer  in 
hand,  will  send  me  back  very  little  wiser  and  a  good  deal 
more  puzzled  than  when  I  started.  As  yet  I  have  only  in- 
dulged in  hypotheses,  but  they  are  such  powerful' ones  that 
I  suppose,  if  they  were  put  into  action  for  but  one  day,  the 
world  would  come  to  an  end." 

He  was  evidently  most  keen  to  get  to  work  with  Sedgwick, 
for  he  wrote  to  Henslow  :  "  I  have  not  heard  from  Professor 
Sedgwick,  so  I  am  afraid  he  will  not  pay  the  Severn  forma- 
tions a  visit.  I  hope  and  trust  you  did  your  best  to  urge 
him." 

My  father  has  given  in  his  Recollections  some  account  of 
this  Tour. 

There  too  we  read  of  the  projected  excursion  to  the  Ca- 


THE   OFFER. 


165 


naries,  of  which  slight  mention  occurs  in  letters  to  Fox  and 
Henslow. 

In  April  1831  he  writes  to  Fox:  "At  present  I  talk, 
think,  and  dream  of  a  scheme  I  have  almost  hatched  of  going 
to  the  Canary  Islands.  I  have  long  had  a  wish  of  seeing 
tropical  scenery  and  vegetation,  and,  according  to  Humboldt, 
Teneriffe  is  a  very  pretty  specimen."  And  again  in  May  : 
"  As  for  my  Canary  scheme,  it  is  rash  of  you  to  ask  questions  ; 
my  other  friends  most  sincerely  wish  me  there,  I  plague  them 
so  with  talking  about  tropical  scenery,  &c.  Eyton  will  go 
next  summer,  and  I  am  learning  Spanish." 

Later  on  in  the  summer  the  scheme  took  more  definite 
form,  and  the  date  seems  to  have  been  fixed  for  June,  1832. 
He  got  information  in  London  about  passage-money,  and  in 
July  was  working  at  Spanish  and  calling  Fox  ''  un  grandisimo 
lebron,"  in  proof  of  his  knowledge  of  the  language;  which, 
however,  he  found  "intensely  stupid."  But  even  then  he 
seems  to  have  had  some  doubts  about  his  companions'  zeal, 
for  he  writes  to  Henslow  (July  27,  1831)  :  "  I  hope  you  con- 
tinue to  fan  your  Canary  ardour.  I  read  and  re-read  Hum- 
boldt ;  do  you  do  the  same  ?  I  am  sure  nothing  will  prevent 
us  seeing  the  Great  Dragon  Tree." 

Geological  work  and  Teneriffe  dreams  carried  him  through 
the  summer,  till  on  returning  from  Barmouth  for  the  sacred 
ist  of  September,  he  received  the  offer  of  appointment  as 
Naturalist  to  the  Beagle, 

The  following  extract  from  the  pocket-book  will  be  a  help 
in  reading  the  letters  : — 

"Returned  to  Shrewsbury  at  end  of  August.  Refused 
offer  of  voyage. 

"  Septe77iber. — Went  to  Maer,  returned  with  Uncle  Jos.  to 
Shrewsbury,  thence  to  Cambridge.     London. 

"  11^^. — Went  with  Captain  Fitz-Roy  in  steamer  to  Plym- 
'  I  outh  to  see  the  Beagle. 

"  22nd, — Returned  to  Shrewsbury,  passing  through  Cam- 
j  bridge. 


;ll 


l66  APPOINTMENT    TO   THE   'BEAGLE.'     yETAT.  22.     [1831. 

**  October    2nd. — Took    leave   of   my   heme.      Stayed   in 
London. 

'^  24/^. — Reached  Plymouth. 

^'  October  and  November. — These  months  very  miserable. 

^^  December  10th. — Sailed,  but  were  obliged  to  put  back. 

"  21^/. — Put  to  sea  again,  and  were  driven  back. 

"27/^. — Sailed  from  England  on  our  Circumnavigation." 


George  Peacock  *  to  J.  S.  Henslow. 

7  Suffolk  Street,  Pall  Mall  East. 

[1831.] 

My  dear  Henslow, 

Captain  Fitz-Roy  is  going  out  to  survey  the  southern 
coast  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  and  afterwards  to  visit  many  of 
the  South  Sea  Islands,  and  to  return  by  the  Indian  Archi- 
pelago. The  vessel  is  fitted  out  expressly  for  scientific  pur- 
poses, combined  with  the  survey  ;  it  will  furnish,  therefore,  a 
rare  opportunity  for  a  naturalist,  and  it  would  be  a  great  mis- 
fortune that  it  should  be  lost. 

An  offer  has  been  made  to  me  to  recommend  a  proper 
person  to  go  out  as  a  naturalist  with  this  expedition;  he  will 
be  treated  with  every  consideration.  The  Captain  is  a  young 
man  of  very  pleasing  manners  (a  nephew  of  the  Duke  of 
Grafton),  of  great  zeal  in  his  profession,  and  who  is  very 
highly  spoken  of;  if  Leonard  Jenyns  could  go,  what  treasures 
he  might  bring  home  with  him,  as  the  ship  would  be  placed 
at  his  disposal  whenever  his  inquiries  made  it  necessary  or 
desirable.  In  the  absence  of  so  accomplished  a  naturalist,  is 
there  any  person  whom  you  could  strongly  recommend  ?  he 
must  be  such  a  person  as  would  do  credit  to  our  recommenda- 
tion. Do  think  of  this  subject,  it  would  be  a  serious  loss  to 
the  cause  of  natural  science  if  this  fine  opportunity  was  lost. 
*  *  *  ^  * 


*  Formerly  Dean   of  Ely,  and  Lowndean   Professor  of  Astronomy  at 
Cambridge. 


i83i.]  THE   OFFER.  167 

The  ship  sails  about  the  end  of  September. 
Write  immediately,  and  tell  me  what  can  be  done. 
Believe  me, 

My  dear  Henslow, 

Most  truly  yours, 

George  Peacock. 


J.  S.  Hensloiv  to  C.  Darwin. 

Cambridge,  August  24,  1831. 

My  dear  Darwin, 

Before  I  enter  upon  the  immediate  business  of  this  letter, 
let  us  condole  together  upon  the  loss  of  our  inestimable  friend 
poor  Ramsay,  of  whose  death  you  have  undoubtedly  heard 
long  before  this. 

I  will  not  now  dwell  upon  this  painful  subject,  as  I  shall 
hope  to  see  you  shortly,  fully  expecting  that  you  will  eagerly 
catch  at  the  offer  which  is  likely  to  be  made  you  of  a  trip  to 
Tierra  del  Fuego,  and  home  by  the  East  Indies.  I  have  been 
asked  by  Peacock,  who  will  read  and  forward  this  to  you  from 
London,  to  recommend  him  a  Naturalist  as  companion  to 
Captain  Fitz-Roy,  employed  by  Government  to  survey  the 
southern  extremity  of  America.  I  have  stated  that  I  consider 
you  to  be  the  best  qualified  person  I  know  of  who  is  likely  to 
undertake  such  a  situation.  I  state  this  not  in  the  supposi- 
tion of  your  being  di  finished  naturalist,  but  as  amply  qualified 
for  collecting,  observing,  and  noting,  anything  worthy  to  be 
noted  in  Natural  History.  Peacock  has  the  appointment  at 
his  disposal,  and  if  he  cannot  find  a  man  willing  to  take  the 
office,  the  opportunity  will  probably  be  lost.  Captain  Fitz- 
Roy  wants  a  man  (I  understand)  more  as  a  companion  than 
a  mere  collector,  and  would  not  take  any  one,  how^ever  good 
a  naturalist,  who  was  not  recommended  to  him  likewise  as  a 
gentleman.  Particulars  of  salary,  &c.,  I  know  nothing.  The 
voyage  is  to  last  two  years,  and  if  you  take  plenty  of  books 
with  you,  anything  you  please  may  be  done.  You  will  have 
ample  opportunities  at  command.     In  short,  I  suppose  there 


l68  APPOINTMENT    TO    THE   'BEAGLE.'     ^.TAT.  22.    [1831. 

never  was  a  finer  chance  for  a  man  of  zeal  and  spirit ;  Cap- 
tain Fitz-Roy  is  a  young  man.  What  I  wish  you  to  do  is  in- 
stantly to  come  and  consult  with  Peacock  (at  No.  7  Suffolk 
Street,  Pall  Mall  East,  or  else  at  the  University  Club),  and 
learn  further  particulars.  Don't  put  on  any  modest  doubts 
or  fears  about  your  disqualifications,  for  I  assure  you  I  think 
you  are  the  very  man  they  are  in  search  of ;  so  conceive  your- 
self to  be  tapped  on  the  shoulder  by  your  bum-bailiff  and 
affectionate  friend, 

J.  S.  Henslow. 

The  expedition  is  to  sail  on  25th  September  (at  earliest), 
so  there  is  no  time  to  be  lost. 


G.  Peacock  to  C.  Darwin. 

[1831.] 
My  dear  Sir, 

I  received  Henslow's  letter  last  night  too  late  to  forward 
it  to  you  by  the  post ;  a  circumstance  which  I  do  not  regret, 
as  it  has  given  me  an  opportunity  of  seeing  Captain  Beaufort 
at  the  Admiralty  (the  Hydrographer),  and  of  stating  to  him 
the  offer  which  I  have  to  make  to  you.  He  entirely  approves 
of  it,  and  you  may  consider  the  situation  as  at  your  absolute 
disposal.  I  trust  that  you  will  accept  it,  as  it  is  an  opportu- 
nity which  should  not  be  lost,  and  I  look  forward  with  great 
interest  to  the  benefit  which  our  collections  of  Natural  His- 
tory may  receive  from  your  labors. 

The  circumstances  are  these  ; — 

Captain  Fitz-Roy  (a  nephew  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton)  sails 
at  the  end  of  September,  in  a  ship  to  survey,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, the  South  Coast  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  afterwards  to 
visit  the  South  Sea  Islands,  and  to  return  by  the  Indian 
Archipelago  to  England.  The  expedition  is  entirely  for  sci- 
entific purposes,  and  the  ship  will  generally  wait  your  leisure 
for  researches  in  Natural  History,  &c.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  is  a 
public-spirited  and  zealous  officer,  of  delightful  manners,  and 
greatly  beloved  by  all  his  brother  officers.     He  went  with 


1831.]  THE   OFFER    REFUSED.  l6g 

Captain  Beechey,*  and  spent  ;^i5oo  in  bringing  over  and 
educating  at  his  own  charge  three  natives  of  Patagonia.  He 
engages  at  his  own  expense  an  artist  at  ;^2oo  a  year  to  go 
with  him.  You  may  be  sure,  therefore,  of  having  a  very 
pleasant  companion,  who  will  enter  heartily  into  all  your 
views. 

The  ship  sails  about  the  end  of  September,  and  you  must 
lose  no  time  in  making  known  your  acceptance  to  Captain 
Beaufort,  Admiralty  Hydrographer.  I  have  had  a  good  deal 
of  correspondence  about  this  matter  [with  Henslow  ?~\,  who 
feels,  in  common  with  myself,  the  greatest  anxiety  that  you 
should  go.  I  hope  that  no  other  arrangements  are  likely  to 
interfere  with  it.         *         *         *         * 

The  Admiralty  are  not  disposed  to  give  a  salary,  though 
they  will  furnish  you  with  an  official  appointment,  and  every 
accommodation.     If  a  salary  should  be  required,  however,  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  it  would  be  granted. 
Believe  me,  my  dear  Sir, 

Very  truly  yours, 

George  Peacock. 


C.  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Henslow, 

Shrewsbury,  Tuesday  [August  30?,  1831]. 

My  dear  Sir, 

Mr.  Peacock's  letter  arrived  on  Saturday,  and  I  received 
it  late  yesterday  evening.  As  far  as  my  own  mind  is  con- 
cerned, I  should,  I  think  certainly^  most  gladly  have  accepted 
the  opportunity  which  you  so  kindly  have  offered  me.  But 
my  father,  although  he  does  not  decidedly  refuse  me,  gives 
such  strong  advice  against  going,  that  I  should  not  be  com- 
fortable if  I  did  not  follow  it. 

My  father's  objections   are   these  :    the   unfitting  me  to 

*  For  '  Beechey '  read  '  King.'  I  do  not  find  the  name  Fitz-Roy  in  the 
list  of  Beechey's  officers.  The  Fuegians  were  brought  back  from  Captain 
King's  voyage. 

9 


170  APPOINTMENT    TO   THE    'BEAGLE.'     JETAT.  22.    [1831. 

settle  down  as  a  Clergyman,  my  little  habit  cf  seafaring,  //le 
shortness  of  the  tiine^  and  the  chance  of  my  not  suiting  Captain 
Fitz-Roy.  It  is  certainly  a  very  serious  objection,  the  very 
short  time  for  all  my  preparations,  as  not  only  body  but  mind 
wants  making  up  for  such  an  undertaking.  But  if  it  had  not 
been  for  my  father  I  would  have  taken  all  risks.  What  was 
the  reason  that  a  Naturalist  was  not  long  ago  fixed  upon  ?  I 
am  very  much  obliged  for  the  trouble  you  have  had  about  it ; 
there  certainly  could  not  have  been  a  better  opportunity. 
*  *  *  ^  ^ 

My  trip  with  Sedgwick  answered  most  perfectly.  I  did 
not  hear  of  poor  Mr.  Ramsay's  loss  till  a  few  days  before 
your  letter.  I  have  been  lucky  hitherto  in  never  losing  any 
person  for  whom  I  had  any  esteem  or  affection.  My  ac- 
quaintance, although  very  short,  was  sufficient  to  give  me 
those  feelings  in  a  great  degree.  I  can  hardly  make  myself 
believe  he  is  no  more.  He  was  the  finest  character  I  ever 
knew. 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

My  dear  Sir, 

Ch.  Darwin. 

I  have  written  to  Mr.  Peacock,  and  I  mentioned  that  I 
have  asked  you  to  send  one  line  in  the  chance  of  his  not 
getting  my  letter.  I  have  also  asked  him  to  communicate 
with  Captain  Fitz-Roy.  Even  if  I  was  to  go,  my  father  dis- 
liking would  take  away  all  energy,  and  I  should  want  a  good 
stock  of  that.  Again  I  must  thank  you,  it  a^ds  a  little  to  the 
heavy  but  pleasant  load  of  gratitude  which  I  owe  to  you. 


C.  Darwin  to  R.   W.  Darwin. 

[Maer]  August  31,  [1831]. 

My  dear  Father, 

I  am  afraid  I  am  going  to  make  you  again  very  uncom- 
fortable. But,  upon  consideration,  I  think  you  will  excuse 
me    once   again,    stating  my  opinions  on   the   offer  of    the 


1831.]  MR.    DARWIN'S   OBJECTIONS.  171 

voyage.  My  excuse  and  reason  is  the  different  way  all 
the  Wedgwoods  view  the  subject  from  what  you  and  my 
sisters  do. 

I  have  given  Uncle  Jos*  what  I  fervently  trust  is  an 
accurate  and  full  list  of  your  objections,  and  he  is  kind  enough 
to  give  his  opinions  on  all.  The  list  and  his  answers  will  be 
enclosed.  But  may  I  beg  of  you  one  favour,  it  will  be  doing 
me  the  greatest  kindness,  if  you  will  send  me  a  decided 
answer,  yes  or  no  ?  If  the  latter,  I  should  be  most  ungrateful 
if  I  did  not  implicitly  yield  to  your  better  judgment,  and  to 
the  kindest  indulgence  you  have  shown  me  all  through  my 
life  ;  and  you  may  rely  upon  it  I  will  never  mention  the  sub- 
ject again.  If  your  answer  should  be  yes  ;  I  will  go  directly 
to  Henslowand  consult  deliberately  with  him,  and  then  come 
to  Shrewsbury. 

The  danger  appears  to  me  and  all  the  Wedgwoods  not 
great.  The  expense  cannot  be  serious,  and  the  time  I  do 
not  think,  anyhow,  would  be  more  thrown  away  than  if  I 
stayed  at  home.  But  pray  do  not  consider  that  I  am  so  bent 
on  going  that  I  would  for  one  single  moment  hesitate,  if  you 
thought  that  after  a  short  period  you  should  continue  un- 
comfortable. 

I  must  again  state  I  cannot  think  it  would  unfit  me  here- 
after for  a  steady  life.  I  do  hope  this  letter  will  not  give  you 
much  uneasiness.  I  send  it  by  the  car  to-morrow  morning  ; 
if  you  make  up  your  mind  directly  will  you  send  me  an  answer 
on  the  following  day  by  the  same  means  .^  If  this  letter  should 
not  find  you  at  home,  I  hope  you  will  answer  as  soon  as  you 
conveniently  can. 

I  do  not  know  what  to  say  about  Uncle  Jos*  kindness ;  I 
never  can  forget  how  he  interests  himself  about  me. 
Believe  me,  my  dear  father, 

Your  affectionate  son, 

Charles  Darwin. 


Josiah  Wedgwood. 


T72  APPOINTMENT    TO   THE    'BEAGLE.'     ^TAT.  22.    [1831, 

[Here  follows  the  list  of  objections  which  are  referred  to 
in  the  following  letter  : — 

(i.)  Disreputable  to  my  character  as  a  Clergyman  here- 
after. 

(2.)  A  wild  scheme. 

(3.)  That  they  must  have  offered  to  many  others  before 
me  the  place  of  Naturalist. 

(4.)  And  from  its  not  being  accepted  there  must  be  some 
serious  objection  to  the  vessel  or  expedition. 

(5.)  That  I  should  never  settle  down  to  a  steady  life  here- 
after. 

(6.)  That  my  accommodations  would  be  most  uncomfort- 
able. 

(7.)  That  you  [i.e,  Dr,  Darwin]  should  consider  it  as  again 
changing  my  profession. 

(8.)  That  it  would  be  a  useless  undertaking.] 

Josiah  Wedg7vood  to  R.  IV.  Darwin, 

Maer,  August  31,  183I. 

[Read  this  last.]* 

My  dear  Doctor, 

I  feel  the  responsibility  of  your  application  to  me  on  the 
offer  that  has  been  made  to  Charles  as  being  weighty,  but  as 
you  have  desired  Charles  to  consult  me,  I  cannot  refuse  to 
give  the  result  of  such  consideration  as  I  have  been  able  to 
[give  ?]  it. 

Charles  has  put  down  what  he  conceives  to  be  your  prin- 
cipal objections,  and  I  think  the  best  course  I  can  take  will 
be  to  state  what  occurs  to  me  upon  each  of  them. 

1.  I  should  not  think  that  it  would  be  in  any  degree  dis- 
reputable to  his  character  as  a  Clergyman.  I  should  on  the 
contrary  think  the  offer  honourable  to  him  ;  and  the  pursuit  of 
Natural  History,  though  certainly  not  professional,  is  very 
suitable  to  a  clergyman. 

2.  I  hardly  know  how  to  meet  this  objection,  but  he  would 


In  C.  Darwin's  writing. 


i83i.]  JOSIAH   WEDGWOOD'S   ADVICE.  1 73 

have  definite  objects  upon  which  to  employ  himself,  and  might 
acquire  and  strengthen  habits  of  application,  and  I  should  think 
would  be  as  likely  to  do  so  as  in  any  way  in  which  he  is  likely 
to  pass  the  next  two  years  at  home. 

3.  The  notion  did  not  occur  to  me  in  reading  the  letters ; 
and  on  reading  them  again  with  that  object  in  my  mind  I  see 
no  ground  for  it. 

4.  I  cannot  conceive  that  the  Admiralty  would  send  out 
a  bad  vessel  on  such  a  service.  As  to  objections  to  the  expe- 
dition, they  will  differ  in  each  man's  case,  and  nothing  would, 
I  think,  be  inferred  in  Charles's  case,  if  it  were  known  that 
others  had  objected. 

5.  You  are  a  much  better  judge  of  Charles's  character 
than  I  can  be.  If  on  comparing  this  mode  of  spending  the 
next  two  years  with  the  way  in  which  he  will  probably  spend 
them,  if  he  does  not  accept  this  offer,  you  think  him  more 
likely  to  be  rendered  unsteady  and  unable  to  settle,  it  is 
undoubtedly  a  weighty  objection.  Is  it  not  the  case  that 
sailors  are  prone  to  settle  in  domestic  and  quiet  habits  ? 

6.  I  can  form  no  opinion  on  this  further  than  that  if  ap- 
pointed by  the  Admiralty  he  will  have  a  claim  to  be  as  well 
accommodated  as  the  vessel  will  allow. 

7.  If  I  saw  Charles  now  absorbed  in  professional  studies 
I  should  probably  think  it  would  not  be  advisable  to  interrupt 
them  ;  but  this  is  not,  and,  I  think,  will  not  be  the  case  with 
him.  His  present  pursuit  of  knowledge  is  in  the  same  track 
as  he  would  have  to  follow  in  the  expedition. 

8.  The  undertaking  would  be  useless  as  regards  his  pro- 
fession, but  looking  upon  him  as  a  man  of  enlarged  curiosity, 
it  affords  him  such  an  opportunity  of  seeing  men  and  things 
as  happens  to  few. 

You  will  bear  in  mind  that  I  have  had  very  little  time 
for  consideration,  and  that  you  and  Charles  are  the  persons 
who  must  decide.  i  am 

My  dear  Doctor, 

Affectionately  yours, 
JosiAH  Wedgwood. 


174  APPOINTMENT    TO   THE    'BEAGLE.'     /ETAT.  22.     [1831. 

C.   Darwin  to  J.  S.  He7isloii). 

Cambridge,  Red  Lion  [Sept.  2],  183T. 

My  dear  Sir, 

I  am  just  arrived  ;  you  will  guess  the  reason.  My 
father  has  changed  his  mind.  I  trust  the  place  is  not  given 
away. 

I  am  very  much  fatigued,  and  am  going  to  bed. 
I  dare  say  you  have  not  yet  got  my  second  letter. 
How  soon  shall  I  come  to  you  in  the  morning  .^     Send 
a  verbal  answer. 

Good-night, 

Yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  Miss  Susan  Darwin. 

Cambridge,  Sunday  Morning  [September  4]. 

My  dear  Susan, 

As  a  letter  would  not  have  gone  yesterday,  I  put  off 
writing  till  to-day.  I  had  rather  a  wearisome  journey,  but 
got  into  Cambridge  very  fresh.  The  whole  of  yesterday 
I  spent  w^ith  Henslow,  thinking  of  what  is  to  be  done,  and 
that  I  find  is  a  great  deal.  By  great  good  luck  I  know  a  man 
of  the  name  of  Wood,  nephew  of  Lord  Londonderry.  He  is 
a  great  friend  of  Captain  Fitz-Roy,  and  has  written  to  him 
about  me.  I  heard  a  part  of  Captain  Fitz-Roy's  letter,  dated 
some  time  ago,  in  which  he  says  :  ^*  I  have  a  right  good  set  of 
officers,  and  most  of  my  men  have  been  there  before."  It 
seems  he  has  been  there  for  the  last  few  years  ;  he  was  then 
second  in  command  with  the  same  vessel  that  he  has  now 
chosen.  He  is  only  twenty- three  years  old,  but  [has]  seen  a 
deal  of  service,  and  won  the  gold  medal  at  Portsmouth.  The 
Admiralty  say  his  maps  are  most  perfect.  He  had  choice  of 
two  vessels,  and  he  chose  the  smallest.  Henslow  will  give 
me  letters  to  all  travellers  in  town  whom  he  thinks  may 
assist  me. 

Peacock  has  sole  appointment  of  Naturalist.     The  first 


i83T.]  CAPTAIN    FITZ-ROY.  175 

person  offered  was  Leonard  Jenyns,  who  was  so  near  accept- 
ing it  that  he  packed  up  his  clothes.  But  having  two  livings, 
he  did  not  think  it  right  to  leave  them — to  the  great  regret  of 
all  his  family.  Henslow  himself  was  not  very  far  from  accept- 
ing it,  for  Mrs.  Henslow  most  generously,  and  without  being 
asked,  gave  her  consent ;  but  she  looked  so  miserable  that 
Henslow  at  once  settled  the  point. 

*  *  *  *  * 

I  am  afraid  there  will  be  a  good  deal  of  expense  at  first. 
Henslow  is  much  against  taking  many  things  ;  it  is  [the] 
mistake  all  young  travellers  fall  into.  I  write  as  if  it  was 
settled,  but  Henslow  tells  me  by  no  means  to  make  up  my 
mind  till  I  have  had  long  conversations  with  Captains  Beau- 
fort and  Fitz-Roy.  Good-bye.  You  will  hear  from  me  con- 
stantly. Direct  17  Spring  Gardens.  Tell  nobody  in  Shrop- 
shire yet.     Be  sure  not. 

C.  Darwin. 

I  was  so  tired  that  evening  I  was  in  Shrewsbury  that 
I  thanked  none  of  you  for  your  kindness  half  so  much  as 
I  felt. 

Love  to  my  father. 

The  reason  I  don't  want  people  told  in  Shropshire  :  in 
case  I  should  not  go,  it  will  make  it  more  flat. 

C,  Darwin  to  Miss  S.  Darwin. 

17  Spring  Gardens,  Monday 

[September  5,  1831J. 

I  have  so  little  time  to  spare  that  I  have  none  to  waste  in 
re-writing  letters,  so  that  you  must  excuse  my  bringing  up  the 
other  with  me  and  altering  it.  The  last  letter  was  written  in 
the  morning.  In  [the]  middle  of  [the]  day.  Wood  received 
a  letter  from  Captain  P'itz-Roy,  which  I  must  say  was  most 
straightforward  and  gentlemanlike^  but  so  much  against  my 
going,  that  I  immediately  gave  up  the  scheme  ;  and  Henslow 
did  the  same,  saying  that  he  thought  Peacock  had  acted  very 
wrong  in  misrepresenting  things  so  much. 


176  APPOINTMENT    TO   THE   'BEAGLE/     ^TAT.  22.    [1831. 

I  scarcely  thought  of  going  to  town,  but  here  I  am  ;  and 
now  for  more  details,  and  much  more  promising  ones.  Cap- 
tain Fitz-Roy  is  [in]  town,  and  I  have  seen  him;  it  is  no  use 
attempting  to  praise  him  as  much  as  I  feel  inclined  to  do,  for 
you  would  not  believe  me.  One  thing  I  am  certain,  nothing 
could  be  more  open  and  kind  than  he  was  to  me.  It  seems 
he  had  promised  to  take  a  friend  with  him,  v/ho  is  in  office 
and  cannot  go,  and  he  only  received  the  letter  five  minutes 
before  I  came  in  ;  and  this  makes  things  much  better  for  me, 
as  want  of  room  was  one  of  Fitz-Roy's  greatest  objections. 
He  offers  me  to  go  share  in  everything  in  his  cabin  if  I  like  to 
come,  and  every  sort  of  accommodation  that  I  can  have,  but 
they  will  not  be  numerous.  He  says  nothing  would  be  so 
miserable  for  him  as  having  me  with  him  if  I  was  uncom- 
fortable, as  in  a  small  vessel  we  must  be  thrown  together, 
and  thought  it  his  duty  to  state  everything  in  the  worst  point 
of  view.  I  think  I  shall  go  on  Sunday  to  Plymouth  to  see  the 
vessel. 

There  is  something  most  extremely  attractive  in  his  man- 
ners and  way  of  coming  straight  to  the  point.  If  I  live  with 
him,  he  says  I  must  live  poorly — no  wine,  and  the  plainest 
dinners.  The  scheme  is  not  certainly  so  good  as  Peacock 
describes.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  advises  me  not  [to]  make  up 
my  mind  quite  yet,  but  that,  seriously,  he  thinks  it  will  have 
much  more  pleasure  than  pain  for  me.  The  vessel  does  not 
sail  till  the  loth  of  October.  It  contains  sixty  men,  five  or 
six  officers,  &c.,  but  is  a  small  vessel.  It  will  probably  be  out 
nearly  three  years.  I  shall  pay  to  the  mess  the  same  as  [the] 
Captain  does  himself,  ;^30  per  annum  ;  and  Fitz-Roy  says  if 
I  spend,  including  my  outfitting,  ;^5oo,  it  will  be  beyond  the 
extreme.  But  now  for  still  worse  news.  The  round  the 
world  is  not  certain^  but  the  chance  most  excellent.  Till  that 
point  is  decided,  I  will  not  be  so.  And  you  may  believe, 
after  the  many  changes  I  have  made,  that  nothing  but  my 
reason  shall  decide  me. 

Fitz-Roy  says  the  stormy  sea  is  exaggerated  ;  that  if  I  do 
not  choose  to  remain  with  them,  I  can  at  any  time  get  home 


i83i.]  CAPTAIN    FITZ-ROY.  1 77 

to  England,  so  many  vessels  sail  that  way,  and  that  during  bad 
weather  (probably  two  months),  if  I  like  I  shall  be  left  in  some 
healthy,  safe  and  nice  country ;  that  I  shall  always  have  assist- 
ance ;  that  he  has  many  books,  all  instruments,  guns,  at  my 
service ;  that  the  fewer  and  cheaper  clothes  I  take  the  better. 
The  manner  of  proceeding  will  just  suit  me.  They  anchor  the 
ship,  and  then  remain  for  a  fortnight  at  a  place.  I  have  made 
Captain  Beaufort  perfectly  understand  me.  He  says  if  I  start 
and  do  not  go  round  the  world,  I  shall  have  good  reason  to 
think  myself  deceived.  I  am  to  call  the  day  after  to-morrow, 
and,  if  possible,  to  receive  more  certain  instructions.  The 
want  of  room  is  decidedly  the  most  serious  objection  ;  but 
Captain  Fitz-Roy  (probably  owing  to  Wood*s  letter)  seems 
determined  to  make  me  [as]  comfortable  as  he  possibly  can. 
I  like  his  manner  of  proceeding.  He  asked  me  at  once, 
*'  Shall  you  bear  being  told  that  I  want  the  cabin  to  myself  ? 
— when  I  want  to  be  alone.  If  we  treat  each  other  this 
way,  I  hope  we  shall  suit  ;  if  not,  probably  we  should  wish 
each  other  at  the  devil.'' 

We  stop  a  week  at  [the]  Madeira  Islands,  and  shall  see 
most  of  [the]  big  cities  in  South  America.  Captain  Beaufort 
is  drawing  up  the  track  through  the  South  Sea.  I  am  writ- 
ing in  [a]  great  hurry ;  I  do  not  know  whether  you  take  inter- 
est enough  to  excuse  treble  postage.  I  hope  I  am  judging 
reasonably,  and  not  through  prejudice,  about  Captain  Fitz- 
Roy  ;  if  so,  I  am  sure  we  shall  suit.  I  dine  with  him  to-day. 
I  could  write  [a]  great  deal  more  if  I  thought  you  liked  it, 
and  I  had  at  present  time.  There  is  indeed  a  tide  in  the 
affairs  of  man,  and  I  have  experienced  it,  and  I  had  entirely 
given  it  up  till  one  to-day. 

Love  to  my  father.     Dearest  Susan,  good-bye. 

Ch.  Darwin. 


1^8  APPOINTMENT    TO   THE    'BEAGLE.'     ^TAT.  22.    [1831. 


C  Darwin  to  J.  S,  Henslow. 

London,  Monday,  [September  5,  1831J. 

My  dear  Sir, 

Gloria  in  excelsis  is  the  most  moderate  beginning  I  can 
think  of.  Things  are  more  prosperous  than  I  should  have 
thought  possible.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  is  everything  that  is 
delightful.  If  I  was  to  praise  half  so  much  as  I  feel  in- 
clined, you  would  say  it  was  absurd,  only  once  seeing  him.  I 
think  he  really  wishes  to  have  me.  He  offers  me  to  mess  with 
him,  and  he  will  take  care  I  have  such  room  as  is  possible. 
But  about  the  cases  he  says  I  must  limit  myself  ;  but  then  he 
thinks  like  a  sailor  about  size.  Captain  Beaufort  says  I  shall 
be  upon  the  Boards,  and  then  it  will  only  cost  me  like  other 
officers.  Ship  sails  loth  of  October.  Spends  a  week  at 
Madeira  Islands  ;  and  then  Rio  de  Janeiro.  They  all  think 
most  extremely  probable,  home  by  the  Indian  archipelago; 
but  till  that  is  decided,  I  will  not  be  so. 

What  has  induced  Captain  Fitz-Roy  to  take  a  better 
view  of  the  case  is,  that  Mr.  Chester,  who  was  going  as  a 
friend,  cannot  go,  so  that  I  shall  have  his  place  in  every  re- 
spect. 

Captain  Fitz-Roy  has  [a]  good  stock  of  books,  many  of 
which  were  in  my  list,  and  rifles,  &c.,  so  that  the  outfit  will 
be  much  less  expensive  than  I  supposed. 

The  vessel  will  be  out  three  years.  I  do  not  object  so 
that  my  father  does  not.  On  Wednesday  I  have  another 
interview  with  Captain  Beaufort,  and  on  Sunday  most  likely 
go  with  Captain  Fitz-Roy  to  Plymouth.  So  I  hope  you  will 
keep  on  thinking  on  the  subject,  and  just  keep  memoranda 
of  what  may  strike  you.  I  will  call  most  probably  on  Mr. 
Burchell  and  introduce  myself.  I  am  in  lodgings  at  17  Spring 
Gardens.  You  cannot  imagine  anything  more  pleasant,  kind, 
and  open  than  Captain  Fitz-Roy*s  manners  were  to  me.  I 
am  sure  it  will  be  my  fault  if  we  do  not  suit. 

What  changes  I  have  had.     Till  one  to-day  I  was  building 


1831.]  W.    D.    FOX. 


179 


castles  in   the  air  about  hunting  foxes   in  Shropshire,  now 
llamas  in  South  America. 

There  is  indeed   a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men.     If  you  see 
Mr.  Wood,  remember  me  very  kindly  to  him. 
Good-bye. 

My  dear  Henslow, 

Your  most  sincere  friend, 

Chas,   Darwin. 
Excuse  this  letter  in  such  a  hurry. 


C.  Darwin  to  W,  D.  Fox, 

17  Spring  Gardens,  London, 

September  6,  1831. 

*  *  *  *  ^ 

Your  letter  gave  me  great  pleasure.  You  cannot  imagine 
how  much  your  former  letter  annoyed  and  hurt  me.*  But, 
thank  heaven,  I  firmly  believe  that  it  was  my  own  entire  fault 
in  so  interpreting  your  letter.  I  lost  a  friend  the  other  day, 
and  I  doubt  whether  the  moral  death  (as  I  then  wickedly 
supposed)  of  our  friendship  did  not  grieve  me  as  much  as  the 
real  and  sudden  death  of  poor  Ramsay.  We  have  known 
each  other  too  long  to  need,  I  trust,  any  more  explanations. 
But  I  will  mention  just  one  thing — that  on  my  death-bed,  I 
think  I  could  say  I  never  uttered  one  insincere  (which  at 
the  time  I  did  not  fully  feel)  expression  about  my  regard  for 
you.  On  thing  more — the  sending  immediately  the  insects, 
on  my  honour,  was  an  unfortunate  coincidence.  I  forgot  how 
you  naturally  would  take  them.  When  you  look  at  them 
now,  I  hope  no  unkindly  feelings  will  rise  in  your  mind,  and 
that  you  will  believe  that  you  have  always  had  in  me  a 
sincere,  and  I  will  add,  an  obliged  friend.  The  very  many 
pleasant  minutes  that  we  spent  together  in  Cambridge  rose 
like  departed  spirits  in  judgment  against  me.     May  we  have 


*  He  had  misunderstood  a  letter  of  Fox's  as  implying  a  charge  of  false- 
hood. 


l8o  APPOINTMENT    TO   THE  » BEAGLE.'     ^TAT.  22.     [1831. 

many  more  such,  will  be  one  of  my  last  wishes  in  leaving 

England.     God  bless  you,  dear  old   Fox.     May  you  always 

be  happy. 

Yours  truly, 

Chas.   Darwin. 

I  have  left  your  letter  behind,  so  do  not  know  whether  I 
direct  right. 

C.  Darwin  to  Miss  Susan  Darwin. 

17  Spring  Gardens,  Tuesday, 

[September  6,  1831.] 

My  dear  Susan, 

Again  I  am  going  to  trouble  you.  I  suspect,  if  I  keep 
on  at  this  rate,  you  will  sincerely  wish  me  at  Tierra  del 
Fuego,  or  any  other  Terra,  but  England.  First  I  will  give  1 
my  commissions.  Tell  Nancy  to  make  me  some  twelve  j 
instead  of  eight  shirts.  Tell  Edward  to  send  me  up  in  my 
carpet-bag  (he  can  slip  the  key  in  the  bag  tied  to  some 
string),  my  slippers,  a  pair  of  lightish  w^alking-shoes,  my 
Spanish  books,  my  new  microscope  (about  six  inches  long 
and  three  or  four  deep),  which  must  have  cotton  stuffed  in- 
side ;  my  geological  compass  ;  my  father  knows  that ;  a  little 
book,  if  I  have  got  it  in  my  bedroom — '  Taxidermy.'  Ask  my 
father  if  he  thinks  there  would  be  any  objection  to  my  taking 
arsenic  for  a  little  time,  as  my  hands  are  not  quite  well,  and 
I  have  always  observed  that  if  I  once  get  them  well,  and 
change  my  manner  of  living  about  the  same  time,  they  will 
generally  remain  well.  What  is  the  dose  }  Tell  Edward  my 
gun  is  dirty.  What  is  Erasmus's  direction  ?  Tell  me  if  you 
think  there  is  time  to  write  and  receive  an  answer  before  I 
start,  as  I  should  like  particularly  to  know  what  he  thinks 
about  it.  I  suppose  you  do  not  know  Sir  J.  Mackintosh's 
direction  ? 

I  write  all  this  as  if  it  was  settled,  but  it  is  not  more  than 
it  was,  excepting  that  from  Captain  Fitz-Roy  wishing  me  so 
much  to  go,  and,  from  his  kindness,  I  feel  a  predestination  I 
shall  start.     I  spent  a  very  pleasant  evening  with  him  yester- 


i83i.]  PREPARATIONS.  igl 

day.  He  must  be  more  than  twenty-three  years  old;  he  is 
of  a  slight  figure,  and  a  dark  but  handsome  edition  of  Mr. 
Kynaston,  and,  according  to  my  notions,  pre-eminently  good 
manners.  He  is  all  for  economy,  excepting  on  one  point — 
viz.,  fire-arms.  He  recommends  me  strongly  to  get  a  case  of 
pistols  like  his,  which  cost  ^£60  !  !  and  never  to  go  on  shore 
anywhere  without  loaded  ones,  and  he  is  doubting  about  a 
rifle ;  he  says  I  cannot  appreciate  the  luxury  of  fresh  meat 
here.  Of  course  I  shall  buy  nothing  till  everything  is  settled  ; 
but  I  work  all  day  long  at  my  lists,  putting  in  and  striking 
out  articles.  This  is  the  first  really  cheerful  day  I  have  spent 
since  I  received  the  letter,  and  it  all  is  owing  to  the  sort  of 
involuntary  confidence  I  place  in  my  beau  ideal  of  a  Captain. 
We  stop  at  Teneriffe*  His  object  is  to  stop  at  as  many 
places  as  possible.  He  takes  out  twenty  chronometers,  and 
it  will  be  a  *'  sin  *'  not  to  settle  the  longitude.  He  tells  me  to 
get  it  down  in  writing  at  the  Admiralty  that  I  have  the  free 
choice  to  leave  as  soon  and  whenever  I  like.  I  dare  say  you 
expect  I  shall  turn  back  at  the  Madeira  ;  if  I  have  a  morsel 
of  stomach  left,  I  won't  give  up.  Excuse  my  so  often  troub- 
ling and  writing  :  the  one  is  of  great  utility,  the  other  a  great 
amusement  to  me.  Most  likely  I  shall  write  to-morrow. 
Answer  by  return  of  post.    Love  to  my  father,  dearest  Susan. 

C.  Darwin. 

As  my  instruments  want  altering,  send  my  things  by  the 
*  Oxonian  '  the  same  night. 

C  Darwin  to  Miss  Susan  Darwin. 

London,  Friday  Morning,  September  9,  1831. 

My  dear  Susan, 

I  have  just  received  the  parcel.  I  suppose  it  was  not  de- 
livered yesterday  owing  to  the  Coronation.  I  am  very  much 
obliged  to  my  father,  and  everybody  else.  Everything  is  done 
quite  right.  I  suppose  by  this  time  you  have  received  my 
letter  written  next  day,  and  I  hope  will  send  off  the  things. 
My  affairs  remain  in  statu  quo.     Captain  Beaufort  says  I  am 


1 82    APPOINTMENT    TO   THE   'BEAGLE.'    ^TAT.  22.     [1831. 

on  the  books  for  victuals,  and  he  thinks  I  shall  have  no  diffi- 
culty about  my  collections  when  I  come  home.  But  he  is  too 
deep  a  fish  for  me  to  make  him  out.  The  only  thing  that 
now  prevents  me  finally  making  up  my  mind,  is  the  want  of 
certainty  about  the  South  Sea  Islands  ;  although  morally  I 
have  no  doubt  we  should  go  there  whether  or  no  it  is  put  in 
the  instructions.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  says  I  do  good  by  plagu- 
ing Captain  Beaufort,  it  stirs  him  up  with  a  long  pole.  Cap- 
tain Fitz-Roy  says  he  is  sure  he  has  interest  enough  (particu- 
larly if  this  Administration  is  not  everlasting — I  shall  soon 
turn  Tory  !),  anyhow,  even  when  out,  to  get  the  ship  ordered 
home  by  whatever  track  he  likes.  From  what  Wood  says,  I 
presume  the  Dukes  of  Grafton  and  Richmond  interest  them- 
selves about  him.  By  the  way.  Wood  has  been  of  the  great- 
est use  to  me  ;  and  I  am  sure  his  personal  introduction  of 
me  inclined  Captain  Fitz-Roy  to  have  me. 

To  explain  things  from  the  very  beginning :  Captain  Fitz- 
Roy  first  wished  to  have  a  Naturalist,  and  then  he  seems  to 
have  taken  a  sudden  horror  of  the  chances  of  having  some- 
body he  should  not  like  on  board  the  vessel.  He  confesses 
his  letter  to  Cambridge  was  to  throw  cold  water  on  the  scheme. 
I  don't  think  we  shall  quarrel  about  politics,  although  Wood 
(as  might  be  expected  from  a  Londonderry)  solemnly  warned 
Fitz-Roy  that  I  was  a  Whig.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  was  before 
Uncle  Jos.,  he  said,  **  now  your  friends  will  tell  you  a  sea- 
captain  is  the  greatest  brute  on  the  face  of  the  creation.  I  do 
not  know  how  to  help  you  in  this  case,  except  by  hoping  you 
will  give  me  a  trial."  How  one  does  change  I  I  actually  now 
wish  the  voyage  was  longer  before  we  touch  land.  I  feel  my 
blood  run  cold  at  the  quantity  I  have  to  do.  Everybody 
seems  ready  to  assist  me.  The  Zoological  want  to  make  me 
a  corresponding  member.  All  this  I  can  construct  without 
crossing  the  Equator.  But  one  friend  is  quite  invaluable,  viz., 
a  Mr.  Yarrell,  a  stationer,  and  excellent  naturalist."*     He  goes 


*  William  Yarrell,  well  known  for  his  '  History  of  British  Birds  '  and 
*  History  of  British   Fishes,' was  born  in  1784.     He  inherited   from  his 


i83i.]  THE   SHOPS  SHUT.  ig^ 

to  the  shops  with  me  and  bullies  about  prices  (not  that  I  yet 
buy)  :  hang  me  if  I  give  £60  for  pistols. 

Yesterday  all  the  shops  were  shut,  so  that  I  could  do  noth- 
ing; and  I  was  child  enough  to  give  ;£i  li*.  for  an  excellent 
seat  to  see  the  Procession."^  And  it  certainly  was  very  well 
worth  seeing.  I  was  surprised  that  any  quantity  of  gold  could 
make  a  long  row  of  people  quite  glitter.  It  was  like  only 
what  one  sees  in  picture-books  of  Eastern  processions.  The 
King  looked  very  well,  and  seemed  popular,  but  there  was  very 
little  enthusiasm;  so  little  that  I  can  hardly  think  there  will 
be  a  coronation  this  time  fifty  years. 

The  Life  Guards  pleased  me  as  much  as  anything — they 
are  quite  magnificent ;  and  it  is  beautiful  to  see  them  clear 
a  crowd.  You  think  that  they  must  kill  a  score  at  least, 
and  apparently  they  really  hurt  nobody,  but  most  deucedly 
frighten  them.  Whenever  a  crowd  was  so  dense  that  the 
people  were  forced  off  the  causeway,  one  of  these  six-feet 
gentlemen,  on  a  black  horse,  rode  straight  at  the  place,  mak- 
ing his  horse  rear  very  high,  and  fall  on  the  thickest  spot. 
You  would  suppose  men  were  made  of  sponge  to  see  them 
shrink  away. 

In  the  evening  there  was  an  illumination,  and  much 
grander  than  the  one  on  the  Reform  Bill.  All  the  principal 
streets  were  crowded  just  like  a  race-ground.  Carriages 
generally  being  six  abreast,  and  I  will  venture  to  say  not  go- 
ing one  mile  an  hour.  The  Duke  of  Northumberland  learnt 
a  lesson  last  time,  for  his  house  was  very  grand  ;  much  more 
so  than  the  other  great  nobility,  and  in  much  better  taste ; 
every  window  in  his  house  was  full  of  straight  lines  of  brilliant 
lights,  and  from  their  extreme  regularity  and  number  had  a 
beautiful  effect.  The  paucity  of  invention  was  very  striking, 
crowns,  anchors,  and  "W.  R.'s  "  were  repeated  in   endless 


father  a  newsagent's  business,  to  which  he  steadily  adhered  up  to  his  death, 
*'  in  his  73rd  year."  He  was  a  man  of  a  thoroughly  amiable  and  honour- 
able character,  and  was  a  valued  office-bearer  of  several  of  the  learned 
Societies. 

*  The  Coronation  of  William  IV. 


1 84    APPOINTMENT   TO   THE   'BEAGLE.'     ^TAT.  22.  [1831. 

succession.  The  prettiest  were  gas-pipes  with  small  holes  ; 
they  were  almost  painfully  brilliant.  I  have  written  so  much 
about  the  Coronation,  that  I  think  you  will  have  no  occasion 
to  read  the  Morning  Herald. 

Yox  about  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  find  London  very 
pleasant ;  hurry,  bustle,  and  noise  are  all  in  unison  with  my 
feelings.  And  I  have  plenty  to  do  in  spare  moments.  I  work 
at  Astronomy,  as  I  suppose  it  would  astound  a  sailor  if  one 
did  not  know  how  to  find  Latitude  and  Longitude.  I  am 
now  going  to  Captain  Fitz-Roy,  and  will  keep  [this]  letter 
open  till  evening  for  anything  that  may  occur.  I  will  give 
you  one  proof  of  Fitz-Roy  being  a  good  officer — all  the  offi- 
cers are  the  same  as  before  ;  two-thirds  of  his  crew  and  [the] 
eight  marines  who  went  before  all  offered  to  come  again,  so 
the  service  cannot  be  so  very  bad.  The  Admiralty  have  just 
issued  orders  for  a  large  stock  of  canister-meat  and  lemon- 
juice,  &c.  &c.  I  have  just  returned  from  spending  a  long 
day  with  Captain  Fitz-Roy,  driving  about  in  his  gig,  and 
shopping.  This  letter  is  too  late  for  to-day*s  post.  You 
may  consider  it  settled  that  I  go.  Yet  there  is  room  for 
change  if  any  untoward  accident  should  happen  ;  this  I  can 
see  no  reason  to  expect.  I  feel  convinced  nothing  else  will 
alter  my  wish  of  going.  I  have  begun  to  order  things.  I 
have  procured  a  case  of  good  strong  pistols  and  an  excel- 
lent rifle  for  ;^5o,  there  is  a  saving  ;  a  good  telescope,  with 
compass,  ;^5,  and  these  are  nearly  the  only  expensive  instru- 
ments I  shall  want.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  has  everything.  I 
never  saw  so  (what  I  should  call,  he  says  not)  extravagant  a 
man,  as  regards  himself,  but  as  economical  towards  me.  How 
he  did  order  things  !  His  fire-arms  will  cost  ;^4oo  at  least. 
I  found  the  carpet  bag  when  I  arrived  all  right,  and  much 
obliged.  I  do  not  think  I  shall  take  any  arsenic  ;  shall  send 
partridges  to  Mr.  Yarrell  ;  much  obliged.  Ask  Edward  to 
bargain  with  Clemson  to  make  for  my  gun — two  spare  ham- 
mers or  cocks,  two  main-springs,  two  sere-springs,  four  nipples 
or  plugs — I  mean  one  for  each  barrel,  except  nipples,  of  which 
there  must  be  two  for  each,  all  of  excellent  quality,  and  set 


1831]  VISIT   TO   PLYMOUTH.  1 85 

about  them  immediately  ;  tell  Edward  to  make  inquiries 
about  prices.  I  go  on  Sunday  per  packet  to  Plymouth,  shall 
stay  one  or  two  days,  then  return,  and  hope  to  find  a  letter 
from  you ;  a  few  days  in  London  ;  then  Cambridge,  Shrews- 
bury, London,  Plymouth,  Madeira,  is  my  route.  It  is  a  great 
bore  my  writing  so  much  about  the  Coronation ;  I  could  fill 
another  sheet.  I  have  just  been  with  Captain  King,  Fitz- 
Roy*s  senior  officer  last  expedition  ;  he  thinks  that  the  ex- 
pedition will  suit  me.  Unasked,  he  said  Fitz-Roy's  temper 
was  perfect.  He  sends  his  own  son  with  him  as  midship- 
man. The  key  of  my  microscope  was  forgotten  ;  it  is  of  no 
consequence.     Love  to  all. 

Chas.  Darwin. 


C,  Darwin  to  W,  D.  Fox, 

17  Spring  Gardens  (and  here  I  shall  remain  till  I  start) 

[September  ig,  1831]. 

My  dear  Fox, 

I  returned  from  my  expedition  to  see  the  Beagle  at  Plym- 
outh on  Saturday,  and  found  your  most  welcome  letter  on 
my  table.  It  is  quite  ridiculous  what  a  very  long  period 
these  last  twenty  days  have  appeared  to  me,  certainly  much 
more  than  as  many  weeks  on  ordinary  occasions  ;  this  will 
account  for  my  not  recollecting  how  much  I  told  you  of  my 
plans. 

*  *  ^  Hi  * 

But  on  the  whole  it  is  a  grand  and  fortunate  opportunity; 
there  will  be  so  many  things  to  interest  me — fine  scenery  and 
an  endless  occupation  and  amusement  in  the  different  branches 
of  Natural  History ;  then  again  navigation  and  meteorology 
will  amuse  me  on  the  voyage,  joined  to  the  grand  requisite  of 
there  being  a  pleasant  set  of  officers,  and,  as  far  as  I  can 
judge,  this  is  certain.  On  the  other  hand  there  is  very  con- 
siderable risk  to  one's  life  and  health,  and  the  leaving  for  so 
very  long  a  time  so  many  people  whom  I  dearly  love,  is  often- 
times a  feeling  so  painful  that  it  requires  all  my  resolution  to 
overcome  it.     But  everything  is  now  settled,  and  before  the 


1 86    APPOINTMENT   TO   THE   'BEAGLE.'    .^TAT.  22.  [1831. 

20th  of  October  I  trust  to  be  on  the  broad  sea.  My  objection 
to  the  vessel  is  its  smallness,  which  cramps  one  so  for  room 
for  packing  my  own  body  and  all  my  cases,  &c.,  &c.  As  to 
its  safety,  I  hope  the  Admiralty  are  the  best  judges;  to  a 
landsman's  eye  she  looks  very  small.  She  is  a  ten-gun  three- 
masted  brig,  but,  I  believe,  an  excellent  vessel.  So  much  for 
my  future  plans,  and  now  for  my  present.  I  go  to-night  by 
the  mail  to  Cambridge,  and  from  thence,  after  settling  my 
affairs,  proceed  to  Shrewsbury  (most  likely  on  Friday  23rd, 
or  perhaps  before)  ;  there  I  shall  stay  a  few  days,  and  be 
in  London  by  the  ist  of  October,  and  start  for  Plymouth  on 
the  9th. 

And  now  for  the  principal  part  of  my  letter.  I  do  not 
know  how  to  tell  you  how  very  kind  I  feel  your  offer  of  com- 
ing to  see  me  before  I  leave  England.  Indeed  I  should  like 
it  very  much  ;  but  I  must  tell  you  decidedly  that  I  shall  have 
very  little  time  to  spare,  and  that  little  time  will  be  almost 
spoilt  by  my  having  so  much  to  think  about ;  and  secondly, 
I  can  hardly  think  it  worth  your  while  to  leave  your  parish 
for  such  a  cause.  But  I  shall  never  forget  such  generous 
kindness.  Now  I  know  you  will  act  just  as  you  think  right ; 
but  do  not  come  up  for  my  sake.  Any  time  is  the  same  for 
me.  I  think  from  this  letter  you  will  know  as  much  of  my 
plans  as  I  do  myself,  and  will  judge  accordingly  the  where 
and  when  to  write  to  me.  Every  now  and  then  I  have  mo- 
ments of  glorious  enthusiasm,  when  I  think  of  the  date  and 
cocoa-trees,  the  palms  and  ferns  so  lofty  and  beautiful,  every- 
thing new,  everything  sublime.  And  if  I  live  to  see  years 
in  after  life,  how  grand  must  such  recollections  be  !  Do  you 
know  Humboldt.^  (if  you  don't,  do  so  directly.)  With  what 
intense  pleasure  he  appears  always  to  look  back  on  the  days 
spent  in  the  tropical  countries.  I  hope  when  you  next  write 
to  Osmaston,  [you  will]  tell  them  my  scheme,  and  give  them 
my  kindest  regards  and  farewells. 

Good-bye,  my  dear  Fox, 

Yours  ever  sincerely, 

Chas.  Darwin. 


1831.]  BAROMETERS.  jg^ 

C.  Darwin  to  R.  Fitz-Roy. 

17  Spring  Gardens  [October  17  ?  1831]. 

Dear  Fitz-Roy, 

Very  many  thanks  for  your  letter  ;  it  has  made  me  most 
comfortable,  for  it  would  have  been  heart-breaking  to  have 
left  anything  quite  behind,  and  I  never  should  have  thought 
of  sending  things  by  some  other  vessel.  This  letter  will,  I 
trust,  accompany  some  talc.  I  read  your  letter  without  at- 
tending to  the  name.  But  I  have  now  procured  some  from 
Jones,  which  appears  very  good,  and  I  will  send  it  this  even- 
ing by  the  mail.  You  will  be  surprised  at  not  seeing  me 
propria  persona  instead  of  my  handwriting.  But  I  had  just 
found  out  that  the  large  steam-packet  did  not  intend  to  sail 
on  Sunday,  and  I  was  picturing  to  myself  a  small,  dirty  cabin, 
with  the  proportion  of  39-40ths  of  the  passengers  very  sick, 
when  Mr.  Earl  came  in  and  told  me  the  Beagle  would  not  sail 
till  the  beginning  of  November.  This,  of  course,  settled  the 
point ;  so  that  I  remain  in  London  one  week  more.  I  shall 
then  send  heavy  goods  by  steamer  and  start  myself  by  the 
coach  on  Sunday  evening. 

Have  you  a  good  set  of  mountain  barometers  ?  Several 
great  guns  in  the  scientific  world  have  told  me  some  points 
in  geology  to  ascertain  which  entirely  depend  on  their  relative 
height.  If  you  have  not  a  good  stock,  I  will  add  one  more 
to  the  list.  I  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  trouble  you  so  much, 
but  will  you  send  one  line  to  inform  me  .^  I  am  daily  becoming 
more  anxious  to  be  off,  and,  if  I  am  so,  you  must  be  in  a  per- 
fect fever.  What  a  glorious  day  the  4th  of  November  will 
be  to  me  !  My  second  life  will  then  commence,  and  it  shall 
be  as  a  birthday  for  the  rest  of  my  life. 

Believe  me,  dear  Fitz-Roy, 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

Chas.  Darwin. 

Monday. — I  hope  I  have  not  put  you  to  much  inconven- 
ience by  ordering  the  room  in  readiness. 


l88  APPOINTMENT    TO   THE    'BEAGLE.'     .ETAT.  22.    [1831. 

C.  Darwi77  to  J.  S.  Henslow, 

Devonport,  November  15,  1831. 
My  dear  Henslow, 

The  orders  are  come  down  from  the  Admiralty,  and  every- 
thing is  finally  settled.  We  positively  sail  the  last  day  of  this 
month,  and  I  think  before  that  time  the  vessel  will  be  ready. 
She  looks  most  beautiful,  even  a  landsman  must  admire  her. 
We  all  think  her  the  most  perfect  vessel  ever  turned  out  of 
the  Dockyard.  One  thing  is  certain,  no  vessel  has  been  fitted 
out  so  expensively,  and  with  so  much  care.  Everything  that 
can  be  made  so  is  of  mahogany,  and  nothing  can  exceed  the 
neatness  and  beauty  of  all  the  accommodations.  The  in- 
structions are  very  general,  and  leave  a  great  deal  to  the 
Captain's  discretion  and  judgment,  paying  a  substantial  as 
well  as  a  verbal  compliment  to  him. 

***** 

No  vessel  ever  left  England  with  such  a  set  of  Chronom- 
eters, viz.  twenty-four,  all  very  good  ones.  In  short,  every- 
thing is  well,  and  I  have  only  now  to  pray  for  the  sickness  to 
moderate  its  fierceness,  and  I  shall  do  very  well.  Yet  I 
should  not  call  it  one  of  the  very  best  opportunities  for  natu- 
ral history  that  has  ever  occurred.  The  absolute  want  of 
room  is  an  evil  that  nothing  can  surmount.  I  think  L.  Jenyns 
did  very  wisely  in  not  coming,  that  is  judging  from  my  own 
feelings,  for  I  am  sure  if  I  had  left  college  some  few  years,  or 
been  those  years  older,  I  never  could  have  endured  it.  The 
officers  (excepting  the  Captain)  are  like  the  freshest  fresh- 
men, that  is  in  their  manners,  in  everything  else  widely  differ- 
ent. Remember  me  most  kindly  to  him,  and  tell  him  if  ever 
he  dreams  in  the  night  of  palm-trees,  he  may  in  the  morning 
comfort  himself  with  the  assurance  that  the  voyage  would  not 
have  suited  him. 

I  am  much  obliged  for  your  advice,  de  Mathematicis.  I 
suspect  when  I  am  struggling  with  a  triangle,  I  shall  often 
wish  myself  in  your  room,  and  as  for  those  wicked  sulky  surds, 
I  do  not  know  what  I  shall  do  without  you  to  conjure  them. 


i83i.]  DEVENPORT.  igg 

My  time  passes  away  very  pleasantly.  I  know  one  or  two 
pleasant  people,  foremost  of  whom  is  Mr.  Thunder-and-light- 
ning  Harris,*  whom  1  dare  say  you  have  heard  of.  My  chief 
employment  is  to  go  on  board  the  Beagle^  and  try  to  look  as 
much  like  a  sailor  as  I  can.  I  have  no  evidence  of  having 
taken  in  man,  woman  or  child. 

I  am  going  to  ask  you  to  do  one  more  commission,  and  I 
trust  it  will  be  the  last.  When  I  was  in  Cambridge,  I  wrote 
to  Mr.  Ash,  asking  him  to  send  my  College  account  to  my 
father,  after  having  subtracted  about  ;^3o  for  my  furniture. 
This  he  has  forgotten  to  do,  and  my  father  has  paid  the  bill, 
and  I  want  to  have  the  furniture-money  transmitted  to  my 
father.  Perhaps  you  would  be  kind  enough  to  speak  to  Mr. 
Ash.  I  have  cost  my  father  so  much  money,  I  am  quite 
ashamed  of  myself. 

I  will  write  once  again  before  sailing,  and  perhaps  you 
will  write  to  me  before  then. 

Remember  me  to  Professor  Sedgwick  and  Mr.  Peacock. 
Believe  me,  yours  affectionately, 

Chas.   Darwin. 


C.  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Ilenslow. 

Devonport,  December  3,  1831. 

My  dear  Henslow, 

It  is  now  late  in  the  evening,  and  to-night   I  am  going 

to  sleep  on  board.  On  Monday  we  most  certainly  sail,  so 
I  you  may  guess  in  what  a  desperate  state  of  confusion  we  are 
[  all  in.  If  you  were  to  hear  the  various  exclamations  of  the 
I  officers,  you  would    suppose  we  had  scarcely  had  a  week's 

notice.     I  am  just  in  the  same  way  taken  all  aback,  and  in 

such  a  bustle  I  hardly  know  what  to  do.  The  number  of 
1  things  to  be  done  is  infinite.  I  look  forward  even  to  sea-sick- 
j  ness  with  something  like  satisfaction,  anything  must  be  better 

than  this  state  of  anxiety.     I  am  very  much  obliged  for  your 

*  William  Snow  Harris,  the  Electrician. 


igO  APPOINTMENT    TO   THE    'BEAGLE.'     yETAT.  22.    [1831. 

last  kind  and  affectionate  letter.  I  always  like  advice  from 
you,  and  no  one  whom  I  have  the  luck  to  know  is  more  capa- 
ble of  giving  it  than  yourself.  Recollect,  when  you  write, 
that  I  am  a  sort  oi protege  oi  yours,  and  that  it  is  your  bounden 
duty  to  lecture  me. 

I  will  now  give  you  my  direction ;  it  is  at  first,  Rio ;  but 
if  you  will  send  me  a  letter  on  the  first  Tuesday  (when  the 
packet  sails)  in  February,  directed  to  Monte  Video,  it  will 
give  me  very  great  pleasure  ;  I  shall  so  much  enjoy  hearing  a 
little  Cambridge  news.  Poor  dear  old  Alma  Mater  I  I  am  a 
very  worthy  son  in  as  far  as  affection  goes.  I  have  little  more 
to  write  about  ....  I  cannot  end  this  without  telling  you 
how  cordially  I  feel  grateful  for  the  kindness  you  have  shown 
me  during  my  Cambridge  life.  Much  of  the  pleasure  and 
utility  which  I  may  have  derived  from  it  is  owing  to  you.  1 
long  for  the  time  when  we  shall  again  meet,  and  till  then  be- 
lieve me,  my  dear  Henslow, 

Your  affectionate  and  obliged  friend, 

Ch.  Darwin. 

Remember  me  most  kindly  to  those  who  take  any  interest 
in  me. 


CHAPTER   VL 


THE    VOYAGE. 


"  There  is  a  natural  good-humoured  energy  in  his  letters  just 
like  himself." — From  a  letter  of  Dr.  R.  W.  Darwin's  to  Prof.  Henslow. 

[The  object  of  the  Beagle  voyage  is  briefly  described  in 
my  father*s  ^Journal  of  Researches/  p.  i,  as  being  "to  com- 
plete the  Survey  of  Patagonia  and  Tierra  del  Fuego^  com- 
menced under  Captain  King  in  1826  to  1830;  to  survey  the 
shores  of  Chile,  Peru,  and  some  island  in  the  Pacific ;  and 
to  carry  a  chain  of  chronometrical  measurements  round  the 
world." 

The  Beagle  is  described  as  a  well-built  little  vessel,  of 
235  tons,  rigged  as  a  barque,  and  carrying  six  guns.  She 
belonged  to  the  old  class  of  ten-gun  brigs,  which  were  nick- 
named "coffins,*'  from  their  liability  to  go  down  in  severe 
weather.     They  were  very  "  deep-waisted,"  that  is,  their  bul- 

1  warks  were  high  in  proportion  to  their  size,  so  that  a  heavy 
sea  breaking  over  them  might  be  highly  dangerous.     Never- 

Ij  theless,  she  lived  through  the  five  years'  work,  in  the  most 
stormy  regions  in  the  world,  under  Commanders  Stokes  and 

I  Fitz-Roy,  without  a  serious  accident.  When  re-commissioned 
in  1 83 1  for  her  second  voyage,  she  was  found  (as  I  learn  from 
Admiral  Sir  James   Sulivan)   to  be   so  rotten  that  she  had 

I  practically  to  be  rebuilt,  and  it  was  this  that  caused  the  long 
delay  in  refitting.  The  upper  deck  was  raised,  making  her 
much  safer  in  heavy  weather,  and  giving  her  far  more  com- 


192 


THE  VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  22. 


fortable  accommodation  below.  By  these  alterations  and  by 
the  strong  sheathing  added  to  her  bottom  she  was  brought 
up  to  242  tons  burthen.  It  is  a  proof  of  the  splendid  seaman- 
ship of  Captain  Fitz-Roy  and  his  officers  that  she  returned 
without  having  carried  away  a  spar,  and  that  in  only  one 
of  the  heavy  storms  that  she  encountered  was  she  in  great 
danger. 

She  was  fitted  out  for  the  expedition  with  all  possible  care, 
being  supplied  with  carefully  chosen  spars  and  ropes,  six 
boats,  and  a  ^'  dinghy;  "  lightning  conductors,  "invented  by 
Mr.  Harris,  were  fixed  in  all  the  masts,  the  bowsprits,  and  even 
in  the  flying  jib-boom."  To  quote  my  father's  description, 
written  from  Devonport,  November  17,  1831  :  "Everybody, 
who  can  judge,  says  it  is  one  of  the  grandest  voyages  that 
has  almost  ever  been  sent  out.  Everything  is  on  a  grand 
scale.  Twenty-four  chronometers.  The  whole  ship  is  fitted 
up  with  mahogany;  she  is  the  admiration  of  the  whole  place. 
In  short,  everything  is  as  prosperous  as  human  means  can 
make  it.'* 

Owing  to  the  smallness  of  the  vessel,  every  one  on  board 
was  cramped  for  room,  and  my  father's  accommodation  seems 
to  have  been  small  enough  :  "  I  have  just  room  to  turn  round,'* 
he  writes  to  Henslow,  "and  that  is  all."  Admiral  Sir  James 
Sulivan  writes  to  me :  "  The  narrow  space  at  the  end  of  the 
chart-table  was  his  only  accommodation  for  working,  dress- 
ing, and  sleeping;  the  hammock  being  left  hanging  over  his 
head  by  day,  when  the  sea  was  at  all  rough,  that  he  might  He 
on  it  with  a  book  in  his  hand  when  he  could  not  any  longer 
sit  at  the  table.  His  only  stowage  for  clothes  being  several 
small  drawers  in  the  corner,  reaching  from  deck  to  deck ;  the 
top  one  being  taken  out  when  the  hammock  was  hung  up,  with- 
out which  there  was  not  length  for  it,  so  then  the  foot-clews 
took  the  place  of  the  top  drawer.  For  specimens  he  had  a 
very  small  cabin  under  the  forecastle." 

Yet  of  this  narrow  room  he  wrote  enthusiastically,  Sep- 
tember 17,  1831  : — "When  I  wrote  last  I  was  in  great  alarm 
about  my  cabin.     The  cabins  were  not  then  marked  out,  but 


THE   SHIP.  IQj 

when  I  left  they  were,  and  mine  is  a  capital  one,  certainly 
next  best  to  the  Captain's  and  remarkably  light.  My  com- 
panion most  luckily,  I  think,  will  turn  out  to  be  the  ofificer 
whom  I  shall  like  best.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  says  he  will  take 
care  that  one  corner  is  so  fitted  up  that  I  shall  be  com- 
fortable in  it  and  shall  consider  it  my  home,  but  that  also  I 
shall  have  the  run  of  his.  My  cabin  is  the  drawing  one  ;  and 
in  the  middle  is  a  large  table,  on  which  we  two  sleep  in  ham- 
mocks. But  for  the  first  two  months  there  will  be  no  drawing 
to  be  done,  so  that  it  will  be  quite  a  luxurious  room,  and  good 
deal  larger  than  the  Captain's  cabin." 

My  father  used  to  say  that  it  was  the  absolute  necessity  of 
tidiness  in  the  cramped  space  of  the  Beagle  that  helped  '  to 
give  him  his  methodical  habits  of  working.'  On  the  Beagle^ 
too,  he  would  say,  that  he  learned  what  he  considered  the 
golden  rule  for  saving  time  ;  /.  ^.,  taking  care  of  the  min- 
utes. 

Sir  James  Sulivan  tells  me  that  the  chief  fault  in  the  outfit 
of  the  expedition  was  the  want  of  a  second  smaller  vessel  to 
act  as  tender.  This  want  was  so  much  felt  by  Captain  Fitz- 
Roy  that  he  hired  two  decked  boats  to  survey  the  coast  of 
Patagonia,  at  a  cost  of  ;^iioo,  a  sum  which  he  had  to  supply, 
although  the  boats  saved  several  thousand  pounds  to  the 
country.  He  afterwards  bought  a  schooner  to  act  as  a  tender, 
thus  saving  the  country  a  further  large  amount.  He  was 
ultimately  ordered  to  sell  the  schooner,  and  was  compelled  to 
bear  the  loss  himself,  and  it  was  only  after  his  death  that  some 
inadequate  compensation  was  made  for  all  the  losses  which  he 
suffered  through  his  zeal. 

For  want  of  a  proper  tender,  much  of  the  work  had  to  be 
done  in  small  open  whale  boats,  which  were  sent  away  from 
I  the  ship  for  weeks  together,  and  this  in  a  climate,  where 
the  crews  were  exposed  to  severe  hardships  from  the  almost 
constant  rains,  which  sometimes  continued  for  weeks  together. 
The  completeness  of  the  equipment  was  also  in  other  respects 
largely  due  to  the  public  spirit  of  Captain  Fitz-Roy.  He 
provided  at  his  own  cost  an  artist,  and  a  skilled  instrument- 

lO 


194  THE   VOYAGE.    ^TAT.  22. 

maker  to  look  after  the  chronometers.*  Captain  Fitz-Roy's 
wish  was  to  take  *'some  well-educated  and  scientific  person  " 
as  his  private  guest,  but  this  generous  offer  was  only  accepted 
by  my  father  on  condition  of  being  allowed  to  pay  a  fair  share 
of  the  expense  of  the  Captain's  table ;  he  was,  moreover,  on 
the  ship's  books  for  victuals. 

In  a  letter  to  his  sister  (July  1832)  he  writes  contentedly 
of  his  manner  of  life  at  sea  : — "  I  do  not  think  I  have  ever 
given  you  an  account  of  how  the  day  passes.  We  breakfast 
at  eight  o'clock.  The  invariable  maxim  is  to  throw  away  all 
politeness — that  is,  never  to  wait  for  each  other,  and  bolt  off 
the  minute  one  has  done  eating,  &c.  At  sea,  when  the 
weather  is  calm,  I  work  at  marine  animals,  with  which  the 
whole  ocean  abounds.  If  there  is  any  sea  up  I  am  either  sick 
or  contrive  to  read  some  voyage  or  travels.  At  one  we  dine. 
You  shore-going  people  are  lamentably  mistaken  about  the 
manner  of  living  on  board.  We  have  never  yet  (nor  shall 
we)  dined  off  salt  meat.  Rice  and  peas  and  calavanses  are 
excellent  vegetables,  and,  with  good  bread,  who  could  wanj: 
more  ?  Judge  Alderson  could  not  be  more  temperate,  as 
nothing  but  water  comes  on  the  table.  At  five  we  have  tea 
The  midshipmen's  berth  have  all  their  meals  an  hour  before 
us,  and  the  gun-room  an  hour  afterwards." 

The  crew  of  the  Beagle  consisted  of  Captain  Fitz-Roy 
*^  Commander  and  Surveyor,"  two  lieutenants,  one  of  whom 
(the  first  lieutenant)  was  the  late  Captain  Wickham,  Governor 
of  Queensland;  the  present  Admiral  Sir  James  Sulivan,  K.C.B. 
was  the  second  lieutenant.  Besides  the  master  and  two  mates 
there  was  an  assistant-surveyor,  the  present  Admiral  Lort 
Stokes.  There  were  also  a  surgeon,  assistant-surgeon,  twc 
midshipmen,  master's  mate,  a  volunteer  (ist  class),  purser, 
carpenter,  clerk,  boatswain,  eight  marines,  thirty-four  seamen 
and  six  boys. 

There  are  not,  I  believe,  many  survivors  of  my  father's  old 
ship-mates.     Admiral  Mellersh,  Mr.  Hamond,  and  Mr.  Philif 

*  Either  one  or  both  were  on  the  books  for  victuals. 


THE    OFFICERS.  1^5 

King,  of  the  Legislative  Council  of  Sydney,  and  Mr.  Usborne, 
are  among  the  number.  Admiral  Johnson  died  almost  at  the 
same  time  as  my  father. 

He  retained  to  the  last  a  most  pleasant  recollection  of  the 
voyage  of  the  Beagle^  and  of  the  friends  he  made  on  board 
her.  To  his  children  their  names  were  familiar,  from  his 
many  stories  of  the  voyage,  and  we  caught  his  feeling  of 
friendship  for  many  who  were  to  us  nothing  more  than  names. 

It  is  pleasant  to  know  how  affectionately  his  old  companions 
remembered  him. 

Sir  James  Sulivan  remained,  throughout  my  father's  life- 
time, one  of  his  best  and  truest  friends.  He  writes  : — ^^  I  can 
confidently  express  my  belief  that  during  the  ^n^  years  in  the 
Beagle^  he  was  never  known  to  be  out  of  temper,  or  to  say  one 
unkind  or  hasty  word  of  or  to  any  one.  You  will  therefore 
readily  understand  how  this,  combined  with  the  admiration 
of  his  energy  and  ability,  led  to  our  giving  him  the  name  of 
*the  dear  old  Philosopher.'"*  Admiral  Mellersh  writes  to 
me: — "Your  father  is  as  vividly  in  my  mind's  eye  as  if  it 
was  only  a  week  ago  that  I  was  in  the  Beagle  with  him  ;  his 
genial  smile  and  conversation  can  never  be  forgotten  by  any 
who  saw  them  and  heard  them.  I  w^as  sent  on  two  or  three 
occasions  away  in  a  boat  with  him  on  some  of  his  scientific 
excursions,  and  always  looked  forward  to  these  trips  with 
great  pleasure,  an  anticipation  that,  unlike  many  others,  was 
always  realised.  I  think  he  was  the  only  man  I  ever  knew 
against  whom  I  never  heard  a  word  said  ;  and  as  people 
when  shut  up  in  a  ship  for  five  years  are  apt  to  get  cross  with 
each  other,  that  is  saying  a  good  deal.  Certainly  we  were 
always  so  hard  at  work,  we  had  no  time  to  quarrel,  but  if  we 
had  done  so,  I  feel  sure  your  father  would  have  tried  (and 
have  been  successful)  to  throw  oil  on  the  troubled  waters." 

*  His  other  nickname  was  **  The  Flycatcher."  I  have  heard  my  father 
tell  how  he  overheard  the  boatsv/ain  of  the  Beagle  showing  another  boat- 
swain over  the  ship,  and  pointing  out  the  officers  :  "  That's  our  first  lieu- 
tenant ;  that's  our  doctor  ;  that's  our  flycatcher.*' 


1^6  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  22. 

Admiral  Stokes,  Mr.  King,  Mr,  Usborne,  and  Mr.  Ha- 
mond,  all  speak  of  their  friendship  with  him  in  the  same  warm- 
hearted way. 

Of  the  life  on  board  and  on  shore  his  letters  give  some 
idea.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  was  a  strict  officer,  and  made  him- 
self thoroughly  respected  both  by  officers  and  men.  The 
occasional  severity  of  his  manner  was  borne  with  because 
every  one  on  board  knew  that  his  first  thought  was  his 
duty,  and  that  he  would  sacrifice  anything  to  the  real  welfare 
of  the  ship.  My  father  writes,  July  1834,  ^'  We  all  jog  on 
very  well  together,  there  is  no  quarrelling  on  board,  which  is 
something  to  say.  The  Captain  keeps  all  smooth  by  rowing 
every  one  in  turn."  The  best  proof  that  Fitz-Roy  was  valued 
as  a  commander  is  given  by  the  fact  that  many  *  of  the  crew 
had  sailed  with  him  in  the  Beagle  s  former  voyage,  and  there 
were  a  few  officers  as  well  as  seamen  and  marines,  who  had 
served  in  the  Adventure  or  Beagle  during  the  whole  of  that 
expedition. 

My  father  speaks  of  the  officers  as  a  fine  determined  set 
of  men,  and  especially  of  Wickham,  the  first  lieutenant,  as  a 
*^  glorious  fellow.'*  The  latter  being  responsible  for  the 
smartness  and  appearance  of  the  ship  strongly  objected  to 
his  littering  the  decks,  and  spoke  of  specimens  as  ^^  d — d 
beastly  devilment,"  and  used  to  add,  ^^  If  I  were  skipper,  I 
would  soon  have  you  and  all  your  d — d  mess  out  of  the 
place." 

A  sort  of  halo  of  sanctity  was  given  to  my  father  by  the 
fact  of  his  dining  in  the  Captain's  cabin,  so  that  the  midship- 
men used  at  first  to  call  him  *^  Sir,"  a  formality,  however, 
which  did  not  prevent  his  becoming  fast  friends  with  the 
younger  officers.  He  wrote  about  the  year  1861  or  1862  to 
Mr.  P.  G.  King,  M.  L.  C,  Sydney,  who,  as  before  stated,  was 
a  midshipman  on  board  the  Beagle : — ^^  The  remembrance  of 
old  days,  when  we  used  to  sit  and  talk  on  the  booms  of  the 
Beagle^  will  always,  to  the  day  of  my  death,  make  me  glad  to 

*  *  Voyage  of  the  Adveitture  and  Beagle ^^  vol.  ii.  p.  2T. 


SEA   SICKNESS.  Iq^ 

hear  of  your  happiness  and  prosperity."  Mr.  King  describes 
the  pleasure  my  father  seemed  to  take  "  in  pointing  out  to  me 
as  a  youngster  the  delights  of  the  tropical  nights,  with  their 
balmy  breezes  eddying  out  of  the  sails  above  us,  and  the  sea 
lighted  up  by  the  passage  of  the  ship  through  the  never-end- 
ing streams  of  phosphorescent  animalculae." 

It  has  been  assumed  that  his  ill-health  in  later  years  was 
due  to  his  having  suffered  so  much  from  sea-sickness.  This 
he  did  not  himself  believe,  but  rather  ascribed  his  bad  health 
to  the  hereditary  fault  which  came  out  as  gout  in  some  of  the 
past  generations.  I  am  not  quite  clear  as  to  how  much  he 
actually  suffered  from  sea-sickness  ;  my  impression  is  distinct 
that,  according  to  his  own  memory,  he  was  not  actually  ill 
after  the  first  three  weeks,  but  constantly  uncomfortable  when 
the  vessel  pitched  at  all  heavily.  But,  judging  from  his  let- 
ters, and  from  the  evidence  of  some  of  the  officers,  it  would 
seem  that  in  later  years  he  forgot  the  extent  of  the  discomfort 
from  which  he  suffered.  Writing  June  3,  1836,  from  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  he  says :  *^  It  is  a  lucky  thing  for  me 
that  the  voyage  is  drawing  to  its  close,  for  I  positively  suffer 
more  from  sea-sickness  now  than  three  years  ago."  Admiral 
Lort  Stokes  wrote  to  the  Times^  April  25,  1883  : — 

"  May  I  beg  a  corner  for  my  feeble  testimony  to  the 
marvellous  persevering  endurance  in  the  cause  of  science  of 
that  great  naturalist,  my  old  and  lost  friend,  Mr.  Charles 
Darwin,  whose  remains  are  so  very  justly  to  be  honoured  with 
a  resting-place  in  Westminster  Abbey  .^ 

*^  Perhaps  no  one  can  better  testify  to  his  early  and  most 
trying  labours  than  myself.  We  worked  together  for  several 
years  at  the  same  table  in  the  poop  cabin  of  the  Beagle  during 
her  celebrated  voyage,  he  with  his  microscope  and  myself  at 
the  charts.  It  was  often  a  very  lively  end  of  the  little  craft, 
and  distressingly  so  to  my  old  friend,  who  suffered  greatly 
from  sea-sickness.  After  perhaps  an  hour's  work  he  would 
say  to  me,  'Old  fellow,  I  must  take  the  horizontal  for  it,'  that 
being  the  best  relief  position  from   ship  motion  ;  a  stretch 


198 


THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  22. 


out  on  one  side  of  the  table  for  some  time  would  enable 
him  to  resume  his  labours  for  a  while,  when  he  had  again 
to  lie  down. 

^It  was  distressing  to  witness  this  early  sacrifice  of  Mr. 
Darwin's  health,  who  ever  afterwards  seriously  felt  the  ill- 
effects  of  the  Beagle's  voyage." 

Mf.  a.  B.  Usborne  whites,  ^'  He  was  a  dreadful  sufferer 
from  sea-sickness,  and  at  times,  when  I  have  been  officer  of 
the  watch,  and  reduced  the  sails,  making  the  ship  more  easy, 
and  thus  relieving  him,  I  have  been  pronounced  by  him  to  be 
*  a  good  officer,'  and  he  would  resume  his  microscopic  ob- 
servations in  the  poop  cabin."  The  amount  of  work  that  he 
got  through  on  the  Beagle  shows  that  he  was  habitually  in  full 
vigour  ;  he  had,  however,  one  severe  illness,  in  South  Amer- 
ica, when  he  was  received  into  the  house  of  an  Englishman, 
Mr.  Corfield,  who  tended  him  with  careful  kindness.  I  have 
heard  him  say  that  in  this  illness  every  secretion  of  the  body 
was  affected,  and  that  when  he  described  the  symptoms  to  his 
father  Dr.  Darwin  could  make  no  guess  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  disease.  My  father  was  sometimes  inclined  to  think  that 
the  breaking  up  of  his  health  was  to  some  extent  due  to  this 
attack. 

The  Beagle  letters  give  ample  proof  of  his  strong  love  of 
home,  and  all  connected  with  it,  from  his  father  down  to 
Nancy,  his  old  nurse,  to  whom  he  sometimes  sends  his  love. 

His  delight  in  home-letters  is  shown  in  such  passages  as  : — 
"  But  if  you  knew  the  glowing,  unspeakable  delight,  which  I 
felt  at  being  certain  that  my  father  and  all  of  you  were  well, 
only  four  months  ago,  you  would  not  grudge  the  labour  lost 
in  keeping  up  the  regular  series  of  letters." 

Or  again — his  longing  to  return  in  words  like  these  : — 
*'  It  is  too  delightful  to  think  that  I  shall  see  the  leaves  fall 
and  hear  the  robin  sing  next  autumn  at  Shrewsbury.  My 
feelings  are  those  of  a  schoolboy  to  the  smallest  point;  I 
doubt  whether  ever  boy  longed  for  his  holidays  as  much  as 
I  do  to  see  you  all  again.     I  am  at  present,  although  nearly 


LETTERS.  irg 

half  the  world  is  between  me  and  home,  beginning  to  arrange 
what  I  shall  do,  where  I  shall  go  during  the  first  week." 

Another  feature  in  his  letters  is  the  surprise  and  delight 
with  which  he  hears  of  his  collections  and  observations  being 
of  some  use.  It  seems  only  to  have  gradually  occurred  to 
him  that  he  would  ever  be  more  than  a  collector  of  specimens 
and  facts,  of  which  the  great  men  were  to  make  use.  And 
even  as  to  the  value  of  his  collections  he  seems  to  have  had 
much  doubt,  for  he  wrote  to  Henslow  in  1834  : — *^  I  really 
began  to  think  that  my  collections  were  so  poor  that  you  were 
puzzled  what  to  say  ;  the  case  is  now  quite  on  the  opposite 
tack,  for  you  are  guilty  of  exciting  all  my  vain  feelings  to  a 
most  comfortable  pitch  ;  if  hard  work  will  atone  for  these 
thoughts,  I  vow  it  shall  not  be  spared." 

After  his  return  and  settlement  in  London,  he  began 
to  realise  the  value  of  what  he  had  done,  and  wrote  to  Cap- 
tain Fitz-Roy — '^  However  others  may  look  back  to  the  Beagle's 
voyage,  now  that  the  small  disagreeable  parts  are  well-nigh 
forgotten,  I  think  it  far  the  most  fortunate  circwnstance  in 
my  life  that  the  chance  afforded  by  your  offer  of  taking  a 
Naturalist  fell  on  me.  I  often  have  the  most  vivid  and 
delightful  pictures  of  what  I  saw  on  board  the  Beagle  pass 
before  my  eyes.  These  recollections,  and  what  I  learnt  on 
Natural  History,  I  would  not  exchange  for  twice  ten  thousand 
a  year." 

In  selecting  the  following  series  of  letters,  I  have  been 
guided  by  the  wish  to  give  as  much  personal  detail  as  pos- 
sible. I  have  given  only  a  few  scientific  letters,  to  illustrate 
the  w^ay  in  which  he  worked,  and  how  he  regarded  his  own 
results.  In  his  '  Journal  of  Researches  '  he  gives  incidentally 
some  idea  of  his  personal  character  ;  the  letters  given  in  the 
present  chapter  serve  to  amplify  in  fresher  and  more  spon- 
taneous words  that  impression  of  his  personality  which  the 
*  Journal '  has  given  to  so  many  readers.] 


200  THE   VOYAGE.     ^ETAT.  23.  [1832. 

C,  Darwin  to  R.  W.  Darwm, 

Bahia,  or  San  Salvador,  Brazils 

[February  8,  1832]. 
I  find  after  the  first  page  I  have  been  writing 
to  my  sisters. 

My  dear  Father, 

I  am  writing  this  on  the  8th  of  February,  one  day's  sail' 
past  St.  Jago  (Cape  de  Verd),  and  intend  taking  the  chance 
of  meeting  with  a  homeward-bound  vessel  somewhere  about 
the  equator.  The  date,  however,  will  tell  this  whenever 
the  opportunity  occurs.  I  will  now  begin  from  the  day  of 
leaving  England,  and  give  a  short  account  of  our  progress. 
We  sailed,  as  you  know,  on  the  27th  of  December,  and  have 
been  fortunate  enough  to  have  had  from  that  time  to  the 
present  a  fair  and  moderate  breeze.  It  afterwards  proved 
that  we  had  escaped  a  heavy  gale  in  the  Channel,  another 
at  Madeira,  and  another  on  [the]  Coast  of  Africa.  But  in 
escaping  the  gale,  we  felt  its  consequences — a  heavy  sea.  In 
the  Bay  of  Biscay  there  was  a  long  and  continuous  swell,  and 
the  misery  I  endured  from  sea-sickness  is  far  beyond  what  I 
ever  guessed  at.  I  believe  you  are  curious  about  it.  I  will  give 
you  all  my  dear-bought  experience.  Nobody  who  has  only 
been  to  sea  for  twenty-four  hours  has  a  right  to  say  that  sea- 
sickness is  even  uncomfortable.  The  real  misery  only  be- 
gins when  you  are  so  exhausted  that  a  little  exertion  makes 
a  feeling  of  faintness  come  on.  I  found  nothing  but  lying  in 
my  hammock  did  me  any  good.  I  must  especially  except 
your  receipt  of  raisins,  which  is  the  only  food  that  the  stomach 
will  bear. 

On  the  4th  of  January  we  were  not  many  miles  from 
Madeira,  but  as  there  was  a  heavy  sea  running,  and  the 
island  lay  to  windward,  it  was  not  thought  worth  while  to 
beat  up  to  it.  It  afterwards  has  turned  out  it  was  lucky  we 
saved  ourselves  the  trouble.  I  was  much  too  sick  even  to  get 
up  to  see  the  distant  outline.  On  the  6th,  in  the  evening,  we 
sailed  into  the  harbour  of  Santa  Cruz.  I  now  first  felt  even 
moderately  well,  and  I  was  picturing  to  myself  all  the  delights 


i832.]  PEAK   OF   TENERIFFE.  201 

of  fresh  fruits  growing  in  beautiful  valleys,  and  reading  Hum- 
boldt's  descriptions  of  the  island's  glorious  views,  when  per- 
liaps  you  may  nearly  guess  at  our  disappointment,  when  a 
small  pale  man  informed  us  we  must  perform  a  strict  quaran- 
tine of  twelve  days.  There  was  a  death-like  stillness  in  the 
ship  till  the  Captain  cried  ''  up  jib,"  and  we  left  this  long- 
wished  for  place. 

We  were  becalmed  for  a  day  between  Teneriffe  and  the 
Grand  Canary,  and  here  I  first  experienced  any  enjoyment. 
The  view  was  glorious.  The  Peak  of  Teneriffe  was  seen 
amongst  the  clouds  like  another  world.  Our  only  drawback 
was  the  extreme  wish  of  visiting  this  glorious  island.  Te// 
Eyton  never  to  forget  either  the  Canary  Islands  or  South  America; 
that  I  am  sure  it  will  well  repay  the  necessary  trouble,  but 
that  he  must  make  up  his  mind  to  find  a  good  deal  of  the 
latter.  I  feel  certain  he  will  regret  it  if  he  does  not  make 
the  attempt.  From  Teneriffe  to  St.  Jago  the  voyage  was 
extremely  pleasant.  I  had  a  net  astern  the  vessel  which 
caught  great  numbers  of  curious  animals,  and  fully  occupied 
my  time  in  my  cabin,  and  on  deck  the  weather  was  so  delight- 
ful and  clear,  that  the  sky  and  water  together  made  a  picture. 
On  the  1 6th  we  arrived  at  Port  Praya,  the  capital  of  the  Cape 
de  Verds,  and  there  we  remained  twenty-three  days,  viz.,  till 
yesterday,  the  7th  of  February.  The  time  has  flown  away 
most  delightfully,  indeed  nothing  can  be  pleasanter ;  exceed- 
ingly busy,  and  that  business  both  a  duty  and  a  great  delight. 
I  do  not  believe  I  have  spent  one  half-hour  idly  since  leaving 
Tenerift'e.  St.  Jago  has  afforded  me  an  exceedingly  rich  har- 
vest in  several  branches  of  Natural  History.  I  find  the  de- 
scriptions scarcely  worth  anything  of  many  of  the  commoner 
animals  that  inhabit  the  Tropics.  I  allude,  of  course,  to  those 
of  the  lower  classes. 

Geologising  in  a  volcanic  country  is  most  delightful ; 
besides  the  interest  attached  to  itself,  it  -leads  you  into  most 
beautiful  and  retired  spots.  Nobody  but  a  person  fond  of 
Natural  History  can  imagine  the  pleasure  of  strolling  under 
cocoa-nuts  in  a  thicket  of  bananas  and  coffee-plants,  and  an 


202 


THE   VOYAGE.     .ETAT.  23. 


[1832. 


endless  number  of  wild  flowers.  And  this  island,  that  has 
given  me  so  much  instruction  and  delight,  is  reckoned  the 
most  uninteresting  place  that  we  perhaps  shall  touch  at  dur- 
ng  our  voyage.  It  certainly  is  generally  very  barren,  but  the 
valleys  are  more  exquisitely  beautiful,  from  the  very  contrast. 
It  is  utterly  useless  to  say  anything  about  the  scenery  ;  it 
would  be  as  profitable  to  explain  to  a  blind  man  colours,  as  to 
a  person  who  has  not  been  out  of  Europe,  the  total  dissimi- 
larity of  a  tropical  view.  Whenever  I  enjoy  anything,  I  always 
either  look  forward  to  writing  it  down,  either  in  my  log-book 
(which  increases  in  bulk),  or  in  a  letter ;  so  you  must  excuse 
raptures,  and  those  raptures  badly  expressed.  I  find  my  col- 
lections are  increasing  wonderfully,  and  from  Rio  I  think  I 
shall  be  obliged  to  send  a  cargo  home. 

All  the  endless  delays  which  we  experienced  at  Plymouth 
have  been  most  fortunate,  as  I  verily  believe  no  person  ever 
went  out  better  provided  for  collecting  and  observing  in  the 
different  branches  of  Natural  History.  In  a  multitude  of 
counsellors  I  certainly  found  good.  I  find  to  my  great  sur- 
prise that  a  ship  is  singularly  comfortable  for  all  sorts  of  work. 
Everything  is  so  close  at  hand,  and  being  cramped  makes  one 
so  methodical,  that  in  the  end  I  have  been  a  gainer.  I  already 
have  got  to  look  at  going  to  sea  as  a  regular  quiet  place,  like 
going  back  to  home  after  staying  away  from  it.  In  short,  I 
find  a  ship  a  very  comfortable  house,  with  everything  you 
want,  and  if  it  was  not  for  sea-sickness  the  whole  world  would 
be  sailors.  I  do  not  think  there  is  much  danger  of  Erasmus 
setting  the  example,  but  in  case  there  should  be,  he  may  rely 
upon  it  he  does  not  know  one-tenth  of  the  sufferings  of  sea- 
sickness. 

I  like  the  officers  much  more  than  I  did  at  first,  especially 
Wickham,  and  young  King  and  Stokes,  and  indeed  all  of 
them.  The  Captain  continues  steadily  very  kind,  and  does 
everything  in  his  power  to  assist  me.  We  see  very  little  of 
each  other  when  in  harbour,  our  pursuits  lead  us  in  such  dif- 
ferent tracks.  I  never  in  my  life  met  with  a  man  who  could 
endure  nearly  so  great  a  share  of  fatigue.     He  works  inces- 


i832.]  CROSSING    THE    EQUATOR.  203 

santly,  and  when  apparently  not  employed,  he  is  thinking.  If 
he  does  not  kill  himself,  he  will  during  this  voyage  do  a  won- 
derful quantity  of  work.  I  find  I  am  very  well,  and  stand 
the  little  heat  we  have  had  as  yet  as  well  as  anybody.  We 
shall  soon  have  it  in  real  earnest.  We  are  now  sailing  for 
Fernando  Noronha,  off  the  coast  of  Brazil,  where  we  shall  not 
stay  very  long,  and  then  examine  the  shoals  between  there 
and  Rio,  touching  perhaps  at  Bahia.  I  will  finish  this  letter 
when  an  opportunity  of  sending  it  occurs. 

February  26th. — About  280  miles  from  Bahia.  On  the 
loth  we  spoke  the  packet  Lyra^  on  her  voyage  to  Rio.  I  sent 
a  short  letter  by  her,  to  be  sent  to  England  on  [the]  first 
opportunity.  We  have  been  singularly  unlucky  in  not  meet- 
ing with  any  homeward-bound  vessels,  but  I  suppose  [at] 
Bahia  we  certainly  shall  be  able  to  v/rite  to  England.  Since 
writing  the  first  part  of  [this]  letter  nothing  has  occurred 
except  crossing  the  Equator,  and  being  shaved.  This  most 
disagreeable  operation  consists  in  having  your  face  rubbed 
with  paint  and  tar,  which  forms  a  lather  for  a  saw  which  repre- 
sents the  razor,  and  then  being  half  drowned  in  a  sail  filled  with 
salt  water.  About  50  miles  north  of  the  line  we  touched  at 
the  rocks  of  St.  Paul ;  this  little  speck  (about  \  of  a  mile 
across)  in  the  Atlantic  has  seldom  been  visited.  It  is  totally 
barren,  but  is  covered  by  hosts  of  birds  ;  they  were  so  un- 
used to  men  that  we  found  we  could  kill  plenty  with  stones 
and  sticks.  After  remaining  some  hours  on  the  island,  we 
returned  on  board  with  the  boat  loaded  with  our  prey.  From 
this  we  went  to  Fernando  Noronha,  a  small  island  where  the 
[Brazilians]  send  their  exiles.  The  landing  there  was  attended 
with  so  much  difficulty  owing  [to]  a  heavy  surf  that  the  Cap- 
tain determined  to  sail  the  next  day  after  arriving.  My  one 
day  on  shore  was  exceedingly  interesting,  the  whole  island  is 
one  single  wood  so  matted  together  by  creepers  that  it  is  very 
difficult  to  move  out  of  the  beaten  path.  I  find  the  Natural 
History  of  all  these  unfrequented  spots  most  exceedingly 
interesting,  especially  the  geology.  I  have  written  this  much 
in  order  to  save  time  at  Bahia. 


204  THE  VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  23.  [1832. 

Decidedly  the  most  striking  thing  in  the  Tropics  is  the 
novelty  of  the  vegetable  forms.  Cocoa-nuts  could  well  be 
imagined  from  drawings,  if  you  add  to  them  a  graceful  light- 
ness which  no  European  tree  partakes  of.  Bananas  and  plan- 
tains are  exactly  the  same  as  those  in  hothouses,  the  acacias 
or  tamarinds  are  striking  from  the  blueness  of  their  foliage ; 
but  of  the  glorious  orange  trees,  no  description,  no  drawings, 
will  give  any  just  idea ;  instead  of  the  sickly  green  of  our 
oranges,  the  native  ones  exceed  the  Portugal  laurel  in  the 
darkness  of  their  tint,  and  infinitely  exceed  it  in  beauty  of 
form.  Cocoa-nuts,  papaws,  the  light  green  bananas,  and 
oranges,  loaded  with  fruit,  generally  surround  the  more  luxu- 
riant villages.  Whilst  viewing  such  scenes,  one  feels  the  im- 
possibility that  any  description  should  come  near  the  mark, 
much  less  be  overdrawn. 

March  \st, — Bahia,  or  San  Salvador.  I  arrived  at  this 
place  on  the  28th  of  February,  and  am  now  writing  this  letter 
after  having  in  real  earnest  strolled  in  the  forests  of  the  new 
world.  No  person  could  imagine  anything  so  beautiful  as  the 
ancient  town  of  Bahia,  it  is  fairly  embosomed  in  a  luxuriant 
wood  of  beautiful  trees,  and  situated  on  a  steep  bank,  and 
overlooks  the  calm  waters  of  the  great  bay  of  All  Saints.  The 
houses  are  white  and  lofty,  and,  from  the  windows  being 
narrow  and  long,  have  a  very  light  and  elegant  appearance. 
Convents,  porticos,  and  public  buildings,  vary  the  uniformity 
of  the  houses  ;  the  bay  is  scattered  over  with  large  ships  ;  in 
short,  and  what  can  be  said  more,  it  is  one  of  the  finest  views 
in  the  Brazils.  But  the  exquisite  glorious  pleasure  of  walking 
amongst  such  flowers,  and  such  trees,  cannot  be  comprehended 
but  by  those  who  have  experienced  it.  Although  in  so  low  a 
latitude  the  locality  is  not  disagreeably  hot,  but  at  present  it 
is  very  damp,  for  it  is  the  rainy  season.  I  find  the  climate  as 
yet  agrees  admirably  with  me;  it  makes  me  long  to  live 
quietly  for  some  time  in  such  a  country.  If  you  really  want 
to  have  [an  idea]  of  tropical  countries,  study  Humboldt. 
Skip  the  scientific  parts,  and  commence  after  leaving  Tener- 
iffe.     My  feelings  amount  to  admiration  the  more  I  read  him* 


i832.]  LIFE   AT    SEA. 


205 


Tell  Eyton  (I  find  I  am  writing  to  my  sisters !)  how  exceed- 
ingly I  enjoy  America,  and  that  I  am  sure  it  will  be  a  great 
pity  if  he  does  not  make  a  start. 

This  letter  will  go  on  the  5th,  and  I  am  afraid  will  be  some 
time  before  it  reaches  you  ;  it  must  be  a  warning  how  in  other 
parts  of  the  world  you  may  be  a  long  time  without  hearing. 
A  year  might  by  accident  thus  pass.  About  the  12th  we 
start  for  Rio,  but  we  remain  some  time  on  the  way  in  sound- 
ing the  Albrolhos  shoals.  Tell  Eyton  as  far  as  my  experience 
goes  let  him  study  Spanish,  French,  drawing,  and  Humboldt. 
I  do  sincerely  hope  to  hear  of  (if  not  to  see  him)  in  South 
America.  I  look  forward  to  the  letters  in  Rio — till  each  one 
is  acknowledged,  mention  its  date  in  the  next. 

We  have  beat  all  the  ships  in  manoeuvring,  so  much  so 
that  the  commanding  officer  says,  we  need  not  follow  his 
example;  because  we  do  everything  better  than  his  great 
ship.  I  begin  to  take  great  interest  in  naval  points,  more 
especially  now,  as  I  find  they  all  say  we  are  the  No.  i  in  South 
America.  I  suppose  the  Captain  is  a  most  excellent  officer. 
It  was  quite  glorious  to-day  how  we  beat  the  Samarang  in 
furling  sails.  It  is  quite  a  new  thing  for  a  "  sounding  ship  "  to 
beat  a  regular  man-of-war ;  and  yet  the  Beagle  is  not  at  all  a 
particular  ship.  Erasmus  w^ill  clearly  perceive  it  when  he 
hears  that  in  the  night  I  have  actually  sat  down  in  the  sacred 
precincts  of  the  quarter  deck.  You  must  excuse  these  queer 
letters,  and  recollect  they  are  generally  written  in  the  evening 
after  my  day's  work.  I  take  more  pains  over  my  log-book,  so 
that  eventually  you  will  have  a  good  account  of  all  the  places 
I  visit.  Hitherto  the  voyage  has  answered  admirably  to  me, 
and  yet  I  am  now  more  fully  aware  of  your  wisdom  in  throw- 
ing cold  water  on  the  whole  scheme;  the  chances  are  so 
numerous  of  turning  out  quite  the  reverse  ;  to  such  an  extent 
do  I  feel  this,  that  if  my  advice  was  asked  by  any  person  on  a 
similar  occasion,  I  should  be  very  cautious  in  encouraging 
him.  I  have  not  time  to  write  to  anybody  else,  so  send  to 
Maer  to  let  them  know,  that  in  the  midst  of  the  glorious 
tropical  scenery,  I  do  not  forget  how  instrumental  they  were 


2o6  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  23.  L1S32. 

in  placing  me  there.     I  will  not  rapturise  again,  but  I  give 
myself  great  credit  in  not  being  crazy  out  of  pure  delight. 
Give  my  love  to  every  soul  at  home,  and  to  the  Owens. 
I  think  one*s  affections,  like  other  good  things,  flourish  and 
increase  in  these  tropical  regions. 

The  conviction  that  I  am  walking  in  the  New  World  is 
even  yet  marvellous  in  my  own  eyes,  and  I  dare  say  it  is  little 
less  so  to  you,  the  receiving  a  letter  from  a  son  of  yours  in 
such  a  quarter. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  Father, 
Your  most  affectionate  son, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox. 

Botofogo  Bay,  near  Rio  de  Janeiro, 

May,  1832. 

My  dear  Fox, 

I  have  delayed  writing  to  you  and  all  my  other  friends  till 
I  arrived  here  and  had  some  little  spare  time.  My  mind  has 
been,  since  leaving  England,  in  a  perfect  hurricane  of  delight 
and  astonishment,  and  to  this  hour  scarcely  a  minute  has 
passed  in  idleness.  .  .  . 

At  St.  Jago  my  natural  history  and  most  delightful  labours 
commenced.  During  the  three  weeks  I  collected  a  host  of 
marine  animals,  and  enjoyed  many  a  good  geological  walk. 
Touching  at  some  islands,  we  sailed  to  Bahia,  and  from  thence 
to  Rio,  where  I  have  already  been  some  weeks.  My  collec- 
tions go  on  admirably  in  almost  every  branch.  As  for  in- 
sects, I  trust  I  shall  send  a  host  of  undescribed  species  to 
England.  I  believe  they  have  no  small  ones  in  the  collec- 
tions, and  here  this  morning  I  have  taken  minute  Hydropori, 
Noterus,  Colymbetes,  Hydrophilus,  Hydrobius,  Gromius,  &c., 
&c.,  as  specimens  of  fresh-water  beetles.  I  am  entirely  occu- 
pied with  land  animals,  as  the  beach  is  only  sand.  Spiders 
and  the  adjoining  tribes  have  perhaps  given  me,  from  their 
novelty,  the  most  pleasure.  I  think  I  have  already  taken 
several  new  genera. 


i832.]  RIO.  207 

But  Geology  carries  the  day  :  it  is  like  the  pleasure  of 
gambling.  Speculating,  on  first  arriving,  what  the  rocks  may 
be,  I  often  mentally  cry  out  3  to  i  tertiary  against  primitive  ; 
but  the  latter  have  hitherto  won  all  the  bets.  So  much  for 
the  grand  end  of  my  voyage  ;  in  other  respects  things  are 
equally  flourishing.  My  life,  when  at  sea,  is  so  quiet,  that  to 
a  person  who  can  employ  himself,  nothing  can  be  pleasanter ; 
the  beauty  of  the  sky  and  brilliancy  of  the  ocean  together 
make  a  picture.  But  when  on  shore,  and  wandering  in  the 
sublime  forests,  surrounded  by  viev/s  more  gorgeous  than 
even  Claude  ever  imagined,  I  enjoy  a  delight  which  none  but 
those  who  have  experienced  it  can  understand.  If  it  is  to  be 
done,  it  must  be  by  studying  Humboldt.  At  our  ancient 
snug  breakfasts,  at  Cambridge,  I  little  thought  that  the  wide 
Atlantic  would  ever  separate  us ;  but  it  is  a  rare  privilege  that 
with  the  body,  the  feelings  and  memory  are  not  divided.  On 
the  contrary,  the  pleasantest  scenes  in  my  life,  many  of  which 
have  been  in  Cambridge,  rise  from  the  contrast  of  the  present, 
the  more  vividly  in  my  imagination.  Do  you  think  any 
diamond  beetle  will  ever  give  me  so  much  pleasure  as  our  old 
friend  crux  major?  ....  It  is  one  of  my  most  constant 
amusements  to  draw  pictures  of  the  past ;  and  in  them  I 
often  see  you  and  poor  little  Fan.  Oh,  Lord,  and  then  old 
Dash,  poor  thing  !  Do  you  recollect  how  you  all  tormented 
me  about  his  beautiful  tail } 

....  Think  when  you  are  picking  insects  off  a  haw- 
thorn-hedge on  a  fine  May  day  (wretchedly  cold,  I  have  no 
doubt),  think  of  me  collecting  amongst  pine-apples  and  orange- 
trees  ;  whilst  staining  your  fingers  with  dirty  blackberries, 
think  and  be  envious  of  ripe  oranges.  This  is  a  proper  piece 
of  bravado,  for  I  would  walk  through  many  a  mile  of  sleet, 
snow,  or  rain  to  shake  you  by  the  hand.  My  dear  old  Fox, 
God  bless  you.     Believe  me, 

Yours  very  affectionately, 

Chas.  Darwin. 


208  THE   VOYAGE.     .ETAT.  23.  [1832. 

C  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Henslow. 

Rio  de  Janeiro,  May  18,  1832. 

My  dear  Henslow, 

***** 

Till  arriving  at  Teneriffe  (we  did  not  touch  at  Madeira) 
I  was  scarcely  out  of  my  hammock,  and  really  suffered  more 
than  you  can  well  imagine  from  such  a  cause.  At  Santa 
Cruz,  whilst  looking  amongst  the  clouds  for  the  Peak,  and 
repeating  to  myself  Humboldt's  sublime  descriptions,  it  was 
announced  we  must  perform  twelve  days'  strict  quarantine. 
We  had  made  a  short  passage,  so  ^^  Up  jib,"  and  away  for  St. 
Jago.  You  will  say  all  this  sounds  very  bad,  and  so  it  was  ; 
but  from  that  to  the  present  time  it  has  been  nearly  one  scene 
of  continual  enjoyment.  A  net  over  the  stern  kept  me  at  full 
work  till  we  arrived  at  St.  Jago.  Here  we  spent  three  most 
delightful  weeks.  The  geology  was  pre-eminently  interest- 
ing, and  I  believe  quite  new;  there  are  some  facts  on  a 
large  scale  of  upraised  coast  (which  is  an  excellent  epoch  for 
all  the  volcanic  rocks  to  date  from),  that  would  interest  Mr. 
Lyell. 

One  great  source  of  perplexity  to  me  is  an  utter  ignorance 
whether  I  note  the  right  facts,  and  whether  they  are  of  suffi- 
cient importance  to  interest  others.  In  the  one  thing  collect- 
ing I  cannot  go  wrong.  St.  Jago  is  singularly  barren,  and 
produces  few  plants  or  insects,  so  that  my  hammer  was  my 
usual  companion,  and  in  its  company  most  delightful  hours  I 
spent.  On  the  coast  I  collected  many  marine  animals,  chiefly 
gasteropodous  (I  think  some  new).  I  examined  pretty  accu- 
rately a  Caryophylleay  and,  if  my  eyes  are  not  bewitched, 
former  descriptions  have  not  the  slightest  resemblance  to  the 
animal.  I  took  several  specimens  of  an  Octopus  which  pos- 
sessed a  most  marvellous  power  of  changing  its  colours,  equal- 
ling any  chameleon,  and  evidently  accommodating  the  changes 
to  the  colour  of  the  ground  which  it  passed  over.  Yellowish 
green,  dark  brown,  and  red,  were  the  prevailing  colours ;  this 
fact  appears  to  be  new,  as  far  as  I  can  find  out.     Geology  and 


1832.]  RIO    MACAO.  •  209 

the  invertebrate  animals  will  be  my  chief  object  of  pursuit 
through  the  whole  voyage. 

We  then  sailed  for  Bahia,  and  touched  at  the  rock  of  St. 
Paul.  This  is  a  serpentine  formation.  Is  it  not  the  only 
island  in  the  Atlantic  which  is  not  volcanic  ?  We  likewise 
stayed  a  few  hours  at  Fernando  Norcnha  ;  a  tremendous  surf 
was  running  so  that  a  boat  was  swamped,  and  the  Captain 
would  not  wait.  I  find  my  life  on  board  when  we  are  on  blue 
water  most  delightful,  so  very  comfortable  and  quiet — it  is 
almost  impossible  to  be  idle,  and  that  for  me  is  saying  a  good 
deal.'  Nobody  could  possibly  be  better  fitted  in  every  respect 
for  collecting  than  I  am  ;  many  cooks  have  not  spoiled  the 
broth  this  time.  Mr.  Brown's  little  hints  about  microscopes, 
&c.,  have  been  invaluable  I  am  well  off  in  books,  the  '  Dic- 
tionnaire  Classique '  is  most  usefuL  If  you  should  think  of 
any  thing  or  book  that  would  be  useful  to  me,  if  you  would 
write  one  line,  E.  Darwin,  Wyndham  Club,  St.  James's  Street, 
he  will  procure  them,  and  send  them  with  some  other  things 
to  Monte  Video,  which  for  the  next  year  will  be  my  head- 
quarters. 

Touching  at  the  Abrolhos,  we  arrived  here  on  April  4th, 
when  amongst  others  I  received  your  most  kind  letter.  You 
may  rely  on  it  during  the  evening  I  thought  of  the  many  most 
happy  hours  I  have  spent  with  you  in  Cambridge.  I  am  now 
living  at  Botofogo,  a  village  about  a  league  from  the  city,  and 
shall  be  able  to  remain  a  month  longer.  The  Beaglehdi^  gone 
back  to  Bahia,  and  will  pick  me  up  on  its  return.  There  is  a 
most  important  error  in  the  longitude  of  South  America,  to 
settle  which  this  second  trip  has  been  undertaken.  Our 
chronometers,  at  least  sixteen  of  them,  are  going  superbly  ; 
none  on  record  have  ever  gone  at  all  like  them. 

A  few  days  after  arriving  I  started  on  an  expedition  of 
150  miles  to  Rio  Macao,  which  lasted  eighteen  days.  Here  I 
first  saw  a  tropical  forest  in  all  its  sublime  grandeur — nothing 
but  the  reality  can  give  any  idea  how  wonderful,  how  magnifi- 
cent the  scene  is.  If  I  was  to  specify  any  one  thing  I  should 
give  the  pre-eminence  to  the  host  of  parasitical  plants.     Your 


2IO  '  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  23.  [1832. 

engraving  is  exactly  true,  but  underrates  rather  than  exag- 
gerates the  luxuriance.  I  never  experienced  such  intense 
delight.  I  formerly  admired  Humboldt,  I  now  almost  adore 
him  ;  he  alone  gives  any  notion  of  the  feelings  which  are 
raised  in  the  mind  on  first  entering  the  Tropics.  I  am  now 
collecting  fresh-water  and  land  animals  ;  if  what  was  told  me 
in  London  is  true,  viz.,  that  there  are  no  small  insects  in  the 
collections  from  the  Tropics,  I  tell  Entomologists  to  look  out 
and  have  their  pens  ready  for  describing.  I  have  taken  as 
minute  (if  not  more  so)  as  in  England,  Hydropori,  Hygroti, 
Hydrobii,  Pselaphi,  Staphylini,  Curculio,  &c.  &c.  It  is  exceed- 
ingly interesting  observing  the  difference  of  genera  and 
species  from  those  which  I  know;  it  is  however  much  less 
than  I  had  expected.  I  am  at  present  red-hot  with  spiders; 
they  are  very  interesting,  and  if  I  am  not  mistaken  I  have 
already  taken  some  new  genera.  I  shall  have  a  large  box  to 
send  very  soon  to  Cambridge,  and  with  that  I  will  mention 
some  more  natural  history  particulars. 

The  Captain  does  everything  in  his  power  to  assist  me, 
and  we  get  on  very  well,  but  I  thank  my  better  fortune  he  has 
not  made  me  a  renegade  to  Whig  principles.  I  would  not  be 
a  Tory,  if  it  was  merely  on  account  of  their  cold  hearts  about 
that  scandal  to  Christian  nations — Slavery.  I  am  very  good 
friends  with  all  the  officers. 

I  have  just  returned  from  a  walk,  and  as  a  specimen,  how 
little  the  insects  are  known.  Noterus,  according  to  the  *  Dic- 
tionnaire  Classique,'  contains  solely  three  European  species. 
I  in  one  haul  of  my  net  took  five  distinct  species  ;  is  this  not 
quite  extraordinary.?  .... 

Tell  Professor  Sedgwick  he  does  not  know  how  much  I 
am  indebted  to  him  for  the  Welsh  Expedition  ;  it  has  given 
me  an  interest  in  Geology  which  I  would  not  give  up  for  any 
consideration.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  spent  a  more  delightful 
three  weeks  than  pounding  the  North-west  Mountains.  I 
look  forward  to  the  geology  about  Monte  Video  as  I  hear 
there  are  slates  there,  so  I  presume  in  that  district  I  shall  find 
the  junctions  of  the  Pampas,  and  the  enormous  granite  forma- 


1832.]  BOTOFOGO   BAY. 


211 


tion  of  Brazils.  At  Bahia  the  pegmatite  and  gneiss  in  beds 
had  the  same  direction,  as  observed  by  Humboldt,  prevailing 
over  Columbia,  distant  1300  miles — is  it  not  wonderful  ? 
Monte  Video  will  be  for  a  long  time  my  direction.  I  hope 
you  will  write  again  to  me,  there  is  nobody  from  whom  I  like 
receiving  advice  so  much  as  from  you.  .  .  .  Excuse  this 
almost  unintelHgible  letter,  and  believe  me,  my  dear  Henslow, 
with  the  warmest  feelings  of  respect  and  friendship, 

Yours  affectionately, 

Chas.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin    to  J,  M.  Herbert. 

Botofogo  Bay,  Rio   de  Janeiro, 

June  1832. 

My  dear  old  Herbert, 

Your  letter  arrived  here  when  I  had  given  up  all  hopes  of 
receiving  another,  it  gave  me,  therefore,  an  additional  degree 
of  pleasure.     At  such  an  interval  of  time  and  space  one  does 
learn  to  feel  truly  obliged  to  those  who  do  not  forget  one. 
The  memory  when   recalling  scenes  past  by,  affords  to  us 
exiles  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures.     Often  and  often  whilst 
wandering  amongst  these  hills  do  I  think  of  Barmouth,  and,  I 
may  add,  as  often  wish  for  such  a  companion.     What  a  con- 
trast does  a  walk  in  these  two  places  afford  ;  here  abrupt  and 
stony  peaks  are   to  the  very  summit  enclosed  by  luxuriant 
woods ;  the  whole  surface  of  the  country,  excepting  where 
cleared  by  man,  is  one  impenetrable  forest.     How  different 
from  Wales,  with  its  sloping  hills   covered  with  turf,  and  its 
open  valleys.     I  was  not  previously   aware  how  intimately 
]  what  may  be  called  the    moral    part  is  connected  with  the 
•  enjoyment  of  scenery.     I  mean  such  ideas,  as  the  history  of 
I  the  country,  the  utility  of  the  produce,  and  more  especially 
i  the  happiness  of  the  people  living  with  them.     Change  the 
I  English  labourer  into  a  poor  slave,  working  for  another,  and 
I  you  will  hardly  recognise  the  same  view.     I  am  sure  you  will 
I  be  glad  to  hear  how  very  well  every  part  (Heaven  forefend, 


212  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  23.  [1832. 

except  sea-sickness)  of  the  expedition  has  answered.  We 
have  already  seen  Teneriife  and  the  Great  Canary  ;  St.  Jago 
where  I  spent  three  most  delightful  weeks,  revelling  in  the 
delights  of  first  naturalising  a  tropical  volcanic  island,  and 
besides  other  islands,  the  two  celebrated  ports  in  the  Brazils, 
viz.  Bahia  and  Rio. 

I  was  in  my  hammock  till  we  arrived  at  the  Canaries,  and 
I  shall  never  forget  the  sublime  impression  the  first  view  of 
Teneriffe  made  on  my  mind.  The  first  arriving  into  warm 
weather  was  most  luxuriously  pleasant  ;  the  clear  blue  sky  of 
the  Tropics  was  no  common  change  after  those  accursed  south- 
west gales  at  Plymouth.  About  the  Line  it  became  weltering 
hot.  We  spent  one  day  at  St.  Paul's,  a  little  group  of  rocks 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  circumference,  peeping  up  in  the 
midst  of  the  Atlantic.  There  was  such  a  scene  here.  Wick- 
ham  (ist  Lieutenant)  and  I  were  the  only  two  who  landed 
with  guns  and  geological  hammers,  &c.  The  birds  by  myriads 
were  too  close  to  shoot ;  we  then  tried  stones,  but  at  last,  proh 
picdor !  my  geological  hammer  was  the  instrument  of  death. 
We  soon  loaded  the  boat  with  birds  and  eggs.  Whilst  we 
were  so  engaged,  the  men  in  the  boat  were  fairly  fighting 
with  the  sharks  for  such  magnificent  fish  as  you  could  not  see 
in  the  London  market.  Our  boat  would  have  made  a  fine 
subject  for  Snyders,  such  a  medley  of  game  it  contained. 
We  have  been  here  ten  weeks,  and  shall  now  start  for  Monte 
Video,  when  I  look  forward  to  many  a  gallop  over  the  Pam- 
pas. I  am  ashamed  of  sending  such  a  scrambling  letter,  but 
if  you  were  to  see  the  heap  of  letters  on  my  table  you  would 
understand  the  reason.  .  .  . 

I  am  glad  to  hear  music  flourishes  so  well  in  Cambridge; 
but  it  [is]  as  barbarous  to  talk  to  me  of  ^'  celestial  concerts  " 
as  to  a  person  in  Arabia  of  cold  water.  In  a  voyage  of  this 
sort,  if  one  gains  many  new  and  great  pleasures,  on  the  other 
side  the  loss  is  not  inconsiderable.  How  should  you  like  to 
be  suddenly  debarred  from  seeing  every  person  and  place, 
which  you  have  ever  known  and  loved,  for  five  years  '^,  I  do 
assure  you  I  am  occasionally  "  taken  aback  "  by  this  reflec- 


1832.]  MONTE   VIDEO. 


213 


tion  ;  and  then  for  man  or  ship  it  is  not  so  easy  to  right  again. 
Remember  me  most  sincerely  to  the  remnant  of  most  excel- 
lent fellows  whom  I  have  the  good  luck  to  know  in  Camxbridge 
— I  mean  Whitley  and  Watkins.  Tell  Lowe  I  am  even  be- 
neath his  contempt.  I  can  eat  salt  beef  and  musty  biscuits 
for  dinner.     See  what  a  fall  man  may  come  to  ! 

My  direction  for  the  next  year  and  a  half  will  be  Monte 
Video. 

God  bless  you,  my  very  dear  old  Herbert.     May  you  al- 
ways be  happy  and  prosperous  is  my  most  cordial  wish. 

Yours  affectionately, 

Chas.  Darwin. 


C.  Darwin  to  F.  Watkins. 

Monte  Video,  River  Plata, 

August  18,  1832. 

My  dear  Watkins, 

I  do  not  feel  very  sure  you  will  think  a  letter  from  one  so 
far  distant  will  be  worth  having;  I  write  therefore  on  the 
selfish  principle  of  getting  an  answer.  In  the  different  coun- 
tries we  visit  the  entire  newness  and  difference  from  England 
only  serves  to  make  more  keen  the  recollection  of  its  scenes 
and  delights.  In  consequence  the  pleasure  of  thinking  of, 
and  hearing  from  one's  former  friends,  does  indeed  become 
great.  Recollect  this,  and  some  long  winter's  evening  sit 
down  and  send  me  a  long  account  of  yourself  and  our  friends  ; 
both  what  you  have,  and  what  [you]  intend  doing  ;  otherwise 
in  three  or  four  more  years  when  I  return  you  will  be  all 
strangers  to  me.  Considering  how  many  months  have  passed, 
we  have  not  in  the  Beagle  made  much  way  round  the  world. 
Hitherto  everything  has  well  repaid  the  necessary  trouble  and 
loss  of  comfort.  We  stayed  three  weeks  at  the  Cape  de  Verds ; 
it  was  no  ordinary  pleasure  rambling  over  the  plains  of  lava 
under  a  tropical  sun,  but  when  I  first  entered  on  and  beheld 
the  luxuriant  vegetation  in  Brazil,  it  was  realizing  the  visions 
in   the   *  Arabian   Nights.'      The   brilliancy   of   the    scenery 


214  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  23.  [1832. 

throws  one  into  a  delirium  of  delight,  and  a  beetle  hunter  is 
not  likely  soon  to  awaken  from  it,  when  whichever  way  he 
turns  fresh  treasures  meet  his  eye.  At  Rio  de  Janeiro  three 
months  passed  away  like  so  many  weeks.  I  made  a  most  de- 
lightful excursion  during  this  time  of  150  miles  into  the  coun- 
try. I  stayed  at  an  estate  which  is  the  last  of  the  cleared 
ground,  behind  is  one  vast  impenetrable  forest.  It  is  almost 
impossible  to  imagine  the  quietude  of  such  a  life.  Not  a 
human  being  within  some  miles  interrupts  the  solitude.  To 
seat  oneself  amidst  the  gloom  of  such  a  forest  on  a  decaying 
trunk,  and  then  think  of  home,  is  a  pleasure  worth  taking 
some  trouble  for. 

We  are  at  present  in  a  much  less  interesting  country. 
One  single  walk  over  the  undulatory  turf  plain  shows  every- 
thing which  is  to  be  seen.  It  is  not  at  all  unlike  Cambridge- 
shire, only  that  every  hedge,  tree  and  hill  must  be  levelled, 
and  arable  land  turned  into  pasture.  All  South  America  is 
in  such  an  unsettled  state  that  we  have  not  entered  one  port 
without  some  sort  of  disturbance.  At  Buenos  Ayres  a  shot 
came  whistling  over  our  heads  ;  it  is  a  noise  I  had  never 
before  heard,  but  I  found  I  had  an  instinctive  knowledge  of 
what  it  meant.  The  other  day  we  landed  our  men  here,  and 
took  possession,  at  the  request  of  the  inhabitants,  of  the  cen- 
tral fort.  We  philosophers  do  not  bargain  for  this  sort  of 
work,  and  I  hope  there  will  be  no  more.  We  sail  in  the 
course  of  a  day  or  two  to  survey  the  coast  of  Patagonia  ;  as 
it  is  entirely  unknown,  I  expect  a  good  deal  of  interest.  But 
already  do  I  perceive  the  grievous  difference  between  sailing 
on  these  seas  and  the  Equinoctial  ocean.  In  the  ^*  Ladies' 
Gulf,"  as  the  Spaniard's  call  it,  it  is  so  luxurious  to  sit  on 
deck  and  enjoy  the  coolness  of  the  night,  and  admire  the  new 
constellations  of  the  South.  ...  I  wonder  when  we  shall  ever 
meet  again ;  but  be  it  when  it  may,  few  things  will  give  me 
greater  pleasure  than  to  see  you  again,  and  talk  over  the  long 
time  we  have  passed  together. 

If  you  were  to  meet  me  at  present  I  certainly  should  be 
looked  at  like  a  wild  beast,  a  great  grizzly  beard  and  flushing 


1833]  FUEGIANS.  215 

jacket  would  disfigure  an  angel.     Believe  me,  my  dear  Wat- 
kins,  with  the  warmest  feelings  of  friendship, 

Ever  yours, 

Charles  Darwin. 


C.  Darwin  to  /,  S.  Henslow, 

April  ir,  1833. 

My  dear  Henslow, 

We  are  now  running  up  from  the  Falkland  Islands  to  the 
Rio  Negro  (or  Colorado).  Hht  Beagle  \n\\\  proceed  to  Monte 
Video;  but  if  it  can  be  managed  I  intend  staying  at  the 
former  place.  It  is  now  some  months  since  we  have  been  at 
a  civilised  port ;  nearly  all  this  time  has  been  spent  in  the 
most  southern  part  of  Tierra  del  Fuego.  It  is  a  detestable 
place  ;  gales  succeed  gales  with  such  short  intervals  that  it  is 
difficult  to  do  anything.  We  were  twenty-three  days  off 
Cape  Horn,  and  could  by  no  means  get  to  the  westward. 
The  last  and  final  gale  before  we  gave  up  the  attempt  was 
unusually  severe.  A  sea  stove  one  of  the  boats,  and  there 
was  so  much  water  on  the  decks  that  every  place  was  afloat ; 
nearly  all  the  paper  for  drying  plants  is  spoiled,  and  half  of 
this  curious  collection. 

We  at  last  ran  into  harbour,  and  in  the  boats  got  to  the 
west  by  the  inland  channels.  As  I  was  one  of  this  party  I 
was  very  glad  of  it.  With  two  boats  we  went  about  300 
miles,  and  thus  I  had  an  excellent  opportunity  of  geologising 
and  seeing  much  of  the  savages.  The  Fuegians  are  in  a  more 
miserable  state  of  barbarism  than  I  had  expected  ever  to 
have  seen  a  human  being.  In  this  inclement  country  they 
are  absolutely  naked,  and  their  temporary  houses  are  like 
what  children  make  in  summer  with  boughs  of  trees.  I  do 
not  think  any  spectacle  can  be  more  interesting  than  the  first 
sight  of  man  in  his  primitive  wildness.  It  is  an  interest 
which  cannot  well  be  imagined  until  it  is  experienced.  I 
shall  never  forget  this  when  entering  Good  Success  Bay — 


2l6 


THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  23. 


[1833. 


the  yell  with  which  a  party  received  us.  They  were  seated 
on  a  rocky  point,  surrounded  by  the  dark  forest  of  beech ;  as 
they  threw  their  arms  wildly  round  their  heads,  and  their  long 
hair  streaming,  they  seemed  the  troubled  spirits  of  another 
world.  The  climate  in  some  respects  is  a  curious  mixture 
of  severity  and  mildness;  as  far  as  regards  the  animal  king- 
dom, the  former  character  prevails  ;  I  have  in  consequence 
not  added  much  to  my  collections. 

The  Geology  of  this  part  of  Tierra  del  Fuego  was,  as  in- 
deed every  place  is,  to  me  very  interesting.  The  country  is 
non-fossiliferous,  and  a  common-place  succession  of  gran- 
itic rocks  and  slates;  attempting  to  make  out  the  relation 
of  cleavage,  strata,  &c.,  &c.,  was  my  chief  amusement.  The 
mineralogy,  however,  of  some  of  the  rocks  will,  I  think, 
be   curious   from   their   resemblance    to   those   of    volcanic 

origin. 

*  *  *  *  * 

After  leaving  Tierra  del  Fuego  we  sailed  to  the  Falklands. 
I  forgot  to  mention  the  fate  of  the  Fuegians  whom  we  took 
back  to  their  country.  They  had  become  entirely  European 
in  their  habits  and  wishes,  so  much  so  that  the  younger  one 
had  forgotten  his  own  language,  and  their  countrymen  paid 
but  very  little  attention  to  them.  We  built  houses  for  them 
and  planted  gardens,  but  by  the  time  we  return  again  on  our 
passage  round  the  Horn,  I  think  it  will  be  very  doubtful  how 
much  of  their  property  will  be  left  unstolen. 

.  .  .  When  I  am  sea-sick  and  miserable,  it  is  one  of  my 
highest  consolations  to  picture  the  future  when  we  again  shall 
be  pacing  together  the  roads  round  Cambridge.  That  day 
is  a  weary  long  way  off.  We  have  another  cruise  to  make  to 
Tierra  del  Fuego  next  summer,  and  then  our  voyage  round 
the  world  will  really  commence.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  has  pur- 
chased a  large  schooner  of  170  tons.  In  many  respects  it 
will  be  a  great  advantage  having  a  consort — perhaps  it  may 
somewhat  shorten  our  cruise,  which  I  most  cordially  hope  it 
may.  I  trust,  however,  that  the  Coral  Reefs  and  various  ani- 
mals of  the  Pacific  may  keep  up  my  resolution.     Remember 


1833]  HOME   LETTERS.  217 

me  most  kindly  to  Mrs.  Henslow  and  all  other  friends;  I  am 
a  true  lover  of  Alma  Mater  and  all  its  inhabitants. 
Believe  m.e,  my  dear  Henslow, 

Your  affectionate  and  most  obliged  friend, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  Miss  C  Darwin, 

Maldonado,  Rio  Plata,  May  22,  1833. 

.  .  .  The  following  business  piece  is  to  my  father.  Hav- 
ing a  servant  of  my  own  would  be  a  really  great  addition  to 
my  comfort.  For  these  two  reasons  :  as  at  present  the  Cap- 
tain has  appointed  one  of  the  men  always  to  be  with  me,  but 
i  do  not  think  it  just  thus  to  take  a  seaman  out  of  the  ship ; 
and,  secondly,  when  at  sea  I  am  rather  badly  off  for  any  one 
to  wait  on  me.  The  man  is  willing  to  be  my  servant, 
and  all  the  expenses  would  be  under  jP^do  per  annum.  I 
have  taught  him  to  shoot  and  skin  birds,  so  that  in  my  main 
object  he  is  very  useful.  I  have  now  left  England  nearly  a 
year  and  a  half,  and  I  find  my  expenses  are  not  above  ;^2oo 
per  annum  ;  so  that,  it  being  hopeless  (from  time)  to  write 
for  permission,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  you  would 
allow  me  this  expense.     But  I  have  not  yet  resolved  to  ask 

j  the  Captain,  and  the  chances  are  even  that  he  would  not  be 
willing  to  have  an  additional  man  in  the  ship.     I  have  men- 

( tioned  this  because  for  a   long  time    I  have  been  thinking 
about  it. 

June. — I  have  just  received  a  bundle  more  letters.  I  do 
not  know  how  to  thank  you  all  sufficiently.  One  from  Cath- 
erine, Feb.  8th,  another  from  Susan,  March  3rd,  together  with 
notes  from  Caroline  and  from  my  father ;  give  my  best  love 
to  my  father.  I  almost  cried  for  pleasure  at  receiving  it ;  it 
was  very  kind  thinking  of  writing  to  me.  My  letters  are  both 
few,  short,  and  stupid  in  return  for  all  yours  ;  but  I  always 
ease  my  conscience  by  considering  the  Journal  as  a  long  let- 
ter.    If  I  can  manage  it,  I  will,  before  doubling  the  Horn, 

send  the  "rest.     I  am  quite  delighted  to  find  the  hide  of  the 
II 


I 


2i8  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  24.  [1833. 

Megatherium  has  given  you  all  some  little  interest  in  my 
employments.  These  fragments  are  not,  however,  by  any 
means  the  most  valuable  of  the  geological  relics.  I  trust 
and  believe  that  the  time  spent  in  this  voyage,  if  thrown  away 
for  all  other  respects,  will  produce  its  full  worth  in  Natural 
History ;  and  it  appears  to  me  the  doing  what  little  we  can 
to  increase  the  general  stock  of  knowledge  is  as  respectable 
an  object  of  life  as  one  can  in  any  likelihood  pursue.  It  is 
more  the  result  of  such  reflections  (as  I  have  already  said) 
than  much  immediate  pleasure  which  now  makes  me  con- 
tinue the  voyage,  together  with  the  glorious  prospect  of  the 
future,  when  passing  the  Straits  of  Magellan,  we  have  in 
truth  the  world  before  us.  Think  of  the  Andes,  the  luxuriant 
forest  of  Guayaquil,  the  islands  of  the  South  Sea,  and  New 
South  Wales.  How  many  magnificent  and  characteristic 
views,  how  many  and  curious  tribes  of  men  we  shall  see  ! 
What  fine  opportunities  for  geology  and  for  studying  the  in- 
finite host  of  living  beings  !  Is  not  this  a  prospect  to  keep 
up  the  most  flagging  spirit  ?  If  I  was  to  throw  it  away,  I 
don't  think  I  should  ever  rest  quiet  in  my  grave.  I  certainly 
should  be  a  ghost  and  haunt  the  British  Museum. 

How  famously  the  Ministers  appear  to  be  going  on.  I 
always  much  enjoy  political  gossip  and  what  you  at  home 
think  will,  &c.,  &c.,  take  place.  I  steadily  read  up  the  weekly 
paper,  but  it  is  not  sufficient  to  guide  one's  opinion  ;  and  I 
find  it  a  very  painful  state  not  to  be  as  obstinate  as  a  pig  in 
politics.  I  have  watched  how  steadily  the  general  feeling, 
as  shown  at  elections,  has  been  rising  against  Slavery.  What 
a  proud  thing  for  England  if  she  is  the  first  European  nation 
which  utterly  abolishes  it !  I  was  told  before  leaving  England 
that  after  living  in  slave  countries  all  my  opinions  would  be 
altered  ;  the  only  alteration  I  am  aware  of  is  forming  a  much 
higher  estimate  of  the  negro  character.  It  is  impossible  to 
see  a  negro  and  not  feel  kindly  towards  him  ;  such  cheerful, 
open,  honest  expressions  and  such  fine  muscular  bodies.  I 
never  saw  any  of  the  diminutive  Portuguese,  with  their  mur- 
derous countenances,  without  almost  wishing  for  Brazil  to 


l833.]  GOOD   SUCCESS   BAY.  210 

follow  the  example  of  Hayti;  and,  considering  the  enormous 
healthy-looking  black  population,  it  will  be  wonderful  if,  at 
some  future  day,  it  does  not  take  place.  There  is  at  Rio  a 
man  (I  know  not  his  title)  who  has  a  large  salary  to  prevent 
(I  believe)  the  landing  of  slaves  ;  he  lives  at  Botofogo,  and 
yet  that  was  the  bay  where,  during  my  residence,  the  greater 
number  of  smuggled  slaves  were  landed.  Some  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  people  ought  to  question  about  his  office ;  it  was  the 
subject  of  conversation  at  Rio  amongst  the  lower  English.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  M.  Herbert, 

Maldonado,  Rio  Plata,  June  2,  1833. 

My  dear  Herbert, 

I  have  been  confined  for  the  last  three  days  to  a  miserable 
dark  room,  in  an  old  Spanish  house,  from  the  torrents  of  rain  ; 
I  am  not,  therefore,  in  very  good  trim  for  writing  ;  but,  defy- 
ing the  blue  devils,  I  will  send  you  a  few  lines,  if  it  is  merely 
to  thank  you  very  sincerely  for  writing  to  me.  I  received 
your  letter,  dated  December  ist,  a  short  time  since.  We  are 
now  passing  part  of  the  winter  in  the  Rio  Plata,  after  having 
had  a  hard  summer's  work  to  the  south.  Tierra  del  Fuego 
is  indeed  a  miserable  place  ;  the  ceaseless  fury  of  the  gales 
is  quite  tremendous.  One  evening  we  saw  old  Cape  Horn, 
and  three  weeks  afterwards  we  were  only  thirty  miles  to  wind- 
ward of  it.  It  is  a  grand  spectacle  to  see  all  nature  thus 
raging ;  but  Heaven  knows  every  one  in  the  Beagle  has  seen 
enough  in  this  one  summer  to  last  them  their  natural  lives. 

The  first  place  we  landed  at  was  Good  Success  Bay.  It 
was  here  Banks  and  Solander  met  such  disasters  on  ascending 
one  of  the  mountains.  The  weather  was  tolerably  fine,  and 
I  enjoyed  some  walks  in  a  wild  country,  like  that  behind  Bar- 
mouth. The  valleys  are  impenetrable  from  the  entangled 
woods,  but  the  higher  parts,  near  the  limits  of  perpetual  snow, 
"!  are  bare.  From  some  of  these  hills  the  scenery,  from  its  sav- 
'  age,  solitary  character,  was  most  sublime.  The  only  inhabi- 
tant of  these  heights  is  the  guanaco,  and  with  its  shrill  neigh- 


220  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  24.  [1833. 

ing  it  often  breaks  the  stillness.  The  consciousness  that  no 
European  foot  had  ever  trod  much  of  this  ground  added  to 
the  delight  of  these  rambles.  How  often  and  how  vividly 
have  many  of  the  hours  spent  at  Barmouth  come  before  my 
mind  !  I  look  back  to  that  time  with  no  common  pleasure  ; 
at  this  moment  I  can  see  you  seated  on  the  hill  behind  the 
inn,  almost  as  plainly  as  if  you  were  really  there.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  be  separated  from  all  which  one  has  been  accus- 
tomed to,  to  know  how  properly  to  treasure  up  such  recollec- 
tions, and  at  this  distance,  I  may  add,  how  properly  to  esteem 
such  as  yourself,  my  dear  old  Herbert.  I  wonder  when  I 
shall  ever  see  you  again.  I  hope  it  may  be,  as  you  say,  sur- 
rounded with  heaps  of  parchment  ;  but  then  there  must  be, 
sooner  or  later,  a  dear  little  lady  to  take  care  of  you  and  your 
house.  Such  a  delightful  vision  makes  me  quite  envious. 
This  is  a  curious  life  for  a  regular  shore- going  person  such  as 
myself ;  the  worst  part  of  it  is  its  extreme  length.  There  is 
certainly  a  great  deal  of  high  enjoyment,  and  on  the  contrary 
a  tolerable  share  of  vexation  of  spirit.  Everything,  however, 
shall  bend  to  the  pleasure  of  grubbing  up  old  bones,  and  cap- 
tivating new  animals.  By  the  way,  you  rank  my  Natural 
History  labours  far  too  high.  I  am  nothing  more  than  a  lions' 
provider  :  I  do  not  feel  at  all  sure  that  they  will  not  growl  and 
finally  destroy  me. 

It  does  one's  heart  good  to  hear  how  things  are  going  on 
in  England.  Hurrah  for  the  honest  Whigs  !  I  trust  they  will 
soon  attack  that  monstrous  stain  on  our  boasted  liberty.  Colo- 
nial Slavery.  I  have  seen  enough  of  Slavery  and  the  dis- 
positions of  the  negroes,  to  be  thoroughly  disgusted  with  the 
lies  and  nonsense  one  hears  on  the  subject  in  England. 
Thank  God,  the  cold-hearted  Tories,  who,  as  J.  Mackintosh 
used  to  say,  have  no  enthusiasm,  except  against  enthusiasm, 
have  for  the  present  run  their  race.  I  am  sorry,  by  your  let- 
ter, to  hear  you  have  not  been  well,  and  that  you  partly  at- 
tribute it  to  want  of  exercise.  I  wish  you  were  here  amongst 
the  green  plains ;  we  would  take  walks  which  would  rival  the 
Dolgelly  ones,  and  you  should  tell  stories,  which  I  v/ould  be- 


iS34.]  A   NEW   OSTRICH 


221 


lieve,  even  to  a  cubic  fathom  of  pudding.  Instead  I  must  take 
my  solitary  ramble,  think  of  Cambridge  days,  and  pick  up 
snakes,  beetles  and  toads.  Excuse  this  short  letter  (you 
know  I  never  studied  ^  The  Complete  Letter-writer  '),  and  be- 
lieve me,  my  dear  Herbert, 

Your  affectionate  friend, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Henslow. 

East  Falkland  Island,  March,  1834. 

I  am  quite  charmed  with  Geology,  but  like  the 

wise  animal  between  two  bundles  of  hay,  I  do  not  know  which 
to  like  the  best ;  the  old  crystalline  group  of  rocks,  or  the 
softer  and  fossiliferous  beds.  When  puzzling  about  stratifi- 
cations, &c.,  I  feel  inclined  to  cry  '''  a  fig  for  your  big  oysters, 
and  your  bigger  megatheriums.'*  But  then  when  digging  out 
some  fine  bones,  I  wonder  how  any  man  can  tire  his  arms 
iwith  hammering  granite.  By  the  way  I  have  not  one  clear 
iidea  about  cleavage,  stratification,  lines  of  upheaval.  I  have 
no  books  which  tell  me  much,  and  what  they  do  I  cannot 
[apply  to  what  I  see.  In  consequence  I  draw  my  own  con- 
I elusions,  and  most  gloriously  ridiculous  ones  they  are,  I  some- 
itimes  fancy.  .  .  .  Can  you  throw  any  light  into  my  mind  by 
telling  me  what  relation  cleavage  and  planes  of  deposition 
bear  to  each  other  ? 

And  now  for  my  second  section^  Zoology.  I  have  chiefly 
been  employed  in  preparing  myself  for  the  South  Sea  by 
examining  the  polypi  of  the  smaller  Corallines  in  these  lati- 
tudes. Many  in  themselves  are  very  curious,  and  I  think  are 
quite  undescribed  ;  there  was  one  appalling  one,  allied  to  a 
Flustra,  which  I  dare  say  I  mentioned  having  found  to  the 
northward,  where  the  cells  have  a  movable  organ  (like  a  vult- 
ure's head,  with  a  dilatable  beak),  fixed  on  the  edge.  But 
what  is  of  more  general  interest  is  the  unquestionable  (as  it 
appears  to  me)  existence  of  another  species  of  ostrich,  besides 
the  Struthio  rhea.  All  the  Gauchos  and  Indians  state  it  is 
the  case,  and  I  place  the  greatest  faith  in  their  observations. 


4 


222  THE   VOYAGE.     .ETAT.  25.  [1834. 

I  have  the  head,  neck,  piece  of  skin,  feathers,  and  legs  of 
one.  The  differences  are  chiefly  in  the  colour  of  the  feathers 
and  scales  on  legs,  being  feathered  below  the  knees,  nidifi- 
cation,  and  geographical  distribution.  So  much  for  what  I 
have  lately  done  ;  the  prospect  before  me  is  full  of  sunshine, 
fine  weather,  glorious  scenery,  the  geology  of  the  Andes,  plains 
abounding  with  organic  remains  (which  perhaps  I  may  have 
the  good  luck  to  catch  in  the  very  act  of  moving),  and  lastly, 
an  ocean,  its  shores  abounding  with  life,  so  that,  if  nothing 
unforeseen  happens,  I  will  stick  to  the  voyage,  although  for 
what  I  can  see  this  may  last  till  we  return  a  fine  set  of  white- 
headed  old  gentlemen.  I  have  to  thank  you  most  cordially 
for  sending  me  the  books.     I  am  now  reading  the  Oxford 

•  Report  ;  *  *  the  whole  account  of  your  proceedings  is  most 
glorious;  you  remaining  in  England  cannot  well  imagine  how 
excessively  interesting  I  find  the  reports.  I  am  sure  from 
my  own  thrilling  sensations  when  reading  them,  that  they 
cannot  fail  to  have  an  excellent  effect  upon  all  those  residing 
in  distant  colonies,  and  who  have  little  opportunity  of  seeing 
the  periodicals.  My  hammer  has  flown  with  redoubled  force 
on  the  devoted  blocks  ;  as  I  thought  over  the  eloquence  of 
the  Cambridge  President,  I  hit  harder  and  harder  blows.  I 
hope  to  give  my  arms  strength  for  the  Cordilleras.  You  will 
send  me  through  Capt.  Beaufort  a  copy  of  the  Cambridge 

*  Report.* 

I  have  forgotten  to  mention  that  for  some  time  past,  and 
for  the  future,  I  will  put  a  pencil  cross  on  the  pill-boxes  con- 
taining insects,  as  these  alone  will  require  being  kept  particu- 
larly dry ;  it  may  perhaps  save  you  some  trouble.  When  this 
letter  will  go  I  do  not  know,  as  this  little  seat  of  discord  has 
lately  been  embroiled  by  a  dreadful  scene  of  murder,  and  at 
present  there  are  more  prisoners  than  inhabitants.  If  a  mer- 
chant vessel  is  chartered  to  take  them  to  Rio,  I  will  send 
some  specimens  (especially  my  few  plants  and  seeds).     Re- 

*  The  second  meeting  of  the  British  Association  was  held  at  Oxford  in 
1832,  the  following  year  it  was  at  Cambridge. 


c834.]  JEMMY   BUTTON.  223 

member  me  to  all  my  Cambridge  friends.  I  love  and  treasure 
ip  every  recollection  of  dear  old  Cambridge.  I  am  much 
bliged  to  you  for  putting  my  name  down  to  poor  Ramsay^s 
monument ;  I  never  think  of  him  without  the  warmest  admi- 
ration.    Farewell,  my  dear  Henslow. 

Believe  me  your  most  obliged  and  affectionate  friend, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  Miss  C.  Darwin, 

East  Falkland  Island,  April  6,  1831. 

My  dear  Catherine, 

When  this  letter  will  reach  you  I  know  not,  but  probably 

ome  man-of-war  will  call  here  before,  in  the  common  course 

of  events,  I  should  have  another  opportunity  of  writing. 
***** 

After  visiting  some  of  the  southern  islands,  we  beat  up 
through  the  magnificent  scenery  of  the  Beagle  Channel  to 
Jemmy  Button*s  ^  country.  We  could  hardly  recognise  poor 
Jemmy.  Instead  of  the  clean,  well-dressed  stout  lad  we  left 
him,  we  found  him  a  naked,  thin,  squalid  savage.  York 
and  Fuegia  had  moved  to  their  own  country  some  months 
ago,  the  former  having  stolen  all  Jemmy's  clothes.  Now 
he  had  nothing  except  a  bit  of  blanket  round  his  waist. 
Poor  Jemmy  was  very  glad  to  see  us,  and,  with  his  usual 
good  feeling,  brought  several  presents  (otter-skins,  which  are 
most  valuable  to  themselves)  for  his  old  friends.  The  Captain 
offered  to  take  him  to  England,  but  this,  to  our  surprise,  he 
at  once  refused.  In  the  evening  his  young  wife  came  along- 
side and  showed  us  the  reason.  He  was  quite  contented. 
Last  year,  in  the  height  of  his  indignation,  he  said  "his 
country  people  no  sabe  nothing — damned  fools  " — now  they 
were  very  good  people,  with  too  much  to  eat,  and  all  the 
luxuries  of  life.     Jemmy  and  his  wife  paddled  away  in  their 

*  Jemmy  Button,  York  Minster,  and  Fuegia  Basket,  were  natives  of 
Tierra  del  Fuego,  brought  to  England  by  Captain  Fitz-Roy  in  his  former 
voyage,  and  restored  to  their  country  by  him  in  1832. 


224  THE  VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  25.  [1834. 

canoe  loaded  with  presents,  and  very  happy.  The  most 
curious  thing  is,  that  Jemmy,  instead  of  recovering  his  own 
language,  has  taught  all  his  friends  a  little  English.  "J.  But- 
ton's canoe'*  and  "Jemmy's  wife  come,"  ''Give  me  knife," 
&c.,  was  said  by  several  of  them. 

We  then  bore  away  for  this  island — this  little  miserable 
seat  of  discord.  We  found  that  the  Gauchos,  under  pretence 
of  a  revolution,  had  murdered  and  plundered  ail  the  English- 
men whom  they  could  catch,  and  some  of  their  own  country- 
men. All  the  economy  at  home  makes  the  foreign  movements 
of  England  most  contemptible.  How  diiferent  from  old  Spain. 
Here  we,  dog-in-the-manger  fashion,  seize  an  island,  and  leave 
to  protect  it  a  Union  Jack  ;  the  possessor  has,  of  course,  been 
murdered  ;  we  now  send  a  lieutenant  with  four  sailors,  with- 
out authority  or  instructions.  A  man-of-war,  however,  ven- 
tured to  leave  a  party  of  marines,  and  by  their  assistance,  and 
the  treachery  of  some  of  the  party,  the  murderers  have  all 
been  taken,  there  being  now  as  many  prisoners  as  inhabitants. 
This  island  must  some  day  become  a  very  important  halting- 
place  in  the  most  turbulent  sea  in  the  world.  It  is  mid-way 
between  Australia  and  the  South  Sea  to  England ;  between 
Chili,  Peru,  &c.,  and  the  Rio  Plata  and  the  Rio  de  Janeiro. 
There  are  fine  harbours,  plenty  of  fresh  water,  and  good 
beef.  It  would  doubtless  produce  the  coarser  vegetables. 
In  other  respects  it  is  a  wretched  place.  A  little  time  since, 
I  rode  across  the  island,  and  returned  in  four  days.  My  ex- 
cursion would  have  been  longer,  but  during  the  whole  time  it 
blew  a  gale  of  wind,  with  hail  and  snow.  There  is  no  fire- 
wood bigger  than  heath,  and  the  whole  country  is,  more  or 
less,  an  elastic  peat-bog.  Sleeping  out  at  night  was  too 
miserable  work  to  endure  it  for  all  the  rocks  in  South 
America. 

We  shall  leave  this  scene  of  iniquity  in  two  or  three  days, 
and  go  to  the  Rio  de  la  Sta.  Cruz.  One  of  the  objects  is  to 
look  at  the  ship's  bottom.  We  struck  rather  heavily  on  an 
unknown  rock  off  Port  Desire,  and  some  of  her  copper  is  torn 
off.     After  this  is  repaired  the  Captain  has  a  glorious  scheme  i 


1834.]  PLANS.  225 

it  is  to  go  to  the  very  head  of  this  river,  that  is  probably  to  the 
Andes.     It  is  quite  unknown ;  the  Indians  tell  us  it  is  two 
or  three  hundred  yards  broad,  and  horses  can  nowhere  ford  it. 
I  cannot  imagine  anything  more  interesting.     Our  plans  then 
are  to  go  to  Fort  Famine,  and  there  we  meet  the  Adventure^ 
who  is  employed  in  making  the  Chart  of  the  Falklands.     This 
will  be  in  the  middle  of  winter,  so  I  shall  see  Tierra  del  Fuego 
in  her   white  drapery.      We  leave    the    straits  to   enter  the 
Pacific  by  the  Barbara  Channel,  one  very  little  known,  and 
I  which  passes  close  to  the  foot  of  Mount  Sarmiento  (the  high- 
iest  mountain  in  the  south,  excepting  Mt.  !  !  Darwin!  !).    We 
I  then  shall  scud  away  for  Concepcion  in  Chili.     I  believe  the 
ship  must  once  again  steer  southward,  but  if  any  one  catches 
ime  there  again,  I  will  give  him  leave  to  hang  me  up  as  a 
scarecrow  for  all  future  naturalists.     I  long  to  be  at  work  in 
the  Cordilleras,  the  geology  of  this  side,  which  I  understand 
ipretty  well  is  so  intimately  connected  with  periods  of  violence 
|in  that  great  chain  of  mountains.     The  future  is,  indeed,  to 
!me  a  brilliant  prospect.     You  say  its  very  brilliancy  frightens 
you  ;  but  really  I  am  very  careful ;  I  may  mention  as  a  proof, 
in  all   my  rambles    I    have  never  had  any  one  accident  or 
jscrape.  .  .  .  Continue  in  your  good  custom  of  writing  plenty 
lof  gossip  ;  I  much  like  hearing  all  about  all  things.     Remem- 
tber  me  most  kindly  to  Uncle  Jos,  and  to  all  the  Wedgwoods. 
Tell   Charlotte  (their  married  names   sound  downright   un- 
natural) I  should  like  to  have  written  to  her,  to  have  told  her 
how  well  everything  is  going  on ;  but  it  would  only  have  been 
a  transcript  of  this  letter,  and  I  have  a  host  of  animals  at  this 
minute   surrounding   me  which  all   require  embalming   and 
'numbering.    I  have  not  forgotten  the  comfort  I  received  that 
day  at  Maer,  when  my  mind  was  like  a  swinging  pendulum. 
Give  my  best  love  to  my  father.     I  hope  he  will  forgive  all 
my  extravagance,  but  not  as  a  Christian,  for  then  I  suppose 
tie  would  send  me  no  more  money. 

Good-bye,  dear,  to  you,  and  all  your  goodly  sisterhood, 
j  Your  affectionate  brother, 

'  -  Chas.  Darwin. 


226  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  25.  [1834. 

My  love  to  Nancy ;  *  tell  her,  if  she  was  now  to  see  me 
with  my  great  beard,  she  would  think  I  was  some  worthy 
Solomon,  come  to  sell  the  trinkets. 


C  Darwin  to  C.  Whitley, 

Valparaiso,  July  23,  1834. 

My  dear  Whitley, 

I  have  long  intended  writing,  just  to  put  you  in  mind  that 
there  is  a  certain  hunter  of  beetles,  and  pounder  of  rocks, 
still  in  existence.  Why  I  have  not  done  so  before  I  know 
not,  but  it  will  serve  me  right  if  you  have  quite  forgotten  me. 
It  is  a  very  long  time  since  I  have  heard  any  Cambridge  news ; 
I  neither  know  where  you  are  living  or  what  you  are  doing. 
I  saw  your  name  down  as  one  of  the  indefatigable  guardians 
of  the  eighteen  hundred  philosophers.  I  was  delighted  to 
see  this,  for  when  we  last  left  Cambridge  you  were  at  sad 
variance  with  poor  science  ;  you  seemed  to  think  her  a  public 
prostitute  working  for  popularity.  If  your  opinions  are  the 
same  as  formerly,  you  would  agree  most  admirably  with 
Captain  Fitz-Roy, — the  object  of  his  most  devout  abhorrence 
is  one  of  the  d — d  scientific  Whigs.  As  captains  of  men-of- 
war,  are  the  greatest  men  going,  far  greater  than  kings  or 
schoolmasters,  I  am  obliged  to  tell  him  everything  in  my  own 
favour.  I  have  often  said  I  once  had  a  very  good  friend,  an 
out-and-out  Tory,  and  we  managed  to  get  on  very  well  to- 
gether. But  he  is  very  much  inclined  to  doubt  if  ever  I  really 
was  so  much  honoured ;  at  present  we  hear  scarcely  anything 
about  politics ;  this  saves  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  for  we  all 
stick  to  our  former  opinions  rather  more  obstinately  than  be- 
fore, and  can  give  rather  fewer  reasons  for  doing  so. 

I  do  hope  you  will  write  to  me  :  (^  H.  M.  S.  Beagle^  S. 
American  Station  '  will  find  me).  I  should  much  like  to  hear 
in  what  state  you  are  both  in  body  and  mind.  /  Quien  Sabel 
as  the  people  say  here  (and  God  knows  they  well  may,  for 

*  His  old  nurse. 


1834]  A   NAKED   FUEGIAN.  22/ 

they  do  know  little  enough),  if  you  are  not  a  married  man, 
and  may  be  nursing,  as  Miss  Austen  says,  little  olive  branches, 
little  pledges  of  mutual  affection.  Eheu !  Eheu  !  this  puts 
me  in  mind  of  former  visions  of  glimpses  into  futurity,  where 
fancied  I  saw  retirement,  green  cottages,  and  white  petti- 
coats. What  will  become  of  me  hereafter  I  know  not ;  I  feel 
ike  a  ruined  man,  who  does  not  see  or  care  how  to  extricate 
limself.  That  this  voyage  must  come  to  a  conclusion  my 
eason  tells  me,  but  otherwise  I  see  no  end  to  it.  It  is  im- 
possible not  bitterly  to  regret  the  friends  and  other  sources  of 
pleasure  one  leaves  behind  in  England  ;  in  place  of  it  there 
is  much  solid  enjoyment,  some  present,  but  more  in  anticipa- 
tion, when  the  ideas  gained  during  the  voyage  can  be  com- 
pared to  fresh  ones.  I  find  in  Geology  a  never-failing  interest, 
IS  it  has  been  remarked,  it  creates  the  same  grand  ideas  re- 
specting this  world  which  Astronomy  does  for  the  universe. 
We  have  seen  much  fine  scenery  ;  that  of  the  Tropics  in  its 
lory  and  luxuriance  exceeds  even  the  language  of  Humboldt 
o  describe.  A  Persian  writer  could  alone  do  justice  to  it, 
md  if  he  succeeded  he  would  in  England  be  called  the  ^  Grand- 
ather  of  all  liars." 

But  I  have  seen  nothing  which  more  completely  aston- 
shed  me  than  the  first  sight  of  a  savage.  It  was  a  naked 
^'uegian,  his  long  hair  blowing  about,  his  face  besmeared 
ith  paint.  There  is  in  their  countenances  an  expression 
vhich  I  believe,  to  those  who  have  not  seen  it,  must  be  in- 
:onceivably  wild.  Standing  on  a  rock  he  uttered  tones  and 
nade  gesticulations,  than  which  the  cries  of  domestic  animals 
ire  far  more  intelligible. 

When  I  return  to  England,  you  must  take  me  in  hand 
vith  respect  to  the  fine  arts.  I  yet  recollect  there  was  a 
nan  called  Raffaelle  Sanctus.  How  delightful  it  will  be 
mce  again  to  see,  in  the  Fitzwilliam,  Titian's  Venus.  How 
nuch  more  than  delightful  to  go  to  some  good  concert  or 
ine  opera.  These  recollections  will  not  do.  I  shall  not  be 
ble  to-morrow  to  pick  out  the  entrails  of  some  small  animal 
vith  half  my  usual  gusto.     Pray  tell  me  some  news  about 


228  THE   VOYAGE.     .^TAT.  25.  [1834. 

Cameron,  Watkins,  Marinden,  the  two  Thompsons  of  Trinity, 
Lowe,  Heaviside,  Matthew.  Herbert  I  have  heard  from. 
How  is  Henslow  getting  on  ?  and  all  other  good  friends  of 
dear  Cambridge  ?  Often  and  often  do  I  think  over  those 
past  hours,  so  many  of  which  have  been  passed  in  your  com- 
pany. Such  can  never  return,  but  their  recollection  can 
never  die  away. 

God  bless  you,  my  dear  Whitley, 

Believe  me,  your  most  sincere  friend, 

Chas.  Darwin. 


C,  Dariuin  to  Miss  C.  Darwin, 

Valparaiso,  November  8,  1834. 

My  dear  Catherine, 

My  last  letter  was  rather  a  gloomy  one,  for  1  was  not 
very  well  when  I  wrote  it.  Now  everything  is  as  bright  as 
sunshine.  I  am  quite  well  again  after  being  a  second  time  in 
bed  for  a  fortnight.  Captain  Fitz-Roy  very  generously  has 
delayed  the  ship  ten  days  on  my  account,  and  without  at  the 
time  telling  me  for  what  reason. 

We  have  had  some  strange  proceedings  on  board  the 
Beagle^  but  which  have  ended  miost  capitally  for  all  hands. 
Captain  Fitz-Roy  has  for  the  last  two  months  been  working 
extremely  hard,  and  at  the  same  time  constantly  annoyed  by 
interruptions  from  officers  of  other  ships;  the  selling  the 
schooner  and  its  consequences  were  very  vexatious ;  the  cold 
manner  the  Admiralty  (solely  I  believe  because  he  is  a  Tory) 
have  treated  him,  and  a  thousand  other,  &c.  &c.'s,  has  made 
him  very  thm  and  unwell.  This  was  accompanied  by  a 
morbid  depression  of  spirits,  and  a  loss  of  all  decision  and 
resolution.  .  .  .  All  that  Bynoe  [the  Surgeon]  could  say,  that 
it  was  merely  the  effect  of  bodily  health  and  exhaustion  after 
such  application,  would  not  do  ;  he  invalided,  and  Wickham 
was  appointed  to  the  command.  By  the  instructions  Wickham 
could  only  finish  the  survey  of  the  southern  part,  and  would 
then  have  been  obliged  to  return  direct  to  England.     The 


1834.]  CAPTAIN    FITZ-ROY.  229 

grief  on  board  the  Beagle  about  the  Captain's  decision  was 
universal  and  deeply  fell  ;  one  great  source  of  his  annoyment 
was    the   feeling  it    impossible  to    fulfit    the  whole   instruc- 
tions; from  his  state  of  mind  it  never  occurred  to  him  that 
I  the  very   instructions  ordered    him  to   do  as   much   of  the 
j  West  coast  as  he  has  time  for,  and  then  proceed  across  the 
*  Pacific. 

Wickham  (very  disinterestedly  giving  up  his  own  promo- 
tion) urged  this  most  strongly,  stated  that  when  he  took  the  com- 
mand nothing  should  induce  him  to  go  to  Tierra  del  Fuego 
again  ;  and  then  asked  the  Captain  what  would  be  gained  by 
his  resignation  ?  why  not  do  the  more  useful  part,  and  return 
as  commanded  by  the  Pacific.  The  Captain  at  last,  to 
every  one's  joy,  consented,  and  the  resignation  was  with- 
drawn. 

Hurrah  !  hurrah !  it  is  fixed  the  Beagle  shall  not  go  one 

mile  south  of  Cape  Tres  Montes  (about   200  miles  south  of 

Chiloe),  and  from  that  point  to  Valparaiso  will  he  finished  in 

about  five  months.    We  shall  examine  the  Chonos  Archipelago, 

entirely  unknown,  and  the  curious  inland  sea  behind  Chiloe. 

For  me  it  is  glorious.    Cape  Tres  Montes  is  the  most  southern 

point  where  there  is  much  geological  interest,  as  there  the 

modern  beds  end.     The  Captain  then   talks  of  crossing  the 

Pacific ;  but  I  think  we  shall  persuade  him  to  finish  the  Coast 

I  of  Peru,  where  the  climate  is  delightful,  the  country  hideously 

:|  sterile,  but  abounding  with  the  highest  interest  to  a  geologist. 

I  For  the  first  time  since  leaving  England  I  now  see  a  clear  and 

ijnot  so  distant  prospect  of    returning  to   you  all:    crossing 

I  the   Pacific,  and   from    Sydney  home,   will   not   take  much 

I  time. 

j  As  soon  as  the  Captain  invalided  I  at  once  determined  to 
1  leave  the  Beagle,  but  it  was  quite  absurd  what  a  revolution  in 
;  five  minutes  was  effected  in  all  my  feelings.  I  have  long  been 
!  grieved  and  most  sorry  at  the  interminable  length  of  the 
!  voyage  (although  I  never  would  have  quitted  it)  ;  but  the 
I  minute  it  was  all  over,  I  could  not  make  up  my  mind  to  return. 
I  could  not  give  up  all  the  geological  castles  in  the  air  which 


230  THE   VOYAGE.     /ETAT.  25.  L1S34. 

I  had  been  building  up  for  the  last  two  years.  One  whole 
night  I  tried  to  think  over  the  pleasure  of  seeing  ^Shrewsbury 
again,  but  the  barren  plains  of  Peru  gained  the  day.  I  made 
the  following  scheme  (I  know  you  will  abuse  me,  and  perhaps 
if  I  had  put  it  in  execution,  my  father  would  have  sent  a 
mandamus  after  me) ;  it  was  to  examine  the  Cordilleras  of 
Chili  during  this  summer,  and  in  winter  go  from  port  to  port 
on  the  coast  of  Peru  to  Lima,  returning  this  time  next  year  to 
Valparaiso,  cross  the  Cordilleras  to  Buenos  Ayres,  and  take 
ship  to  England.  Would  not  this  have  been  a  fine  excursion, 
and  in  sixteen  months  I  should  have  been  with  you  all  ?  To 
have  endured  Tierra  del  Fuego  and  not  seen  the  Pacific  would 
have  been  miserable.   ... 

I  go  on  board  to-morrow  ;  I  have  been  for  the  last  six 
weeks  in  Corfield's  house.  You  cannot  imagine  what  a  kind 
friend  I  have  found  him.  He  is  universally  liked,  and  re- 
spected by  the  natives  and  foreigners.  Several  Chileno  Sig- 
noritas  are  very  obligingly  anxious  to  become  the  signoras  of 
this  house.  Tell  my  father  I  have  kept  my  promise  of  being 
extravagant  in  Chili.  I  have  drawn  a  bill  of  ;^ioo  (had  it  not 
better  be  notified  to  Messrs.  Robarts  &  Co.) ;  ;£^o  goes  to 
the  Captain  for  the  ensuing  year,  and  ;^30  I  take  to  sea  for  the 
small  ports  ;  so  that  bond  fide  I  have  not  spent  ^180  during 
these  last  four  months.  I  hope  not  to  draw"  another  bill  for 
six  months.  All  the  foregoing  particulars  were  only  settled 
yesterday.  It  has  done  me  more  good  than  a  pint  of  medi- 
cine, and  I  have  not  been  so  happy  for  the  last  year.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  my  illness,  these  four  months  in  Chili  would 
have  been  very  pleasant.  I  have  had  ill  luck,  however,  in 
only  one  little  earthquake  having  happened.  I  was  lying  in 
bed  when  there  was  a  party  at  dinner  in  the  house  ;  on  a 
sudden  I  heard  such  a  hubbub  in  the  dining-room  ;  without 
a  word  being  spoken,  it  was  devil  take  the  hindmost  who 
should  get  out  first ;  at  the  same  moment  I  felt  my  bed  slightly 
vibrate  in  a  lateral  direction.  The  party  were  old  stagers, 
and  heard  the  noise  which  always  precedes  a  shock  ;  and  no 
old  stager  looks  at  an  earthquake  with  philosophical  eyes.  .  .  . 


i835.]  THE   ANDES.  23 1 

Good-bye  to  you  all ;  you  will  not  have  another  letter  for 
some  time. 

My  dear  Catherine, 

Yours  affectionately, 

Chas.  Darwin. 

My  best  love  to  my  father,  and  all  of  you.     Love  to  Nancy. 


C.  Danmn  to  Miss  S,  Darwin. 

Valparaiso,  April  23,  1835. 

My  dear  Susan, 

I  received,  a  few  days  since,  your  letter  of  November; 
the  three  letters  which  I  before  mentioned  are  yet  missing, 
but  I  do  not  doubt  they  will  come  to  life.  I  returned  a  week 
ago  from  my  excursion  across  the  Andes  to  Mendoza.  Since 
leaving  England  I  have  never  made  so  successful  a  journey  ; 
it  has,  however,  been  very  expensive.  I  am  sure  my  father 
would  not  regret  it,  if  he  could  know  how  deeply  I  have  en- 
joyed it :  it  was  something  more  than  enjoyment ;  I  cannot 
express  the  delight  which  I  felt  at  such  a  famous  winding-up 
of  all  my  geology  in  South  America.  I  literally  could  hardly 
sleep  at  nights  for  thinking  over  my  day's  work.  The  scenery 
was  so  new,  and  so  majestic  ;  everything  at  an  elevation  of 
12,000  feet  bears  so  different  an  aspect  from  that  in  a  lower 
country.  I  have  seen  many  views  more  beautiful,  but  none 
with  so  strongly  marked  a  character.  To  a  geologist,  also, 
there  are  such  manifest  proofs  of  excessive  violence  ;  the 
strata  of  the  highest  pinnacles  are  tossed  about  like  the  crust 
of  a  broken  pie. 

I  crossed  by  the  Portillo  Pass,  which  at  this  time  of  the 
year  is  apt  to  be  dangerous,  so  could  not  afford  to  delay 
there.  After  staying  a  day  in  the  stupid  town  of  Mendoza,  I 
began  my  return  by  Uspallate,  which  I  did  very  leisurely. 
My  whole  trip  only  took  up  twenty-two  days.  I  travelled 
with,  for  me,  uncommon  comfort,  as  I  carried  a  bed !  My 
party  consisted  of  two  Peons  and  ten  mules,  two  of  which 
were  with  baggage,  or  rather  food,  in  case  of  being  snowed 
up.     Everything,  however,  favoured  me  ;  not  even  a  speck  of 


232  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  26.  [1835. 

this  year's  snow  had  fallen  on  the  road.  I  do  not  suppose 
any  of  you  can  be  much  interested  in  geological  details,  but 
I  will  just  mention  my  principal  results  : — Besides  under- 
standing to  a  certain  extent  the  description  and  manner  of 
the  force  which  has  elevated  this  great  line  of  mountains, 
I  can  clearly  demonstrate  that  one  part  of  the  double  line  is 
of  an  age  long  posterior  to  the  other.  In  the  more  ancient 
line,  which  is  the  true  chain  of  the  Andes,  I  can  describe  the 
sort  and  order  of  the  rocks  which  compose  it.  These  are 
chiefly  remarkable  by  containing  a  bed  of  gypsum  nearly 
2000  feet  thick — a  quantity  of  this  substance  I  should  think 
unparalleled  in  the  world.  What  is  of  much  greater  conse- 
quence, I  have  procured  fossil  shells  (from  an  elevation  of 
12,000  feet).  I  think  an  examination  of  these  will  give  an 
approximate  age  to  these  mountains,  as  compared  to  the 
strata  of  Europe.  In  the  other  line  of  the  Cordilleras  there 
is  a  strong  presumption  (in  my  own  mind,  conviction)  that 
the  enormous  mass  of  mountains,  the  peaks  of  which  rise  to 
13,000  and  14,000  feet,  are  so  very  modern  as  to  be  con- 
temporaneous with  the  plains  of  Patagonia  (or  about  with 
the  upper  strata  of  the  Isle  of  Wight).  If  this  result  shall  be 
considered  as  proved,*  it  is  a  very  important  fact  in  the  theory 
of  the  formation  of  the  world;  because,  if  such  wonderful 
changes  have  taken  place  so  recently  in  the  crust  of  the  globe, 
there  can  be  no  reason  for  supposing  former  epochs  of  ex- 
cessive violence.  These  modern  strata  are  very  remarkable 
by  being  threaded  with  metallic  veins  of  silver,  gold,  copper, 
&c.  ;  hitherto  these  have  been  considered  as  appertaining  to 
older  formations.  In  these  same  beds,  and  close  to  a  gold- 
mine, I  found  a  clump  of  petrified  trees,  standing  upright, 
with  layers  of  fine  sandstone  deposited  round  them,  bearing 
the  impression  of  their  bark.  These  trees  are  covered  by 
other  sandstones  and  streams  of  lava  to  the  thickness  of  sev- 
eral thousand  feet.      These  rocks  have  been  deposited  be- 


*  The  importance  of  these  results  has  been  fully  recognized  by  geolo- 
gists. 


i835.]  LIMA. 


233 


neath  water  ;  yet  it  is  clear  the  spot  where  the  trees  grew 
must  once  have  been  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  so  that  it  is 
certain  the  land  must  have  been  depressed  by  at  least  as 
many  thousand  feet  as  the  superincumbent  subaqueous  de- 
posits are  thick.  But  I  am  afraid  you  will  tell  me  I  am  prosy 
with  my  geological  descriptions  and  theories.  .  .  . 

Your  account  of  Erasmus'  visit  to  Cambridge  has  made 
me  long  to  be  back  there.  I  cannot  fancy  anything  more  de- 
lightful than  his  Sunday  round  of  King's,  Trinity,  and  those 
talking  giants,  Whewell  and  Sedgwick  ;  I  hope  your  musical 
tastes  continue  in  due  force.  I  shall  be  ravenous  for  the 
pianoforte.  ... 

I  have  not  quite  determined  whether  I  will  sleep  at  the 
^  Lion  '  the  first  night  when  I  arrive  per  '  Wonder,'  or  disturb 
you  all  in  the  dead  of  the  night ;  everything  short  of  that  is 
absolutely  planned.  Everything  about  Shrewsbury  is  growing 
in  my  mind  bigger  and  more  beautiful ;  I  am  certain  the 
acacia  and  copper  beech  are  two  superb  trees  ;  I  shall  know 
every  bush,  and  I  will  trouble  you  young  ladies,  when  each 
of  you  cut  down  your  tree,  to  spare  a  few.  As  for  the  view 
behind  the  house,  I  have  seen  nothing  like  it.  It  is  the  same 
with  North  Wales  ;  Snowdon,  to  my  mind,  looks  much  higher 
and  much  more  beautiful  than  any  peak  in  the  Cordilleras. 
So  you  will  say,  with  my  benighted  faculties,  it  is  time  to  re- 
turn, and  so  it  is,  and  I  long  to  be  with  you.  Whatever  the 
trees  are,  I  know  what  I  shall  find  all  you.  I  am  writing 
nonsense,  so  farewell.  My  most  affectionate  love  to  all,  and 
I  pray  forgiveness  from  my  father. 

Yours  most  affectionately, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox. 

Lima,  July,  1835. 

My  dear  Fox, 

I  have  lately  received  two  of  your  letters,  one  dated  June 
and  the  other  November,  1834  (they  reached  me,  however, 
in  an  inverted  order).     I  was  very  glad  to  receive  a  history 


234 


THE   VOYAGE.     yETAT.  26.  [1835. 


of  this  most  important  year  in  your  life.  Previously  I  had 
only  heard  the  plain  fact  that  you  were  married.  You  are  a 
true  Christian  and  return  good  for  evil,  to  send  two  such  let- 
ters to  so  bad  a  correspondent  as  I  have  been.  God  bless 
you  for  writing  so  kindly  and  affectionately  ;  if  it  is  a  pleas- 
ure to  have  friends  in  England,  it  is  doubly  so  to  think  and 
know  that  one  is  not  forgotten  because  absent.  This  voyage 
is  terribly  long.  I  do  so  earnestly  desire  to  return,  yet  I  dare 
hardly  look  forward  to  the  future,  for  I  do  not  know  what 
will  become  of  me.  Your  situation  is  above  envy:  I  do  not 
venture  even  to  frame  such  happy  visions.  To  a  person  fit  to 
take  the  office,  the  life  of  a  clergyman  is  a  type  of  all  that  is 
respectable  and  happy.  You  tempt  me  by  talking  of  your 
fireside,  whereas  it  is  a  sort  of  scene  I  never  ought  to  think 
about.  I  saw  the  other  day  a  vessel  sail  for  England;  it  was 
quite  dangerous  to  know  how  easily  I  might  turn  deserter. 
As  for  an  English  lady,  I  have  almost  forgotten  what  she  is — 
something  very  angelic  and  good.  As  for  the  women  in  these 
countries,  they  wear  caps  and  petticoats,  and  a  very  few  have 
pretty  faces,  and  then  all  is  said.  But  if  we  are  not  wrecked 
on  some  unlucky  reef,  I  will  sit  by  that  same  fireside  in  Vale 
Cottage  and  tell  some  of  the  wonderful  stories,  which  you 
seem  to  anticipate  and,  I  presume,  are  not  very  ready  to  be- 
lieve. Gracias  a  dios^  the  prospect  of  such  times  is  rather 
shorter  than  formerly. 

From  this  most  wretched  *  City  of  the  Kings '  we  sail  in 
a  fortnight,  from  thence  to  Guayaquil,  Galapagos,  Marquesas, 
Society  Islands,  &c.,  &c.  I  look  forward  to  the  Galapagos 
with  more  interest  than  any  other  part  of  the  voyage.  They 
abound  with  active  volcanoes,  and,  I  should  hope,  contain 
Tertiary  strata.  I  am  glad  to  hear  you  have  some  thoughts 
of  beginning  Geology.  I  hope  you  will  ;  there  is  so  much 
larger  a  field  for  thought  than  in  the  other  branches  of  Nat- 
ural History.  I  am  become  a  zealous  disciple  of  Mr.  Lyell's 
views,  as  known  in  his  admirable  book.  Geologising  in  South 
America,  I  am  tempted  to  carry  parts  to  a  greater  extent 
even  than  he  does.     Geology  is  a  capital  science  to  begin,  as 


1836.]  TAHITI.  235 

it  requires  nothing  but  a  little  reading,  thinking,  and  hammer- 
ing. I  have  a  considerable  body  of  notes  together  ;  but  it  is 
a  constant  subject  of  perplexity  to  me,  whether  they  are  of 
sufficient  value  for  all  the  time  I  have  spent  about  them, 
or  whether  animals  would  not  have  been  of  more  certain 
value. 

I  shall  indeed  be  glad  once  again  to  see  you  and  tell  you 
how  grateful  I  feel  for  your  steady  friendship.  God  bless 
you,  my  very  dear  Fox. 

Believe  me, 

Yours  affectionately, 

Chas.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Henslow, 

Sydney,  January,  1836. 

My  dear  Henslow, 

This  is  the  last  opportunity  of  communicating  with  you 
before  that  joyful  day  when  I  shall  reach  Cambridge.  I  have 
very  little  to  say :  but  I  must  write  if  it  is  only  to  express 
my  joy  that  the  last  year  is  concluded,  and  that  the  present 
one,  in  which  the  Beagle  will  return,  is  gliding  onwards.  We 
have  all  been  disappointed  here  in  not  finding  even  a  single 
letter ;  we  are,  indeed,  rather  before  our  expected  time, 
otherwise,  I  dare  say,  I  should  have  seen  your  handwriting. 
I  must  feed  upon  the  future,  and  it  is  beyond  bounds  de- 
lightful to  feel  the  certainty  that  within  eight  months  I  shall 
be  residing  once  again  most  quietly  in  Cambridge.  Cer- 
tainly, I  never  was  intended  for  a  traveller  ;  my  thoughts 
are  always  rambling  over  past  or  future  scenes  ;  I  cannot 
enjoy  the  present  happiness  for  anticipating  the  future,  which 
is  about  as  foolish  as  the  dog  who  dropped  the  real  bone  for 

its  shadow, 

***** 

In  our  passage  across  the  Pacific  we  only  -touched  at 
Tahiti  and  New  Zealand  ;  at  neither  of  these  places  or  at  sea 
had  I  much  opportunity  of  working.  Tahiti  is  a  most  charm- 
ing spot.     Everything  which  former  navigators  have  written 


236  THE   VOYAGE.     .ETAT.  26.  [1836. 

is  true.  '  A  new  Cytheraea  has  risen  from  the  ocean.'  De- 
licious scenery,  climate,  manners  of  the  people  are  all  in  har- 
mony. It  is,  moreover,  admirable  to  behold  what  the  mis- 
sionaries both  here  and  at  New  Zealand  have  effected.  I 
firmly  believe  they  are  good  men  working  for  the  sake  of  a 
good  cause.  I  much  suspect  that  those  who  have  abused  or 
sneered  at  the  missionaries  have  generally  been  such  as  were 
not  very  anxious  to  find  the  natives  moral  and  intelligent 
beings.  During  the  remainder  of  our  voyage  we  shall  only 
visit  places  generally  acknowledged  as  civilised,  and  nearly 
all  under  the  British  flag.  These  will  be  a  poor  field  for 
Natural  History,  and  without  it  I  have  lately  discovered  that 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  new  places  is  as  nothing.  I  must 
return  to  my  old  resource  and  think  of  the  future,  but  that  I 
may  not  become  more  prosy,  I  will  say  farewell  till  the  day 
arrives,  when  I  shall  see  my  Master  in  Natural  History, 
and  can  tell  him  how  grateful  I  feel  for  his  kindness  and 

friendship. 

Believe  me,  dear  Henslow, 

Ever  yours,  most  faithfully, 

Chas.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  Miss  S.  Darwin. 

Bahia,  Brazil,  August  4  [1836]. 

My  DEAR  Susan, 

I  will  just  write  a  few  lines  to  explain  the  cause  of  this 
letter  being  dated  on  the  coast  of  South  America.  Some 
singular  disagreements  in  the  longitudes  made  Captain  Fitz- 
Roy  anxious  to  complete  the  circle  in  the  southern  hemi- 
sphere, and  then  retrace  our  steps  by  our  first  line  to  England. 
This  zigzag  manner  of  proceeding  is  very  grievous ;  it  has 
put  the  finishing  stroke  to  my  feelings.  I  loathe,  I  abhor  the 
sea  and  all  ships  which  sail  on  it.  But  I  yet  believe  we  shall 
reach  England  in  the  latter  half  of  October.  At  Ascension 
I  received  Catherine's  letter  of  October,  and  yours  of  Novem- 
ber ;  the  letter  at  the  Cape  was  of  a  later  date,  but  letters  of 
all  sorts  are  inestimable  treasures,  and  I  thank  you  both  for 


1836.]  BAHIA.  237 

them.  The  desert,  volcanic  rocks,  and  wild  sea  of  Ascension, 
as  soon  as  I  knew  there  was  news  from  home,  suddenly  wore 
a  pleasing  aspect,  and  I  set  to  work  with  a  good-will  at  my 
old  work  of  Geology.  You  would  be  surprised  to  know  how 
entirely  the  pleasure  in  arriving  at  a  new  place  depends  on 
letters.  We  only  stayed  four  days  at  Ascension,  and  then 
made  a  very  good  passage  to  Bahia. 

I  little  thought  to  have  put  my  foot  on  South  American 
coast  again.  It  has  been  almost  painful  to  find  how  much 
good  enthusiasm  has  been  evaporated  during  the  last  four 
years.  I  can  now  walk  soberly  through  a  Brazilian  forest; 
not  but  what  it  is  exquisitely  beautiful,  but  now,  instead  of 
seeking  for  splendid  contrasts,  I  compare  the  stately  mango 
trees  with  the  horse-chestnuts  of  England.  Although  this 
zigzag  has  lost  us  at  least  a  fortnight,  in  some  respects  I  am 
glad  of  it.  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  carry  away  one  vivid 
picture  of  inter-tropical  scenery.  We  go  from  hence  to  the 
Cape  de  Verds ;  that  is,  if  the  winds  or  the  Equatorial  calms 
will  allow  us.  I  have  some  faint  hopes  that  a  steady  foul 
wind  might  induce  the  Captain  to  proceed  direct  to  the 
Azores.     For  which  most  untoward  event  I  heartily  pray. 

Both  your  letters  were  full  of  good  news  ;  especially  the 
expressions  which  you  tell  me  Professor  Sedgwick  used  about 
my  collections.  I  confess  they  are  deeply  gratifying — I  trust 
one  part  at  least  will  turn  out  true,  and  that  I  shall  act  as  I 
now  think— as  a  man  who  dares  to  waste  one  hour  of  time 
has  not  discovered  the  value  of  life.  Professor  Sedgwick  men- 
tioning my  name  at  all  gives  me  hopes  that  he  will  assist  me 
with  his  advice,  of  which,  in  my  geological  questions,  I  stand 
much  in  need.  It  is  useless  to  tell  you  from  the  shameful 
state  of  this  scribble  that  I  am  writing  against  time,  having 
been  out  all  morning,  and  now  there  are  some  strangers  on 
board  to  whom  I  must  go  down  and  talk  civility.  Moreover, 
as  this  letter  goes  by  a  foreign  ship,  it  is  doubtful  whether  it 
will  ever  arrive.  Farewell,  my  very  dear  Susan  and  all  of  you. 
Good-bye. 

C.  Darwin. 


238  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  27.  [1836. 

C,  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Henslow, 

St.  Helena,  July  9,  1836. 
My  dear  Henslow, 

I  am  going  to  ask  you  to  do  me  a  favour.  I  am  very 
anxious  to  belong  to  the  Geological  Society.  I  do  not  know, 
but  I  suppose  it  is  necessary  to  be  proposed  some  time  be- 
fore being  ballotted  for  ;  if  such  is  the  case,  would  you  be 
good  enough  to  take  the  proper  preparatory  steps  ?  Professor 
Sedgwick  very  kindly  offered  to  propose  me  before  leaving 
England,  if  he  should  happen  to  be  in  London.  I  dare  say 
he  would  yet  do  so. 

I  have  very  little  to  write  about.  We  have  neither  seen, 
done,  or  heard  of  anything  particular  for  a  long  time  past ; 
and  indeed  if  at  present  the  wonders  of  another  planet  could 
be  displayed  before  us,  I  believe  we  should  unanimously 
exclaim,  what  a  consummate  plague.  No  schoolboys  ever 
sung  the  half  sentimental  and  half  jovial  strain  of  *  dulce 
domum  '  with  more  fervour,  than  we  all  feel  inclined  to  do. 
But  the  whole  subject  of  *  dulce  domum,'  and  the  delight  of 
seeing  one's  friends,  is  most  dangerous,  it  must  infallibly  make 
one  very  prosy  or  very  boisterous.  Oh,  the  degree  to  which 
I  long  to  be  once  again  living  quietly  with  not  one  single 
novel  object  near  me!  No  one  can  imagine  it  till  he  has 
been  whirled  round  the  world  during  five  long  years  in  a 
ten-gun-brig.  I  am  at  present  living  in  a  small  house  (amongst 
the  clouds)  in  the  centre  of  the  island,  and  within  stone's 
throw  of  Napoleon's  tomb.  It  is  blowing  a  gale  of  wind  with 
heavy  rain  and  wretchedly  cold  ;  if  Napoleon's  ghost  haunts 
his  dreary  place  of  confinement,  this  would  be  a  most  excel- 
lent night  for  such  wandering  spirits.  If  the  weather  chooses 
to  permit  me,  I  hope  to  see  a  little  of  the  Geology  (so  often 
partially  described)  of  the  island.  I  suspect  that  differently 
from  most  volcanic  islands  its  structure  is  rather  complicated. 
It  seems  strange  that  this  little  centre  of  a  distinct  creation 
should,  as  is  asserted,  bear  marks  of  recent  elevation. 

The  Beagle  proceeds  from  this  place  to  Ascension,  then  to 


1836.]  SIR   J.    HERSCHEL.  230 

the  Cape  de  Verds  (whit  miserable  places  !)  to  the  Azores  to 
Plymouth;  and  then  to  home.  That  most  glorious  of  all  days 
in  my  life  will  not,  however,  arrive  till  the  middle  of  October. 
Some  time  in  that  month  you  will  see  me  at  Cambridge, 
where  I  must  directly  come  to  report  myself  to  you,  as  my 
first  Lord  of  the  Admiralty.  At  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  we 
all  on  board  suffered  a  bitter  disappointment  in  missing  nine 
months'  letters,  which  are  chasing  us  from  one  side  of  the 
globe  to  the  other.  I  dare  say  amongst  them  there  was  a 
letter  from  you  ;  it  is  long  since  I  have  seen  your  hand- 
writing, but  I  shall  soon  see  you  yourself,  which  is  far  better. 
As  I  am  your  pupil,  you  are  bound  to  undertake  the  task  of 
criticising  and  scolding  me  for  all  the  things  ill  done  and  not 
done  at  all,  which  I  fear  I  shall  need  much  ;  but  I  hope  for 
the  best,  and  I  am  sure  I  have  a  good  if  not  too  easy  task- 
master. 

At  the  Cape  Captain  Fitz-Roy  and  myself  enjoyed  a  mem- 
orable piece  of  good  fortune  in  meeting  Sir  J.  Herschel.  We 
dined  at  his  house  and  saw  him  a  few  times  besides.  He 
was  exceedingly  good  natured,  but  his  manners  at  first  ap- 
peared to  me  rather  awful.  He  is  living  in  a  very  comforta- 
ble country  house,  surrounded  by  fir  and  oak  trees,  which 
alone  in  so  open  a  country,  give  a  most  charming  air  of  seclu- 
sion and  comfort.  He  appears  to  find  time  for  everything  ; 
he  showed  us  a  pretty  garden  full  of  Cape  bulbs  of  his  own 
collecting,  and  I  afterwards  understood  that  everything  was 
the  work  of  his  own  hands.  ...  I  am  very  stupid,  and  I  have 
nothing  more  to  say  ;  the  wind  is  whistling  so  mournfully 
over  the  bleak  hills,  that  I  shall  go  to  bed  and  dream  of 
England. 

Good  night,  my  dear  Henslow, 

Yours  most  truly  obliged  and  affectionately, 

Chas.  Darwin. 


240  THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  27.  [1836. 

C,  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Henslow. 

Shrewsbury,  Thursday,  October  6,  [1836]. 

My  dear  Henslow, 

I  am  sure  you  will  congratulate  me  on  the  delight  of  once 
again  being  home.  The  Beagle  arrived  at  Falmouth  on  Sun- 
day evening,  and  I  reached  Shrev/sbury  yesterday  morning. 
I  am  exceedingly  anxious  to  see  you,  and  as  it  will  be  neces- 
sary in  four  or  five  days  to  return  to  London  to  get  my  goods 
and  chattels  out  of  the  Beagle^  it  appears  to  me  my  best  plan 
to  pass  through  Cambridge.  I  want  your  advice  on  many 
points ;  indeed  I  am  in  the  clouds,  and  neither  know  what 
to  do  or  where  to  go.  My  chief  puzzle  is  about  the  geologi- 
cal specimens — who  will  have  the  charity  to  help  me  in  de- 
scribing their  mineralogical  nature  ?  Will  you  be  kind  enough 
to  write  to  me  one  line  by  return  of  post ^  saying  whether 
you  are  now  at  Cambridge  ?  I  am  doubtful  till  I  hear  from 
Captain  Fitz-Roy  whether  I  shall  not  be  obliged  to  start  be- 
fore the  answer  can  arrive,  but  pray  try  the  chance.  My 
dear  Henslow,  I  do  long  to  see  you  ;  you  have  been  the  kindest 
friend  to  me  that  ever  man  possessed.  I  can  write  no  more, 
for  I  am  giddy  with  joy  and  confusion. 

Farewell  for  the  present, 

Yours  most  truly  obliged, 

Charles  Darwin. 


C.  Darwin  to  R.  Fitz-Roy. 
Shrewsbury,  Thursday  morning,  October  6,  [1836]. 

My  dear  Fitz-Roy, 

I  arrived  here  yesterday  morning  at  breakfast  time,  and, 
thank  God,  found  all  my  dear  good  sisters  and  father  quite 
well.  My  father  appears  more  cheerful  and  very  little  older 
than  when  I  left.  My  sisters  assure  me  I  do  not  look  the 
least  different,  and  I  am  able  to  return  the  compliment.  In- 
deed, all  England  appears  changed  excepting  the  good  old 


1836.]  HOME.  241 

town  of  Shrewsbury  and  its  inhabitants,  which,  for  all  I  can 
see  to  the  contrary,  may  go  on  as  they  now  are  to  Doomsday. 
I  wish  with  all  my  heart  I  was  writing  to  you  amongst  your 
friends  instead  of  at  that  horrid  Plymouth.  But  the  day  will 
soon  come,  and  you  will  be  as  happy  as  I  now  am.  I  do 
assure  you  I  am  a  very  great  man  at  home  ;  the  five  years* 
voyage  has  certainly  raised  me  a  hundred  per  cent.  I  fear 
such  greatness  must  experience  a  fall. 

I  am  thoroughly  ashamed  of  myself  in  what  a  dead-and- 
half-alive  state  I  spent  the  few  last  days  on  board ;  my  only 
excuse  is  that  certainly  I  was  not  quite  well.  The  first  day 
in  the  mail  tired  me,  but  as  I  drew  nearer  to  Shrewsbury 
everything  looked  more  beautiful  and  cheerful.  In  passing 
Gloucestershire  and  Worcestershire  I  wished  much  for  you 
to  admire  the  fields,  woods,  and  orchards.  The  stupid  people 
on  the  coach  did  not  seem  to  think  the  fields  one  bit  greener 
than  usual ;  but  I  am  sure  we  should  have  thoroughly  agreed 
that  the  wide  world  does  not  contain  so  happy  a  prospect 
as  the  rich  cultivated  land  of  England. 

I  hope  you  will  not  forget  to  send  me  a  note  telling  me 
how  you  go  on.  I  do  indeed  hope  all  your  vexations  and 
trouble  with  respect  to  our  voyage,  which  we  now  know  has 
an  end,  have  come  to  a  close.  If  you  do  not  receive  much 
satisfaction  for  all  the  mental  and  bodily  energy  you  have 
expended  in  His  Majesty's  service,  you  will  be  most  hardly 
treated.  I  put  my  radical  sisters  into  an  uproar  at  some  of 
the  prudent  (if  they  were  not  honest  Whigs,  I  would  say 
shabby)  proceedings  of  our  Government.  By  the  way,  I  must 
tell  you  for  the  honour  and  glory  of  the  family  that  my  father 
has  a  large  engraving  of  King  George  IV.  put  up  in  his 
sitting-room.  But  I  am  no  renegade,  and  by  the  time  we 
meet  my  politics  will  be  as  firmly  fixed  and  as  wisely  founded 
as  ever  they  were. 

I  thought  when  I  began  this  letter  I  would  convince  you 

what  a  steady  and  sober  frame  of  mind  I  was  in.     But  I  find 

I  am  writing  most  precious  nonsense.     Two  or  three  of  our 

labourers  yesterday  immediately  set    to  work  and  got  most 

12 


242 


THE   VOYAGE.     ^TAT.  27. 


[1836, 


excessively  drunk  in  honour  of  the  arrival  of  Master  Charles. 
Who  then  shall  gainsay  if  Master  Charles  himself  chooses  to 
make  himself  a  fool.  Good-bye.  God  bless  you  !  I  hope 
you  are  as  happy,  but  much  wiser,  than  your  most  sincere  but 
unworthy  philosopher, 

Chas.  Darwin. 


CHAPTER   VIL 

LONDON    AND    CAMBRIDGE. 
1836-1842. 

[The  period  illustrated  by  the  following  letters  includes 
the  years  between  my  father^s  return  from  the  voyage  of 
the  Beagle  and  his  settling  at  Down.  It  is  marked  by  the 
gradual  appearance  of  that  weakness  of  health  which  ulti- 
mately forced  him  to  leave  London  and  take  up  his  abode 
for  the  rest  of  his  life  in  a  quiet  country  house.  In  June, 
1 841,  he  writes  to  Lyell :  "  My  father  scarcely  seems  to  ex- 
pect that  I  shall  become  strong  for  some  years ;  it  has  been 
a  bitter  mortification  for  me  to  digest  the  conclusion  that  the 
*  race  is  for  the  strong/  and  that  I  shall  probably  do  little 
more  but  be  content  to  admire  the  strides  others  make  in 
science.'* 

There  is  no  evidence  of  any  intention  of  entering  a  profes- 
sion after  his  return  from  the  voyage,  and  early  in  1840  he 
wrote  to  Fitz-Roy  :  '*  I  have  nothing  to  wish  for,  excepting 
stronger  health  to  go  on  with  the  subjects  to  which  I  have 
joyfully  determined  to  devote  my  life/* 

These  two  conditions — permanent  ill-health  and  a  passion- 
ate love  of  scientific  work  for  its  own  sake — determined  thus 
early  in  his  career,  the  character  of  his  whole  future  life.  They 
impelled  him  to  lead  a  retired  life  of  constant  labour,  carried 
on  to  the  utmost  limits  of  his  physical  power,  a  life  w^hich 
signally  falsified  his  melancholy  prophecy. 

The  end  of  the  last  chapter  saw  my  father  safely  arrived 


244  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.    27. 

at  Shrewsbury  on  October  4,  1836,  "  after  an  absence  of  five 
years  and  two  days."  He  wrote  to  Fox :  "  You  cannot 
imagine  how  gloriously  delightful  my  first  visit  was  at  home  ; 
is  was  worth  the  banishment."  But  it  was  a  pleasure  that 
he  could  not  long  enjoy,  for  in  the  last  days  of  October  he 
was  at  Greenwich  unpacking  specimens  from  the  Beagle.  As 
to  the  destination  of  the  collections  he  writes,  somewhat  de- 
spondingly,  to  Henslow  : — 

*^  I  have  not  made  much  progress  with  the  great  men. 
I  find,  as  you  told  me,  that  they  are  all  overwhelmed  with 
their  own  business.  Mr.  Lyell  has  entered,  in  the  most  good- 
natured  manner,  and  almost  without  being  asked,  into  all  my 
plans.  He  tells  me,  however,  the  same  story,  that  I  must  do 
all  myself.  Mr.  Owen  seems  anxious  to  dissect  some  of  the 
animals  in  spirits,  and,  besides  these  two,  I  have  scarcely  met 
any  one  who  seems  to  wish  to  possess  any  of  my  specimens. 
I  must  except  Dr.  Grant,  who  is  willing  to  examine  some  of 
the  corallines.  I  see  it  is  quite  unreasonable  to  hope  for  a 
minute  that  any  man  will  undertake  the  examination  of  a 
whole  order.  It  is  clear  the  collectors  so  much  outnumber 
the  real  naturalists  that  the  latter  have  no  time  to  spare. 

"  I  do  not  even  find  that  the  Collections  care  for  receiving 
the  unnamed  specimens.  The  Zoological  Museum  *  is  nearly 
full,  and  upwards  of  a  thousand  specimens  remain  unmounted. 
I  dare  say  the  British  Museum  would  receive  them,  but  I  can- 
not feel,  from  all  I  hear,  any  great  respect  even  for  the  pres- 
ent state  of  that  establishment.  Your  plan  will  be  not  only 
the  best,  but  the  only  one,  namely,  to  come  down  to  Cam- 
bridge, arrange  and  group  together  the  different  families,  and 
then  wait  till  people,  who  are  already  working  in  different 
branches,  may  want  specimens.  But  it  appears  to  me  [that] 
to  do  this  it  will  be  almost  necessary  to  reside  in  London. 
As  far  as  I  can  yet  see  my  best  plan  will  be  to  spend  several 
months  in  Cambridge,  and  then  when,  by  your  assistance,  I 


*  The  Museum  of  the  Zoological  Society,  then  at  33  Bruton  Street. 
The  collection  was  some  years  later  broken  up  and  dispersed. 


ZOOLOGICAL   SOCIETY.  241; 

know  on  what  ground  I  stand,  to  emigrate  to  London,  where 
I  can  complete  my  Geology  and  try  to  push  on  the  Zoology. 
I  assure  you  I  grieve  to  find  how  many  things  make  me  see 
the  necessity  of  living  for  some  time  in  this  dirty,  odious 
London.  For  even  in  Geology  I  suspect  much  assistance 
and  communication  will  be  necessary  in  this  quarter,  for  in- 
stance, in  fossil  bones,  of  which  none  excepting  the  fragments 
of  Megatherium  have  been  looked  at,  and  I  clearly  see  that 
without  my  presence  they  never  would  be.  .  .  . 

*^I  only  wish  I  had  known  the  Botanists  cared  so  much 
for  specimens  *  and  the  Zoologists  so  little  ;  the  proportional 
number  of  specimens  in  the  two  branches  should  have  had 
a  very  different  appearance.  I  am  out  of  patience  with  the 
Zoologists,  not  because  they  are  overworked,  but  for  their 
mean,  quarrelsome  spirit.  I  went  the  other  evening  to  the 
Zoological  Society,  where  the  speakers  were  snarling  at  each 
other  in  a  manner  anything  but  like  that  of  gentlemen.  Thank 
Heavens  !  as  long  as  I  remain  in  Cambridge  there  will  not  be 
any  danger  of  falling  into  any  such  contemptible  quarrels,- 
whilst  in  London  I  do  not  see  how  it  is  to  be  avoided.  Of 
the  Naturalists,  F.  Hope  is  out  of  London  ;  Westwood  I  have 
not  seen,  so  about  my  insects  I  know  nothing.  I  have  seen 
Mr.  Yarrell  twice,  but  he  is  so  evidently  oppressed  with  busi- 
ness that  it  is  too  selfish  to  plague  him  with  my  concerns. 
He  has  asked  me  to  dine  with  the  Linnean  on  Tuesday,  and 
on  Wednesday  I  dine  with  the  Geological,  so  that  I  shall  see 
all  the  great  men.  Mr.  Bell,  I  hear,  is  so  much  occupied 
that  there  is  no  chance  of  his  wishing  for  specimens  of  rep- 


*  A  passage  in  a  subsequent  letter  shows  that  his  plants  also  gave  him 
some  anxiety.  "  I  met  Mr.  Brown  a  few  days  after  you  had  called  on  him  ; 
he  asked  me  in  rather  an  ominous  manner  what  I  meant  to  do  with  my 
plants.  In  the  course  of  conversation  Mr.  Broderip,  who  was  present,  re- 
marked to  him,  '  You  forget  how  long  it  is  since  Captain  King's  expedi- 
tion.' He  answered,  *  Indeed,  I  have  something  in  the  shape  of  Captain 
Kings's  undescribed  plants  to  make  me  recollect  it.'  Could  a  beTter  reason 
be  given,  if  I  had  been  asked,  by  me,  for  not  giving  the  plants  to  the  Brit* 
ish  Museum  ?  " 


246  LONDON    AND   CAMBRIDGE.     .^TAT.    27. 

tiles.  I  have  forgotten  to  mention  Mr.  Lonsdale,*  who  gave 
me  a  most  cordial  reception,  and  with  whom  I  had  much  most 
interesting  conversation.  If  I  was  not  much  more  inclined 
for  geology  than  the  other  branches  of  Natural  History,  I  am 
sure  Mr.  Lyell's  and  Lonsdale's  kindness  ought  to  fix  me. 
You  cannot  conceive  anything  more  thoroughly  good-natured 
than  the  heart-and-soul  manner  in  which  he  put  himself  in 
my  place  and  thought  what  would  be  best  to  do.  At  first  he 
was  all  for  London  versus  Cambridge,  but  at  last  I  made  him 
confess  that,  for  some  time  at  least,  the  latter  would  be  for 
me  much  the  best.  There  is  not  another  soul  whom  I  could 
ask,  excepting  yourself,  to  wade  through  and  criticise  some 
of  those  papers  which  I  have  left  with  you.  Mr.  Lyell  owned 
that,  second  to  London,  there  was  no  place  in  England  so 
good  for  a  Naturalist  as  Cambridge.  Upon  my  word  I  am 
ashamed  of  writing  so  many  foolish  details  ;  no  young  lady 
ever  described  her  first  ball  with  more  particularity." 

A  few  days  later  he  writes  more  cheerfully  :  "  I  became 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Bell,  f  who  to  my  surprise  expressed  a 
good  deal  of  interest  about  my  Crustacea  and  reptiles,  and 
seems  willing  to  work  at  them.  I  also  heard  that  Mr.  Broderip 
would  be  glad  to  look  over  the  South  American  shells,  so  that 
things  flourish  well  with  me." 

About  his  plants  he  writes  with  characteristic  openness  as 
to  his  own  ignorance  :  "  You  have  made  me  known  amongst 
the  botanists,  but  I  felt  very  foolish  when  Mr.  Don  remarked 
on  the  beautiful  appearance  of  some  plant  with  an  astounding 
long  name,  and  asked  me  about  its  habitation.  Some  one 
else  seemed  quite  surprised  that  I  knew  nothing  about  a  Carex 


*  William  Lonsdale,  b.  1794,  d.  1871,  was  originally  in  the  army,  and 
served  at  the  battles  of  Salamanca  and  Waterloo.  After  the  war  he  left 
the  service  and  gave  himself  up  to  science.  He  acted  as  assistant  secre- 
tary to  the  Geological  Society  from  1829-42,  when  he  resigned,  owing  to 
ill  health. 

f  T.  Bell,  F.R.S.,  formerly  Prof,  of  Zoology  in  King's  College,  London, 
and  sometime  secretary  to  the  Royal  Society.  He  afterwards  described 
the  reptiles  for  the  zoology  of  the  voyage  of  the  Beagle, 


GEOLOGICAL  COLLECTION.  247 

from  I  do  not  knovr  where.  I  was  at  last  forced  to  plead 
most  entire  innocence,  and  that  I  knew  no  more  about  the 
plants  which  I  had  collected  than  the  man  in  the  moon." 

As  to  part  of  his  Geological  Collection  he  was  soon  able 
to  write  :  ^'  I  [have]  disposed  of  the  most  important  part  [of] 
my  collections,  by  giving  all  the  fossil  bones  to  the  College 
of  Surgeons,  casts  of  them  will  be  distributed,  and  descrip- 
tions published.  They  are  very  curious  and  valuable  ;  one 
head  belonged  to  some  gnawing  animal,  but  of  the  size  of 
a  Hippopotamus!  Another  to  an  ant-eater  of  the  size  of  a 
horse  !  " 

It  is  worth  noting  that  at  this  time  the  only  extinct  mam- 
malia from  South  America,  which  had  been  described,  were 
Mastodon  (three  species)  and  Megatherium.  The  remains  of 
the  other  extinct  Edentata  from  Sir  Woodbine  Parish's  col- 
lection had  not  been  described.  My  father's  specimens  in- 
cluded (besides  the  above-mentioned  Toxodon  and  Scelido- 
therium)  the  remains  of  Mylodon,  Glossotherium,  another 
gigantic  animal  allied  to  the  ant-eater,  and  Macrauchenia. 
His  discovery  of  these  remains  is  a  matter  of  interest  in  itself, 
but  it  has  a  special  importance  as  a  point  in  his  own  life,  since 
it  was  the  vivid  impression  produced  by  excavating  them  with 
his  own  hands  *  that  formed  one  of  the  chief  starting-points 
of  his  speculation  on  the  origin  of  species.  This  is  shown 
in  the  following  extract  from  his  Pocket  Book  for  this  year 
(1837)  :  ^^  In  July  opened  first  note-book  on  Transmutation 
of  Species.  Had  been  greatly  struck  from  about  the  month 
of  previous  March  on  character  of  South  American  fossils, 
and  species  on  Galapagos  Archipelago.  These  facts  (espe- 
cially latter),  origin  of  all  my  views."] 


*  I  have  often  heard  him  speak  of  the  despak*  with  which  he  had  to 
break  off  the  projecting  extremity  of  a  huge,  partly  excavated  bone,  when 
the  boat  waiting  for  him  would  wait  no  longer. 


248  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     .ETAT.    27.  [1836. 

1836-1837. 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  D,  Fox, 

43  Great  Marlborough  Street, 

November  6th  [1836]. 

My  dear  Fox, 

I  have  taken  a  shamefully  long  time  in  answering  your 
letter.  But  the  busiest  time  of  the  whole  voyage  has  been 
tranquillity  itself  to  this  last  month.  After  paying  Henslow 
a  short  but  very  pleasant  visit,  I  came  up  to  town  to  wait  for 
the  Beagle's  arrival.  At  last  I  have  removed  all  my  property 
from  on  board,  and  sent  the  specimens  of  Natural  History  to 
Cambridge,  so  that  I  am  now  a  free  man.  My  London  visit 
has  been  quite  idle  as  far  as  Natural  History  goes,  but  has 
been  passed  in  most  exciting  dissipation  amongst  the  Dons 
in  science.  All  my  affairs,  indeed,  are  most  prosperous  ;  I 
find  there  are  plenty  who  will  undertake  the  description  of 
whole  tribes  of  animals,  of  which  I  know  nothing.  So  that 
about  this  day  month  I  hope  to  set  to  work  tooth  and  nail 
at  the  Geology,  which  I  shall  publish  by  itself. 

It  is  quite  ridiculous  what  an  immensely  long  period  it 
appears  to  me  since  landing  at  Falmouth.  The  fact  is  I  have 
talked  and  laughed  enough  for  years  instead  of  weeks,  so 
[that]  my  memory  is  quite  confounded  with  the  noise.  I  am 
delighted  to  hear  you  are  turned  geologist :  when  I  pay  the 
Isle  of  Wight  a  visit,  which  I  am  determined  shall  somehow 
come  to  pass,  you  will  be  a  capital  cicerone  to  the  famous 
line  of  dislocation.  I  really  suppose  there  are  few  parts  of 
the  world  more  interesting  to  a  geologist  than  your  island. 
Amongst  the  great  scientific  men,  no  one  has  been  nearly  so 
friendly  and  kind  as  Lyell.  I  have  seen  him  several  times, 
and  feel  inclined  to  like  him  much.  You  cannot  imagine 
how  good-naturedly  he  entered  into  all  my  plans.  I  speak 
now  only  of  the  London  men,  for  Henslow  was  just  like  his 
former  self,  and  therefore  a  most  cordial  and  affectionate 
friend.  When  you  pay  London  a  visit  I  shall  be  very  proud 
to  take  you  to  the  Geological  Society,  for  be  it  known,  I  was 


1837.]  CHRIST'S   COLLEGE.  249 

proposed  to  be  a  F.  G.  S.  last  Tuesday.  It  is,  however,  a  great 
pity  that  these  and  the  other  letters,  especially  F.  R.  S.,  are  so 
very  expensive. 

I  do  not  scruple  to  ask  you  to  write  to  me  in  a  week*s  time 
in  Shrewsbury,  for  you  are  a  good  letter  writer,  and  if  people 
will  have  such  good  characters  they  must  pay  the  penalty. 
Good-bye,  dear  Fox. 

Yours, 

C.  D. 

[His  affairs  being  thus  so  far  prosperously  managed  he  was 
able  to  put  into  execution  his  plan  of  living  at  Cambridge, 
where  he  settled  on  December  loth,  1836.  He  was  at  first  a 
guest  in  the  comfortable  home  of  the  Henslows,  but  after- 
wards, for  the  sake  of  undisturbed  work,  he  moved  into  lodg- 
ings. He  thus  writes  to  Fox,  March  13th,  1837,  from  Lon- 
don : — 

^'  My  residence  at  Cambridge  was  rather  longer  than  I 
expected,  owing  to  a  job  which  I  determined  to  finish  there, 
namely,  looking  over  all  my  geological  specimens.  Cambridge 
yet  continues  a  very  pleasant,  but  not  half  so  merry  a  place 
as  before.  To  walk  through  the  courts  of  Christ *s  College, 
and  not  know  an  inhabitant  of  a  single  room,  gave  one  a 
feeling  half  melancholy.  The  only  evil  I  found  in  Cambridge 
was  its  being  too  pleasant :  there  was  some  agreeable  party 
or  another  every  evening,  and  one  cannot  say  one  is  engaged 
with  so  much  impunity  there  as  in  this  great  city.** 

A  trifling  record  of  my  father's  presence  in  Cambridge 
occurs  in  the  book  kept  in  Christ^s  College  combination-room, 
where  fines  and  bets  were  recorded,  the  earlier  entries  giving 
a  curious  impression  of  the  after-dinner  frame  of  mind  of  the 
fellows.  The  bets  were  not  allowed  to  be  made  in  money,  but 
were,  like  the  fines,  paid  in  wine.  The  bet  which  my  father 
made  and  lost  is  thus  recorded  : — 

'^J^e^.  23,  1837. — Mr.  Darwin  zk  Mr.  Baines,  that  the  com- 
bination-room measures  from  the  ceiling  to  the  floor  more 
than  (x)  feet.  i  Bottle  paid  same  day. 


250  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     .^TAT.    28.  [1837. 

"  N.  B.  Mr.  Darwin  may  measure  at  any  part  of  the  room 
he  pleases." 

Besides  arranging  the  geological  and  mineralogical  speci- 
mens, he  had  his  *  Journal  of  Researches '  to  work  at,  which 
occupied  his  evenings  at  Cambridge.  He  also  read  a  short 
paper  at  the  Zoological  Society,*  and  another  at  the  Geologi- 
cal Society,f  on  the  recent  elevation  of  the  coast  of  Chili. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1837  (March  6th)  he  left  Cambridge 
for  London,  and  a  week  later  he  was  settled  in  lodgings  at 
^6  Great  Marlborough  Street ;  and  except  for  a  "  short  visit 
to  Shrewsbury  "  in  June,  he  worked  on  till  September,  being 
almost  entirely  employed  on  his  'Journal.*  He  found  time, 
however,  for  two  papers  at  the  Geological  Society.^ 

He  writes  of  his  work  to  Fox  (March,  1837): — 

*'  In  your  last  letter  you  urge  me  to  get  ready  the  book.  I 
am  now  hard  at  work  and  give  up  everything  else  for  it.  Our 
plan  is  as  follows  :  Captain  Fitz-Roy  writes  two  volumes  out 
of  the  materials  collected  during  the  last  voyage  under  Capt. 
King  to  Tierra  del  Fuego,  and  during  our  circumnavigation. 
I  am  to  have  the  third  volume,  in  which  I  intend  giving  a 
kind  of  journal  of  a  naturalist,  not  following,  however,  always 
the  order  of  time,  but  rather  the  order  of  position.  The 
habits  of  animals  will  occupy  a  large  portion,  sketches  of  the 
geology,  the  appearance  of  the  country,  and  personal  details 
will  make  the  hodge-podge  complete.  Afterwards  I  shall 
write  an  account  of  the  geology  in  detail,  and  draw  up  some 
zoological  papers.  So  that  I  have  plenty  of  work  for  the 
next  year  or  two,  and  till  that  is  finished  I  will  have  no  holi- 
days." 

*  "  Notes  upon  Rhea  Americana,"  *  Zool.  Soc.  Proc'  v.  1837,  pp.  35, 
36. 

t '  Geol.  Soc.  Proc'  ii.  1838,  pp.  446-449. 

t  "  A  sketch  of  the  deposits  containing  extinct  mammalia  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Plata,"  *  Geol.  Soc.  Proc'  ii.  1838,  pp.  542-544  ;  and  ''  On 
certain  areas  of  elevation  and  subsidence  in  the  Pacific  and  Indian  oceans, 
as  deduced  from  the  study  of  coral  formations,"  '  Geol.  Soc  Proc'  ii.  1838, 
pp.  552-554. 


i837.]  ZOOLOGY   OF    THE    BEAGLE.  25 1 

Another  letter  to  Fox  (July)  gives  an  account  of  the  prog- 
ress of  his  work  :— 

'^  I  gave  myself  a  holiday  and  a  visit  to  Shrewsbury  [in 
June],  as  I  had  finished  my  Journal.  I  shall  now  be  very 
busy  in  filling  up  gaps  and  getting  it  quite  ready  for  the  press 
by  the  first  of  August.  I  shall  always  feel  respect  for  every 
one  who  has  written  a  book,  let  it  be  what  it  may,  for  I  had 
no  idea  of  the  trouble  which  trying  to  write  common  English 
could  cost  one.  And,  alas,  there  yet  remains  the  worst  part 
of  all,  correcting  the  press.  As  soon  as  ever  that  is  done  I 
must  put  my  shoulder  to  the  wheel  and  commence  at  the 
Geology.  I  have  read  some  short  papers  to  the  Geological 
Society,  and  they  were  favourably  received  by  the  great  guns, 
and  this  gives  me  much  confidence,  and  I  hope  not  a  very 
great  deal  of  vanity,  though  I  confess  I  feel  too  often  like  a 
peacock  admiring  his  tail.  I  never  expected  that  my  Geology 
would  ever  have  been  worth  the  consideration  of  such  men  as 
Lyell,  who  has  been  to  me,  since  my  return,  a  most  active 
friend.  My  life  is  a  very  busy  one  at  present,  and  I  hope 
may  ever  remain  so  ;  though  Heaven  knows  there  are  many 
serious  drawbacks  to  such  a  life,  and  chief  amongst  them  is 
the  little  time  it  allows  one  for  seeing  one's  natural  friends. 
For  the  last  three  years,  I  have  been  longing  and  longing  to 
be  living  at  Shrewsbury,  and  after  all  now  in  the  course  of 
several  months,  I  see  my  dear  good  people  at  Shrewsbury  for 
a  week.  Susan  and  Catherine  have,  however,  been  staying 
with  my  brother  here  for  some  weeks,  but  they  had  returned 
home  before  my  visit." 

Besides  the  work  already  mentioned  he  had  much  to  busy 
him  in  making  arrangements  for  the  publication  of  the 
'  Zoology  of  the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle'  The  following  letters 
illustrate  this  subject. 


252  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.    28.  [1837. 


C.  Darwin  to  L.  Jenyns.^ 

36  Great  Marlborough  Street, 

April  loth,  1837. 

Dear  Jenyns, 

During  the  last  week  several  of  the  zoologists  of  this  place 
have  been  urging  me  to  consider  the  possibility  of  publishing 
the  ^  Zoology  of  the  Beagle's  Voyage  '  on  some  uniform  plan. 
Mr.  Macleayt  has  taken  a  great  deal  of  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject, and  maintains  that  such  a  publication  is  very  desirable, 
because  it  keeps  together  a  series  of  observations  made  re- 
specting animals  inhabiting  the  same  part  of  the  world,  and 
allows  any  future  traveller  taking  them  with  him.  How  far 
this  facility  of  reference  is  of  any  consequence  I  am  very 
doubtful ;  but  if  such  is  the  case,  it  would  be  more  satis- 
factory to  myself  to  see  the  gleanings  of  my  hands,  after  hav- 
ing passed  through  the  brains  of  other  naturalists,  collected 
together  in  one  work.  But  such  considerations  ought  not  to 
have  much  weight.  The  whole  scheme  is  at  present  merely 
floating  in  the  air  ;  but  I  was  determined  to  let  you  know,  as 
I  should  much  like  to  know  what  you  think  about  it,  and 
whether  you  would  object  to  supply  descriptions  of  the  fish 
to  such  a  work  instead  of  to  *  Transactions.'  I  apprehend 
the  whole  will  be  impracticable,  without  Government  will  aid 
in  engraving  the  plates,  and  this  I  fear  is  a  mere  chance,  only 
I  think  I  can  put  in  a  strong  claim,  and  get  myself  well 
backed  by  the  naturalists  of  this  place,  who  nearly  all  take  a 


*  Now  Rev.  L.  Blomefield. 

f  William  Sharp  Macleay  was  the  son  of  Alexander  Macleay,  formerly 
Colonial  Secretary  of  New  South  Wales,  and  for  many  years  Secretary  of 
the  Linnean  Society.  The  son,  who  was  a  most  zealous  Naturalist,  and 
had  inherited  from  his  father  a  very  large  general  collection  of  insects, 
made  Entomology  his  chief  study,  and  gained  great  notoriety  by  his  now 
forgotten  Quinary  System,  set  forth  in  the  Second  Part  of  his  V  Horse  En- 
tomologicae,'  published  in  1821. — [I  am  indebted  to  Rev.  L.  Blomefield 
for  the  foregoing  note.] 


1837.]  THE   JOURNAL.  253 

good  deal  of  interest  in  my  collections.  I  mean  to-morrow 
to  see  Mr.  Yarrell ;  if  he  approves,  I  shall  begin  and  take 
more  active  steps  ;  for  I  hear  he  is  most  prudent  and  most 
wise.  It  is  scarcely  any  use  speculating  about  any  plan,  but 
I  thought  of  getting  subscribers  and  publishing  the  work  in 
parts  (as  long  as  funds  would  last,  for  I  myself  will  not  lose 
money  by  it).  In  such  case,  whoever  had  his  own  part  ready 
on  any  order  might  publish  it  separately  (and  ultimately  the 
parts  might  be  sold  separately),  so  that  no  one  should  be  de- 
layed by  the  other.  The  plan  would  resemble,  on  a  humble 
scale,  Ruppel's  ^  Atlas,'  or  Humboldt's  *  Zoologie,*  where 
Latreille,  Cuvier,  &c.,  wrote  different  parts.  I  myself  should 
have  little  to  do  with  it;  excepting  in  some  orders  adding 
habits  and  ranges,  &c.,  and  geographical  sketches,  and  per- 
haps afterwards  some  descriptions  of  invertebrate  ani- 
mals .... 

I  am  working  at  my  Journal;  it  gets  on  slowly,  though  I 
am  not  idle.  I  thought  Cambridge  a  bad  place  from  good 
dinners  and  other  temptations,  but  I  find  London  no  better, 
and  I  fear  it  may  grow  worse.  I  have  a  capital  friend  in 
Lyell,  and  see  a  great  deal  of  him,  which  is  very  advanta- 
geous to  me  in  discussing  much  South  American  geology.  I 
miss  a  walk  in  the  country  very  much  ;  this  London  is  a  vile 
smoky  place,  where  a  man  loses  a  great  part  of  the  best  en- 
joyments in  life.  But  I  see  no  chance  of  escaping,  even  for 
a  week,  from  this  prison  for  a  long  time  to  come.  I  fear  it 
will  be  some  time  before  we  shall  meet ;  for  I  suppose  you 
will  not  come  up  here  during  the  spring,  and  I  do  not  think 
I  shall  be  able  to  go  down  to  Cambridge.  How  I  should 
like  to  have  a  good  walk  along  the  Newmarket  road  to- 
morrow, but  Oxford  Street  must  do  instead.  I  do  hate  the 
streets  of  London.  Will  you  tell  Henslow  to  be  careful  with 
the  edible  fungi  from  Tierra  del  Fuego,  for  I  shall  want  some 
specimens  for  Mr.  Brown,  who  seems  particularly  interested 
about  them.  Tell  Henslow,  I  think  my  silicified  wood  has 
unflintified  Mr.  Brown's  heart,  for  he  was  very  gracious  to  me, 
and  talked  about  the  Galapagos  plants  ;  but  before  he  never 


254  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.    28.  [1837. 

would  say  a  word.     It  is  just  striking  twelve  o'clock;  so  I 
will  wish  you  a  very  good  night. 

My  dear  Jenyns, 

Yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

[A  few  weeks  later  the  plan  seems  to  have  been  matured, 
and  the  idea  of  seeking  Government  aid  to  have  been 
adopted.] 

C  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Henslow, 

36  Great  Marlborough  Street, 

[iSth  May,  1837]. 

My  dear  Henslow, 

I  was  very  glad  to  receive  your  letter.  I  wanted  much  to 
hear  how  you  were  getting  on  with  your  manifold  labours. 
Indeed  I  do  not  wonder  your  head  began  to  ache ;  it  is  al- 
most a  wonder  you  have  any  head  left.  Your  account  of  the 
Gamlingay  expedition  was  cruelly  tempting,  but  I  cannot 
anyhow  leave  London.  I  wanted  to  pay  my  good,  dear  peo- 
ple at  Shrewsbury  a  visit  of  a  few  days,  but  I  found  I  could 
not  manage  it ;  at  present  I  am  waiting  for  the  signatures  of 
the  Dake  of  Somerset,  as  President  of  the  Linnean,  and  of 
Lord  Derby  and  Whewell,  to  a  statement  of  the  value  of  my 
collection ;  the  instant  I  get  this  I  shall  apply  to  Government 
for  assistance  in  engraving,  and  so  publish  the  *  Zoology '  on 
some  uniform  plan.  It  is  quite  ridiculous  the  time  any 
operation  requires  which  depends  on  many  people. 

I  have  been  working  very  steadily,  but  have  only  got  two- 
thirds  through  the  Journal  part  alone,  I  find,  though  I  re- 
main daily  many  hours  at  work,  the  progress  is  very  slow :  it 
is  an  awful  thing  to  say  to  oneself,  every  fool  and  every 
clever  man  in  England,  if  he  chooses,  may  make  as  many  ill- 
natured  remarks  as  he  likes  on  this  unfortunate  sentence. 
***** 

[In  August  he  writes  to  Henslow  to  announce  the  success 
of  the  scheme  for  the  publication  of  the  *  Zoology  of  the 


1837]  GOVERNMENT   GRANT.  255 

Voyage  of  the  Beagle^'  through  the  promise  of  a  grant  of 
;^iooo  from  the  Treasury  :  ^^  I  have  delayed  writing  to  you, 
to  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  having  so  effectually  managed 
my  affair.  I  waited  till  I  had  an  interview  with  the  Chancel- 
lor of  the  Exchequer.*  He  appointed  to  see  me  this  morn- 
ing, and  I  had  a  long  conversation  with  him,  Mr.  Peacock 
being  present.  Nothing  could  be  more  thoroughly  obliging 
and  kind  than  his  whole  manner.  He  made  no  sort  of  re- 
striction, but  only  told  me  to  make  the  most  of  [the]  money, 
which  of  course  I  am  right  willing  to  do. 

"  I  expected  rather  an  awful  interview,  but  I  never  found 
anything  less  so  in  my  life.  It  will  be  my  fault  if  I  do  not 
make  a  good  work  ;  but  I  sometimes  take  an  awful  fright 
that  I  have  not  materials  enough.  It  will  be  excessively 
satisfactory  at  the  end  of  some  two  years  to  find  all  materials 
made  the  most  they  were  capable  of." 

Later  in  the  autumn  he  wrote  to  Henslow  :  ^'  I  have  not 
been  very  well  of  late,  with  an  uncomfortable  palpitation  of 
the  heart,  and  my  doctors  urge  me  strongly  to  knock  off  all 
work,  and  go  and  live  in  the  country  for  a  few  weeks/*  He 
accordingly  took  a  holiday  of  about  a  month  at  Shrewsbury 
and  Maer,  and  paid  Fox  a  visit  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  It  was, 
I  believe,  during  this  visit,  at  Mr.  Wedgwood's  house  at 
Maer,  that  he  made  his  first  observations  on  the  work  done 
by  earthworms,  and  late  in  the  autumn  he  read  a  paper  on 
the  subject  at  the  Geological  Society.f  During  these  two 
months  he  was  also  busy  preparing  the  scheme  of  the  ^  Zool- 
ogy of  the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle^'  and  in  beginning  to  put  to- 
gether the  Geological  results  of  his  travels. 

The  following  letter  refers  to  the  proposal  that  he  should 
take  the  Secretaryship  of  the  Geological  Society.] 

*  T.  Spring  Rice. 

f  "On  the  formation  of  mould,"  *  Gaol.  Soc.  Proc'  ii.  1838,  pp.  574- 
576. 


256  LONDON    AND   CAMBRIDGE.     JETAT,  28.  [1837. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Henslow. 

October  14th,  [1837]. 

My  dear  Henslow, 

...  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  message  about 
the  Secretaryship.  I  am  exceedingly  anxious  for  you  to  hear 
my  side  of  the  question,  and  will  you  be  so  kind  as  afterwards 
to  give  me  your  fair  judgment.  The  subject  has  haunted  me 
all  summer.  I  am  unwilling  to  undertake  the  office  for  the 
following  reasons  :  First,  my  entire  ignorance  of  English 
Geology,  a  knowledge  of  which  would  be  almost  necessary  in 
order  to  shorten  many  of  the  papers  before  reading  them  be- 
fore the  Society,  or  rather  to  know  what  parts  to  skip.  Again, 
my  ignorance  of  all  languages,  and  not  knowing  how  to  pro- 
nounce a  single  word  of  French — a  language  so  perpetually 
quoted.  It  would  be  disgraceful  to  the  Society  to  have  a 
Secretary  who  could  not  read  French.  Secondly,  the  loss  of 
time  ;  pray  consider  that  I  should  have  to  look  after  the 
artists,  superintend  and  furnish  materials  for  the  Government 
work,  which  will  come  out  in  parts,  and  which  must  appear 
regularly.  All  my  Geological  notes  are  in  a  very  rough  state  ; 
none  of  my  fossil  shells  worked  up  ;  and  I  have  much  to  read. 
I  have  had  hopes,  by  giving  up  society  and  not  wasting  an 
hour,  that  I  should  finish  my  Geology  in  a  year  and  a  half,  by 
which  time  the  description  of  the  higher  animals  by  others 
would  be  completed,  and  my  whole  time  would  then  neces- 
sarily be  required  to  complete  myself  the  description  of  the 
invertebrate  ones.  If  this  plan  fails,  as  the  Government  work 
must  go  on,  the  Geology  would  necessarily  be  deferred  till 
probably  at  least  three  years  from  this  time.  In  the  present 
state  of  the  science,  a  great  part  of  the  utility  of  the  little  I 
have  done  would  be  lost,  and  all  freshness  and  pleasure  quite 
taken  from  me. 

I  know  from  experience  the  time  required  to  make  ab- 
stracts even  of  my  own  papers  for  the  *  Proceedings.'  If  I  was 
Secretary,  and  had  to  make  double  abstracts  of  each  paper, 
studying  them  before  reading,  and  attendance  would  at  least 


i837.]  SECRETARYSHIP.  257 

cost  me  three  days  (and  often  more)  in  the  fortnight.  There 
are  likewise  other  accidental  and  contingent  losses  of  time; 
I  know  Dr.  Royle  found  the  office  consumed  much  of  his 
time.  If  by  merely  giving  up  any  amusement,  or  by  working 
harder  than  I  have  done,  I  could  save  time,  I  would  under- 
take the  Secretaryship  ;  but  I  appeal  to  you  whether,  with  my 
slow  manner  of  writing,  with  two  works  in  hand,  and  with 
the  certainty,  if  I  cannot  complete  the  Geological  part  within 
a  fixed  period,  that  its  publication  must  be  retarded  for  a 
very  long  time, — whether  any  Society  whatever  has  any  claim 
on  me  for  three  days'  disagreeable  work  every  fortnight.  I  can- 
not agree  that  it  is  a  duty  on  my  part,  as  a  follower  of  science, 
as  long  as  I  devote  myself  to  the  completion  of  the  work  I 
have  in  hand,  to  delay  that,  by  undertaking  what  may  be 
done  by  any  person  who  happens  to  have  more  spare  time 
than  I  have  at  present.  Moreover,  so  early  in  my  scientific 
life,  with  so  very  much  as  I  have  to  learn,  the  office,  though  no 
doubt  a  great  honour,  &c.,  for  me,  would  be  the  more  burden- 
some. Mr.  Whewell  (I  know  very  well),  judging  from  him- 
self, will  think  I  exaggerate  the  time  the  Secretaryship  would 
require  ;  but  I  absolutely  know  the  time  which  with  me  the 
simplest  writing  consumes.  I  do  not  at  all  like  appearing  so 
selfish  as  to  refuse  Mr.  Whewell,  more  especially  as  he  has 
always  shown,  in  the  kindest  manner,  an  interest  in  my  affairs. 
But  I  cannot  look  forward  with  even  tolerable  comfort  to  un- 
dertaking an  office  without  entering  on  it  heart  and  soul,  and 
that  would  be  impossible  with  the  Government  work  and  the 
Geology  in  hand. 

My  last  objection  is,  that  I  doubt  how  far  my  health  will 
stand  the  confinement  of  what  I  have  to  do,  without  any  ad- 
ditional work.  I  merely  repeat,  that  you  may  know  I  am  not 
speaking  idly,  that  when  I  consulted  Dr.  Clark  in  town,  he 
at  first  urged  me  to  give  up  entirely  all  writing  and  even  cor- 
recting press  for  some  weeks.  Of  late  anything  which  flurries 
me  completely  knocks  me  up  afterwards,  and  brings  on  a  vio- 
lent palpitation  of  the  heart.  Now  the  Secretaryship  would 
be  a  periodical  source  of  more  annoying  trouble  to  me  than 


258  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT,   28.  [1837. 

all  the  rest  of  the  fortnight  put  together.  In  fact,  till  I  return 
to  town,  and  see  how  1  get  on,  if  I  wished  the  office  ever  so 
much,  I  could  not  say  I  would  positively  undertake  it.  I  beg 
of  you  to  excuse  this  very  long  prose  all  about  myself,  but  the 
point  is  one  of  great  interest.  I  can  neither  bear  to  think 
myself  very  selfish  and  sulky,  nor  can  I  see  the  possibility  of 
my  taking  the  Secretaryship  without  making  a  sacrifice  of  all 
my  plans  and  a  good  deal  of  comfort. 

If  you  see  Whewell,  would  you  tell  him  the  substance  of 
this  letter  ;  or,  if  he  will  take  the  trouble,  he  may  read  it.  My 
dear  Hen  slow,  I  appeal  to  you  in  loco  parentis.  Pray  tell  me 
what  you  think  .^  But  do  not  judge  me  by  the  activity  of 
mind  which  you  and  a  few  others  possess,  for  in  that  case 
the  more  difficult  things  in  hand  the  pleasanter  the  work  ; 
but,  though  I  hope  I  never  shall  be  idle,  such  is  not  the  case 
with  me. 

Ever,  dear  Henslow, 

Yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

[He  ultimately  accepted  the  post,  and  held  it  for  three 
years — from  February  16,  1838,  to  February  19,  1841. 

After  being  assured  of  the   Grant  for  the  publication  of 
the  ^  Zoology  of  the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle^'  there  was  much 
to  be  done  in  arranging  the  scheme  of  publication,  and  this 
occupied  him  during  part  of  October  and  November.] 
• 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  S.  Hemlo'cv. 

[4th  November,  1837.] 

My  dear  Henslow, 

.  .  .  Pray  tell  Leonard*  that  my  Government  work  is 
going  on  smoothly,  and  I  hope  will  be  prosperous.  He  will 
see  in  the  Prospectus  his  name  attached  to  the  fish  ;  I  set  my 
shoulders  to  the  work  with  a  good  heart.  I  am  very  much 
better  than  I  was  during  the  last  month  before  my  Shrews- 

*  Rev.  L.  Jenyns. 


1838.]  CAMBRIDGE. 


259 


bury  visit.  I  fear  the  Geology  will  take  me  a  great  deal  of 
time  ;  I  was  looking  over  one  set  of  notes,  and  the  quantity  I 
found  I  had  to  read,  for  that  one  place  was  frightful.  If  I 
live  till  I  am  eighty-  years  old  I  shall  not  cease  to  marvel  at 
finding  myself  an  author ;  in  the  summer  before  I  started,  if 
any  one  had  told  me  that  I  should  have  been  an  angel  by  this 
time,  I  should  have  thought  it  an  equal  impossibility.  This 
marvellous  transformation  is  all  owing  to  you. 

I  am  sorry  to  find  that  a  good  many  errata  are  left  in  the 
part  of  my  volume,  which  is  printed.  During  my  absence 
Mr.  Colburn  employed  some  goose  to  revise,  and  he  has  mul- 
tiplied, instead  of  diminishing  my  oversights  ;  but  for  all 
that,  the  smooth  paper  and  clear  type  has  a  charming  appear- 
ance, and  I  sat  the  other  evening  gazing  in  silent  admiration 
at  the  first  page  of  my  own  volume,  when  I  received  it  from 
the  printers  ! 

Good-bye,  my  dear  Henslow, 

C.  Darwin. 
1838. 

[From  the  beginning  of  this  year  to  nearly  the  end  of  June, 
he  was  busily  employed  on  the  zoological  and  geological  re- 
sults of  his  voyage.  This  spell  of  work  was  interrupted  only 
by  a  visit  of  three  days  to  Cambridge,  in  May;  and  even  this 
short  holiday  was  taken  in  consequence  of  failing  health,  as 
we  may  assume  from  the  entry  in  his  diary  :  "May  ist,  un- 
well,'* and  from  a  letter  to  his  sister  (May  16,  1838),  when  he 
wrote  : — 

"  My  trip  of  three  days  to  Cambridge  has  done  me  such 
wonderful  good,  and  filled  my  limbs  with  such  elasticity,  that 
I  must  get  a  little  work  out  of  my  body  before  another  holi- 
day." This  holiday  seems  to  have  been  thoroughly  enjoyed  ; 
he  wrote  to  his  sister  : — 

"  Now  for  Cambridge :  I  stayed  at  Henslow*s  house  and 
enjoyed  my  visit  extremely.  My  friends  gave  me  a  most 
cordial  welcome.  Indeed,  I  was  quite  a  lion  there.  Mrs. 
Henslow  unfortunately  was  obliged  to  go  on  Friday  for  a 


26o  LONDON    AND    CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.  29.  [1838. 

visit  in  the  country.  That  evening  we  had  at  Henslow's  a 
brilliant  party  of  all  the  geniuses  in  Cambridge,  and  a  most 
remarkable  set  of  men  they  most  assuredly  are.  On  Saturday 
I  rode  over  to  L.  Jenyns',  and  spent  the  morning  with  him. 
I  found  him  very  cheerful,  but  bitterly  complaining  of  his 
solitude.  On  Saturday  evening  dined  at  one  of  the  Colleges, 
played  at  bowls  on  the  College  Green  after  dinner,  and  was 
deafened  with  nightingales  singing.  Sunday,  dined  in  Trinity  ; 
capital  dinner,  and  was  very  glad  to  sit  by  Professor  Lee*  .  .  . ; 
I  find  him  a  very  pleasant  chatting  man,  and  in  high  spirits 
like  a  boy,  at  having  lately  returned  from  a  living  or  a  curacy, 
for  seven  years  in  Somersetshire,  to  civilised  society  and 
oriental  manuscripts.  He  had  exchanged  his  living  to  one 
within  fourteen  miles  of  Cambridge,  and  seemed  perfectly 
happy.  In  the  evening  attended  Trinity  Chapel,  and  heard 
^The  Heavens  are  telling  the  Glory  of  God,'  in  magnificent 
style  ;  the  last  chorus  seemed  to  shake  the  very  walls  of  the 
College.  After  chapel  a  large  party  in  Sedgwick's  rooms. 
So  much  for  my  Annals." 

He  started,  towards  the  end  of  June,  on  his  expedition  to 
Glen  Roy,  of  which  he  writes  to  Fox  :  ^^  I  have  not  been  very 
well  of  late,  which  has  suddenly  determined  me  to  leave  Lon- 
don earlier  than  I  had  anticipated.  I  go  by  the  steam-packet 
to  Edinburgh, — take  a  solitary  walk  on  Salisbury  Craigs,  and 
call  up  old  thoughts  of  former  times,  then  go  on  to  Glasgow 
and  the  great  valley  of  Inverness,  near  which  I  intend  stop- 
ping a  week  to  geologise  the  parallel  roads  of  Glen  Roy,  thence 
to  Shrewsbury,  Maer  for  one  day,  and  London  for  smoke,  ill- 
health  and  hard  work." 

He  spent  ^* eight  good  days"  over  the  Parallel  Roads. 
His  Essay  on  this  subject  was  written  out  during  the  same 
summer,  and  published  by  the  Royal  Society. f  He  wrote  in 
his  Pocket  Book  :  '^  September  6  [1838].     Finished  the  paper 


*  Samuel  Lee,  of  Queens',  was  Professor  of  Arabic  from  18 19  to  183 1, 
ar.d  Regius  Professor  of  Hebrew  from  1831  to  1848. 
t  *  Phil.  Trans.'  1839,  PP-  39~82. 


1838.]  GLEN    ROY.  261 

on  ^  Glen  Roy/  one  of  the  most  difficult  and  instructive  tasks 
I  was  ever  engaged  on.'*  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  his 
^  Recollections '  he  speaks  of  this  paper  as  a  failure,  of  which 
he  was  ashamed. 

At  the  time  at  which  he  wrote,  the  latest  theory  of  the  for- 
mation of  the  Parallel  Roads  was  that  of  Sir  Lauder  Dick 
and  Dr.  Macculloch,  who  believed  that  lakes  had  anciently 
existed  in  Glen  Roy,  caused  by  dams  of  rock  or  allu- 
vium. In  arguing  against  this  theory  he  conceived  that 
he  had  disproved  the  admissibility  of  any  lake  theory, 
but  in  this  point  he  was  mistaken.  He  wrote  (Glen  Roy 
paper,  p.  49)  *^  the  conclusion  is  inevitable,  that  no  hypo- 
thesis founded  on  the  supposed  existence  of  a  sheet  of 
water  confined  by  barriers^  that  is  a  lake,  can  be  admitted 
as  solving  the  problematical  origin  of  the  parallel  roads  of 
Lochaber.'* 

Mr.  Archibald  Geikie  has  been  so  good  as  to  allow  me  to 
quote  a  passage  from  a  letter  addressed  to  me  (Nov.  19,  1884) 
in  compliance  with  my  request  for  his  opinion  on  the  charac- 
ter of  my  father's  Glen  Roy  work  : — 

"  Mr.  Darwin's  '  Glen  Roy '  paper,  I  need  not  say,  is 
marked  by  all  his  characteristic  acuteness  of  observation  and 
determination  to  consider  all  possible  objections.  It  is  a 
curious  example,  however,  of  the  danger  of  reasoning  by  a 
method  of  exclusion  in  Natural  Science.  Finding  that  the 
waters  which  formed  the  terraces  in  the  Glen  Roy  region 
could  not  possibly  have  been  dammed  back  by  barriers  of 
rock  or  of  detritus,  he  saw  no  alternative  but  to  regard  them 
as  the  work  of  the  sea.  Had  the  idea  of  transient  barriers 
of  glacier-ice  occurred  to  him,  he  would  have  found  the  diffi- 
culties vanish  from  the  lake-theory  which  he  opposed,  and  he 
would  not  have  been  unconsciously  led  to  minimise  the  alto- 
gether overwhelming  objections  to  the  supposition  that  the 
terraces  are  of  marine  origin." 

It  maybe  added  that  the  id3a  of  the  barriers  being  formed 
by  glaciers  could  hardly  have  occurred  to  him,  considering 
what  was  the  state  of  knowledge  at  the  time,  and  bearing  in 


262  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.    29.  [1838. 

mind  his  want  of  opportunities  of  observing  glacial  action 
on  a  large  scale. 

The  latter  half  of  July  was  passed  at  Shrewsbury  and 
Maer.  The  only  entry  of  any  interest  is  one  of  being  ^'  very 
idle  "  at  Shrewsbury,  and  of  opening  "a  note-book  connected 
with  metaphysical  inquiries.'*  In  August  he  records  that  he 
read  ^^a  good  deal  of  various  amusing  books,  and  paid  some 
attention  to  metaphysical  subjects.'* 

The  work  done  during  the  remainder  of  the  year  comprises 
the  book  on  coral  reefs  (begun  in  October),  and  some  work 
on  the  phenomena  of  elevation  in  S.  America.] 

C.  Darwin  to  C,  LyelL 

36  Great  Marlborough  Street, 

August  9th  [1838]. 

My  dear  Lyell, 

I  did  not  write  to  you  at  Norwich,  for  I  thought  I  should 
have  more  to  say,  if  I  waited  a  few  more  days.  Very  many 
thanks  for  the  present  of  your  *  Elements,*  which  I  received 
(and  I  believe  the  very  first  copy  distributed)  together  with 
your  note.  I  have  read  it  through  every  word,  and  am  full 
of  admiration  of  it,  and,  as  I  now  see  no  geologist,  I  must 
talk  to  you  about  it.  There  is  no  pleasure  in  reading  a  book 
if  one  cannot  have  a  good  talk  over  it ;  I  repeat,  I  am  full  of 
admiration  of  it,  it  is  as  clear  as  daylight,  in  fact  I  felt  in 
many  parts  some  mortification  at  thinking  how  geologists 
have  laboured  and  struggled  at  proving  what  seems,  as  you 
have  put  it,  so  evidently  probable.  I  read  with  much  interest 
your  sketch  of  the  secondary  deposits  ;  you  have  contrived 
to  make  it  quite  *' juicy,"  as  we  used  to  say  as  children  of  a 
good  story.  There  was  also  much  new  to  me,  and  I  have 
to  copy  out  some  fifty  notes  and  references.  It  must  do 
good,  the  heretics  against  common  sense  must  yield.  .  .  . 
By  the  way,  do  you   recollect  my  telling  you  how  much  I 

disliked  the  manner referred  to  his  other  works,  as 

much  as  to  say,  ''  You  must,  ought,  and  shall  buy  everything 
I  have   written."     To  my  mind,  you   have   somehow  quite 


1838.]  GLEN   ROY.  263 

avoided  this ;  your  references  only  seem  to  say,  ^^  I  can't  tell 
you  all  in  this  work,  else  I  would,  so  you  must  go  to  the 
^  Principles ' "  ;  and  many  a  one,  I  trust,  you  will  send  there, 
and  make  them,  like  me,  adorers  of  the  good  science  of  rock- 
breaking.  You  will  see  I  am  in  a  fit  of  enthusiasm,  and  good 
cause  I  have  to  be,  when  I  find  you  have  made  such  infinitely 
more  use  of  my  Journal  than  I  could  have  anticipated.  I 
will  say  no  more  about  the  book,  for  it  is  all  praise.  I  must, 
however,  admire  the  elaborate  honesty  with  which  you  quote 
the  words  of  all  living  and  dead  geologists. 

My  Scotch  expedition  answered  brilliantly  ;  my  trip  in 
the  steam-packet  was  absolutely  pleasant,  and  I  enjoyed  the 
spectacle,  wretch  that  I  am,  of  two  ladies,  and  some  small 
children  quite  sea-sick,  I  being  wel].  Moreover,  on  my  return 
from  Glasgow  to  Liverp.ool,  I  triumphed  in  a  similar  manner 
over  some  full-grown  men.  I  stayed  one  whole  day  in  Edin- 
burgh, or  more  truly  on  Salisbury  Craigs  ;  I  want  to  hear 
som.e  day  what  you  think  about  that  classical  ground, — the 
structure  was  to  me  new  and  rather  curious, — that  is,  if  I 
understand  it  right.  I  crossed  from  Edinburgh  in  gigs  and 
carts  (and  carts  without  springs,  as  I  never  shall  forget)  to 
Loch  Leven.  I  was  disappointed  in  the  scenery,  and  reached 
Glen  Roy  on  Saturday  evening,  one  week  after  leaving  Marl- 
borough Street.  Here  I  enjoyed  five  [?]  days  of  the  most 
beautiful  weather  with  gorgeous  sunsets,  and  all  nature  look- 
ing as  happy  as  I  felt.  I  wandered  over  the  mountains  in 
all  directions,  and  examined  that  most  extraordinary  district. 
I  think,  without  any  exceptions,  not  even  the  first  volcanic 
island,  the  first  elevated  beach,  or  the  passage  of  the  Cor- 
dillera, was  so  interesting  to  me  as  this  week.  It  is  far  the 
most  remarkable  area  I  ever  examined.  I  have  fully  con- 
vinced myself  (after  some  doubting  at  first)  that  the  shelves 
are  sea-beaches,  although  I  could  not  find  a  trace  of  a  shell ; 
and  I  think  I  can  explain  away  most,  if  not  all,  the  difficul- 
ties. I  found  a  piece  of  a  road  in  another  valley,  not  hith- 
erto observed,  which  is  important ;  and  I  have  some  curious 
facts  about  erratic  blocks,  one  of  which  was  perched  up  on 


264  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     .^TAT.    29.  [1838. 

a  peak  2200  feet  above  the  sea.  I  am  now  employed  in 
writing  a  paper  on  the  subject,  which  I  find  very  amusing 
work,  excepting  that  I  cannot  anyhow  condense  it  into  rea- 
sonable limits.  At  some  future  day  I  hope  to  talk  over 
some  of  the  conclusions  with  you,  which  the  examination  of 
Glen  Roy  has  led  me  to.  Now  I  have  had  my  talk  out,  I 
am  much  easier,  for  I  can  assure  you  Glen  Roy  has  aston- 
ished me. 

I  am  living  very  quietly,  and  therefore  pleasantly,  and  am 
crawling  on  slowly  but  steadily  with  my  work.  I  have  come 
to  one  conclusion,  which  you  will  think  proves  me  to  be 
a  very  sensible  man,  namely,  that  whatever  you  say  proves 
right ;  and  as  a  proof  of  this,  I  am  coming  into  your  way  of 
only  working  about  two  hours  at  a  spell  ;  I  then  go  out  and 
do  my  business  in  the  streets,  return  and  set  to  work  again, 
and  thus  make  two  separate  days  out  of  one.  The  new  plan 
answers  capitally ;  after  the  second  half  day  is  finished  I  go 
and  dine  at  the  Athenaeum  like  a  gentleman,  or  rather  like  a 
lord,  for  I  am  sure  the  first  evening  I  sat  in  that  great  drawing- 
room,  all  on  a  sofa  by  myself,  I  felt  just  like  a  duke.  I  am 
full  of  admiration  at  the  Athenaeum,  one  meets  so  many  people 
there  that  one  likes  to  see.  The  very  first  time  I  dined  there 
{i.e.  last  week)  I  met  Dr.  Fitton  *  at  the  door,  and  he  got  to- 
gether quite  a  party — Robert  Brown,  who  is  gone  to  Paris  and 
Auvergne,  Macleay  [.?]  and  Dr.  Boott.f    Your  helping  me  into 


*  W.  H.  Fitton  (b.  1780,  d.  186 1)  was  a  physician  and  geologist,  and 
sometime  president  of  the  Geological  Society.  He  established  the  '  Pro- 
ceedings,' a  mode  of  publication  afterwards  adopted  by  other  societies. 

f  Francis  Boott  (b.  1792,  d.  1863)  is  chiefly  known  as  a  botanist  through 
his  work  on  the  genus  Carex.  He  was  also  ^yell  known  in  connection  with 
the  Linnean  Society  of  which  he  was  for  many  years  an  office-bearer.  He 
is  described  (in  a  biographical  sketch  published  in  the  Gaj'denefs'  Chonicley 
1864)  as  having  been  one  of  the  first  physicians  in  London  who  gave  up 
the  customary  black  coat,  knee-breeches  and  silk  stockings,  and  adopted 
the  ordinary  dress  of  the  period,  a  blue  coat  with  brass  buttons,  and  a  buff 
waiscoat,  a  costume  which  he  continued  to  wear  to  the  last.  After  giving 
up  practice,  which  he  did  early  in  life,  he  spent  much  of  his  time  in  acts  of 
unpretending  philanthropy. 


1838.]  FITTON,    BOOTT.  265 

the  Athenaeum  has  not  been  thrown  away,  and  I  enjoy  it  the 
more  because  I  fully  expected  to  detest  it. 

I  am  writing  you  a  most  unmerciful  letter,  but  I  shall  get 
Owen  to  take  it  to  Newcastle.  If  you  have  a  mind  to  be  a 
very  generous  man  you  will  write  to  me  from  Kinnordy,*  and 
tell  me  some  Newcastle  news,  as  well  as  about  the  Craig,  and 
about  yourself  and  Mrs.  Lyell,  and  everything  else  in  the 
world.  I  will  send  by  Hall  the  '  Entomological  Transactions,' 
which  I  have  borrowed  for  you  ;  you  will  be  disappointed  in 

's  papers,  that  is  if  you  suppose  my  dear  friend  has  a 

single  clear  idea  upon  any  one  subject.  He  has  so  involved 
recent  insects  and  true  fossil  insects  in  one  table  that  I  fear 
you  will  not  make  much  out  of  it,  though  it  is  a  subject  which 
ought  I  should  thmk  to  come  into  the  ^  Principles.*  You  will 
be  amused  at  some  of  the  ridiculo-sublime  passages  in  the 
papers,  and  no  doubt  will  feel  acutely  a  sneer  there  is  at  your- 
self. I  have  heard  from  more  than  one  quarter  that  quarrel- 
ling is  expected  at  Newcastle  ;  f  I  am  sorry  to  hear  it.     I  met 

old  this    evening  at  the  Athenaeum,  and  he  muttered 

something  about  writing  to  you  or  some  one  on  the  subject ; 
I  am  however  all  in  the  dark.  1  suppose,  however,  I  shall  be 
illuminated,  for  I  am  going  to  dine  with  him  in  a  few  days,  as 
my  inventive  powers  failed  in  making  any  excuse.  A  friend 
of  mine  dined  with  him  the  other  day,  a  party  of  four,  and 
they  finished  ten  bottles  of  wine — a  pleasant  prospect  for  me ; 
but  I  am  determined  not  even  to  taste  his  wine,  partly  for  the 
fun  of  seeing  his  infinite  disgust  and  surprise.  .  .  . 

I  pity  you  the  infliction  of  this  most  unmerciful  letter. 
Pray  remember  me  most  kindly  to  Mrs.  Lyell  when  you  arrive 
at  Kinnordy.  I  saw  her  name  in  the  landlord's  book  of  In- 
verorum.  Tell  Mrs.  Lyell  to  read  the  second  series  of  *  Mr. 
SlickofSlickville's  Sayings.*  .  .  .  He  almost  beats  **  Samivel,'* 
that  prince  of  heroes.  Good  night,  my  dear  Lyell  ;  you  will 
think  I  have  been  drinking   some  strong  drink  to  write  so 


*The  house  of  Lyell's  father. 

f  At  the  meeting  of  the  British  Association. 

13 


266  LONDON    AND   CAMBRIDGE.     .ETAT.    2g.  [1838, 

much  nonsense,  but  I  did  not  even  taste  Minerva's  small  beer 
to-day.  Yours  most  sincerely, 

Chas.  Darwin. 


C,  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell, 

Friday  night,  September  13th  11838], 

My  dear  Lyell, 

I  was  astonished  and  delighted  at  your  gloriously  long 
letter,  and  I  am  sure  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  Mrs.  Lyell 
for  having  taken  the  trouble  to  write  so  much.*  I  mean  to 
have  a  good  hour's  enjoyment  and  scribble  away  to  you,  who 
have  so  much  geological  sympathy  that  I  do  not  care  how 
egotistically  I  write.  .  .  . 

I  have  got  so  much  to  say  about  all  sorts  of  trifling  things 
that  I  hardly  know  what  to  begin  about.  I  need  not  say 
how  pleased  I  am  to  hear  that  Mr.  Lyell  f  likes  my  Journal. 
To  hear  such  tidings  is  a  kind  of  resurrection,  for  I  feel 
towards  my  first-born  child  as  if  it  had  long  since  been  dead, 
buried,  and  forgotten  ;  but  the  past  is  nothing  and  the  future 
everything  to  us  geologists,  as  you  show  in  your  capital  motto 
to  the  *  Elements.'  By  the  way,  have  you  read  the  article,  in 
the^  Edinburgh  Review,'  on  M.  Comte,  ^Cours  de  la  Philoso- 
phic '  (or  some  such  title)  ?  It  is  capital ;  there  are  some  fine 
sentences  about  the  very  essence  of  science  being  prediction, 
which  reminded  me  of  "  its  law  being  progress.'' 

I  will  now  begin  and  go  through  your  letter  seriatim.  I 
dare  say  your  plan  of  putting  the  Elie  de  Beaumont's  chapter 
separately  and  early  will  be  very  good  ;  anyhow,  it  is  showing 
a  bold  front  in  the  first  edition  which  is  to  be  translated  into 
French.  It  will  be  a  curious  point  to  geologists  hereafter  to 
note  how  long  a  man's  name  will  support  a  theory  so  com- 
pletely exposed  as  that  of  De  Beaumont's  has  been  by  you  ; 
you  say  you  '''  begin  to  hope  that  the  great  principles  there 
insisted  on  will  stand  the  test  of  time."     Begin  to  hope  :  why, 


*  Lyell  dictated  much  of  his  correspondence, 
t  Father  of  the  geologist. 


1838.]  GEOLOGY.  267 

\\iQ  possibility  of  a  doubt  has  never  crossed  my  mind  for  many 
a  day.  This  may  be  very  unphilosophical,  but  my  geological 
salvation  is  staked  on  it.  After  having  just  come  back  from 
Glen  Roy,  and  found  how  difficulties  smooth  away  under 
your  principles,  it  makes  me  quite  indignant  that  you  should 
talk  of  hoping.  With  respect  to  the  question,  how  far  my  coral 
theory  bears  on  De  Beaumont's  theory,  I  think  it  would  be 
prudent  to  quote  me  with  great  caution  until  my  whole  ac- 
count is  published,  and  then  you  (and  others)  can  judge  how 
far  there  is  foundation  for  such  generalisation.  Mind,  I  do  not 
doubt  its  truth  ;  but  the  extension  of  any  view  over  such  large 
spaces,  from  comparatively  few  facts,  must  be  received  with 
much  caution.  I  do  not  myself  the  least  doubt  that  within 
the  recent  (or  as  you,  much  to  my  annoyment,  would  call 
it,  "  New  Pliocene  *')  period,  tortuous  bands — not  all  the 
bands  parallel  to  each  other — have  been  elevated  and  cor- 
responding ones  subsided,  though  within  the  same  period 
some  parts  probably  remained  for  a  time  stationary,  or  even 
subsided.  I  do  not  believe  a  more  utterly  false  view  could 
have  been  invented  than  great  straight  lines  being  suddenly 
thrown  up. 

When  my  book  on  Volcanoes  and  Coral  Reefs  will  be 
pubHshed  I  hardly  know ;  I  fear  it  will  be  at  least  four  or 
five  months  ;  though,  mind,  the  greater  part  is  written.  I 
find  so  much  time  is  lost  in  correcting  details  and  ascertain- 
ing their  accuracy.  The  Government  Zoological  work  is  a 
millstone  round  my  neck,  and  the  Glen  Roy  paper  has  lost 
me  six  weeks.  I  will  not,  however,  say  lost ;  for,  supposing 
I  can  prove  to  others'  satisfaction  what  I  have  convinced 
myself  is  the  case,  the  inference  I  think  you  will  allow  to  be 
important.  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  molten  matter  beneath 
the  earth's  crust  possesses  a  high  degree  of  fluidity,  almost 
like  the  sea  beneath  the  block  ice.  By  the  way,  I  hope  you 
will  give  me  some  Swedish  case  to  quote,  of  shells  being  pre- 
served on  the  surface,  but  not  in  contemporaneous  beds  of 
gravel.  .  .  . 

Remember  what  I  have  often  heard  you  say  :  the  country 


268  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.  29,  [1838, 

is  very  bad  for  the  intellects  ;  the  Scotch  mists  will  put  out 
some  volcanic  speculations.  You  see  I  am  affecting  to  be- 
come very  Cockneyfied,  and  to  despise  the  poor  country- 
folk, who  breathe  fresh  air  instead  of  smoke,  and  see  the 
goodly  fields  instead  of  the  brick  houses  in  Marlborough 
Street,  the  very  sight  of  which  I  confess  I  abhor.  I  am  glad 
to  hear  what  a  favourable  report  you  give  of  the  British 
Association.  I  am  the  more  pleased  because  I  have  been 
fighting  its  battles  with  Basil  Hall,  Stokes,  and  several  others, 
having  made  up  my  mind,  from  the  report  in  the  Athenceiim, 
that  it  must  have  been  an  excellent  meeting.  I  have  been 
much  amused  with  an  account  I  have  received  of  the  wars  of 
Don  Roderick*  and  Babbage.  What  a  grievous  pity  it  is 
that  the  latter  should  be  so  implacable.  .  .  .  This  is  a  most 
rigmarole  letter,  for  after  each  sentence  I  take  breath,  and 
you  will  have  need  of  it  in  reading  it.  .  .  . 

I  wish  with  all  my  heart  that  my  Geological  book  was  out. 
I  have  every  motive  to  work  hard,  and  will,  following  your 
steps,  work  just  that  degree  of  hardness  to  keep  well.  I 
should  like  my  volume  to  be  out  before  your  new  edition  of 
'  Principles '  appears.  Besides  the  Coral  theory,  the  volcanic 
chapters  will,  I  think,  contain  some  new  facts.  I  have  lately 
been  sadly  tempted  to  be  idle — that  is,  as  far  as  pure  geology 
is  concerned — by  the  delightful  number  of  new  views  which 
have  been  coming  in  thickly  and  steadily, — on  the  classifica- 
tion and  affinities  and  instincts  of  animals — bearing  on  the 
question  of  species.  Note-book  after  note-book  has  been 
filled  with  facts  which  begin  to  group  themselves  clearly  un- 
der sub-laws. 

Good  night,  my  dear  Lyell.  I  have  filled  my  letter  and 
enjoyed  my  talk  to  you  as  much  as  I  can  without  having  you 
in  propria  persona.  Think  of  the  bad  effects  of  the  country — 
so  once  more  good  night.  Ever  yours, 

Chas.   Darwin. 

Pray  again  give  my  best  thanks  to  Mrs.  Lyell. 


*  Murchison. 


1839.]  MARRIAGE.  269 

[The  record  of  what  he  wrote  during  the  year  does  not 
give  a  true  index  of  the  most  important  work  that  was  in 
progress, — the  laying  of  the  foundation-stones  of  what  was  to 
be  the  achievement  of  his  life.  This  is  shown  in  the  fore- 
going letter  to  Lyell,  where  he  speaks  of  being  "  idle,"  and 
the  following  extract  from  a  letter  to  Fox,  written  in  June,  is 
of  interest  in  this  point  of  view  : 

'^  I  am  delighted  to  hear  you  are  such  a  good  man  as  not 
to  have  forgotten  my  questions  about  the  crossing  of  animals. 
It  is  my  prime  hobby,  and  I  really  think  some  day  I  shall  be 
able  to  do  something  in  that  most  intricate  subject,  species 
and  varieties."] 

1839  to  1341. 

[In  the  winter  of  1839  (Jan.  29)  my  father  was  married  to 
his  cousin,  Emma  Wedgwood.*  The  house  in  which  they 
lived  for  the  first  few  years  of  their  married  life,  No.  12 
Upper  Gower  Street,  was  a  small  common-place  London 
house,  with  a  drawing-room  in  front,  and  a  small  room  be- 
hind, in  which  they  lived  for  the  sake  of  quietness.  In  later 
years  my  father  used  to  laugh  over  the  surpassing  ugliness  of 
the  furniture,  carpets,  &c.,  of  the  Gower  Street  house.  The 
only  redeeming  feature  was  a  better  garden  than  most  Lon- 
don houses  have,  a  strip  as  wide  as  the  house,  and  thirty 
yards  long.  Even  this  small  space  of  dingy  grass  made  their 
London  house  more  tolerable  to  its  two  country-bred  in- 
habitants. 

Of  his  life  in  London  he  writes  to  Fox  (October  1839)  • 
^*  We  are  living  a  life  of  extreme  quietness  ;  Delamere  itself, 
which  you  describe  as  so  secluded  a  spot,  is,  I  will  answer 
for  it,  quite  dissipated  compared  with  Gower  Street  We 
have  given  up  all  parties,  for  they  agree  with  neither  of  us; 
and  if  one  is  quiet  in  London,  there  is  nothing  like  its  quiet- 


*  Daughter  of  Josiah  Wedgwood  of  Maer,  and  grand-daughter  of  the 
founder  of  the  Etruria  Works. 


270  LONDON   AND   CAMBRIDGE.     ^TAT.  30.  [1839. 

ness — there  is  a  grandeur  about  its  smoky  fogs,  and  the  dull 
distant  sounds  of  cabs  and  coaches  ;  in  fact  you  may  per- 
ceive I  am  becoming  a  thorough-paced  Cockney,  and  I 
glory  in  thoughts  that  I  shall  be  here  for  the  next  six 
months." 

The  entries  of  ill  health  in  the  Diary  increase  in  number 
during  these  years,  and  as  a  consequence  the  holidays  be- 
come longer  and  more  frequent.  From  April  26  to  May  13, 
1839,  he  was  at  Maer  and  Shrewsbury.  Again,  from  August 
23  to  October  2  he  was  away  from  London  at  Maer,  Shrews- 
bury, and  at  Birmingham  for  the  meeting  of  the  British 
Association. 

The  entry  under  August  1839  is:  "During  my  visit  to 
Maer,  read  a  little,  was  much  unwell  and  scandalously  idle. 
I  have  derived  this  much  good,  that  nothing  is  so  intolerable 
as  idleness." 

At  the  end  of  1839  his  eldest  child  was  born,  and  it  was 
then  that  he  began  his  observations  ultimately  published  in 
the  *  Expression  of  the  Emotions.*  His  book  on  this  subject, 
and  the  short  paper  published  in  *Mind,'*  show  how  closely 
he  observed  his  child.  He  seems  to  have  been  surprised  at 
his  own  feelings  for  a  young  baby,  for  he  wrote  to  Fox  (July 
1840)  :  "  He  [/.  e.  the  baby]  is  so  charming  that  I  cannot  pre- 
tend to  any  modesty.  I  defy  anybody  to  flatter  us  on  our 
baby,  for  I  defy  any  one  to  say  anything  in  its  praise  of 
which  we  are  not  fully  conscious.  ...  I  had  not  the  smallest 
conception  there  was  so  much  in  a  five-month  baby.  You 
will  perceive  by  this  that  I  have  a  fine  degree  of  paternal 
fervour." 

During  these  years  he  worked  intermittently  at  ^  Coral 
Reefs,'  being  constantly  interrupted  by  ill  health.  Thus  he 
speaks  of  ^^recommencing"  the  subject  in  February  1839, 
and  again  in  the  October  of  the  same  year,  and  once  more  in 
July  1841,  "after  more  than  thirteen  months'  interval."  His 
other  scientific  work  consisted  of  a  contribution  to  the  Geo- 


*  July  1877. 


i840.]  HEALTH.  271 

logical  Society,*  on  the  boulders  and  ^^  till "  of  South  America, 
as  well  as  a  few  other  minor  papers  on  geological  subjects. 
He  also  worked  busily  at  the  ornithological  part  of  the  Zool- 
ogy of  the  Beagle^  i,  e,  the  notice  of  the  habits  and  ranges  of 
the  birds  which  were  described  by  Gould.] 

C.  Darwin  to  C,  Lyell. 

Wednesday  morning  [February  1840]. 
My  dear  Lyell, 

Many  thanks  for  your  kind  note.      I  will  send  for  the 

Scotsman,     Dr.  Holland  thinks  he  has  found  out  what  is  the 

matter  with  me,  and  now  hopes  he  shall  be  able  to  set  me 

going  again.     Is  it  not  mortifying,  it  is  now  nine  weeks  since 

I  have  done  a  whole  day's  work,  and  not  more  than  four  half 

days.     But  I  won't  grumble  any  more,  though  it  is  hard  work 

to  prevent  doing  so.     Since  receiving  your  note  I  have  read 

over  my  chapter  on  Coral,  and  find  I  am  prepared  to  stand  by 

almost  everything  ;  it  is  much  more  cautiously  and  accurately 

written  than  I  thought.     I  had  set  my  heart  upon  having  my 

volume  completed  before  your  new  edition,  but  not,  you  may 

believe  me,  for  you  to  notice  anything  new  in  it  (for  there  is 

very  little  besides  details),  but  you  are  the  one  man  in  Europe 

whose  opinion  of  the  general  truth  of  a  toughish  argument  I 

should  be  always  most  anxious  to  hear.     My  MS.  is  in  such 

confusion,  otherwise  I  am  sure  you  should  most  willingly,  if  it 

had  been  worth  your  while,  have  looked   at  any  part  you 

choose. 

*  *  *  *  * 

[In  a  letter  to  Fox  (January  1841)  he  shows  that  his 
^*  Species  work"  was  still  occupying  his  mind  : — 

"  If  you  attend  at  all  to  Natural  History  I  send  you  this 
P.S.  as  a  memento,  that  I  continue  to  collect  all  kinds  of  facts 
about  '  Varieties  and  Species,'  for  my  some-day  work  to  be  so 
entitled  ;  the- smallest  contributions  thankfully  accepted  ;  de- 
scriptions of  offspring  of  all  crosses  between  all  domestic  birds 


*  'Geol.  Soc.  Proc'  iii.  1842,  and  *  Geol.  Soc.  Trans.*  vi. 


272  LONDON   AND   CAxMBRIDGE.     .^TAT.  33.  [1842. 

and  animals,  dogs,  cats,  &c.,  &c.,  very  valuable.  Don't  for- 
get, if  your  half-bred  African  cat  should  die  that  I  should  be 
very  much  obliged  for  its  carcase  sent  up  in  a  little  hamper 
for  the  skeleton  ;  it,  or  any  cross-bred  pigeons,  fowl,  duck, 
&c.,  &c.,  will  be  more  acceptable  than  the  finest  haunch  of 
venison,  or  the  finest  turtle/' 

Later  in  the  year  (September)  he  writes  to  Fox  about  his 
health,  and  also  with  reference  to  his  plan  of  moving  into  the 
country : — 

*^  I  have  steadily  been  gaining  ground,  and  really  believe 
now  I  shall  some  day  be  quite  strong.  I  write  daily  for  a 
couple  of  hours  on  my  Coral  volume,  and  take  a  little  walk  or 
ride  every  day.  I  grow  very  tired  in  the  evenings,  and  am 
not  able  to  go  out  at  that  time,  or  hardly  to  receive  my  near- 
est relations  ;  but  my  life  ceases  to  be  burdensome  now  that 
I  can  do  something.  We  are  taking  steps  to  leave  London, 
and  live  about  twenty  miles  from  it  on  some  railway."] 

1842. 

[The  record  of  work  includes  his  volume  on  'Coral 
Reefs,'  *  the  manuscript  of  which  was  at  last  sent  to  the 
printers  in  January  of  this  year,  and  the  last  proof  corrected 
in  May.     He  thus  writes  of  the  work  in  his  diary  : — 

"  I  commenced  this  work  three  years  and  seven  months 
ago.  Out  of  this  period  about  twenty  months  (besides  work 
during  Beagle  s  voyage)  has  been  spent  on  it,  and  besides  it, 
I  have  only  compiled  the  Bird  part  of  Zoology  ;  Appendix 
to  Journal,  paper  on  Boulders,  and  corrected  papers  on  Glen 
Roy  and  earthquakes,  reading  on  species,  and  rest  all  lost  by 
illness." 

In  May  and  June  he  was  at  Shrewsbury  and  Maer,  whence 
he  went  on  to  make  the  little  tour  in  Wales,  of  which  he  spoke 
in  his  '  Recollections,'  and  of  which  the  results  were  published 
as  "  Notes  on  the  effects  produced  by  the  anciept  glaciers  of 


*  A  notice  of  the  Coral  Reef  work  appeared  in  the  Geograph.  Soc.  Jour- 
nal, xii.,  p.  115, 


i842.]  ANCIENT    GLACIERS.  273 

Caernarvonshire,  and  on  the  Boulders  transported  by  floating 

Ice/'* 

Mr.  Archibald   Geikie  speaks  of  this  paper  as  standing 

"  almost  at  the  top  of  the  long  list  of  English  contributions  to 

the  history  of  the  Ice  Age."  f 

The  latter  part  of  this  year  belongs  to  the  period  including 

the  settlement  at  Down,  and  is  therefore  dealt  with  in  another 

chapter.] 


*  *  Philosophical  Magazine,'  1842,  p.  352. 
f  Charles  Darwin,  *  Nature '  Series,  p.  23, 


" 


CHAPTER   VIIL 

RELIGION. 

[The  history  of  this  part  of  my  father's  life  may  justly  in- 
clude some  mention  of  his  religious  views.  For  although,  as 
he  points  out,  he  did  not  give  continuous  systematic  thought 
to  religious  questions,  yet  we  know  from  his  own  words  that 
about  this  time  (1836-39)  the  subject  was  much  before  his^ 
mind. 

In  his  published  works  he  was  reticent  on  the  matter  of 
religion,  and  what  he  has  left  on  the  subject  was  not  written 
with  a  view  to  publication.* 

I  believe  that  his  reticence  arose  from  several  causes.  He 
felt  strongly  that  a  man's  religion  is  an  essentially  private  mat- 
ter, and  one  concerning  himself  alone.  This  is  indicated  by 
the  following  extract  from  a  letter  of  1879  : — f 

'*  What  my  own  views  may  be  is  a  question  of  no  conse- 
quence to  any  one  but  myself.  But,  as  you  ask,  I  may  state 
that  my  judgment  often  fluctuates  ...  In  my  most  extreme 
fluctuations  I  have  never  been  an  Atheist  in  the  sense  of 
denying  the  existence  of  a  God.  I  think  that  generally  (and 
more  and  more  as  I  grow  older),  but  not  always,  that  an 
Agnostic  would  be  the  more  correct  description  of  my  state 
of  mind." 


*  As  an  exception  may  be  mentioned,  a  few  words  of  concurrence  with 
Dr.  Abbott's  *  Truths  for  the  Times,'  which  my  father  allowed  to  be  pub- 
lished in  the  Index. 

f  Addressed  to  Mr.  J.  Fordyce,  and  published  by  him  in  his  *  Aspects 
of  Scepticism,'  1S83. 


RELIGION. 


275 


He  naturally  shrank  from  wounding  the  sensibilities  of 
others  in  religious  matters,  and  he  was  also  influenced  by  the 
consciousness  that  a  man  ought  not  to  publish  on  a  subject 
to  which  he  has  not  given  special  and  continuous  thought. 
That  he  felt  this  caution  to  apply  to  himself  in  the  matter  of 
religion  is  shown  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  F.  E.  Abbott,  of  Cam- 
bridge, U.  S.  (Sept.  6,  187 1).  After  explaining  that  the 
weakness  arising  from  his  bad  health  prevented  him  from 
feeling  **  equal  to  deep  reflection,  on  the  deepest  subject 
which  can  fill  a  man's  mind,'*  he  goes  on  to  say:  "With 
respect  to  my  former  notes  to  you,  I  quite  forget  their  con- 
tents. I  have  to  write  many  letters,  and  can  reflect  but  little 
on  what  I  write  ;  but  I  fully  believe  and  hope  that  I  have 
never  written  a  word,  which  at  the  time  I  did  not  think  ;  but 
I  think  you  will  agree  with  me,  that  anything  which  is  to  be 
given  to  the  public  ought  to  be  maturely  weighed  and  cau- 
tiously put.  It  never  occurred  to  me  that  you  would  wish  to 
print  any  extract  from  my  notes  :  if  it  had,  I  would  have  kept 
a  copy.  I  put  ^  private  '  from  habit,  only  as  yet  partially  ac- 
quired, from  some  hasty  notes  of  mine  having  been  printed, 
which  were  not  in  the  least  degree  worth  printing,  though 
otherwise  unobjectionable.  It  is  simply  ridiculous  to  suppose 
that  my  former  note  to  you  would  be  worth  sending  to  me, 
with  any  part  marked  which  you  desire  to  print  ;  but  if  you 
like  to  do  so,  I  will  at  once  say  whether  I  should  have  any 
objection.  I  feel  in  some  degree  unwilling  to  express  myself 
publicly  on  religious  subjects,  as  I  do  not  feel  that  I  have 
thought  deeply  enough  to  justify  any  publicity." 

I  may  also  quote  from  another  letter  to  Dr.  Abbott  (Nov. 
16,  187 1),  in  which  my  father  gives  more  fully  his  reasons  for 
not  feeling  competent  to  write  on  religious  and  moral  sub- 
jects : — 

"  I  can  say  with  entire  truth  that  I  feel  honoured  by  your 
request  that  I  should  become  a  contributor  to  the  Index^  and 
am  much  obliged  for  the  draft.  I  fully,  also,  subscribe  to 
the  proposition  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  one  to  spread 
what  he  believes  to  be  the  truth  ;  and  I  honour  you  for  doing 


276 


RELIGION. 


so,  with  so  much  devotion  and  zeal  But  I  cannot  comply 
with  your  request  for  the  following  reasons  ;  and  excuse  me 
for  giving  them  in  some  detail,  as  I  should  be  very  sorry  to 
appear  in  your  eyes  ungracious.  My  health  is  very  weak  : 
I  never  pass  24  hours  without  many  hours  of  discomfort,  when 
I  can  do  nothing  whatever.  I  have  thus,  also,  lost  two  w^hole 
consecutive  months  this  season.  Owing  to  this  weakness, 
and  my  head  being  often  giddy,  I  am  unable  to  master  new 
subjects  requiring  much  thought,  and  can  deal  only  with  old 
materials.  At  no  time  am  I  a  quick  thinker  or  writer  :  what- 
ever I  have  done  in  science  has  solely  been  by  long  ponder- 
ing, patience  and  industry. 

"  Now  I  have  never  systematically  thought  much  on  relig- 
ion in  relation  to  science,  or  on  morals  in  relation  to  society  ; 
and  without  steadily  keeping  my  mind  on  such  subjects  for  a 
long  period,  I  am  really  incapable  of  writing  anything  worth 
sending  to  the  Index'' 

He  was  more  than  once  asked  to  give  his  views  on  relig- 
ion, and  he  had,  as  a  rule,  no  objection  to  doing  so  in  a  pri- 
vate letter.  Thus  in  answer  to  a  Dutch  student  he  wrote 
(April  2,  1873)  :— 

**  I  am  sure  you  will  excuse  my  writing  at  length,  when  I 
tell  you  that  I  have  long  been  much  out  of  health,  and  am 
now  staying  away  from  my  home  for  rest. 

*^  It  is  impossible  to  answer  your  question  briefly  ;  and  I 
am  not  sure  that  I  could  do  so,  even  if  I  wrote  at  some  length. 
But  I  may  say  that  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  that  this 
grand  and  wondrous  universe,  with  our  conscious  selves,  arose 
through  chance,  seems  to  me  the  chief  argument  for  tlie  exist- 
ence of  God ;  but  whether  this  is  an  argument  of  real  value, 
'  I  have  never  been  able  to  decide.  I  am  aware  that  if  we  ad- 
mit a  first  cause,  the  mind  still  craves  to  know  whence  it 
came,  and  how  it  arose.  Nor  can  I  overlook  the  difficulty 
from  the  immense  amount  of  suffering  through  the  world.  I 
am,  also,  induced  to  defer  to  a  certain  extent  to  the  judg- 
ment of  the  many  able  men  who  have  fully  believed  in  God  ; 
but  here  again  I  see  how  poor  an  argument  this  is.     The 


RELIGION.  277 

safest  conclusion  seems  to  me  that  the  whole  subject  is  be- 
yond the  scope  of  man's  intellect ;  but  man  can  do  his  duty." 

Again  in  1879  ^^  ^^^  applied  to  by  a  German  student,  in 
a  similar  manner.  The  letter  was  answered  by  a  member  of 
my  father's  family,  who  wrote  : — 

**  Mr.  Darwin  begs  me  to  say  that  he  receives  so  many  let- 
ters, that  he  cannot  answer  them  all. 

*•  He  considers  that  the  theory  of  Evolution  is  quite  com- 
patible with  the  belief  in  a  God  ;  but  that  you  must  remember 
that  different  persons  have  different  definitions  of  what  they 
mean  by  God." 

This,  however,  did  not  satisfy  the  German  youth,  who 
again  wrote  to  my  father,  and  received  from  him  the  follow- 
ing reply  : — 

^^  I  am  much  engaged,  an  old  man,  and  out  of  health,  and 
I  cannot  spare  time  to  answer  your  questions  fully, — nor  in- 
deed can  they  be  answered.  Science  has  nothing  to  do  with 
Christ,  except  in  so  far  as  the  habit  of  scientific  research 
makes  a  man  cautious  in  admitting  evidence.  For  myself,  I 
do  not  believe  that  there  ever  has  been  any  revelation.  As 
for  a  future  life,  every  man  must  judge  for  himself  between 
conflicting  vague  probabilities." 

The  passages  which  here  follow  are  extracts,  somev/hat 
abbreviated,  from  a  part  of  the  Autobiography,  written  in 
1876,  in  which  my  father  gives  the  history  of  his  religious 
views  : — 

^'  During  these  two  years  *  I  was  led  to  think  much  about 
religion.  Whilst  on  board  the  Beagle  I  was  quite  orthodox, 
and  I  remember  being  heartily  laughed  at  by  several  of  the 
officers  (though  themselves  orthodox)  for  quoting  the  Bible 
as  an  unanswerable  authority  on  some  point  of  morality.  I 
suppose  it  was  the  novelty  of  the  argument  that  amused  them. 
But  I  had  gradually  come  by  this  time,  ix.  1836  to  1839,  to 
see  that  the  Old  Testament  was  no  more  to  be  trusted  than 
the  sacred  books  of  the  Hindoos.     The  question  then  con- 


*  Oct.  1836  to  Jan.  1839. 


278 


RELIGION. 


tinually  rose  before  my  mind  and  would  not  be  banished, — 
is  it  credible  that  if  God  were  now  to  make  a  revelation  to 
the  Hindoos,  he  would  permit  it  to  be  connected  with  the 
belief  in  Vishnu,  Siva,  &c.,  as  Christianity  is  connected  with 
the  Old  Testament?  This  appeared  to  me  utterly  incred- 
ible. 

*^  By  further  reflecting  that  the  clearest  evidence  would  be 
I  requisite  to  make  any  sane  man  believe  in  the  miracles  by 
which  Christianity  is  supported, — and  that  the  more  we  know 
of  the  fixed  laws  of  nature  the  more  incredible  do  miracles 
become, — that  the  men  at  that  time  were  ignorant  and  credu- 
lous to  a  degree  almost  incomprehensible  by  us, — that  the 
Gospels  cannot  be  proved  to  have  been  written  simultaneous- 
ly with  the  events, — that  they  differ  in  many  important  de- 
tails, far  too  important,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  to  be  admitted  as 
the  usual  inaccuracies  of  eye-witnesses  ; — by  such  reflections 
as  these,  which  I  give  not  as  having  the  least  novelty  or  value, 
but  as  they  influenced  me,  I  gradually  came  to  disbelieve  in 
Christianity  as  a  divine  revelation.  The  fact  that  many  false 
religions  have  spread  over  large  portions  of  the  earth  like 
wild-fire  had  some  weight  with  me. 

"  But  I  was  very  unwilling  to  give  up  my  belief  ;  I  feel 
sure  of  this,  for  I  can  well  remember  often  and  often  invent- 
ing day-dreams  of  old  letters  between  distinguished  Romans, 
and  manuscripts  being  discovered  at  Pompeii  or  elsewhere, 
which  confirmed  in  the  most  striking  manner  all  that  was 
written  in  the  Gospels.  But  I  found  it  more  and  more  diffi- 
cult, with  free  scope  given  to  my  imagination,  to  invent  evi- 
dence which  would  suffice  to  convince  me.  Thus  disbelief 
crept  over  me  at  a  very  slow  rate,  but  was  at  last  complete. 
The  rate  was  so  slow  that  I  felt  no  distress. 

^*  Although  I  did  not  think  much  about  the  existence  of 
a  personal  God  until  a  considerably  later  period  of  my  life, 
I  will  here  give  the  vague  conclusions  to  which  I  have  been 
driven.  The  old  argument  from  design  in  Nature,  as  given 
by  Paley,  which  formerly  seemed  to  me  so  conclusive,  fails, 
now  that  the  law  of  natural  selection  has  been  discovered. 


^ 


RELIGION.  279 

We  can  no  longer  argue  that,  for  instance,  the  beautiful  hinge 
of  a  bivalve  shell  must  have  been  made  by  an  intelligent 
being,  like  the  hinge  of  a  door  by  man.  There  seems  to  be 
no  more  design  in  the  variability  of  organic  beings,  and  in  the 
action  of  natural  selection,  than  in  the  course  which  the  wind 
blows.  But  I  have  discussed  this  subject  at  the  end  of  my 
book  on  the  ^  Variations  of  Domesticated  Animals  and 
Plants,'  *  and  the  argument  there  given  has  never,  as  far  as  I 
can  see,  been  answered. 

"  But  passing  over  the  endless  beautiful  adaptations  which 
we  everywhere  meet  with,  it  may  be  asked  how  can  the  gen- 
erally beneficent  arrangement  of  the  world  be  accounted  for.^ 
Some  writers  indeed  are  so  much  impressed  with  the  amount 
of  suffering  in  the  world,  that  they  doubt,  if  we  look  to  all 
sentient  beings,  whether  there  is  more  of  misery  or  of  happi- 
ness ;  whether  the  world  as  a  whole  is  a  good  or  bad  one. 
According  to  my  judgm.ent  happiness  decidedly  prevails, 
though  this  would  be  very  difficult  to  prove.  If  the  truth  of 
this  conclusion  be  granted,  it  harmonizes  well  with  the  effects 
which  we  might  expect  from  natural  selection.  If  all  the 
individuals  of  any  species  were  habitually  to  suffer  to  an  ex- 
treme degree,  they  would  neglect  to  propagate  their  kind  ; 
but  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  this  has  ever,  or  at  least 
often  occurred.  Some  other  considerations,  moreover,  lead 
to  the  belief  that  all  sentient  beings  have  been  formed  so  as 
to  enjoy,  as  a  general  rule,  happiness. 

*  My  father  asks  whether  we  are  to  believe  that  the  forms  are  preor- 
dained of  the  broken  fragments  of  rock  tumbled  from  a  precipice  which  are 
fitted  together  by  man  to  build  his  houses.  If  not,  why  should  we  believe 
that  the  variations  of  domestic  animals  or  plants  are  preordained  for  the 
sake  of  the  breeder?  *'But  if  we  give  up  the  principle  in  one  case,  .  .  . 
no  shadow  of  reason  can  be  assigned  for  the  belief  that  variations,  alike  in 
nature  and  the  result  of  the  same  general  laws,  which  have  been  the  ground- 
work through  natural  selection  of  the  formation  of  the  most  perfectly 
adapted  animals  in  the  world,  man  included,  were  intentionally  and  spe- 
cially guided." — '  The  Variation  of  Animals  and  Plants,*  1st  Edit.  vol.  ii. 
p.  43 1 --F.  D. 


28o  RELIGION. 

**  Every  one  who  believes,  as  I  do,  that  all  the  corporeal 
and  mental  organs  (excepting  those  which  are  neither  advan- 
tageous nor  disadvantageous  to  the  possessor)  of  all  beings 
have  been  developed  through  natural  selection,  or  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  together  with  use  or  habit,  will  admit  that  these 
organs  have  been  formed  so  that  their  possessors  may  com- 
pete successfully  with  other  beings,  and  thus  increase  in  num- 
ber. Now  an  animal  may  be  led  to  pursue  that  course  of 
action  which  is  most  beneficial  to  the  species  by  suffering, 
such  as  pain,  hunger,  thirst,  and  fear  ;  or  by  pleasure,  as  in 
eating  and  drinking,  and  in  the  propagation  of  the  species, 
&c. ;  or  by  both  means  combined,  as  in  the  search  for  food. 
But  pain  or  suffering  of  any  kind,  if  long  continued,  causes 
depression  and  lessens  the  power  of  action,  yet  is  well  adapted 
to  make  a  creature  guard  itself  against  any  great  or  sudden 
evil.  Pleasurable  sensations,  on  the  other  hand,  may  be  long 
continued  without  any  depressing  effect ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  stimulate  the  whole  system  to  increased  action.  Hence 
it  has  come  to  pass  that  most  or  all  sentient  beings  have  been 
developed  in  such  a  manner,  through  natural  selection,  that 
pleasurable  sensations  serve  as  their  habitual  guides.  We  see 
this  in  the  pleasure  from  exertion,  even  occasionally  from 
great  exertion  of  the  body  or  mind, — in  the  pleasure  of  our 
daily  meals,  and  especially  in  the  pleasure  derived  from  socia- 
bility, and  from  loving  our  families.  The  sum  of  such  pleas- 
ures as  these,  which  are  habitual  or  frequently  recurrent,  give, 
as  I  can  hardly  doubt,  to  most  sentient  beings  an  excess  of 
happiness  over  misery,  although  many  occasionally  suffer 
much.  Such  suffering  is  quite  compatible  with  the  belief  in 
Natural  Selection,  which  is  not  perfect  in  its  action,  but  tends 
only  to  render  each  species  as  successful  as  possible  in  the 
battle  for  life  with  other  species,  in  wonderfully  complex  and 
changing  circumstances. 

"  That  there  is  much  suffering  in  the  world  no  one  dis- 
putes. Some  have  attempted  to  explain  this  with  reference 
to  man  by  imagining  that  it  serves  for  his  moral  improvement. 
But  the  number  of  men  in  the  world  is  as  nothing  compared 


RELIGION.  281 

with  that  of  all  other  sentient  beings,  and  they  often  suffer 
greatly  without  any  moral  improvement.  This  very  old  argu- 
ment from  the  existence  of  suffering  against  the  existence  of 
an  intelligent  First  Cause  seems  to  me  a  strong  one  ;  whereas, 
as  just  remarked,  the  presence  of  much  suffering  agrees  well 
with  the  view  that  all  organic  beings  have  been  developed 
through  variation  and  natural  selection. 

"  At  the  present  day  the  most  usual  argument  for  the  ex- 
istence of  an  intelligent  God  is  drawn  from  the  deep  inward 
conviction  and  feelings  which  are  experienced  by  most  persons. 

**  Formerly  I  was  led  by  feelings  such  as  those  just  referred 
to  (although  I  do  not  think  that  the  religious  sentiment  was 
ever  strongly  developed  in  me),  to  the  firm  conviction  of  the 
existence  of  God,  and  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  In  my 
Journal  I  wrote  that  whilst  standing  in  the  midst  of  the  grand- 
eur of  a  Brazilian  forest,  *'  it  is  not  possible  to  give  an  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  higher  feelings  of  wonder,  admiration,  and 
devotion,  which  fill  and  elevate  the  mind.**  I  well  remember 
my  conviction  that  there  is  more  in  man  than  the  mere  breath 
of  his  body.  But  now  the  grandest  scenes  would  not  cause 
any  such  convictions  and  feelings  to  rise  in  my  mind.  It 
may  be  truly  said  that  I  am  like  a  man  who  has  become 
colour-blind,  and  the  universal  belief  by  men  of  the  existence 
of  redness  makes  my  present  loss  of  perception  of  not  the 
least  value  as  evidence.  This  argument  would  be  a  valid  one 
if  all  men  of  all  races  had  the  same  inward  conviction  of  the 
existence  of  one  God  ;  but  we  know  that  this  is  very  far  from 
being  the  case.  Therefore  I  cannot  see  that  such  inward 
convictions  and  feelings  are  of  any  weight  as  evidence  of  what 
really  exists.  The  state  of  mind  which  grand  scenes  formerly 
excited  in  me,  and  which  was  intimately  connected  with  a 
belief  in  God,  did  not  essentially  differ  from  that  which  is 
often  called  the  sense  of  sublimity  ;  and  however  difiicult  it 
may  be  to  explain  the  genesis  of  this  sense,  it  can  hardly  be 
advanced  as  an  argument  for  the  existence  of  God,  any  more 
than  the  powerful  though  vague  and  similar  feelings  excited 
by  music. 


282  RELIGION. 

^*With  respect  to  immortality,  nothing  shows  me  [so 
clearly]  how  strong  and  almost  instinctive  a  belief  it  is,  as  the 
consideration  of  the  view  now  held  by  most  physicists,  namely, 
that  the  sun  with  all  the  planets  will  in  time  grow  too  cold 
for  life,  unless  indeed  some  great  body  dashes  into  the  sun, 
and  thus  gives  it  fresh  life.  Believing  as  I  do  that  man  in 
the  distant  future  will  be  a  far  more  perfect  creature  than  he 
now  is,  it  is  an  intolerable  thought  that  he  and  all  other  senti- 
ent beings  are  doomed  to  complete  annihilation  after  such 
long-continued  slow  progress.  To  those  who  fully  admit  the 
immortality  of  the  human  soul,  the  destruction  of  our  world 
will  not  appear  so  dreadful. 

"  Another  source  of  conviction  in  the  existence  of  God, 
connected  with  the  reason,  and  not  with  the  feelings,  im- 
presses me  as  having  much  more  weight.  This  follows  from 
the  extreme  difficulty  or  rather  impossibility  of  conceiving 
this  immense  and  wonderful  universe,  including  man  with  his 
capacity  of  looking  far  backwards  and  far  into  futurity,  as  the 
result  of  blind  chance  or  necessity.  When  thus  reflecting  I 
feel  compelled  to  look  to  a  First  Cause  having  an  intelligent 
mind  in  some  degree  analogous  to  that  of  man  ;  and  I  de- 
serve to  be  called  a  Theist.  This  conclusion  was  strong  in 
my  mind  about  the  time,  as  far  as  I  can  remember,  when  I 
wrote  the  *  Origin  of  Species  ;  *  and  it  is  since  that  time  that 
it  has  very  gradually,  with  many  fluctuations,  become  weaker. 
But  then  arises  the  doubt,  can  the  mind  of  man,  which  has, 
as  I  fully  believe,  been  developed  from  a  mind  as  low  as  that 
possessed  by  the  lowest  animals,  be  trusted  when  it  draws 
such  grand  conclusions  ? 

^^  I  cannot  pretend  to  throw  the  least  light  on  such  ab- 
struse problems.  The  mystery  of  the  beginning  of  all  things 
is  insoluble  by  us  ;  and  I  for  one  must  be  content  to  remain 
an  Agnostic." 

The  following  letters  repeat  to  some  extent  what  has 
been  given  from  the  Autobiography.  The  first  one  refers  to 
'  The  Boundaries  of  Science,  a  Dialogue,'  published  in  '  Mac- 
millan's  Magazine,*  for  July  1861.] 


RELIGION. 


283 


C  Darwin  to  Miss  Julia    Wedgwood, 

July  II  [1861]. 

Some  one  has  sent  us  *  Macmillan  ' ;  and  I  must  tell  you 
how  much  I  admire  your  Article ;  though  at  the  same  time  I 
must  confess  that  I  could  not  clearly  follow  you  in  some 
parts,  which  probably  is  in  main  part  due  to  my  not  being  at 
all  accustomed  to  metaphysical  trains  of  thought.  I  think 
that  you  understand  my  book  *  perfectly,  and  that  I  find  a 
very  rare  event  with  my  critics.  The  ideas  in  the  last  page 
have  several  times  vaguely  crossed  my  mind.  Owing  to  sev- 
eral correspondents  I  have  been  led  lately  to  think,  or  rather 
to  try  to  think  over  some  of  the  chief  points  discussed  by 
you.  But  the  result  has  been  with  me  a  maze — something 
like  thinking  on  the  origin  of  evil,  to  which  you  allude.  The 
mind  refuses  to  look  at  this  universe,  being  what  it  is,  with- 
out having  been  designed ;  yet,  where  one  would  most  ex- 
pect design,  viz.  in  the  structure  of  a  sentient  being,  the  more 
I  think  on  the  subject,  the  less  I  can  see  proof  of  design. 
Asa  Gray  and  some  others  look  at  each  variation,  or  at  least 
at  each  beneficial  variation  (which  A.  Gray  would  compare 
with  the  rain  drops  f  which  do  not  fall  on  the  sea,  but  on  to 
the  land  to  fertilize  it)  as  having  been  providentially  designed. 
Yet  when  I  ask  him  whether  he  looks  at  each  variation  in 
the  rock-pigeon,  by  which  man  has  made  by  accumulation  a 
pouter  or  fantail  pigeon,  as  providentially  designed  for  man's 

*  The  *  Origin  of  Species.* 

f  Dr.  Gray's  rain-drop  metaphor  occurs  in  the  Essay  '  Darwin  and  his 
Reviewers'  (' Darwiniana/  p.  157):  **  The  whole  animate  life  of  a  country 
depends  absolutely  upon  the  vegetation,  the  vegetation  upon  the  rain. 
The  moisture  is  furnished  by  the  ocean,  is  raised  by  the  sun's  heat  from 
the  ocean's  surface,  and  is  wafted  inland  by  the  winds.  But  what  multi- 
tudes of  rain-drops  fall  back  into  the  ocean — are  as  much  without  a  final 
cause  as  the  incipient  varieties  which  come  to  nothing  !  Does  it  therefore 
follow  that  the  rains  which  are  bestowed  upon  the  soil  with  such  rule  and 
average  regularity  were  not  designed  to  support  vegetable  and  animal 
life?" 


284 


RELIGION. 


amusement,  he  does  not  know  what  to  answer  ;  and  If  he,  or 
any  one,  admits  [that]  these  variations  are  accidental,  as  far 
as  purpose  is  concerned  (of  course  not  accidental  as  to  their 
cause  or  origin)  ;  then  I  can  see  no  reason  why  he  should 
rank  the  accumulated  variations  by  which  the  beautifully 
adapted  woodpecker  has  been  formed,  as  providentially  de- 
signed. For  it  would  be  easy  to  imagine  the  enlarged  crop 
of  the  pouter,  or  tail  of  the  fantail,  as  of  some  use  to  birds, 
in  a  state  of  nature,  having  peculiar  habits  of  life.  These 
are  the  considerations  which  perplex  me  about  design  ;  but 

whether  you  will  care  to  hear  them,  I  know  not. 

***** 

[On  the  subject  of  design,  he  wrote  (July  i860)  to  Dr.  Gray  : 
**  One  word  more  on  *  designed  laws '  and  '  undesigned 
results.'  I  see  a  bird  which  I  want  for  food,  take  my  gun 
and  kill  it,  I  do  this  desio^nedly.  An  innocent  and  good  man 
stands  under  a  tree  and  is  killed  by  a  flash  of  lightning.  Do 
you  believe  (and  I  really  should  like  to  hear)  that  God  de- 
signedly killed  this  man  ?  Many  or  most  persons  do  believe 
this  ;  I  can't  and  don't.  If  you  believe  so,  do  you  believe 
that  when  a  swallow  snaps  up  a  gnat  that  God  designed  that 
that  particular  swallow  should  snap  up  that  particular  gnat 
at  that  particular  instant  ?  I  believe  that  the  man  and  the 
gnat  are  in  the  same  predicament.  If  the  death  of  neither 
man  nor  gnat  are  designed,  I  see  no  good  reason  to  believe 
that  \kit\x  first  birth  or  production  should  be  necessarily  de- 
signed."] 

C,   Darwin  to    W,   Graham, 

Down,  July  3rd,  1881. 

Dear  Sir, 

I  hope  that  you  will  not  think  it  intrusive  on  my  part  to 
thank  you  heartily  for  the  pleasure  which  I  have  derived 
from  reading  your  admirably  written  *  Creed  of  Science,' 
though  I  have  not  yet  quite  finished  it,  as  now  that  I  am  old 
I  read  very  slowly.  It  is  a  very  long  time  since  any  other 
book  has  interested  me  so  much.  The  work  must  have  cost 
you  several  years  and  much  hard  labour  with  full  leisure  for 


RELIGION. 


285 


work.  You  would  not  probably  expect  any  one  fully  to  agree 
with  you  on  so  many  abstruse  subjects  ;  and  there  are  some 
points  in  your  book  which  I  cannot  digest.  The  chief  one  is; 
•  that  the  existence  of  so-called  natural  laws  implies  purpose. 
I  cannot  see  this.  Not  to  mention  that  many  expect  that 
the  several  great  laws  will  some  day  be  found  to  follow 
inevitably  from  some  one  single  law,  yet  taking  the  laws  as 
we  now  know  them,  and  look  at  the  moon,  where  the  law  of 
gravitation — and  no  doubt  of  the  conservation  of  energy — of 
the  atomic  theory,  &c.  &c.,  hold  good,  and  I  cannot  see  that 
there  is  then  necessarily  any  purpose.  Would  there  be  pur- 
pose if  the  lowest  organisms  alone,  destitute  of  consciousness 
existed  in  the  moon  ?  But  I  have  had  no  practice  in  abstract 
reasoning,  and  I  may  be  all  astray.  Nevertheless  you  have 
expressed  my  inward  conviction,  though  far  more  vividly  and 
clearly  than  I  could  have  done,  that  the  Universe  is  not  the 
result  of  chance.*  But  then  with  me  the  horrid  doubt  always 
arises  whether  the  convictions  of  man's  mind,  which  has  been 
developed  from  the  mind  of  the  lower  animals,  are  of  any 
value  or  at  all  trustworthy.  Would  any  one  trust  in  the  con- 
victions of  a  monkey's  mind,  if  there  are  any  convictions  in 
such  a  mind  ?  Secondly,  I  think  that  I  could  make  some- 
what of  a  case  against  the  enormous  importance  which  you 
attribute  to  our  greatest  men  ;  I  have  been  accustomed  to 
think,  second,  third,  and  fourth  rate  men  of  very  high  im- 
portance, at  least  in  the  case  of  Science.  Lastly,  I  could 
show  fight  on  natural  selection  having  done  and  doing  more 


*  The  Duke  of  Argyll  {'  Good  Words,'  Ap.  1885,  p.  244)  has  recorded 
a  few  words  on  this  subject,  spoken  by  my  father  in  the  last  year  of  his  life. 
"...  in  the  course  of  that  conversation  I  said  to  Mr.  Darwin,  with  refer- 
ence to  some  of  his  own  remarkable  works  on  the  '  Fertilization  of  Orchids,' 
and  upon  '  The  Earthworms,'  and  various  other  observations  he  made  of 
the  wonderful  contriv-ances  for  certain  purposes  in  nature — I  said  it  was 
impossible  to  look  at  these  without  seeing  that  they  were  the  effect  and 
the  expression  of  mind.  I  shall  never  forget  Mr.  Darwin's  answer.  He 
looked  at  me  very  hard  and  said,  '  Well,  that  often  comes  over  me  with 
overwhelming  force  ;  but  at  other  times,'  and  he  shook  his  head  vaguely, 
adding,  *  it  seems  to  go  away.'  " 


286  RELIGION; 

for  the  progress  of  civilization  than  you  seem  inclined  to 
admit.  Remember  what  risk  the  nations  of  Europe  ran,  not 
so  many  centuries  ago  of  being  overwhelmed  by  the  Turks, 
and  how  ridiculous  such  an  idea  now  is  !  The  more  civilized 
so-called  Caucasian  races  have  beaten  the  Turkish  hollow  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  Looking  to  the  world  at  no  very 
distant  date,  what  an  endless  number  of  the  lower  races  will 
have  been  eliminated  by  the  higher  civilized  races  through- 
out the  world.  But  I  will  write  no  more,  and  not  even  men- 
tion the  many  points  in  your  work  which  have  much  inter- 
ested me.  I  have  indeed  cause  to  apologise  for  troubling 
you  with  my  impressions,  and  my  sole  excuse  is  the  excite- 
ment in  my  mind  which  your  book  has  aroused. 
I  beg  leave  to  remain, 
Dear  Sir, 

Yours  faithfully  and  obliged, 

Charles  Darwin. 

[My  father  spoke  little  on  these  subjects,  and  I  can  con- 
tribute nothing  from  my  own  recollection  of  his  conversation 
which  can  add  to  the  impression  here  given  of  his  attitude 
towards  Religion.  Some  further  idea  of  his  views  may,  how- 
ever, be  gathered  from  occasional  remarks  in  his  letters.]  * 

*  Dr.  Aveling  has  published  an  account  of  a  conversation  with  my 
father.  I  think  that  the  readers  of  this  pamphlet  ('  The  Religious  Views 
of  Charles  Darwin/  Free  Thought  Publishing  Company,  1883)  may  be 
misled  into  seeing  more  resemblance  than  really  existed  between  the  po- 
sitions of  my  father  and  Dr.  Aveling  :  and  I  say  this  in  spite  of  my  con- 
viction that  Dr.  Aveling  gives  quite  fairly  his  impressions  of  my  father's 
views.  Dr.  Aveling  tried  to  show  that  the  terms  "  Agnostic  "  and  "  Atheist " 
were  practically  equivalent — that  an  atheist  is  one  who,  without  denying 
the  existence  of  God,  is  without  God,  inasmuch  as  he  is  unconvinced  of 
the  existence  of  a  Deity.  My  father's  replies  implied  his  preference  for 
the  unaggressive  attitude  of  an  Agnostic.  Dr.  Aveling  seems  (p.  5)  to 
regard  the  absence  of  aggressiveness  in  my  father's  views  as  distinguishing 
them  in  an  unessential  manner  from  his  own.  But,  in  my  judgment,  it  is 
precisely  differences  of  this  kind  which  distinguish  him  so  completely  from 
the  class  of  thinkers  to  which  Dr.  Aveling  belongs. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

LIFE    AT    DOWN, 
1842-1854. 

**  My  life  goes  on  like  clockwork,  and  I  am  fixed  on  the  spot  where  I 
shall  end  it." 

Letter  to  Captain  Fitz-Roy,  October,  1846. 

[With  the  view  of  giving  in  the  following  chapters  a  con- 
nected account  of  the  growth  of  the  ^  Origin  of  Species,'  I 
have  taken  the  more  important  letters  bearing  on  that  subject 
out  of  their  proper  chronological  position  here,  and  placed 
them  with  the  rest  of  the  correspondence  bearing  on  the  same 
subject ;  so  that  in  the  present  group  of  letters  we  only  get 
occasional  hints  of  the  growth  of  my  father's  views,  and  we 
may  suppose  ourselves  to  be  looking  at  his  life,  as  it  might 
have  been  looked  at  by  those  who  had  no  knowledge  of 
the  quiet  development  of  his  theory  of  evolution  during  this 
period. 

On  Sept.  14,  1842,  my  father  left  London  with  his  family 
and  settled  at  Down.*  In  the  Autobiographical  chapter,  his 
motives  for  taking  this  step  in  the  country  are  briefly  given. 
He  speaks  of  the  attendance  at  scientific  societies,  and  ordi- 
nary social  duties,  as  suiting  his  health  so  ^*  badly  that  we 


*  I  must  not  omit  to  mention  a  member  of  the  household  who  accom- 
panied him.  This  was  his  butler,  Joseph  Parslow,  who  remained  in  the 
family,  a  valued  friend  and  servant,  for  forty  years,  and  became,  as  Sir 
Joseph  Hooker  once  remarked  to  me,  **  an  integral  part  of  the  family,  and 
felt  to  be  such  by  all  visitors  at  the  house." 


288  LIFE   AT    DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45. 

resolved  to  live  in  the  country,  which  we  both  preferred  and 
have  never  repented  of."  His  intention  of  keeping  up  with 
scientific  life  in  London  is  expressed  in  a  letter  lo  Fox  (Dec, 
1842):— 

"  I  hope  by  going  up  to  town  for  a  night  every  fortnight 
or  three  weeks,  to  keep  up  my  communication  with  scientific 
men  and  my  own  zeal,  and  so  not  to  turn  into  a  complete 
Kentish  hog.'* 

Visits  to  London  of  this  kind  were  kept  up  for  some  years 
at  the  cost  of  much  exertion  on  his  part.  I  have  often  heard 
him  speak  of  the  wearisome  drives  of  ten  miles  to  or  from 
Croydon  or  Sydenham — the  nearest  stations — with  an  old 
gardener  acting  as  coachman,  who  drove  with  great  caution 
and  slowness  up  and  down  the  many  hills.  In  later  years, 
all  regular  scientific  intercourse  with  London  became,  as  be- 
fore mentioned,  an  impossibility. 

The  choice  of  Down  was  rather  the  result  of  despair  than 
of  actual  preference ;  my  father  and  mother  were  weary  of 
house-hunting,  and  the  attractive  points  about  the  place  thus 
seemed  to  them  to  counterbalance  its  somewhat  more  obvious 
faults.  It  had  at  least  one  desideratum,  namely  quietness. 
Indeed  it  would  have  been  diflficult  to  find  a  more  retired 
place  so  near  to  London.  In  1842  a  coach  drive  of  some 
twenty  miles  was  the  only  means  of  access  to  Down  ;  and 
even  now  that  railways  have  crept  closer  to  it,  it  is  singularly 
out  of  the  world,  with  nothing  to  suggest  the  neighbour- 
hood of  London,  unless  it  be  the  dull  haze  of  smoke  that 
sometimes  clouds  the  sky.  The  village  stands  in  an  angle 
between  two  of  the  larger  high-roads  of  the  country,  one 
leading  to  Tunbridge  and  the  other  to  Westerham  and  Eden- 
bridge.  It  is  cut  off  from  the  Weald  by  a  line  of  steep  chalk 
hills  on  the  south,  and  an  abrupt  hill,  now  smoothed  down 
by  a  cutting  and  embankment,  must  formerly  have  been 
something  of  a  barrier  against  encroachments  from  the  side 
of  London.  In  such  a  situation,  a  village,  communicating 
with  the  main  lines  of  traffic,  only  by  stony  tortuous  lanes^ 
may  well  have  been  enabled  to  preserve  its  retired  character. 


THE   VILLAGE. 


289 


Nor  is  it  hard  to  believe  in  the  smugglers  and  their  strings 
of  pack-horses  making  their  way  up  from  the  lawless  old 
villages  of  the  Weald,  of  which  the  memory  still  existed 
when  my  father  settled  in  Down.  The  village  stands  on 
solitary  upland  country,  500  to  600  feet  above  the  sea, — a 
country  with  little  natural  beauty,  but  possessing  a  certain 
charm  in  the  shaws,  or  straggling  strips  of  wood,  capping  the 
chalky  banks  and  looking  down  upon  the  quiet  ploughed 
lands  of  the  valleys.  The  village,  of  three  or  four  hundred 
inhabitants,  consists  of  three  small  streets  of  cottages  meeting 
in  front  of  the  little  flint-built  church.  It  is  a  place  where 
new-comers  are  seldom  seen,  and  the  names  occurring  far 
back  in  the  old  church  registers  are  still  well  known  in  the 
village.  The  smock-frock  is  not  yet  quite  extinct,  though 
chiefly  used  as  a  ceremonial  dress  by  the  "bearers ''  at  funer- 
als :  but  as  a  boy  I  remember  the  purple  or  green  smocks  of 
the  men  at  church. 

The  house  stands  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  village,  and 
is  built,  like  so  many  houses  of  the  last  century,  as  near  as 
possible  to  the  road — a  narrow  lane  winding  away  to  the 
Westerham  high-road.  In  1842,  it  was  dull  and  unattractive 
enough:  a  square  brick  building  of  three  storeys,  covered 
with  shabby  whitewash  and  hanging  tiles.  The  garden 
had  none  of  the  shrubberies  or  walls  that  now  give  shelter  ; 
it  was  overlooked  from  the  lane,  and  was  open,  bleak,  and 
desolate.  One  of  my  father's  first  undertakings  was  to  lower 
the  lane  by  about  two  feet,  and  to  build  a  flint  wall  along  that 
part  of  it  which  bordered  the  garden.  The  earth  thus  exca- 
vated was  used  in  making  banks  and  mounds  round  the 
lawn :  these  were  planted  with  evergreens,  which  now  give 
to  the  garden  its  retired  and  sheltered  character. 

The  house  was  made  to  look  neater  by  being  covered  with 
stucco,  but  the  chief  improvement  effected  was  the  building 
of  a  large  bow  extending  up  through  three  storeys.  This 
bovv  became  covered  with  a  tangle  of  creepers,  and  pleasantly 
varied  the  south  side  of  the  house.  The  drawing-room,  with 
its  verandah  opening  into  the  garden,  as  well  as  the  study  in 


290  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     .^TAT.  33-45. 

which  my  father  worked  during  the  later  years  of  his  life, 
were  added  at  subsequent  dates. 

Eighteen  acres  of  land  were  sold  with  the  house,  of  which 
twelve  acres  on  the  south  side  of  the  house  formed  a  pleasant 
field,  scattered  with  fair-sized  oaks  and  ashes.  From  this 
field  a  strip  was  cut  off  and  converted  into  a  kitchen  garden, 
in  which  the  experimental  plot  of  ground  was  situated,  and 
where  the  greenhouses  were  ultimately  put  up. 

The  following  letter  to  Mr.  Fox  (March  28th,  1843)  gives 
among  other  things  my  father's  early  impressions  of  Down  : — 

"  I  will  tell  you  all  the  trifling  particulars  about  myself  that 
I  can  think  of.  We  are  now  exceedingly  busy  with  the  first 
brick  laid  down  yesterday  to  an  addition  to  our  house  ;  with 
this,  with  almost  making  a  new  kitchen  garden  and  sundry 
other  projected  schemes,  my  days  are  very  full.  I  find  all 
this  very  bad  for  geology,  but  I  am  very  slowly  progressing 
with  a  volume,  or  rather  pamphlet,  on  the  volcanic  islands 
which  we  visited :  I  manage  only  a  couple  of  hours  per  day, 
and  that  not  very  regularly.  It  is  uphill  work  writing  books, 
which  cost  money  in  publishing,  and  which  are  not  read  even 
by  geologists.  I  forget  whether  I  ever  described  this  place  : 
it  is  a  good,  very  ugly  house  with  18  acres,  situated  on  a  chalk 
flat,  560  feet  above  sea.  There  are  peeps  of  far  distant 
country  and  the  scenery  is  moderately  pretty :  its  chief  merit 
is  its  extreme  rurality.  I  think  I  was  never  in  a  more  per- 
fectly quiet  country.  Three  miles  south  of  us  the  great  chalk 
escarpment  quite  cuts  us  off  from  the  low  country  of  Kent, 
and  between  us  and  the  escarpment  there  is  not  a  village  or 
gentleman's  house,  but  only  great  woods  and  arable  fields  (the 
latter  in  sadly  preponderant  numbers),  so  that  we  are  abso- 
lutely at  the  extreme  verge  of  the  world.  The  whole  country 
is  intersected  by  foot-paths  ;  but  the  surface  over  the  chalk  is 
clayey  and  sticky,  which  is  the  worst  feature  in  our  purchase. 
The  dingles  and  banks  often  remind  me  of  Cambridgeshire 
and  walks  with  you  to  Cherry  Hinton,  and  other  places, 
though  the  general  aspect  of  the  country  is  very  different.  I 
was  looking  over  my  arranged  cabinet  (the  only  remnant  I 


*  JOURNAL   OF    RESEARCHES.'  29I 

have  preserved  of  all  my  English  insects),  and  was  admiring 
Fanagceus  Crux-major :  it  is  curious  the  vivid  manner  in 
which  this  insect  calls  up  in  my  mind  your  appearance,  with 
little  Fan  trotting  after,  when  I  was  first  introduced  to  you. 
Those  entomological  days  were  very  pleasant  ones.  I  am  very 
much  stronger  corporeally,  but  am  little  better  in  being  able 
to  stand  mental  fatigue,  or  rather  excitement,  so  that  I  cannot 
dine  out  or  receive  visitors,  except  relations  with  whom  I  can 
pass  some  time  after  dinner  in  silence/' 

I  could  have  wished  to  give  here  some  idea  of  the  position 
which,  at  this  period  of  his  life,  my  father  occupied  among 
scientific  men  and  the  reading  public  generally.  But  con- 
temporary notices  are  few  and  of  no  particular  value  for  my 
purpose, — which  therefore  must,  in  spite  of  a  good  deal  of 
pains,  remain  unfulfilled. 

His  *  Journal  of  Researches  '  was  then  the  only  one  of  his 
books  which  had  any  chance  of  being  commonly  known.  But 
the  fact  that  it  was  published  with  the  '  Voyages  '  of  Captains 
King  and  Fitz-Roy  probably  interfered  with  its  general  popu- 
larity. Thus  Lyell  wrote  to  him  in  1838  (*  Ly ell's  Life,'  ii.  p. 
43),  ^*I  assure  you  my  father  is  quite  enthusiastic  about 
your  journal  ....  and  he  agrees  with  me  that  it  would  have 
a  large  sale  if  published  separately.  He  was  disappointed 
at  hearing  that  it  was  to  be  fettered  by  the  other  volumes,  for, 
although  he  should  equally  buy  it,  he  feared  so  many  of  the 
public  would  be  checked  from  doing  so."  In  a  notice  of  the 
three  voyages  in  the  ^  Edinburgh  Review  *  (July,  1839),  there 
is  nothing  leading  a  reader  to  believe  that  he  would  find  it 
more  attractive  than  its  fellow-volumes.  And,  as  a  fact,  it 
did  not  become  widely  known  until  it  was  separately  pub- 
lished in  1845.  It  may  be  noted,  however,  that  the  ^Quar- 
terly Review'  (December,  1839)  called  the  attention  of  its 
readers  to  the  merits  of  the  *  Journal '  as  a  book  of  travels. 
The  reviewer  speaks  of  the  ^'  charm  arising  from  the  fresh- 
ness of  heart  which  is  thrown  over  these  virgin  pages  of  a 
strong  intellectual  man  and  an  acute  and  deep  observer." 

The  German  translation  (1844)  of  the  *  Journal'  received 


292  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.    33-45. 

a  favourable  notice  in  No.  12  of  the  '  Heidelberger  Jahr- 
bucher  der  Literatur/  1847 — where  the  Reviewer  speaks  of 
the  author's  "  varied  canvas,  on  which  he  sketches  in  lively 
colours  the  strange  customs  of  those  distant  regions  with  their 
remarkable  fauna,  flora  and  geological  peculiarities."  Alluding 
to  the  translation,  my  father  writes — ^^Dr.  Dieffenbach  .  .  . 
has  translated  my  ^  Journal '  into  German,  and  I  must,  with 
unpardonable  vanity,  boast  that  it  was  at  the  instigation  of 
Liebig  and  Humboldt." 

The  geological  work  of  which  he  speaks  in  the  above  letter 
to  Mr.  Fox  occupied  him  for  the  whole  of  1843,  ^^^  was  pub- 
lished in  the  spring  of  the  following  year.  It  was  entitled 
*  Geological  Observations  on  the  Volcanic  Islands,  visited 
during  the  voyage  of  H.  M.  S.  Beagle^  together  with  some  brief 
notices  on  the  geology  of  Australia  and  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope ' :  it  formed  the  second  part  of  the  *  Geology  of  the 
Voyage  of  the  Beagle^'  published  '^with  the  Approval  of  the 
Lords  Commissioners  of  Her  Majesty's  Treasury."  The 
volume  on  *  Coral  Reefs '  forms  Part  I.  of  the  series,  and  was 
pubHshed,  as  we  have  seen,  in  1842.  For  the  sake  of  the 
non-geological  reader,  I  may  here  quote  Professor  Geikie*s 
words  ^  on  these  two  volumes — which  were  up  to  this  time 
my  father's  chief  geological  works.  Speaking  of  the  '  Coral 
Reefs,'  he  says  : — p.  17,  '*"  This  well-known  treatise,  the  most 
original  of  all  its  author's  geological  memoirs,  has  become 
one  of  the  classics  of  geological  literature.  The  origin  of 
those  remarkable  rings  of  coral-rock  in  mid-ocean  has  given 
rise  to  much  speculation,  but  no  satisfactory  solution  of  the 
problem  has  been  proposed.  After  visiting  many  of  them, 
and  examining  also  coral  reefs  that  fringe  islands  and  con- 
tinents, he  offered  a  theory  which  for  simplicity  and  grandeur 
strikes  every  reader  with  astonishment.  It  is  pleasant,  after 
the  lapse  of  many  years,  to  recall  the  delight  with  which  one 
first  read  the  ^  Coral  Reefs  ' ;  how  one  watched  the  facts  being 
marshalled  into  their  places,  nothing  being  ignored  or  passed 


*  Charles  Darwin,  *  Nature*  Series,  1882. 


i 


THEORY   OF   CORAL   ISLANDS. 


293 


lightly  over;  and  how,  step  by  step,  one  was  led  to  the  grand 
conclusion  of  wide  oceanic  subsidence.  No  more  admirable 
example  of  scientific  method  was  ever  given  to  the  world, 
and  even  if  he  had  written  nothing  else,  the  treatise  alone 
would  have  placed  Darwin  in  the  very  front  of  investigators 
of  nature." 

It  is  interesting  to  see  in  the  following  extract  from  one  of 
Lyeirs  letters*  how  warmly  and  readily  he  embraced  the 
theory.  The  extract  also  gives  incidentally  some  idea  of  the 
theory  itself. 

^*  I  am  very  full  of  Darwin's  new  theory  of  Coral  Islands, 
and  have  urged  Whewell  to  make  him  read  it  at  our  next 
meeting.  I  must  give  up  my  volcanic  crater  theory  for  ever, 
though  it  cost  me  a  pang  at  first,  for  it  accounted  for  so  much, 
the  annular  form,  the  central  lagoon,  the  sudden  rising  of  an 
isolated  mountain  in  a  deep  sea ;  all  went  so  well  with  the 
notion  of  submerged,  crateriform,  and  conical  volcanoes,  .  .  . 
and  then  the  fact  that  in  the  South  Pacific  we  had  scarcely 
any  rocks  in  the  regions  of  coral  islands,  save  two  kinds,  coral 
limestone  and  volcanic  !  Yet  spite  of  all  this,  the  whole 
theory  is  knocked  on  the  head,  and  the  annular  shape  and 
central  lagoon  have  nothing  to  do  with  volcanoes,  nor  even 
with  a  crateriform  bottom.  Perhaps  Darwin  told  you  when 
at  the  Cape  what  he  considers  the  true  cause  .^  Let  any 
mountain  be  submerged  gradually,  and  coral  grow  in  the  sea 
in  which  it  is  sinking,  and  there  will  be  a  ring  of  coral,  and 
finally  only  a  lagoon  in  the  centre.  Why?  For  the  same 
reason  that  a  barrier  reef  of  coral  grows  along  certain  coasts  : 
Australia,  &c.  Coral  islands  are  the  last  efforts  of  drowning 
continents  to  lift  their  heads  above  water.  Regions  of  eleva- 
tion and  subsidence  in  the  ocean  may  be  traced  by  the  state 
of  the  coral  reefs."  There  is  little  to  be  said  as  to  published 
contemporary  criticism.  The  book  was  not  reviewed  in  the 
'Quarterly  Review*  till  1847,  when  a  favourable  notice  was 


^  To  Sir  John  Herschel,  May  24,  1837.     '  Life  of  Sir  Charles  Lyell,' 
vol.  ii.  p.  12. 


294  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  38-45. 

given.  The  reviewer  speaks  of  the  ''bold  and  startling'' 
character  of  the  work,  but  seems  to  recognize  the  fact  that 
the  views  are  generally  accepted  by  geologists.  By  that  time 
the  minds  of  men  were  becoming  more  ready  to  receive  geol- 
ogy of  this  type.  Even  ten  years  before,  in  1837,  Lyell  * 
says,  "people  are  now  much  better  prepared  to  believe  Dar- 
win when  he  advances  proofs  of  the  slow  rise  of  the  Andes, 
than  they  were  in  1830,  when  I  first  startled  them  with  that 
doctrine.'*  This  sentence  refers  to  the  theory  elaborated  in 
my  father's  geological  observations  on  South  America  (1846), 
but  the  gradual  change  in  receptivity  of  the  geological  mind 
must  have  been  favourable  to  all  his  geological  work.  Never- 
theless, Lyell  seems  at  first  not  to  have  expected  any  ready 
acceptance  of  the  Coral  theory  ;  thus  he  wrote  to  my  father 
in  1837: — "I  could  think  of  nothing  for  days  after  your 
lesson  on  coral  reefs,  but  of  the  tops  of  submerged  continents. 
It  is  all  true,  but  do  not  flatter  yourself  that  you  will  be  be- 
lieved till  you  are  growing  bald  like  me,  with  hard  work  and 
vexation  at  the  incredulity  of  the  world." 

The  second  part  of  the  *  Geology  of  the  Voyage  of  the 
Beagle^  i.  e,  the  volume  on  Volcanic  Islands,  which  specially 
concerns  us  now,  cannot  be  better  described  than  by  again 
quoting  from  Professor  Geikie  (p.  18) : — 

"  Full  of  detailed  observations,  this  work  still  remains  the 
best  authority  on  the  general  geological  structure  of  most  of 
the  regions  it  describes.  At  the  time  it  was  written  the 
'crater  of  elevation  theory,'  though  opposed  by  Constant 
Prevost,  Scrope,  and  Lyell,  was  generally  accepted,  at  least 
on  the  Continent.  Darwin,  however,  could  not  receive  it  as 
a  valid  explanation  of  the  facts  ;  and  though  he  did  not  share 
the  view  of  its  chief  opponents,  but  ventured  to  propose  a 
hypothesis  of  his  own,  the  observations  impartially  made  and 
described  by  him  in  this  volume  must  be  regarded  as  having 
contributed  towards  the  final  solution  of  the  difficulty."  Pro- 
fessor Geikie  continues  (p.  21):  *' He  is  one  of  the  earliest 


I 


«  ( 


Life  of  Sir  Charles  Lyell/  vol.  ii.  p.  6. 


*  GEOLOGICAL  OBSERVATIONS.' 


295 


writers  to  recognize  the  magnitude  of  the  denudation  to  which 
even  recent  geological  accumulations  have  been  subjected. 
One  of  the  most  impressive  lessons  to  be  learnt  from  his  ac- 
count of  '  Volcanic  Islands  '  is  the  prodigious  extent  to  which 
they  have  been  denuded.  .  .  .  He  was  disposed  to  attribute 
more  of  this  work  to  the  sea  than  most  geologists  would  now 
admit ;  but  he  lived  himself  to  modify  his  original  views,  and  on 
this  subject  his  latest  utterances  are  quite  abreast  of  the  time.** 

An  extract  from  a  letter  of  my  father*s  to  Lyell  shows  his 
estimate  of  his  ov/n  work.  ''  You  have  pleased  me  much  by 
saying  that  you  intend  looking  through  my  ^Volcanic  Isl-  ^ 
ands ' :  it  cost  me  eighteen  months  !  !  !  and  I  have  heard  of 
very  few  who  have  read  it.  Now  I  shall  feel,  whatever  little 
(and  little  it  is)  there  is  confirmatory  of  old  work,  or  new, 
will  work  its  effect  and  not  be  lost.** 

The  third  of  his  geological  books,  *  Geological  Observa- 
tions on  South  America,*  may  be  mentioned  here,  although  it 
was  not  published  until  1846.  "  In  this  work  the  author  em- 
bodied all  the  materials  collected  by  him  for  the  illustration 
of  South  American  Geology,  save  some  which  have  been  pub- 
lished elsewhere.  One  of  the  most  important  features  of  the 
book  was  the  evidence  which  it  brought  forward  to  prove  the 
slow  interrupted  elevation  of  the  South  American  Continent 
during  a  recent  geological  period.**  * 

Of  this  book  my  father  wrote  to  Lyell : — *'  My  volume  will 
be  about  240  pages,  dreadfully  dull,  yet  much  condensed.  I 
think  whenever  you  have  time  to  look  through  it,  you  will 
think  the  collection  of  facts  on  the  elevation  of  the  land  and 
on  the  formation  of  terraces  pretty  good.** 

Of  his  special  geological  work  as  a  whole,  Professor  Geikie, 
while  pointing  out  that  it  was  not  ^*  of  the  same  epoch-making 
kind  as  his  biological  researches,'*  remarks  that  he  '^  gave  a 
powerful  impulse  to  **  the  general  reception  of  LyelFs  teach- 
ing "  by  the  way  in  which  he  gathered  from  all  parts  of  the 
world  facts  in  its  support.** 

*  Geikie,  loc.  cit. 


296 


LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.    33-45- 


WORK    OF    THE    PERIOD    1842    TO    1854. 

The  work  of  these  years  may  be  roughly  divided  into  a 
period  of  geology  from  1842  to  1846,  and  one  of  zoology  from 
1846  onwards. 

I  extract  from  his  diary  notices  of  the  time  spent  on  his 
geological  books  and  on  his  '  Journal/ 

*  Volcanic  Islands/     Summer  of  1842  to  January,  1844. 

^  Geology  of  South  America/     July,  1844,  to  April,  1845. 

Second  Edition  of  'The  Journal,'  October,  1845,  to  Octo- 
ber, 1846. 

The  time  between  October,  1846,  and  October,  1854,  was 
practically  given  up  to  working  at  the  Cirripedia  (Barnacles)  ; 
the  results  were  published  in  two  volumes  by  the  Ray  Society 
in  185 1  and  1854.  His  volumes  on  the  Fossil  Cirripedes 
were  published  by  the  Palaeontographical  Society  in  1851 
and  1854. 

Some  account  of  these  volumes  will  be  given  later. 

The  minor  works  may  be  placed  together,  independently 
of  subject  matter. 

"  Observations  on  the  Structure,  &c.,  of  the  genus  Sagitta," 
Ann.  Nat  Hist,  xiii.,  1844,  pp.  1-6. 

'^  Brief  Descriptions  of  several  Terrestrial  Planarise,  &c.,'' 
Ann.  Nat.  Hist,  xiv.,  1844,  pp.  241-251. 

^*An  Account  of  the  Fine  Dust*  which  often  Falls  on 
Vessels  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean,'*  Geol,  Soc.  Journ.  ii.,  1846,  pp. 
26-30. 

''On  the  Geology  of  the  Falkland  Islands,'*  Geol.  Soc. 
Journ.  ii.,  1846,  pp.  267-274. 

"  On  the  Transportal  of  Erratic  Boulders,  &c.,''  Geol.  Soc. 
Journ.  iv.,  1848,  pp.  S^S-S^S-t 

*  A  sentence  occurs  in  this  paper  of  interest,  as  showing  that  the  author 
was  alive  to  the  importance  of  all  means  of  distribution  : — "  The  fact  that 
particles  of  this  size  having  been  brought  at  least  330  miles  from  the  land 
is  interesting  as  bearing  on  the  distribution  of  Cryptogamic  plants." 

f  An  extract  from  a  letter  to  Lyell,  1847,  is  of  interest  in  connection  with 
this  essay  : — "  Would  you  be  so  good  (if  you  know  it)  as  to  put  Maclaren's 


WORK   OF    THE    PERIOD.  20/ 

The  article  ^'  Geology/'  in  the  Admiralty  Manual  of  Sci- 
entific Enquiry  (1849),  pp.  156-195.  This  was  written  in  the 
spring  of  1848. 

'^On  British  Fossil  Lepadidae/'  *  Geol.  Soc.  Journ.'  vi., 
1850,  pp.  439-440. 

^*  Analogy  of  the  structure  of  some  Volcanic  Rocks  with 
that  of  Glaciers,"  ^  Edin.  Roy.  Soc.  Proc'  ii.,  1851,  pp.  17-18. 

Professor  Geikie  has  been  so  good  as  to  give  me  (in  a 
letter  dated  Nov.  1885)  his  impressions  of  my  father's  article 
in  the  ^Admiralty  Manual.'  He  mentions  the  following 
points  as  characteristic  of  the  work  : — 

*'  I.  Great  breadth  of  view.  No  one  who  had  not  prac- 
tically studied  and  profoundly  reflected  on  the  questions  dis- 
cussed could  have  written  it. 

"2.  The  insight  so  remarkable  in  all  that  Mr.  Darwin 
ever  did.  The  way  in  which  he  points  out  lines  of  enquiry 
that  would  elucidate  geological  problems  is  eminently  typical 
of  him.  Some  of  these  lines  have  never  yet  been  adequately 
followed ;  so  with  regard  to  them  he  was  in  advance  of  his 
time. 

^^  3.  Interesting  and  sympathetic  treatment.  The  author 
at  once  puts  his  readers  into  harmony  with  him.  He  gives 
them  enough  of  information  to  show  how  delightful  the  field 
is  to  which  he  invites  them,  and  how  much  they  might  ac- 
complish in  it.      There  is  a  broad  sketch   of   the    subject 


address  on  the  enclosed  letter  and  post  it.  It  is  chiefly  to  enquire  in  what 
paper  he  has  described  the  Boulders  on  Arthur's  Seat.  Mr.  D.  Milne  in 
the  last  Edinburgh  *  New  Phil.  Journal '  [1847],  has  a  long  paper  on  it. 
He  says :  *  Some  glacialists  have  ventured  to  explain  the  transportation  of 
boulders  even  in  the  situation  of  those  now  referred  to,  by  imagining  that 
they  were  transported  on  ice  floes,'  &c.  He  treats  this  view,  and  the 
scratching  of  rocks  by  icebergs,  as  almost  absurd  ...  he  has  finally  stirred 
me  up  so,  that  (without  you  would  answer  him)  I  think  I  will  send  a  paper 
in  opposition  to  the  same  Journal.  I  can  thus  introduce  some  old  remarks 
of  mine,  and  some  new,  and  will  insist  on  your  capital  observations  in  N. 
America.  It  is  a  bore  to  stop ,  one's  work,  but  he  has  made  me  quite 
wroth." 


298 


LIFE   AT   DOWN.     .ETAT.   33-45- 


which  everybody  can  follow,  and  there  is  enough  of  detail  to 
instruct  and  guide  a  beginner  and  start  him  on  the  right 
track. 

*' Of  course,  geology  has  made  great  strides  since  1849, 
and  the  article,  if  written  now,  would  need  to  take  notice  of 
other  branches  of  enquiry,  and  to  modify  statements  which 
are  not  now  quite  accurate  ;  but  most  of  the  advice  Mr.  Dar- 
win gives  is  as  needful  and  valuable  now  as  when  it  was 
given.  It  is  curious  to  see  with  what  unerring  instinct  he 
seems  to  have  fastened  on  the  principles  that  would  stand 
the  test  of  time." 

In  a  letter  to  Lyell  (1853)  my  father  wrote,  *^I  went  up 
for  a  paper  by  the  Arctic  Dr.  Sutherland,  on  ice  action,  read 
only  in  abstract,  but  I  should  think  with  much  good  matter. 
It  was  very  pleasant  to  hear  that  it  was  written  owing  to  the 
Admiralty  Manual.** 

To  give  some  idea  of  the  retired  life  which  now  began  for 
my  father  at  Down,  I  have  noted  from  his  diary  the  short 
periods  during  which  he  was  away  from  home  between  the 
autumn  of  1842,  when  he  came  to  Down,  and  the  end  of 
1854, 

1843,  Ju^y- — Week  at  Maer  and  Shrewsbury. 
„     October, — Twelve  days  at  Shrewsbury. 

1844,  April. — Week  at  Maer  and  Shrewsbury. 
J?     Ju^y- — Twelve  days  at  Shrewsbury. 

i^^^j  September  15. — Six  weeks,  "Shrewsbury,  Lincoln- 
shire, York,  the  Dean  of  Manchester,  Waterton, 
Chatsworth.*' 

1846,  February. — Eleven  days  at  Shrewsbury. 
„     July. — Ten  days  at  Shrewsbury. 

„     September. — Ten  days  at  Southampton,  &c.,  for  the 
British  Association. 

1847,  February. — Twelve  days  at  Shrewsbury. 

„     June. — Ten  days  at  Oxford,  &c.,  for  the  British  As- 
sociation. 
„      October. — Fortnight  at  Shrewsbury. 


i843.]  CAPTAIN   FITZ-ROY.  299 

1848,  May. — Fortnight  at  Shrewsbury. 
„     July, — Week  at  SwanagCe 

„     October. — Fortnight  at  Shrewsbury. 

,,     November. — Eleven  days  at  Shrewsbury. 

1849,  March  to  June. — Sixteen  weeks  at  Malvern. 

„     September. — Eleven   days    at    Birmingham   for   the 
British  Association. 

1850,  June, — Week  at  Malvern. 

„     August. — Week  at  Leith  Hill,  the  house  of  a  relative, 
„     October. — Week  at  the  house  of  another  relative. 

185 1,  March. — Week  at  Malvern. 

„     April. — Nine  days  at  Malvern. 
„     July. — Twelve  days  in  London. 

1852,  March. — Week  at  Rugby  and  Shrewsbury. 

„     September. — Six  days  at  the  house  of  a  relative. 

1853,  July. — Three  weeks  at  Eastbourne. 

„     August. — Five  days  at  the  military  Camp  at  Chob- 
ham. 

1854,  March. — Five  days  at  the  house  of  a  relative. 
„     July. — Three  days  at  the  house  of  a  relative. 
„     October. — Six  days  at  the  house  of  a  relative. 

It  will  be  seen  that  he  was  absent  from  home  sixty  weeks 
in  twelve  years.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  much  of 
the  remaining  time  spent  at  Down  was  lost  through  ill- 
health.] 

Letters. 

C,  Darwin  to  R.  Fitz-Roy. 

Down  [March  31st,  1843]. 

Dear  Fitz-Roy, — I  read  yesterday  with  surprise  and  the 
greatest  interest,  your  appointment  as  Governor  of  New  Zea- 
land. I  do  not  know  whether  to  congratulate  you  on  it,  but 
I  am  sure  I  may  the  Colony,  on  possessing  your  zeal  and 
energy.  I  am  most  anxious  to  know  whether  the  report  is 
true,  for  I  cannot  bear  the  thoughts  of  your  leaving  the 
country  without  seeing  you  once  again  ;  the  past  is  often  in 


300  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1843. 

my  memory,  and  I  feel  that  I  owe  to  you  much  bygone  enjoy- 
ment, and  the  whole  destiny  of  my  life,  which  (had  my  health 
been  stronger)  would  have  been  one  full  of  satisfaction  to  me. 
During  the  last  three  months  I  have  never  once  gone  up  to 
London  without  intending  to  call  in  the  hopes  of  seeing  Mrs. 
Fitz-Roy  and  yourself;  but  I  find,  most  unfortunately  for 
myself,  that  the  little  excitement  of  breaking  out  of  my  most 
quiet  routine  so  generally  knocks  me  up,  that  I  am  able  to  do 
scarcely  anything  when  in  London,  and  I  have  not  even  been 
able  to  attend  one  evening  meeting  of  the  Geological  Society. 
Otherwise,  I  am  very  well,  as  are,  thank  God,  my  wife  and 
two  children.  The  extreme  retirement  of  this  place  suits  us 
all  very  well,  and  we  enjoy  our  country  life  much.  But  I  am 
writing  trifles  about  myself,  when  your  mind  and  time  must 
be  fully  occupied.  My  object  in  writing  is  to  beg  of  you  or 
Mrs.  Fitz-Roy  to  have  the  kindness  to  send  me  one  line  to 
say  whether  it  is  true,  and  whether  you  sail  soon.  I  shall 
come  up  next  week  for  one  or  two  days  ;  could  you  see  me 
for  even  five  minutes,  if  I  called  early  on  Thursday  morning, 
viz.  at  nine  or  ten  o'clock,  or  at  whatever  hour  (if  you  keep 
early  ship  hours)  you  finish  your  breakfast.  Pray  remember 
me  very  kindly  to  Mrs.  Fitz-Roy,  who  I  trust  is  able  to  look 
at  her  long  voyage  with  boldness. 

Believe  me,  dear  Fitz-Roy, 

Your  ever  truly  obliged, 

Charles  Darwin. 

[A  quotation  from  another  letter  (1846)  to  Fitz-Roy  may 
be  worth  giving,  as  showing  my  father's  affectionate  remem- 
brance of  his  old  Captain. 

**  Farewell,  dear  Fitz-Roy,  I  often  think  of  your  many 
acts  of  kindness  to  me,  and  not  seldomest  on  the  time,  no 
doubt  quite  forgotten  by  you,  when,  before  making  Madeira, 
you  came  and  arranged  my  hammock  with  your  own  hands, 
and  which,  as  I  afterwards  heard,  brought  tears  into  my 
father's  eyes."] 


1844-]  'VESTIGES   OF    CREATION.'  3OI 

C  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox, 

[Down,  September  5,  1843.] 

Monday  morning. 

My  dear  Fox, — When  I  sent  off  the  glacier  paper,  I  was 
just  going  out  and  so  had  no  time  to  write.  I  hope  your 
friend  will  enjoy  (and  I  wish  you  were  going  there  with  him) 
his  tour  as  much  as  I  did.  It  was  a  kind  of  geological  novel. 
But  your  friend  must  have  patience,  for  he  will  not  get  a 
good  glacial  eye  for  a  few  days.  Murchison  and  Count  Key- 
serling  rushed  through  North  Wales  the  same  autumn  and 
could  see  nothing  except  the  effects'  of  rain  trickling  over 
the  rocks  !  I  cross-examined  Murchison  a  little,  and  evi- 
dently saw  he  had  looked  carefully  at  nothing.  I  feel  certain 
about  the  glacier-effects  in  North  Wales.  Get  up  your  steam, 
if  this  weather  lasts,  and  have  a  ramble  in  Wales  ;  its  glorious 
scenery  must  do  every  one's  heart  and  body  good.  I  wish  I 
had  energy  to  come  to  Delamere  and  go  with  you  ;  but  as 
you  observe,  you  might  as  well  ask  St.  Paul's.  Whenever  I 
give  myself  a  trip,  it  shall  be,  I  think,  to  Scotland,  to  hunt 
for  more  parallel  roads.  My  marine  theory  for  these  roads 
was  for  a  time  knocked  on  the  head  by  Agassiz  ice-work,  but 
it  is  now  reviving  again.  .  .  . 

Farewell, — we  are  getting  nearly  finished — almost  all  the 
workmen  gone,  and  the  gravel  laying  down  on  the  walks. 
Ave  Maria  !  how  the  money  does  go.  There  are  twice  as 
many  temptations  to  extravagance  in  the  country  compared 

with  London.     Adios. 

Yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down  [1844?]. 

....  I  have  also  read  the  ^  Vestiges,'  *  but  have  been 
somewhat  less  amused  at  it  than  you  appear  to  have  been  : 

*  *  The  Vestiges  of  the  Natural  Histoiy  of  Creation  *  was  published 
anonymously  in  1884,  and  is  confidently  believed  to  have  been  written  by 


302  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1844-5. 

the  writing  and  arrangement  are  certainly  admirable,  but  his 
geology  strikes  me  as  bad,  and  his  zoology  far  worse.  I 
should  be  very  much  obliged,  if  at  any  future  or  leisure  time 
you  could  tell  me  on  what  you  ground  your  doubtful  belief 
in  imagination  of  a  mother  affecting  her  offspring.*  I  have 
attended  to  the  several  statements  scattered  about,  but  do  not 
believe  in  more  than  accidental  coincidences.  W.  Hunter 
told  my  father,  then  in  a  lying-in  hospital,  that  in  many 
thousand  cases,  he  had  asked  the  mother,  before  her  confine- 
ment^ whether  anything  had  affected  her  imagination,  and  re- 
corded the  answers ;  and  absolutely  not  one  case  came  right, 
though,  when  the  child  was  anything  remarkable,  they  after- 
wards made  the  cap  to  fit.  Reproduction  seems  governed  by 
such  similar  Jaws  in  the  whole  animal  kingdom,  that  I  am 
most  loth  [to  believe].  .  .  . 

C  Darwin  to  J.  M.  Herbert. 

Down  [1844  or  1845]. 

My  dear  Herbert, — I  was  very  glad  to  see  your  hand- 
writing and  hear  a  bit  of  news  about  you.  Though  you  can- 
not come  here  this  autumn,  I  do  hope  you  and  Mrs.  Herbert 
will  come  in  the  winter,  and  we  will  have  lots  of  talk  of  old 
times,  and  lots  of  Beethoven. 


the  late  Robert  Chambers.  My  father's  copy  gives  signs  of  having  been 
carefully  read,  a  long  list  of  marked  passages  being  pinned  in  at  the  end. 
One  useful  lesson  he  seems  to  have  learned  from  it.  He  writes  :  "  The 
idea  of  a  fish  passing  into  a  reptile,  monstrous.  I  will  not  specify  any 
genealogies — much  too  little  known  at  present."  He  refers  again  to  the 
book  in  a  letter  to  Fox,  February,  1845  :  *'  Have  you  read  that  strange, 
unphilosophical.  but  capitally-written  book,  the  *  Vestiges  ' :  it  has  made 
more  talk  than  any  work  of  late,  and  has  been  by  some  attributed  to  me — 
at  which  I  ought  to  be  much  flattered  and  unflattered." 

*  This  refers  to  the  case  of  a  relative  of  Sir  J.  Hooker's,  who  insisted 
that  a  mole,  which  appeared  on  one  of  her  children,  was  the  effect  of  fright 
upon  herself  on  having,  before  the  birth  of  the  child,  blotted  with  sepia 
a  copy  of  Turner's  *  Liber  Studiorum  '  that  had  been  lent  to  her  with  spe- 
cial injunctions  to  be  careful. 


i845.]  SIR  J.   D.   HOOKER. 


303 


I  have  little  or  rather  nothing  to  say  about  myself  ;  we  live 
like  clock-work,  and  in  what  most  people  would  consider  the 
dullest  possible  manner.  I  have  of  late  been  slaving  extra 
hard,  to  the  great  discomfiture  of  wretched  digestive  organs, 
at  South  America,  and  thank  all  the  fates,  I  have  done  three- 
fourths  of  it.  Writing  plain  English  grows  with  me  more 
and  more  difficult,  and  never  attainable.  As  for  your  pre- 
tending that  you  will  read  anything  so  dull  as  my  pure  geo- 
logical descriptions,  lay  not  such  a  flattering  unction  on  my 
soul  *  for  it  is  incredible.  I  have  long  discovered  that  geolo- 
gists never  read  each  other's  works,  and  that  the  only  object 
in  writing  a  book  is  a  proof  of  earnestness,  and  that  you  do 
not  form  your  opinions  without  undergoing  labour  of  some 
kind.  Geology  is  at  present  very  oral,  and  what  I  here  say 
is  to  a  great  extent  quite  true.  But  I  am  giving  you  a  dis- 
cussion as  long  as  a  chapter  in  the  odious  book  itself. 

I  have  lately  been  to  Shrewsbury,  and  found  my  father 
surprisingly  well  and  cheerful. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  old  friend,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  J,  D,  Hooker, 

Down,  Monday  [February  loth,  1845]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  am  much  obliged  for  your  very 
agreeable  letter ;  it  was  very  good-natured,  in  the  midst  of 
your  scientific  and  theatrical  dissipation,  to  think  of  writing 
so  long  a  letter  to  me.  I  am  astonished  at  your  news,  and  I 
must  condole  with  you  in  your  present  view  of  the  Professor- 
ship,! and  most  heartily  deplore  it  on  my  own  account.    There 


*  On  the  same  subject  he  wrote  to  Fitz-Roy  :  **  I  have  sent  my  *  South 
American  Geology  *  to  Dover  Street,  and  you  will  get  it,  no  doubt,  in  the 
course  of  time.  You  do  not  know  what  you  threaten  when  you  propose  to 
read  it — it  is  purely  geological.  I  said  to  my  brother,  '  You  will  of  course 
read  it,*  and  his  answer  was,  *  Upon  my  life,  I  would  sooner  even  buy  it.* " 

f  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  was  a  candidate  for  the  Professorship  of  Botany  at 
Edinburgh  University. 


304  LIFE   AT    DOWN.     ^TAT.    33-45.  [1845. 

is  something  so  chilling  in  a  separation  of  so  many  hundred 
miles,  though  we  did  not  see  much  of  each  other  when  nearer. 
You  will  hardly  believe  how  deeply  I  regret  for  myself  your 
present  prospects.  I  had  looked  forward  to  [our]  seeing 
much  of  each  other  during  our  lives.  It  is  a  heavy  disap- 
pointment ;  and  in  a  mere  selfish  point  of  view,  as  aiding  me 
in  my  work,  your  loss  is  indeed  irreparable.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  cannot  doubt  that  you  take  at  present  a  de- 
sponding, instead  of  bright,  view  of  your  prospects  :  surely 
there  are  great  advantages,  as  well  as  disadvantages.  The 
place  is  one  of  eminence ;  and  really  it  appears  to  me  there 
are  so  many  indifferent  workers,  and  so  few  readers,  that  it 
is  a  high  advantage,  in  a  purely  scientific  point  of  view,  for  a 
good  worker  to  hold  a  position  which  leads  others  to  attend 
to  his  work.  I  forget  whether  you  attended  Edinburgh,  as  a 
student,  but  in  my  time  there  was  a  knot  of  men  who  were 
far  from  being  the  indifferent  and  dull  listeners  which  you 
expect  for  your  audience.  Reflect  what  a  satisfaction  and 
honour  it  would  be  to  7nake  a  good  botanist — with  your  dis- 
position you  will  be  to  many  what  Henslow  was  at  Cambridge 
to  me  and  others,  a  most  kind  friend  and  guide.  Then  what 
a  fine  garden,  and  how  good  a  Public  Library !  why,  Forbes 
always  regrets  the  advantages  of  Edinburgh  for  work  :  think 
of  the  inestimable  advantage  of  getting  within  a  short  walk  of 
those  noble  rocks  and  hills  and  sandy  shores  near  Edinburgh  ! 
Indeed,  I  cannot  pity  you  much,  though  I  pity  myself  ex- 
ceedingly in  your  loss.  Surely  lecturing  will,  in  a  year  or 
two,  with  your  great  capacity  for  work  (whatever  you  may  be 
pleased  to  say  to  the  contrary)  become  easy,  and  you  will 
have  a  fair  time  for  your  Antarctic  Flora  and  general  views 
of  distribution.  If  I  thought  your  Professorship  would  stop 
your  work,  I  should  wish  it  and  all  the  good  worldly  conse- 
quences at  el  Diavolo,  I  know  I  shall  live  to  see  you  the 
first  authority  in  Europe  on  that  grand  subject,  that  almost 
keystone  of  the  laws  of  creation,  Geographical  Distribution. 
Well,  there  is  one  comfort,  you  will  be  at  Kew,  no  doubt, 
every  year,  so  I  shall  finish  by  forcing  down  your  throat  my 


i845.]  THE   'JOURNAL.' 


305 


sincere  congratulations.  Thanks  for  all  your  news.  I  grieve 
to  hear  Humboldt  is  failing  ;  one  cannot  help  feeling,  though 
unrightly,  that  such  an  end  is  humiliating  :  even  when  I  saw 
him  he  talked  beyond  all  reason.  If  you  see  him  again,  pray 
give  him  my  most  respectful  and  kind  compliments,  and  say 
that  I  never  forget  that  my  whole  course  of  life  is  due  to 
having  read  and  re-read  as  a  youth  his  '  Personal  Narrative.' 
How  true  and  pleasing  are  all  your  remarks  on  his  kindness ; 
think  how  many  opportunities  you  will  have,  in  your  new 
place,  of  being  a  Humboldt  to  others.  Ask  him  about  the 
river  in  N.  E.  Europe,  with  the  Flora  very  different  on  its 
opposite  banks.  I  have  got  and  read  your  Wilkes  ;  what  a 
feeble  book  in  matter  and  style,  and  how  splendidly  got  up  ! 
Do  write  me  a  line  from  Berlin.  Also  thanks  for  the  proof- 
sheets.  I  did  not,  however,  mean  proof  plates  ;  I  value  them, 
as  saving  me  copying  extracts.  Farewell,  my  dear  Hooker, 
with  a  heavy  heart  I  wish  you  joy  of  your  prospects. 

Your  sincere  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 

[The  second  edition  of  the  '  Journal,*  to  which  the  follow- 
ing letter  refers,  was  completed  between  April  25th  and  Au- 
gust 25th.  It  was  published  by  Mr.  Murray  in  the  ^Colonial 
and  Home  Library,'  and  in  this  more  accessible  form  soon 
had  a  large  sale. 

Up  to  the  time  of  his  first  negotiations  with  Mr.  Murray 
for  its  publication  in  this  form,  he  had  received  payment  only 
in  the  form  of  a  large  number  of  presentation  copies,  and  he 
seems  to  have  been  glad  to  sell  the  copyright  of  the  second 
edition  to  Mr.  Murray  for  150/. 

The  points  of  difference  between  it  and  the  first  edition 
are  of  interest  chiefly  in  connection  with  the  growth  of  the 
author's  views  on  evolution,  and  will  be  considered  later.] 


3o6  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1845. 

C,  Darwin  to  C.  LyelL 

Down  [July,  1845]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — I  send  you  the  first  part  *  of  the  new- 
edition  [of  the  '  Journal  of  Researches  '],  which  I  so  entirely 
owe  to  you.  You  will  see  that  I  have  ventured  to  dedicate  it 
to  you,f  and  I  trust  that  this  cannot  be  disagreeable.  I  have 
long  wished,  not  so  much  for  your  sake,  as  for  my  own  feelings 
of  honesty,  to  acknowledge  more  plainly  than  by  mere  refer- 
ence, how  much  I  geologically  owe  you.  Those  authors,  how- 
ever, who  like  you,  educate  people's  minds  as  well  as  teach 
them  special  facts,  can  never,  I  should  think,  have  full  justice 
done  them  except  by  posterity,  for  the  mind  thus  insensibly 
improved  can  hardly  perceive  its  own  upward  ascent.  I  had 
intended  putting  in  the  present  acknowledgment  in  the  third 
part  of  my  Geology,  but  its  sale  is  so  exceedingly  small  that 
I  should  not  have  had  the  satisfaction  of  thinking  that  as  far 
as  lay  in  my  power  I  had  owned,  though  imperfectly,  my  debt. 
Pray  do  not  think  that  I  am  so  silly,  as  to  suppose  that  my  f 
dedication  can  any  ways  gratify  you,  except  so  far  as  I  trust 
you  will  receive  it,  as  a  most  sincere  mark  of  my  gratitude 
and  friendship.  I  think  I  have  improved  this  edition,  espe- 
cially the  second  part,  which  I  have  just  finished.  I  have 
added  a  good  deal  about  the  Fuegians,  and  cut  down  into 
half  the  mercilessly  long  discussion  on  climate  and  glaciers, 
&c.  I  do  not  recollect  anything  added  to  the  first  part,  long 
enough  to  call  your  attention  to ;  there  is  a  page  of  descrip- 
tion of  a  very  curious  breed  of  oxen  in  Banda  Oriental.  I 
should  like  you  to  read  the  few  last  pages ;  there  is  a  little 
discussion  on  extinction,  which  will  not  perhaps  strike  you 

*  No  doubt  proof-sheets. 

\  The  dedication  of  the  second  edition  of  the  *  Journal  of  Researches,' 
is  as  follows  :— "  To  Charles  Lyell,  Esq.,  F.  R.  S.,  this  second  edition  is 
dedicated  with  grateful  pleasure — as  an  acknowledgment  that  the  chief 
part  of  whatever  scientific  merit  this  Journal  and  the  other  works  of  the 
Author  may  possess,  has  been  derived  from  studying  the  well-known  and 
admirable  '  Principles  of  Geology.'  '* 


i845.]  LYELL'S   *  NORTH   AMERICA.'  307 

as  new,  though  it  has  so  struck  me,  and  has  placed  in  my 
mind  all  the  difficulties  with  respect  to  the  causes  of  extinc- 
tion, in  the  same  class  with  other  difficulties  which  are  gener- 
ally quite  overlooked  and  undervalued  by  naturalists ;  I  ought, 
however,  to  have  made  my  discussion  longer  and  shewn  by 
facts,  as  I  easily  could,  how  steadily  every  species  must  be 
checked  in  its  numbers. 

I  received  your  Travels  *  yesterday ;  and  I  like  exceed- 
ingly its  external  and  internal  appearance ;  I  read  only  about 
a  dozen  pages  last  night  (for  I  was  tired  with  hay-making), 
but  I  saw  quite  enough  to  perceive  how  very  much  it  will  in- 
terest me,  and  how  many  passages  will  be  scored.  I  am 
pleased  to  find  a  good  sprinkling  of  Natural  History ;  I  shall 
be  astonished  if  it  does  not  sell  very  largely.  .  .  . 

How  sorry  I  am  to  think  that  we  shall  not  see  you  here 
again  for  so  long ;  I  wish  you  may  knock  yourself  a  little  bit 
up  before  you  start  and  require  a  day's  fresh  air,  before  the 
ocean  breezes  blow  on  you.  .  .  . 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  C,  LyelL 

Down,  Saturday  [August  ist,  1845]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — I  have  been  wishing  to  write  to  you  for 
a  week  past,  but  every  five  minutes'  worth  of  strength  has 
been  expended  in  getting  out  my  second  part.f  Your  note 
pleased  me  a  good  deal  more  I  dare  say  than  my  dedication 
did  you,  and  I  thank  you  much  for  it.  Your  work  has  in- 
terested me  much,  and  I  will  give  you  my  impressions, 
though,  as  I  never  thought  you  would  care  to  hear  what  I 
thought  of  the  non-scientific  parts,  I  made  no  notes,  nor 
took  pains  to  remember  any  particular  impression  of  two- 
thirds  of  the  first  volume.     The  first  impression  I  should  say 

*  *  Travels  in  North  America,*  2  vols.,  1845. 

\  Of  the  second  edition  of  the  *  Journal  of  Researches.* 


3o8  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1845. 

would  be  with  most  (though  I  have  literally  seen  not  one 
soul  since  reading  it)  regret  at  there  not  being  more  of  the 
non-scientific  [parts].  I  am  not  a  good  judge,  for  I  have 
read  nothing,  /.  e,  non-scientific  about  North  America,  but  the 
whole  struck  me  as  very  new,  fresh,  and  interesting.  Your 
discussions  bore  to  my  mind  the  evident  stamp  of  matured 
thought,  and  of  conclusions  drawn  from  facts  observed  by 
yourself,  and  not  from  the  opinions  of  the  people  whom  you 
met ;  and  this  I  suspect  is  comparatively  rare. 

Your  slave  discussion  disturbed  me  much  ;  but  as  you 
would  care  no  more  for  my  opinion  on  this  head  than  for  the 
ashes  of  this  letter,  I  will  say  nothing  except  that  it  gave  me 
some  sleepless,  most  uncomfortable  hours.  Your  account  of 
the  religious  state  of  the  States  particularly  interested  me  ;  I 
am  surprised  throughout  at  your  very  proper  boldness  against 
the  Clergy.  In  your  University  chapter  the  Clergy,  and  not 
the  State  of  Education,  are  most  severely  and  justly  handled, 
and  this  I  think  is  very  bold,  for  I  conceive  you  might  crush 
a  leaden-headed  old  Don,  as  a  Don,  with  more  safety,  than 
touch  the  finger  of  that  Corporate  Animal,  the  Clergy.  What 
a  contrast  in  Education  does  England  shew  itself!  Your 
apology  (using  the  term,  like  the  old  religionists  who  meant 
anything  but  an  apology)  for  lectures,  struck  me  as  very 
clever;  but  all  the  arguments  in  the  world  on  your  side,  are 
not  equal  to  one  course  of  Jamieson's  Lectures  on  the  other 
side,  which  I  formerly  for  my  sins  experienced.  Although 
I  had  read  about  the  *  Coalfields  in  North  America,*  I  never 
in  the  smallest  degree  really  comprehended  their  area,  their 
thickness  and  favourable  position  ;  nothing  hardly  astounded 
me  more  in  your  book. 

Some  few  parts  struck  me  as  rather  heterogeneous,  but  I  do 
not  know  whether  to  an  extent  that  at  all  signified.  I  missed 
however,  a  good  deal,  some  general  heading  to  the  chapters, 
such  as  the  two  or  three  principal  places  visited.  One  has 
no  right  to  expect  an  author  to  write  down  to  the  zero  of  geo- 
graphical ignorance  of  the  reader  ;  but  I  not  knowing  a  single 
place,  was  occasionally  rather  plagued  in  tracing  your  course.  | 


1845]  LYELL'S   'PRINCIPLES/  309 

Sometimes  in  the  beginning  of  a  chapter,  in  one  paragraph 
your  course  was  traced  through  a  half  dozen  places ;  anyone, 
as  ignorant  as  myself,  if  he  could  be  found,  would  prefer  such 
a  disturbing  paragraph  left  out.  I  cut  your  map  loose,  and  I 
found  that  a  great  comfort ;  I  could  not  follow  your  engraved 
track.  I  think  in  a  second  edition,  interspaces  here  and  there 
of  one  line  open,  would  be  an  improvement.  By  the  way,  I 
take  credit  to  myself  in  giving  my  Journal  a  less  scientific  air 
in  having  printed  all  names  of  species  and  genera  in  Romans ; 
the  printing  looks,  also,  better.  All  the  illustrations  strike 
me  as  capital,  and  the  map  is  an  admirable  volume  in  itself. 
If  your  *  Principles '  had  not  met  with  such  universal  admi- 
ration, I  should  have  feared  there  would  have  been  too  much 
geology  in  this  for  the  general  reader  ;  certainly  all  that  the 
most  clear  and  light  style  could  do,  has  been  done.  To  my- 
self the  geology  was  an  excellent,  well-condensed,  well-di- 
gested resume  of  all  that  has  been  made  out  in  North  Amer- 
ica, and  every  geologist  ought  to  be  grateful  to  you.  The 
summing  up  of  the  Niagara  chapter  appeared  to  me  the 
grandest  part ;  I  was  also  deeply  interested  by  your  discussion 
on  the  origin  of  the  Silurian  formations.  I  have  made  scores 
of  scores  marking  passages  hereafter  useful  to  me. 

All  the  coal  theory  appeared  to  me  very  good ;  but  it  is 
no  use  going  on  enumerating  in  this  manner.  I  wish  there 
had  been  more  Natural  History  ;  I  liked  all  the  scattered 
fragments.  I  have  now  given  you  an  exact  transcript  of  my 
thoughts,  but  they  are  hardly  w^orth  your  reading.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  C  Lyell, 

Down,  August  25th  [1845]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — This  is  literally  the  first  day  on  which 
I  have  had  any  time  to  spare ;  and  I  will  amuse  myself  by 
beginning  a  letter  to  you.  .  .  . 

I  was  delighted  with  your  letter  in  which  you  touch  on 
Slavery ;  I  wish  the  same  feelings  had  been  apparent  in  your 
published  discussion.     But  I  will  not  write  on  this  subject,  I 


3IO 


LIFE   AT   DOWN.     JETAT,  33-45-  [1845. 


should  perhaps  annoy  you,  and  most  certainly  myself.  I 
have  exhaled  myself  with  a  paragraph  or  two  in  my  Journal 
on  the  sin  of  Brazilian  slavery  ;  you  perhaps  will  think  that 
it  is  in  answer  to  you ;  but  such  is  not  the  case.  I  have 
remarked  on  nothing  which  I  did  not  hear  on  the  coast  of 
South  America.  My  few  sentences,  however,  are  merely  an 
explosion  of  feeling.  How  could  you  relate  so  placidly  that 
atrocious  sentiment  *  about  separating  children  from  their 
parents ;  and  in  the  next  page  speak  of  being  distressed  at 
the  whites  not  having  prospered ;  I  assure  you  the  contrast 
made  me  exclaim  out.  But  I  have  broken  my  intention,  and 
so  no  more  on  this  odious  deadly  subject. 

There  is  a  favourable,  but  not  strong  enough  review  on 
you,  in  the  Gardeners'  Chronicle.  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  Lind- 
ley  abides  by  the  carbonic  acid  gas  theory.  By  the  way,  I 
was  much  pleased  by  Lindley  picking  out  my  extinction  para- 
graphs and  giving  them  uncurtailed.  To  my  mind,  putting 
the  comparative  rarity  of  existing  species  in  the  same  cate- 
gory with  extinction  has  removed  a  great  weight ;  though  of 
course  it  does  not  explain  anything,  it  shows  that  until  we  can 
explain  comparative  rarity,  we  ought  not  to  feel  any  surprise 
at  not  explaining  extinction.  .  .  . 

I  am  much  pleased  to  hear  of  the  call  for  a  new  edition  of 
the  *  Principles  ' :  what  glorious  good  that  work  has  done.  I 
fear  this  time  you  will  not  be  amongst  the  old  rocks ;  how  I 
shall  rejoice  to  live  to  see  you  publish  and  discover  another 
stage  below  the  Silurian — it  would  be  the  grandest  step  pos- 
sible, I  think.  I  am  very  glad  to  hear  what  progress  Bunbury 
is  making  in  fossil  Botany  ;  there  is  a  fine  hiatus  for  him  to 
fill  up  in  this  country.  I  will  certainly  call  on  him  this  winter. 
.  .  .  From  what  little  I  saw  of  him,  I  can  quite  believe  every- 
thing which  you  say  of  his  talents.  .  .  , 


*  In  the  passage  referred  to,  Lyell  does  not  give  his  own  views,  but 
those  of  a  planter. 


i845.]  *  COSMOS.'  311 

C.  Darwin  to  J*  D,  Hooker, 

Shrewsbury  [1845  ?]. 
My  dear  Hooker, — I  have  just  received  your  note,  which 
has  astonished  me,  and  has  most  truly  grieved  me.  I  never 
for  one  minute  doubted  of  your  success,  for  I  most  errone- 
ously imagined,  that  merit  was  sure  to  gain  the  day.  I  feel 
most  sure  that  the  day  will  come  soon,  when  those  who  have 
voted  against  you,  if  they  have  any  shame  or  conscience  in 
them,  will  be  ashamed  at  having  allowed  politics  to  blind  their 
eyes  to  your  qualifications,  and  those  qualifications  vouched 
for  by  Humboldt  and  Brown  !  Well,  those  testimonials  must 
be  a  consolation  to  you.  Proh  pudor !  I  am  vexed  and  indig- 
nant by  turns.  I  cannot  even  take  comfort  in  thinking  that 
I  shall  see  more  of  you,  and  extract  more  knowledge  from 
your  well-arranged  stock.  I  am  pleased  to  think,  that  after 
having  read  a  few  of  your  letters,  I  never  once  doubted  the 
position  you  will  ultimately  hold  amongst  European  Botanists. 
I  can  think  about  nothing  else,  otherwise  I  should  like  [to] 
discuss  ^  Cosmos  '  *  with  you.  I  trust  you  will  pay  me  and 
my  wife  a  visit  this  autumn  at  Down.  I  shall  be  at  Down  on 
the  24th,  and  till  then  moving  about. 

My  dear  Hooker,  allow  me  to  call  myself 

Your  very  true  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  C,  LyelL 

October  8th  [1845],  Shrewsbury, 

...  I  have  lately  been  taking  a  little  tour  to  see  a  farm  I 
have  purchased  in  Lincolnshire,!  and  then  to  York,  where  I 

*  A  translation  of  Humboldt's  *  Kosmos.* 

\  He  speaks  of  his  Lincolnshire  farm  in  a  letter  to  Henslow  (July 
4th) : — "  I  have  bought  a  farm  in  Lincolnshire,  and  when  I  go  there  this 
autumn,  I  mean  to  see  what  I  can  do  in  providing  any  cottage  on  my  small 
estate  with  gardens.  It  is  a  hopeless  thing  to  look  to,  but  I  believe  few 
things  would  do  this  country  more  good  in  future  ages  than  the  destruction 


31 


LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1845. 


visited  the  Dean  of  Manchester,"  the  great  maker  of  Hybrids, 
who  gave  me  much  curious  information.  I  also  visited 
Waterton  at  Walton  Hall,  and  was  extremely  amused  with  my 
visit  there.  He  is  an  amusing  strange  fellow ;  at  our  early 
dinner,  our  party  consisted  of  two  Catholic  priests  and  two 
Mulattresses  !  He  is  past  sixty  years  old,  and  the  day  before 
ran  down  and  caught  a  leveret  in  a  turnip-field.  It  is  a  fine 
old  house,  and  the  lake  swarms  with  water-fowl.  I  then  saw 
Chatsworth,  and  was  in  transport  with  the  great  hothouse  ; 
it  is  a  perfect  fragment  of  a  tropical  forest,  and  the  sight 
made  me  think  with  delight  of  old  recollections.  My  little 
ten-day  tour  made  me  feel  wonderfully  strong  at  the  time, 
but  the  good  effects  did  not  last.  My  wife,  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  does  not  get  very  strong,  and  the  children  are  the  hope 
of  the  family,  for  they  are  all  happy,  life,  and  spirits.  I  have 
been  much  interested  with  Sedgwick's  review ;  f  though  I 
find  it  far  from  popular  with  our  scientific  readers.  I  think 
some  few  passages  savour  of  the  dogmatism  of  the  pulpit,  rather 
than  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Professor's  Chair  ;  and  some  of 

the  wit  strikes  me  as  only  worthy  of in  the  *  Quarterly.' 

Nevertheless,  it  is  a  grand  piece  of  argument  against  muta- 
bility of  species,  and  I  read  it  with  fear  and  trembling,  but 
was  well  pleased  to  find  that  I  had  not  overlooked  any  of  the 
arguments,  though  I  had   put    them  to  myself  as  feebly  as 


of  primogeniture,  so  as  to  lessen  the  difference  in  land-wealth,  and  make 
more  small  freeholders.  How  atrociously  unjust  are  the  stamp  laws,  which 
render  it  so  expensive  for  the  poor  man  to  buy  his  quarter  of  an  acre  ;  it 
makes  one's  blood  burn  with  indignation." 

*  Hon.  and  Rev.  W.  Herbert.  The  visit  is  mentioned  in  a  letter  to 
Dr.  Hooker : — **  I  have  been  taking  a  little  tour,  partly  on  business,  and 
visited  the  Dean  of  Manchester,  and  had  very  much  interesting  talk  with 
him  on  hybrids,  sterility,  and  variation,  &c.,  &c.  He  is  full  of  self-gained 
knowledge,  but  knows  surprisingly  little  what  others  have  done  on  the  same 
subjects.  He  is  very  heterodox  on  'species':  not  much  better,  as  most 
naturalists  would  esteem  it,  than  poor  Mr.  Vestiges." 

f  Sedgwick's  review  of  the  *  Vestiges  of  Creation '  in  the  *  Edinburgh 
Review,'  July,  1845. 


1846.]  BOTANY.  313 

milk  and  water.  Have  you  read  *  Cosmos  '  yet  ?  The  Eng- 
lish translation  is  wretched,  and  the  semi-metaphysico-politico 
descriptions  in  the  first  part  are  barely  intelligible ;  but  I 
think  the  volcanic  discussion  well  worth  your  attention,  it  has 
astonished  me  by  its  vigour  and  information.  I  grieve  to  find 
Humboldt  an  adorer  of  Von  Buch,  with  his  classification  of 
volcanos,  craters  of  elevation,  &c.,  &c.,  and  carbonic  acid  gas 
atmosphere.     He  is  indeed  a  wonderful  man. 

I  hope  to  get  home  in  a  fortnight  and  stick  to  my  weary- 
ful  South  America  till  I  finish  it.  I  shall  be  very  anxious  to 
hear  how  you  get  on  from  the  Horners,  but  you  must  not 
think  of  wasting  your  time  by  writing  to  me.  We  shall  miss, 
indeed,  your  visits  to  Down,  and  I  shall  feel  a  lost  man 
in  London  without  my   morning  "house  of   call"  at  Hart 

Street  .  .  . 

Believe  me,  my  dear  Lyell,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  Farnborough,  Kent, 

Thursday,  September,  1846. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  hope  this  letter  will  catch  you  at 
Clifton,  but  I  have  been  prevented  writing  by  being  unwell, 
and  having  had  the  Horners  here  as  visitors,  which,  with  my 
abominable  press-work,  has  fully  occupied  my  time.  It  is, 
indeed,  a  long  time  since  we  wrote  to  each  other;  though,  I 
beg  to  tell  you,  that  I  wrote  last,  but  what  about  I  cannot 
remember,  except,  I  know,  it  was  after  reading  your  last 
numbers,*  and  I  sent  you  a  uniquely  laudatory  epistle,  con- 
sideringit  was  from  a  man  who  hardly  knows  a  Daisy  from 
a  Dandelion  to  a  professed  Botanist.  .  .  . 

I  cannot  remember  what  papers  have  given  me  the  im- 
pression, but  I  have  that,  which  you  state  to  be  the  case, 
firmly  fixed  on  my  mind,  namely,  the  little  chemical  impor- 
tance of  the  soil  to  its  vegetation.     What  a  strong  fact  it  is, 


*  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker's  Antarctic  Botany. 
IS 


3^4 


LIFE   AT   DOWN,     ^TAT.  33-45. 


as  R.  Brown  once  remarked  to  me,  of  certain  plants  being 
calcareous  ones  here,  which  are  not  so  under  a  more  favour- 
able climate  on  the  Continent,  or  the  reverse,  for  I  forget 
which  ;  but  you,  no  doubt,  will  know  to  what  I  refer.  By- 
the-way,  there  are  some  such  cases  in  Herbert's  paper  in  the 
*  Horticultural  Journal.'  *  Have  you  read  it :  it  struck  me  as 
extremely  original,  and  bears  directly  on  your  present  re- 
searches.f  To  a  non-botanist  the  chalk  has  the  most  peculiar 
aspect  of  any  flora  in  England ;  why  will  you  not  come  here 
to  make  your  observations  .^  We  go  to  Southampton,  if  my 
courage  and  stomach  do  not  fail,  for  the  Brit.  Assoc.  (Do 
you  not  consider  it  your  duty  to  be  there  1^  And  why  cannot 
you  come  here  afterward  and  work  ^  .  .  .  . 

The  Monograph  of  the  Cirripedia, 
October  1846  to  October  1854. 

[Writing  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  in  1845,  my  father  says  :  ^^I 
hope  this  next  summer  to  finish  my  South  American  Geology, 
then  to  get  out  a  little  Zoology,  and  hurrah  for  my  species 
work.  ..."  This  passage  serves  to  show  that  he  had  at  this 
time  no  intention  of  making  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  Cir- 
ripedes.  Indeed  it  would  seem  that  his  original  intention 
was,  as  I  learn  from  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker,  merely  to  work  out  one 
special  problem.  This  is  quite  in  keeping  with  the  following 
passage  in  the  Autobiography  :  ^*  When  on  the  coast  of  Chile, 
I  found  a  most  curious  form,  which  burrowed  into  the  shells 
of  Concholepas,  and  which  differed  so  much  from  all  other 
Cirripedes  that  I  had  to  form  a  new  sub-order  for  its  sole 
reception.  .  .  .  To  understand  the  structure  of  my  new  Cir- 
ripede  I  had  to  examine  and  dissect  many  of  the  common 
forms ;  and  this  gradually  led  me  on  to  take  up  the  whole 
group.'*  In  later  years  he  seems  to  have  felt  some  doubt  as  \ 
to  the  value  of  these  eight  years  of  work, — for  instance  when  \ 

*  *  Journal  of  the  Horticultural  Society,'  1846. 

f  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  was  at  this  time  attending  to  polymorphism,  varia- 
bility, &c. 


CIRRIPEDES. 


315 


he  wrote  in  his  Autobiography — "  My  work  was  of  consider- 
able use  to  me,  when  I  had  to  discuss  in  the  ^  Origin  of  Spe- 
cies/ the  principles  of  a  natural  classification.  Nevertheless 
I  doubt  whether  the  work  was  worth  the  consumption  of  so 
much  time."  Yet  I  learn  from  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  that  he  cer- 
tainly recognised  at  the  time  its  value  to  himself  as  system- 
atic training.  Sir  Joseph  writes  to  me  :  "  Your  father  recog- 
nised three  stages  in  his  career  as  a  biologist :  the  mere 
collector  at  Cambridge  ;  the  collector  and  observer  in  the 
Beagle^  and  for  some  years  afterwards ;  and  the  trained  natu- 
ralist after,  and  only  after  the  Cirripede  work.  That  he  was 
a  thinker  all  along  is  true  enough,  and  there  is  a  vast  deal 
in  his  writings  previous  to  the  Cirripedes  that  a  trained  natu- 
ralist could  but  emulate.  .  .  .  He  often  alluded  to  it  as  a 
valued  discipline,  and  added  that  even  the  *  hateful '  work  of 
digging  out  synonyms,  and  of  describing,  not  only  improved 
his  methods  but  opened  his  eyes  to  the  difficulties  and  mer- 
its of  the  works  of  the  dullest  of  cataloguers.  One  result 
was  that  he  would  never  allow  a  depreciatory  remark  to  pass 
unchallenged  on  the  poorest  class  of  scientific  workers,  pro- 
vided that  their  work  was  honest,  and  good  of  its  kind.  I 
have  always  regarded  it  as  one  of  the  finest  traits  of  his 
character, — this  generous  appreciation  of  the  hod-men  of 
science,  and  of  their  labours  .  .  .  and  it  was  monographing 
the  Barnacles  that  brought  it  about.'' 

Professor  Huxley  allows  me  to  quote  his  opinion  as  to  the 
value  of  the  eight  years  given  to  the  Cirripedes : — 

"  In  my  opinion  your  sagacious  father  never  did  a  wiser 
thing  than  when  he  devoted  himself  to  the  years  of  patient 
toil  which  the  Cirripede-book  cost  him. 

''  Like  the  rest  of  us,  he  had  no  proper  training  in  biologi- 
:al  science,  and  it  has  always  struck  me  as  a  remarkable  in- 
stance of  his  scientific  insight,  that  he  saw  the  necessity  of 
jiving  himself  such  training,  and  of  his  courage,  that  he  did 
lot  shirk  the  labour  of  obtaining  it. 

'^  The  great  danger  which  besets  all  men  of  large  specula- 
:ive  faculty,  is  the  temptation  to  deal  with  the  accepted  state- 


3i6  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.    33-45. 

ments  of  facts  in  natural  science,  as  if  they  were  not  only 
correct,  but  exhaustive ;  as  if  they  might  be  dealt  with  de- 
ductively, in  the  same  way  as  propositions  in  Euclid  may  be 
dealt  with.  In  reality,  every  such  statement,  however  true  it 
may  be,  is  true  only  relatively  to  the  means  of  observation 
and  the  point  of  view  of  those  who  have  enunciated  it.  So 
far  it  may  be  depended  upon.  But  whether  it  will  bear  every 
speculative  conclusion  that  may  be  logically  deduced  from  it, 
is  quite  another  question. 

"  Your  father  was  building  a  vast  superstructure  upon  the 
foundations  furnished  by  the  recognised  facts  of  geological 
and  biological  science.  In  Physical  Geography,  in  Geology 
proper,  in  Geographical  Distribution,  and  in  Palaeontology, 
he  had  acquired  an  extensive  practical  training  during  the 
voyage  of  the  Beagle.  He  knew  of  his  own  knowledge  the 
way  in  which  the  raw  materials  of  these  branches  of  science 
are  acquired,  and  was  therefore  a  most  competent  judge  of 
the  speculative  strain  they  would  bear.  That  which  he 
needed,  after  his  return  to  England,  was  a  corresponding 
acquaintance  with  Anatomy  and  Development,  and  their  rela- 
tion to  Taxonomy— and  he  acquired  this  by  his  Cirripede 
work. 

"  Thus,  in  my  apprehension,  the  value  of  the  Cirripede 
monograph  lies  not  merely  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  very  admi- 
rable piece  of  work,  and  constituted  a  great  addition  to  posi- 
tive knowledge,  but  still  more  in  the  circumstance  that  it  was 
a  piece  of  critical  self-discipline,  the  effect  of  which  mani- 
fested itself  in  everything  your  father  wrote  afterwards,  and 
saved  him  from  endless  errors  of  detail. 

'*  So  far  from  such  work  being  a  loss  of  time,  I  believe 
it  would  have  been  well  worth  his  while,  had  it  been  practi- 
cable, to  have  supplemented  it  by  a  special  study  of  em- 
bryology and  physiology.  His  hands  would  have  been  greatly 
strengthened  thereby  when  he  came  to  write  out  sundry 
chapters  of  the  *  Origin  of  Species.'  But  of  course  in  those 
days  it  was  almost  impossible  for  him  to  find  facilities  for  such 
work." 


CIRRIPEDES.  ^J7 

No  one  can  look  at  the  two  volumes  on  the  recent  Cirri- 
pedes,  of  399  and  684  pages  respectively  (not  to  speak  of  the 
volumes  on  the  fossil  species),  without  being  struck  by  the 
immense  amount  of  detailed  work  which  they  contain.  The 
forty  plates,  some  of  them  with  thirty  figures,  and  the  four- 
teen pages  of  index  in  the  two  volumes  together,  give  some 
rough  idea  of  the  labour  spent  on  the  work.*  The  state  of 
knowledge,  as  regards  the  Cirripedes,  was  most  unsatisfactory 
at  the  time  that  my  father  began  to  work  at  them.  As  an 
illustration  of  this  fact,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  he  had 
even  to  re-organise  the  nomenclature  of  the  group,  or,  as  he 
expressed  it,  he  *^  unwillingly  found  it  indispensable  to  give 
names  to  several  valves,  and  to  some  few  of  the  softer  parts 
of  Cirripedes."  f  It  is  interesting  to  learn  from  his  diary  the 
amount  of  time  which  he  gave  to  different  genera.  Thus 
the  genus  Chthamalus,  the  description  of  which  occupies 
twenty-two  pages,  occupied  him  for  thirty-six  days  ;  Coro- 
nula  took  nineteen  days,  and  is  described  in  twenty-seven 
pages.  Writing  to  Fitz-Roy,  he  speaks  of  being  "for  the 
last  half-month  daily  hard  at  work,  in  dissecting  a  little  ani- 
mal about  the  size  of  a  pin*s  head,  from  the  Chonos  archi- 
pelago, and  I  could  spend  another  month,  and  daily  see  more 
beautiful  structure.*' 

Though  he  became  excessively  weary  of  the  work  before 
the  end  of  the  eight  years,  he  had  much  keen  enjoyment  in 
the  course  of  it.  Thus  he  wrote  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  (1847  ?)  • 
— "  As  you  say,  there  is  an  extraordinary  pleasure  in  pure 
observation  ;  not  but  what  I  suspect  the  pleasure  in  this  case 
is  rather  derived  from  comparisons  forming  in  one's  mind 
with  allied  structures.  After  having  been  so  long  employed 
in  waiting  my  old  geological  observations,  it  is  delightful  to 
use  one's  eyes  and  fingers  again."     It  was,  in  fact,  a  return  to 

*  The  reader  unacquainted  with  Zoology  will  find  some  account  of  the 
more  interesting  results  in  Mr.  Romane's  article  on  **  Charles  Darwin" 
('Nature'  Series,  1882). 

f  Vol.  i.  p.  3. 


3i8  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     .^TAT.  33-45. 

the  work  which  occupied  so  much  of  his  time  when  at  sea 
during  his  voyage.  His  zoological  notes  of  that  period  give 
an  impression  of  vigorous  work,  hampered  by  ignorance  and 
want  of  appliances  ;  and  his  untiring  industry  in  the  dissec- 
tion of  marine  animals,  especially  of  Crustacea,  must  have 
been  of  value  to  him  as  training  for  his  Cirripede  work. 
Most  of  his  work  was  done  with  the  simple  dissecting  micro- 
scope— but  it  was  the  need  which  he  found  for  higher  powers 
that  induced  him,  in  1846,  to  buy  a  compound  microscope. 
He  wrote  to  Hooker  : — ^*  When  I  was  drawing  with  L.,  I 
was  so  delighted  with  the  appearance  of  the  objects,  especially 
with  their  perspective,  as  seen  through  the  weak  powers  of  a 
good  compound  microscope,  that  I  am  going  to  order  one ; 
indeed,  I  often  have  structures  in  which  the  ^^  is  not  power 
enough." 

During  part  of  the  time  covered  by  the  present  chapter, 
my  father  suffered  perhaps  more  from  ill-health  than  at  any 
other  time  of  his  life.  He  felt  severely  the  depressing  influ- 
ence of  these  long  years  of  illness  ;  thus  as  early  as  1840  he 
wrote  to  Fox  :  ^*  I  am  grown  a  dull,  old,  spiritless  dog  to  what 
I  used  to  be.  One  gets  stupider  as  one  grows  older  I  think.*' 
It  is  not  wonderful  that  he  should  so  have  written,  it  is  rather 
to  be  wondered  at  that  his  spirit  withstood  so  great  and 
constant  a  strain.  He  wrote  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  in  1845  : 
"  You  are  very  kind  in  your  enquiries  about  my  health  ;  I 
have  nothing  to  say  about  it,  being  always  much  the  same, 
some  days  better  and  some  worse.  I  believe  I  have  not 
had  one  whole  day,  or  rather  night,  without  my  stomach 
having  been  greatly  disordered,  during  the  last  three  years, 
and  most  days  great  prostration  of  strength  :  thank  you  for 
your  kindness;  many  of  my  friends,  I  believe,  think  me  a 
hypochondriac." 

Again,  in  1849,  ^e  notes  in  his  diary: — "January  ist  to 
March  loth. — Health  very  bad,  with  much  sickness  and  fail- 
ure of  power.  Worked  on  all  well  days."  This  was  written 
just  before  his  first  visit  to  Dr.  Gully's  Water-Cure  Establish- 
ment  at  Malvern.     In  April  of  the  same  year  he  wrote  :— "I 


1846.]  BRITISH   ASSOCIATION. 


319 


believe  I  am  going  on  very  well,  but  I  am  rather  weary  of  my 
present  inactive  life,  and  the  water-cure  has  the  most  extra- 
ordinary effect  in  producing  indolence  and  stagnation  of 
mind  :  till  experiencing  it,  I  could  not  have  believed  it  possi- 
ble. I  now  increase  in  weight,  have  escaped  sickness  for 
thirty  days/*  He  returned  in  June,  after  sixteen  weeks'  ab- 
sence, much  improved  in  health,  and,  as  already  described  (p. 
108),  continued  the  water-cure  at  home  for  some  time.] 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down  [October,  1846]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  have  not  heard  from  Sulivan  * 
lately  ;  when  he  last  wrote  he  named  from  8th  to  loth  as  the 
most  likely  time.  Immediately  that  I  hear,  I  will  fly  you  a 
line,  for  the  chance  of  your  being  able  to  come.  I  forget 
whether  you  know  him,  but  I  suppose  so  ;  he  is  a  real  good 
fellow.  Anyhow,  if  you  do  not  come  then,  I  am  very  glad 
that  you  propose  coming  soon  after.  .  .  . 

I  am  going  to  begin  some  papers  on  the  lower  marine 
animals,  which  will  last  me  some  months,  perhaps  a  year,  and 
then  I  shall  begin  looking  over  my  ten-year-long  accumu- 
lation of  notes  on  species  and  varieties,  which,  with  writ- 
ing, I  dare  say  will  take  me  five  years,  and  then,  when  pub- 
lished, I  dare  say  I  shall  stand  infinitely  low  in  the  opinion 
of  all  sound  Naturalists — so  this  is  my  prospect  for  the  fu- 
ture. 

Are  you  a  good  hand  at  inventing  names.  I  have  a  quite 
new  and  curious  genus  of  Barnacle,  which  I  want  to  name, 
and  how  to  invent  a  name  completely  puzzles  me. 

By  the  way,  I  have  told  you  nothing  about  Southampton. 
We  enjoyed  (wife  and  myself)  our  week  beyond  measure  : 
the  papers  were  all  dull,  but  I  met  so  many  friends  and 
made  so  many  new  acquaintances  (especially  some  of  the 
Irish  Naturalists),  and  took  so  many  pleasant  excursions.     I 

*  Admiral  Sir  B.  J.  Sulivan,  formerly  an  officer  of  the  Beagle. 


320  LIFE    AT    DOWN.     ^TAT,    33-45.  [1847. 

wish  you  had  been  there.  On  Sunday  we  had  so  pleasant  an 
excursion  to  Winchester  with  Falconer,*  Colonel  Sabine,t  and 
Dr.  Robinson, J  and  others.  I  never  enjoyed  a  day  more  in 
my  life.  I  missed  having  a  look  at  H.  Watson.*  I  suppose 
you  heard  that  he  met  Forbes  and  told  him  he  had  a  severe 
article  in  the  Press.  I  understood  that  Forbes  explained  to 
him  that  he  had  no  cause  to  complain,  but  as  the  article  was 
printed,  he  would  not  withdraw  it,  but  offered  it  to  Forbes 
for  him  to  append  notes  to  it,  which  Forbes  naturally  de- 
clined. ... 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  April  7th  [1847  ?]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  should  have  written  before  now, 
had  I  not  been  almost  continually  unwell,  and  at  present  I  am 
suffering  from  four  boils  and  swellings,  one  of  which  hardly 
allows  me  the  use  of  my  right  arm,  and  has  stopped  all  my 
work,  and  damped  all  my  spirits.  I  was  much  disappointed 
at  missing  my  trip  to  Kew,  and  the  more  so,  as  I  had  forgotten 
you  would  be  away  all  this  month  ;  but  I  had  no  choice,  and 
was  in  bed  nearly  all  Friday  and  Saturday.     I  congratulate 

*  Hugh  Falconer,  born  1809,  died  1865.  Chiefly  known  as  a  palaeontol- 
ogist, although  employed  as  a  botanist  during  his  whole  career  m  India, 
where  he  was  also  a  medical  officer  in  H.  E.  I.  C.  Service  ;  he  was  super- 
intendent of  the  Company's  garden,  first  at  Saharunpore,  and  then  at  Cal- 
cutta. He  was  one  of  the  first  botanical  explorers  of  Kashmir.  Falconer's 
discoveries  of  Miocene  mammalian  remains  in  the  Sewalik  Hills,  were,  at 
the  time,  perhaps  the  greatest  "finds"  which  had  been  made.  His  book 
on  the  subject,  *  Fauna  Antiqua  Sivalensis,*  remained  unfinished  at  the 
time  of  his  death. 

f  The  late  Sir  Edward  Sabine,  formerly  President  of  the  Royal  Society, 
and  author  of  a  long  series  of  memoirs  on  Terrestrial  Magnetism. 

%  The  late  Dr.  Thomas  Romney  Robinson,  of  the  Armagh  Observa- 
tory. 

*  The  late  Hewett  Cottrell  Watson,  author  of  the  *Cybele  Britannica,* 
one  of  a  most  valuable  series  of  works  on  the  topography  and  geographical 
distribution  of  the  plants  of  the  British  Islands. 


1847.]  THE  POCKET   ALMANACK.  321 

you  over  your  improved  prospects  about  India,*  but  at  the 
same  time  must  sincerely  groan  over  it.  I  shall  feel  quite  lost 
without  you  to  discuss  many  points  with,  and  to  point  out 
(ill-luck  to  you)  difficulties  and  objections  to  my  species  hy- 
potheses. It  will  be  a  horrid  shame  if  money  stops  your  expe- 
dition ;  but  Government  will  surely  help  you  to  some  extent. 
.  .  .  Your  present  trip,  with  your  new  views,  amongst  the 
coal-plants,  will  be  very  interesting.  If  you  have  spare  time, 
but  not  without^  I  should  enjoy  having  some  news  of  your 
progress.  Your  present  trip  will  work  well  in,  if  you  go  to 
any  of  the  coal  districts  in  India.  Would  this  not  be  a  good 
object  to  parade  before  Government;  the  utilitarian  souls 
would  comprehend  this.  By  the  way,  I  will  get  some  work 
out  of  you,  about  the  domestic  races  of  animals  in  India.  .  .  . 

C,  Dai'win  to  L.  Jenyns  {Blomejield), 

Down  [1847J. 

Dear  Jenyns, — I  am  very  much  obliged  for  the  capital 
little  Almanack  ;  f  it  so  happened  that  I  was  wishing  for  one 
to  keep  in  my  portfolio.  I  had  never  seen  this  kind  before, 
and  shall  certainly  get  one  for  the  future.  I  think  it  is  very 
amusing  to  have  a  list  before  one's  eyes  of  the  order  of  ap- 

*  Sir  J.  Hooker  left  England  on  November  11,  1847,  for  his  Hima- 
layan and  Tibetan  journey.  The  expedition  was  supported  by  a  small 
grant  from  the  Treasury,  and  thus  assumed  the  character  of  a  Government 
mission. 

f  "  This  letter  relates  to  a  small  Almanack  first  published  in  1843, 
under  the  name  of  *  The  Naturalists'  Pocket  Almanack,'  by  Mr.  Van 
Voorst,  and  which  I  edited  for  him.  It  was  intended  especially  for  those 
who  interest  themselves  in  the  periodic  phenomena  of  animals  and  plants, 
of  which  a  select  list  was  given  under  each  month  of  the  year. 

"  The  Pocket  Almanack  contained,  moreover,  miscellaneous  informa- 
tion relating  to  Zoology  and  Botany  ;  to  Natural  History  and  other  scien- 
tific societies  ;  to  public  Museums  and  Gardens,  in  addition  to  the  ordi- 
nary celestial  phenomena  found  in  most  other  Almanacks.  It  continued 
to  be  issued  till  1847,  after  which  year  the  publication  was  abandoned." — 
From  a  letter  from  Rev.  L.  Blomefield  to  F.  Darwin, 


322 


LIFE   AT    DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1847. 


pearance  of  the  plants  and  animals  around  one  ;  it  gives  a 
fresh  interest  to  each  fine  day.  There  is  one  point  1  should 
like  to  see  a  little  improved,  viz.,  the  correction  for  the  clock 
at  shorter  intervals.  Most  people,  I  suspect,  who  like  myself 
have  dials,  will  wish  to  be  more  precise  than  with  a  margin 
of  three  minutes.  I  always  buy  a  shilling  almanack  for  this 
sole  end.  By  the  way,  yours^  /.  <?.,  Van  Voorst's  Almanack,  is 
very  dear  ;  it  ought,  at  least,  to  be  advertised  post-free  for 
the  shilling.  Do  you  not  think  a  table  (not  rules)  of  conver- 
sion of  French  into  English  measures,  and  perhaps  weights, 
would  be  exceedingly  useful  ;  also  centigrade  into  Fahren- 
heit,— magnifying  powers  according  to  focal  distances.^ — in 
fact  you  might  make  it  the  most  useful  publication  of  the  age. 
I  know  what  I  should  like  best  of  all,  namely,  current  meteo- 
rological remarks  for  each  month,  with  statement  of  average 
course  of  winds  and  prediction  of  weather,  in  accordance 
with  movements  of  barometer.  People,  I  think,  are  always 
amused  at  knowing  the  extremes  and  means  of  temperature 
for  corresponding  times  in  other  years. 

I  hope  you  will  go  on  with  it  another  year.  With  many 
thanks,  my  dear  Jenyns, 

Yours  very  truly, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin    to  J,  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  Sunday  [April  i8th,  1847]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  return  with  many  thanks  Watson's 
letter,  which  I  have  had  copied.  It  is  a  capital  one,  and  I  am 
extremely  obliged  to  you  for  obtaining  me  such  valuable 
information.  Surely  he  is  rather  in  a  hurry  when  he  says 
intermediate  varieties  must  almost  be  necessarily  rare,  other- 
wise they  would  be  taken  as  the  types  of  the  species ;  for  he 
overlooks  numerical  frequency  as  an  element.  Surely  if  A, 
B,  C  were  three  varieties,  and  if  A  were  a  good  deal  the  com- 
monest (therefore,  also,  first  known),  it  would  be  taken  as  the 
type,  without  regarding  whether  B  was  quite  intermediate  or 
not,  or  whether  it  was  rare  or  not.     What  capital  essays  W. 


i 


1847]  H-    C.    WATSON.  323 

would  write  ;  but  I  suppose  he  has  written  a  good  deal  in 
the  *  Phytologist.'  You  ought  to  encourage  him  to  publish 
on  variation  ;  it  is  a  shame  that  such  facts  as  those  in  his  let- 
ter should  remain  unpublished.  I  must  get  you  to  introduce 
me  to  him  ;  would  he  be  a  good  and  sociable  man  for  Drop- 
more  ?  *  though  if  he  comes,  Forbes  must  not  (and  I  think 
you  talked  of  inviting  Forbes),  or  we  shall  have  a  glorious  bat- 
tle. I  should  like  to  see  sometime  the  war  correspondence. 
Have  you  the  *  Phytologist,*  and  could  you  sometime  spare  it ; 
I  would  go  through  it  quickly.  ...  I  have  read  your  last  five 
numbers,!  and  as  usual  have  been  much  interested  in  several 
points,  especially  with  your  discussions  on  the  beech  and 
potato.  I  see  you  have  introduced  several  sentences  against 
us  Transmutationists.  I  have  also  been  looking  through  the 
latter  volumes  of  the  *  Annals  of  Natural  History,'  and  have 

read  two  such  soulless,  pompous  papers  of ,  quite  worthy 

of  the  author  ....  The  contrast  of  the  papers  in  the  Ajmals 
with  those  in  the  Annales  is  rather  humiliating  ;  so  many 
papers  in  the  former,  with  short  descriptions  of  species,  with- 
out one  word  on  their  affinities,  internal  structure,  range  or 

habits.     I  am  now  reading ,  and  I  have  picked  out  some 

things  which  have  interested  me ;  but  he  strikes  me  as  rather 
dullish,  and  with  all  his  Materia  Medica  smells  of  the  doctor's 
shop.  I  shall  ever  hate  the  name  of  the  Materia  Medica, 
since  hearing  Duncan's  lectures  at  eight  o'clock  on  a  winter's 
morning — a  whole,  cold,  breakfastless  hour  on  the  properties 
of  rhubarb  ! 

I  hope  your  journey  will  be  very  prosperous.     Believe  me, 

my  dear  Hooker, 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.S. — I  think  I  have  only  made  one  new  acquaintance 
of  late,  that  is,  R.  Chambers  ;  and  I  have  just  received  a 


*  A  much  enjoyed  expedition  made  from  Oxford — when   the  British 
Association  met  there  in  1847. 

f  Of  the  Botany  of  Hooker's  *  Antarctic  Voyage.' 


324 


LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  3345.  [1847. 


presentation  copy  of  the  sixth  edition  of  the  '  Vestiges.'  Some- 
how I  now  feel  perfectly  convinced  he  is  the  author.  He  is 
in  France,  and  has  written  to  me  thence. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D,  Hooker. 

Down  [1847  ^]- 

...  I  am  delighted  to  hear  that  Brongniart  thought 
Sigillaria  aquatic,  and  that  Binney  considers  coal  a  sort  of 
submarine  peat.  I  would  bet  5  to  t  that  in  twenty  years  this 
will  be  generally  admitted ;  *  and  I  do  not  care  for  whatever 
the  botanical  difficulties  or  impossibilities  may  be.  If  I  could 
but  persuade  myself  that  Sigillaria  and  Co.  had  a  good  range 
of  depth,  /.  <f.,  could  live  from  5  to  100  fathoms  under  water, 
all  difficulties  of  nearly  all  kinds  would  be  removed  (for  the 
simple  fact  of  muddy  ordinary  shallow  sea  implies  proximity 
of  land).  [N.B. — I  am  chuckling  to  think  how  you  are 
sneering  all  this  time.]  It  is  not  much  of  a  difficulty,  there  not 
being  shells  with  the  coal,  considering  how  unfavourable  deep 
mud  is  for  most  Mollusca,  and  that  shells  would  probably 
decay  from  the  humic  acid,  as  seems  to  take  place  in  peat 
and  in  the  black  moulds  (as  Lyell  tells  me)  of  the  Mississippi. 
So  coal  question  settled — Q.  E.  D.     Sneer  away  ! 

Many  thanks  for  your  welcome  note  from  Cambridge,  and 
I  am  glad  you  like  my  alma  mater.,  which  I  despise  heartily 
as  a  place  of  education,  but  love  from  many  most  pleasant 
recollections.  .  .  . 

Thanks  for  your  offer  of  the  *  Phytologist ;  *  I  shall  be 
very  much  obliged  for  it,  for  I  do  not  suppose  I  should  be 
able  to  borrow  it  from  any  other  quarter.  I  will  not  be  set 
up  too  much  by  your  praise,  but  I  do  not  believe  I  ever  lost 
a  book  or  forgot  to  return  it  during  a  long  lapse  of  time. 
Your  ^  Webb  '  is  well  wrapped  up,  and  with  your  name  in 
large  letters  outside. 

My  new  microscope   is    come   home  (a  ^*  splendid  play- 


I 


*  An  unfulfilled  prophecy. 


1847]  COAL.  325 

thing,"  as  old  R.  Brown  called  it),  and  I  am  delighted  with 
it ;  it  really  is  a  splendid  plaything.  I  have  been  in  London 
for  three  days,  and  saw  many  of  our  friends.  I  was  ex- 
tremely sorry  to  hear  a  not  very  good  account  of  Sir  William. 
Farewell,  my  dear  Hooker,  and  be  a  good  boy,  and  make 

Sigillaria  a  submarine  sea-weed. 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D,  Hooker, 

Down  [May  6th,  1847]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — You  have  made  a  savage  onslaught, 
and  I  must  try  to  defend  myself.  But,  first,  let  me  say  that 
I  never  write  to  you  except  for  my  own  good  pleasure  ;  now 
I  fear  that  you  answer  me  when  busy  and  without  inclination 
(and  I  am  sure  I  should  have  none  if  I  was  as  busy  as  you). 
Pray  do  not  do  so,  and  if  I  thought  my  wTiting  entailed  an 
answer  from  you  nolens  volens^  it  would  destroy  all  my  pleas- 
ure in  writing.  Firstly,  I  did  not  consider  my  letter  as 
reasonings  or  even  as  speculation^  but  simply  as  mental  rioting; 
and  as  I  w^as  sending  Binney*s  paper,  I  poured  out  to  you  the 
result  of  reading  it.  Secondly,  you  are  right,  indeed,  in 
thinking  me  mad,  if  you  suppose  that  I  would  class  any  ferns 
as  marine  plants  ;  but  surely  there  is  a  wide  distinction  be- 
tween the  plants  found  upright  in  the  coal-beds  and  those 
not  upright,  and  which  might  have  been  drifted.  Is  it  not 
possible  that  the  same  circumstances  which  have  preserved 
the  vegetation  in  sitUy  should  have  preserved  drifted  plants  ? 
I  know  Calamites  is  found  upright ;  but  I  fancied  its  affini- 
ties were  very  obscure,  like  Sigillaria.  As  for  Lepidoden- 
dron,  I  forgot  its  existence,  as  happens  when  one  goes  riot, 
and  now  know  neither  what  it  is,  or  whether  upright.  If 
these  plants,  /.  e,  Calamites  and  Lepidodendron,  have  very 
clear  relations  to  terrestrial  vegetables,  like  the  ferns  have, 
and  are  found  upright  in  situ,  of  course  I  must  give  up  the 
ghost.  But  surely  Sigillaria  is  the  main  upright  plant,  and 
on  its  obscure  affinities  I  have  heard  you  enlarge. 


326  LIFE   AT    DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45-  [1S47. 

Thirdly,  it  never  entered  my  head  to  undervalue  botanical 
relatively  to  zoological  evidence  ;  except  in  so  far  as  I  thought 
it  was  admitted  that  the  vegetative  structure  seldom  yielded 
any  evidence  of  affinity  nearer  than  that  of  families,  and  not 
always  so  much.  And  is  it  not  in  plants,  as  certainly  it  is  in 
animals,  dangerous  to  judge  of  habits  without  very  near 
affinity.  Could  a  Botanist  tell  from  structure  alone  that  the 
Mangrove  family,  almost  or  quite  alone  in  Dicotyledons, 
could  live  in  the  sea,  and  the  Zostera  family  almost  alone 
among  the  Monocotyledons  1  Is  it  a  safe  argument,  that  be- 
cause algae  are  almost  the  only,  or  the  only  submerged  sea- 
plants,  that  formerly  other  groups  had  not  members  with 
such  habits.^  With  animals  such  an  argument  would  not  be 
conclusive,  as  I  could  illustrate  by  many  examples  ;  but  I  am 
forgetting  myself  ;  I  want  only  to  some  degree  to  defend  my- 
self, and  not  burn  my  fingers  by  attacking  you.  The  founda- 
tion of  my  letter,  and  what  is  my  deliberate  opinion,  though  I 
dare  say  you  will  think  it  absurd,  is  that  I  would  rather  trust, 
c ceteris  paribus^  pure  geological  evidence  than  either  zoological 
or  botanical  evidence.  I  do  not  say  that  I  would  sooner  trust 
poor  geological  evidence  than  good  organic.  I  think  the  basis 
of  pure  geological  reasoning  is  simpler  (consisting  chiefly  of 
the  action  of  water  on  the  crust  of  the  earth,  and  its  up  and 
down  movements)  than  a  basis  drawn  from  the  difficult  sub- 
ject of  affinities  and  of  structure  in  relation  to  habits.  I  can 
hardly  analyze  the  facts  on  which  I  have  come  to  this  con- 
clusion ;  but  I  can  illustrate  it.  Pallas's  account  would  lead 
any  one  to  suppose  that  the  Siberian  strata,  with  the  frozen 
carcasses,  had  been  quickly  deposited,  and  hence  that  the 
embedded  animals  had  lived  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  but  our 
zoological  knowledge  of  thirty  years  ago  led  every  one  falsely 
to  reject  this  conclusion. 

Tell  me  that  an  upright  fern  in  situ  occurs  with  Sigillaria 
and  Stigmaria,  or  that  the  affinities  of  Calamites  and  Lepido- 
dendron  (supposing  that  they  are  found  in  situ  with  Sigillaria) 
are  so  clear^  that  they  could  not  have  been  marine,  like,  but 
in  a  greater  degree,  than  the  mangrove  and  sea- wrack,  and  I 


1847]  COAL.  '^2y 

will  humbly  apologise  to  you  and  all  Botanists  for  having  let 
my  mind  run  riot  on  a  subject  on  which  assuredly  I  know 
nothing.  But  till  I  hear  this,  I  shall  keep  privately  to  my 
own  opinion  with  the  same  pertinacity  and,  as  you  will  think, 
with  the  same  philosophical  spirit  with  which  Koenig  main- 
tains that  Cheirotherium-footsteps  are  fuci. 

Whether  this  letter  will  sink  me  still  lower  in  your  opinion, 
or  put  me  a  little  right,  I  know  not,  but  hope  the  latter.  Any- 
how, I  have  revenged  myself  with  boring  you  with  a  very  long 
epistle.     Farewell,  and  be  forgiving.     Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.S. — When  will  you  return  to  Kew  ?  I  have  forgotten 
one  main  object  of  my  letter,  to  thank  you  much  for  your 
offer  of  the  *  Hort.  Journal,'  but  I  have  ordered  the  two 
numbers. 

[The  two  following  extracts  [1847]  give  the  continuation 
and  conclusion  of  the  coal  battle. 

"  By  the  way,  as  submarine  coal  made  you  so  wrath,  I 
thought  I  would  experimentise  on  Falconer  and  Bunbury* 
together,  and  it  made  [them]  even  more  savage  ;  ^  such  infer- 
nal nonsense  ought  to  be  thrashed  out  of  me.'  Bunbury  was 
more  polite  and  contemptuous.  So  I  now  know  how  to  stir 
up  and  show  off  any  Botanist.  I  wonder  whether  Zoologists 
and  Geologists  have  got  their  tender  points  ;  I  wish  I  could 
find  out." 

"  I  cannot  resist  thanking  you  for  your  most  kind  note. 
Pray  do  not  think  that  I  was  annoyed  by  your  letter  :  I  per- 
ceived that  you  had  been  thinking  with  animation,  and  ac- 
cordingly expressed  yourself  strongly,  and  so  I  understood  it. 
Forfend  me  from  a  man  who  weighs  every  expression  with 
Scotch  prudence.  I  heartily  wish  you  all  success  in  your 
noble  problem,  and  I  shall  be  very  curious  to  have  some  talk 
with  you  and  hear  your  ultimatum."] 


*  The  late  Sir  C.  Bunbury,  well  known  as  a  palseobotanist. 


328  LIFE   AT    DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45-  [1847. 

C.  Darwin  to  /.  D,  Hooker* 

Down  [October,  1847]. 

I  congratulate  you  heartily  on  your  arrangements  being 
completed,  with  some  prospect  for  the  future.  It  will  be  a 
noble  voyage  and  journey,  but  I  wish  it  was  over,  I  shall  miss 
you  selfishly  and  all  ways  to  a  dreadful  extent  ...  I  am  in 
great  perplexity  how  we  are  to  meet  ...  I  can  well  under- 
stand how  dreadfully  busy  you  must  be.  If  you  cannot  come 
here,  you  must  let  me  come  to  you  for  a  night ;  for  I  must 
have  one  more  chat  and  one  more  quarrel  with  you  over  the 
coal. 

By  the  way,  I  endeavoured  to  stir  up  Lyell  (who  has  been 
staying  here  some  days  with  me)  to  theorise  on  the  coal :  his 
oolitic  upright  Equisetums  are  dreadful  for  my  submarine 
flora.  I  should  die  much  easier  if  some  one  would  solve  me 
the  coal  question.  I  sometimes  think  it  could  not  have  been 
formed  at  all.  Old  Sir  Anthony  Carlisle  once  said  to  me 
gravely,  that  he  supposed  Megatherium  and  such  cattle  were 
just  sent  down  from  heaven  to  see  whether  the  earth  would 
support  them ;  and  I  suppose  the  coal  was  rained  down  to 
puzzle  mortals.     You  must  work  the  coal  well  in  India. 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

[November  6th,  1847.] 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  have  just  received  your  note  with 
sincere  grief  :  there  is  no  help  for  it.  I  shall  always  look  at 
your  intention  of  coming  here,  under  such  circumstances,  as 
the  greatest  proof  of  friendship  I  ever  received  from  mortal 
man.  My  conscience  would  have  upbraided  me  in  not  hav- 
ing come  to  you  on  Thursday,  but,  as  it  turned  out,  I  could 
not,  for  I  was  quite  unable  to  leave  Shrewsbury  before  that 


*  Parts  of  two  letters. 


i847.]  GLEN    ROY.  329 

day,  and  I  reached  home  only  last  night,  much  knocked  up. 
Without  I  hear  to-morrow  (which  is  hardly  possible),  and  if 
I  am  feeling  pretty  well,  I  will  drive  over  to  Kew  on  Monday 
morning,  just  to  say  farewell.     I  will  stay  only  an  hour.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

[November,  1847.] 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  am  very  unwell,  and  incapable  of 
doing  anything.  I  do  hope  I  have  not  inconvenienced  you. 
I  was  so  unwell  all  yesterday,  that  I  was  rejoicing  you  were 
not  here ;  for  it  would  have  been  a  bitter  mortification  to  me 
to  have  had  you  here  and  not  enjoyed  your  last  day.  I 
shall  not  now  see  you.     Farewell,  and  God  bless  you. 

Your  affectionate  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 
I  will  write  to  you  in  India. 

[In  1847  appeared  a  paper  by  Mr.  D.  Milne,*  in  which 
my  father's  Glen  Roy  work  is  criticised,  and  which  is  referred 
to  in  the  following  characteristic  extract  from  a  letter  to  Sir 
J.  Hooker :]  "  I  have  been  bad  enough  for  these  few  last  days, 
having  had  to  think  and  write  too  much  about  Glen  Roy.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Milne  having  attacked  my  theory,  which  made  me  horri- 
bly sick."  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  published  reply 
to  Mr.  Milne,  so  that  I  imagine  the  ^Svriting"  mentioned  was 
confined  to  letters.  Mr.  Milne's  paper  was  not  destructive 
to  the  Glen  Roy  paper,  and  this  my  father  recognises  in  the 
following  extract  from  a  letter  to  Lyell  (March,  1847).  The 
reference  to  Chambers  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  he  ac- 
companied Mr.  Milne  in  his  visit  to  Glen  Roy.  "  I  got  R. 
Chambers  to  give  me  a  sketch  of  Milne's  Glen  Roy  views, 
and  I  have  re-read  my  paper,  and  am,  now  that  I  have  heard 
what  is  to  be  said,  not  even  staggered.  It  is  provoking  and 
humiliating  to  find   that   Chambers  not    only  had  not  read 

*  Now  Mr.  Milne  Home.     The  essay  was  published  in  Transactions 
of  the  Edinburgh  Royal  Society,  vol.  xvi. 


330 


LIFE   AT   DOWN.     .ETAT.  33-45.  [1847. 


with  any  care  my  paper  on  this  subject,  or  even  looked  at  the 
coloured  map,  so  that  the  new  shelf  described  by  me  had  not 
been  searched  for,  and  my  arguments  and  facts  of  detail  not 
in  the  least  attended  to.  I  entirely  gave  up  the  ghost,  and 
was  quite  chicken-hearted  at  the  Geological  Society,  till  you 
reassured  and  reminded  me  of  the  main  facts  in  the  whole 


case. 


The  two  following  letters  to  Lyell,  though  of  later  date 
(June,  1848),  bear  on  the  same  subject : — 

*^  I  was  at  the  evening  meeting  [of  the  Geological  Society], 
but  did  not  get  within  hail  of  you.     What  a  fool  (though  I 

must  say  a  very  amusing  one)  did  make  of  himself. 

Your  speech  was  refreshing  after  it,  and  was  well  characterized 
by  Fox  (my  cousin)  in  three  words — '  What  a  contrast !  *  That 
struck  me  as  a  capital  speculation  about  the  Wealden  Conti- 
nent going  down.  I  did  not  hear  what  you  settled  at  the 
Council;  I  was  quite  wearied  out  and  bewildered.  I  find  Smith, 
of  Jordan  Hill,  has  a  much  worse  opinion  of  R.  Chambers's 
book  than  even  I  have.  Chambers  has  piqued  me  a  little  ;  * 
he  says  I  ^  propound  '  and  ^  profess  my  belief '  that  Glen  Roy 
is  marine,  and  that  the  idea  was  accepted  because  the  *  mo- 
bility of  the  land  was  the  ascendant  idea  of  the  day.'  He 
adds  some  very  faint  upper  lines  in  Glen  Spean  (seen,  by  the 
way,  by  Agassiz),  and  has  shown  that  Milne  and  Kemp  are 
right  in  there  being  horizontal  aqueous  markings  {no^  at  co- 
incident levels  with  those  of  Glen  Roy)  in  other  parts  of 
Scotland  at  great  heights,  and  he  adds  several  other  cases. 
This  is  the  whole  of  his  addition  to  the  data.  He  not  only 
takes  my  line  of  argument  from  the  buttresses  and  terraces 
below  the  lower  shelf  and  some  other  arguments  (without 
acknowledgment),  but  he  sneers  at  all  his  predecessors  not 
having  perceived  the  importance  of  the  short  portions  of  lines 
intermediate  between  the  chief  ones  in  Glen  Roy;  whereas 

*  '  Ancient  Sea  Margins,  1848.'     The  words  quoted  by  my  father  should 
be  "  the  mobility  of  the  land  was  an  ascendant  idea." 


1848.]  ROBERT   CHAMBERS.  33 1 

I  commence  the  description  of  them  with  saying,  that  *  per- 
ceiving their  importance,  I  examined  them  with  scrupulous 
care,'  and  expatiate  at  considerable  length  on  them.  I  have 
indirectly  told  him  I  do  not  think  he  has  quite  claims  to 
consider  that  he  alone  (which  he  pretty  directly  asserts)  has 
solved  the  problem  of  Glen  Roy.  With  respect  to  the  ter- 
races at  lower  levels  coincident  in  height  all  round  Scotland 
and  England,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  he  shows  some  little 
probability  of  there  being  some  leading  ones  coincident,  but 
much  more  exact  evidence  is  required.  Would  you  believe 
it  credible  ?  he  advances  as  a  probable  solution  to  account 
for  the  rise  of  Great  Britain  that  in  some  great  ocean  one- 
twentieth  of  the  bottom  of  the  whole  aqueous  surface  of  the 
globe  has  sunk  in  (he  does  not  say  where  he  puts  it)  for  a 
thickness  of  half  a  mile,  and  this  he  has  calculated  would 
make  an  apparent  rise  of  130  feet." 

C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

Down  [June,  1848]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — Out  of  justice  to  Chambers  I  must 
trouble  you  with  one  line  to  say,  as  far  as  I  am  personally 
concerned  in  Glen  Roy,  he  has  made  the  amende  honorable, 
and  pleads  guilty  through  inadvertency  of  taking  my  two 
lines  of  arguments  and  facts  without  acknowledgment.  He 
concluded  by  saying  he  "  came  to  the  same  point  by  an  in- 
dependent course  of  inquiry,  which  in  a  small  degree  excuses 
this  inadvertency.'*  His  letter  altogether  shows  a  very  good 
disposition,  and  says  he  is  *^much  gratified  with  the  measured 
approbation  which  you  bestow,  &c."  I  am  heartily  glad  I 
was  able  to  say  in  truth  that  I  thought  he  had  done  good 
service  in  calling  more  attention  to  the  subject  of  the  ter- 
races. He  protests  it  is  unfair  to  call  the  sinking  of  the  sea 
his  theory,  for  that  he  with  care  always  speaks  of  mere  change 
of  level,  and  this  is  quite  true  ;  but  the  one  section  in  which 
he  shows  how  he  conceives  the  sea  might  sink  is  so  aston- 
ishing, that  I  believe  it  will  with  others,  as  with  me,  more  than 


332  LIFE   AT    DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1848. 

counterbalance  his  previous  caution.     I  hope  that  you  may 
think  better  of  the  book  than  I  do. 

Yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker. 

October  6th,  1848. 
...  I  have  lately  been  trying  to  get  up  an  agitation  (but 
I  shall  not  succeed,  and  indeed  doubt  whether  I  have  time 
and  strength  to  go  on  with  it),  against  the  practice  of  Natu- 
ralists appending  for  perpetuity  the  name  of  \X\^  first  describer 
to  species.  I  look  at  this  as  a  direct  premium  to  hasty  work, 
to  naming  instead  of  describing.  A  species  ought  to  have  a 
name  so  well  known  that  the  addition  of  the  author's  name 
would  be  superfluous,  and  a  [piece]  of  empty  vanity.*  At 
present,  it  would  not  do  to  give  mere  specific  names  ;  but  I 
think  Zoologists  might  open  the  road  to  the  omission,  by 
referring  to  good  systematic  writers  instead  of  to  first  de- 
scribers.  Botany,  I  fancy,  has  not  suffered  so  much  as 
Zoology  from  mere  naming ;  the  characters,  fortunately,  are 

*  His  contempt  for  the  self-regarding  spirit  in  a  naturalist  is  illustrated 
by  an  anecdote,  for  which  I  am  indebted  to  Rev.  L.  Blomefield.  After 
speaking  of  my  father's  love  of  Entomology  at  Cambridge,  Mr.  Blomefield 
continues  : — **  He  occasionally  came  over  from  Cambridge  to  my  Vicarage 
at  Swafifham  Bulbeck,  and  we  went  out  together  to  collect  insects  in  the 
woods  at  Bottisham  Hall,  close  at  hand,  or  made  longer  excursions  in  the 
Fens.  On  one  occasion  he  captured  in  a  large  bag  net,  with  which  he  used 
vigorously  to  sweep  the  weeds  and  long  grass,  a  rare  coleopterous  insect, 
one  of  the  Lepturidce^  which  I  myself  had  never  taken  in  Cambridgeshire. 
He  was  pleased  with  his  capture,  and  of  course  carried  it  home  in  triumph. 
Some  years  afterwards,  the  voyage  of  the  Beagle  having  been  made  in  the  ; 
interim,  talking  over  old  times  with  him,  I  reverted  to  this  circumstance, 
and  asked  if  he  remembered  it.  *  Oh  yes,'  (he  said,)  *  I  remember  it  well ; 
and  I  was  selfish  enough  to  keep  the  specimen,  when  you  were  collecting 
materials  for  a  Fauna  of  Cambridgeshire,  and  for  a  local  museum  in  the 
Philosophical  Society.'  He  followed  this  up  with  some  remarks  on  the  pet- 
tiness of  collectors,  who  aimed  at  nothing  beyond  filling  their  cabinets 
with  rare  things." 


1S49.]  NOMENCLATURE.  333 

more  obscure.  Have  you  ever  thought  on  this  point  ?  Why 
should  Naturalists  append  their  own  names  to  new  species, 
when  Mineralogists  and  Chemists  do  not  do  so  to  new  sub- 
stances ?  When  you  write  to  Falconer  pray  remember  me 
affectionately  to  him.  I  grieve  most  sincerely  to  hear  that 
he  has  been  ill.  My  dear  Hooker,  God  bless  you,  and  fare 
you  well.  Your  sincere  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 


C,  Darwin  to  Hugh  Strickland,^ 

Down,  Jan.  29th  [1849 J. 

....  What  a  labour  you  have  undertaken  ;  I  do  honour 
your  devoted  zeal  in  the  good  cause  of  Natural  Science.  Do 
you  happen  to  have  a  spare  copy  of  the  Nomenclature  rules 
published  in  the  *  British  Association  Transactions  1 '  if  you 

*  Hugh  Edwin  Strickland,  M.  A.,  F.  R.  S.,  was  born  2nd  of  March, 
18 1 1,  and  educated  at  Rugby,  under  Arnold,  and  at  Oriel  College,  Oxford. 
In  1835  and  1836  he  travelled  through  Europe  to  the  Levant  with  W.  J. 
Hamilton,  the  geologist,  wintering  in  Asia  Minor.  In  1841  he  brought 
the  subject  of  Natural  History  Nomenclature  before  the  British  Associa- 
tion, and  prepared  the  Code  of  Rules  for  Zoological  Nomenclature,  now 
known  by  his  name — the  principles  of  which  are  very  generally  adopted. 
In  1843  he  was  one  of  the  founders  (if  not  the  original  projector)  of  the 
Ray  Society.  In  1845  he  married  the  second  daughter  of  Sir  William 
Jardine,  Bart.  In  1850  he  was  appointed,  in  consequence  of  Buckland*s 
illness,  Deputy  Reader  in  Geology  at  Oxford.  His  promising  career  was 
suddenly  cut  short  on  September  14,  1853,  when,  while  geologizing  in  a 
railway  cutting  between  Retford  and  Gainsborough,  he  was  run  over  by  a 
train  and  instantly  killed.  A  memoir  of  him  and  a  reprint  of  his  principal 
contributions  to  journals  was  published  by  Sir  William  Jardine  in  1858  ; 
but  he  was  also  the  author  of  *  The  Dodo  and  its  Kindred'  (1848)  ;  *Bibli- 
ographia  Zoologiae'  (the  latter  in  conjunction  with  Louis  Agassiz,  and 
issued  by  the  Ray  Society)  ;  '  Ornithological  Synonyms '  (one  volume  only 
published,  and  that  posthumously).  A  catalogue  of  his  ornithological  col- 
lection, given  by  his  widow  to  the  University  of  Cambridge,  was  compiled 
by  Mr.  Salvin,  and  published  in  1882.  (I  am  indebted  to  Prof.  Newton 
for  the  above  note.) 


334  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1849. 

have,  and  would  give  it  to  me,  I  should  be  truly  obliged,  for  I 
grudge  buying  the  volume  for  it.  I  have  found  the  rules  very 
useful,  it  is  quite  a  comfort  to  have  something  to  rest  on  in 
the  turbulent  ocean  of  nomenclature  (and  am  accordingly 
grateful  to  you),  though  I  find  it  very  difficult  to  obey  always. 
Here  is  a  case  (and  I  think  it  should  have  been  noticed  in  the 
rules),  Coronula,  Cineras  and  Otion,  are  names  adopted  by 
Cuvier,  Lamarck,  Owen,  and  almost  every  well-known  writer, 
but  I  find  that  all  three  names  were  anticipated  by  a  German  : 
now  I  believe  if  I  were  to  follow  the  strict  rule  of  priority, 
more  harm  would  be  done  than  good,  and  more  especially  as 
I  feel  sure  that  the  newly  fished-up  names  would  not  be 
adopted.  I  have  almost  made  up  my  mind  to  reject  the  rule 
of  priority  in  this  case  ;  would  you  grudge  the  trouble  to  send 
me  your  opinion  ?  I  have  been  led  of  late  to  reflect  much  on 
the  subject  of  naming,  and  I  have  come  to  a  fixed  opinion 
that  the  plan  of  the  first  describer's  name,  being  appended 
for  perpetuity  to  a  species,  had  been  the  greatest  curse  to 
Natural  History.  Some  months  since,  I  wrote  out  the  en- 
closed badly  drawn-up  paper,  thinking  that  perhaps  I  would 
agitate  the  subject ;  but  the  fit  has  passed,  and  I  do  not  sup- 
pose I  ever  shall ;  I  send  it  you  for  the  chance  of  your  caring 
to  see  my  notions.  I  have  been  surprised  to  find  in  con- 
versation that  several  naturalist  were  of  nearly  my  way  of 
thinking.  I  feel  sure  as  long  as  species-mongers  have  their 
vanity  tickled  by  seeing  their  own  names  appended  to  a 
species,  because  they  miserably  described  it  in  two  or  three 
lines,  we  shall  have  the  same  vast  amount  of  bad  work  as  at 
present,  and  which  is  enough  to  dishearten  any  man  who  is 
willing  to  work  out  any  branch  with  care  and  time.  I  find 
every  genus  of  Cirripedia  has  half-a-dozen  names,  and  not 
one  careful  description  of  any  one  species  in  any  one  genus. 
I  do  not  believe  that  this  would  have  been  the  case  if  each 
man  knew  that  the  memory  of  his  own  name  depended  on  his 
doing  his  work  well,  and  not  upon  merely  appending  a  name 
with  a  few  wretched  lines  indicating  only  a  few  prominent 
external   characters.     But    I    will   not   weary  you  with  any 


1849.]  NOMENCLATURE.  335 

longer  tirade.     Read  my  paper  or  not^  just  as  you  like,  and 
return  it  whenever  you  please. 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

Hugh  Strickland  to  C.  Darwin. 

The  Lodge,  Tewkesbury,  Jan.  31st,  1849. 

....  I  have  next  to  notice  your  second  objection — that 
retaining  the  name  of  the  first  describer  in  perpetuum  along 
with  that  of  the  species,  is  a  premium  on  hasty  and  careless 
work.  This  is  quite  a  different  question  from  that  of  the  law 
of  priority  itself,  and  it  never  occurred  to  me  before,  though  it 
seems  highly  probable  that  the  general  recognition  of  that  law 
may  produce  such  a  result.  We  must  try  to  conteract  this 
evil  in  some  other  way. 

The  object  of  appending  the  name  of  a  man  to  the  name 
of  a  species  is  not  to  gratify  the  vanity  of  the  man,  but  to  in- 
dicate more  precisely  the  species.  Sometimes  two  men  will, 
by  accident,  give  the  same  name  (independently)  to  two  spe- 
cies of  the  same  genus.  More  frequently  a  later  author  will 
misapply  the  specific  name  of  an  older  one.  Thus  the  Helix 
ptctris  of  Montagu  is  not  H,  putris  of  Linnaeus,  though  Mon- 
tague supposed  it  to  be  so.  In  such  a  case  we  cannot  define 
the  species  by  Helix  putris  alone,  but  must  append  the  name 
of  the  author  whom  we  quote.  But  when  a  species  has  never 
borne  but  one  name  (as  Corvus  frugilegus)^  and  no  other  spe- 
cies of  Corvus  has  borne  the  same  name,  it  is,  of  course,  un- 
necessary to  add  the  author^s  name.  Yet  even  here  I  hke 
the  form  Corvus  frugilegus,  Li?in.^  as  it  reminds  us  that  this  is 
one  of  the  old  species,  long  known,  and  to  be  found  in  the 
*  Systema  Naturae,'  &c.  I  fear,  therefore,  that  (at  least  until 
our  nomenclature  is  more  definitely  settled)  it  will  be  impos- 
sible to  indicate  species  with  scientific  accuracy,  without  add- 
ing the  name  of  their  first  author.  You  may,  indeed,  do  it  as 
you  propose,  by  saying  in  Lam.  An.  Invert,^  6^^,  but  then  this 
would  be  incompatible  with  the  law  of    priority,  for  where 


336  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45-  [1849^ 

Lamarck  has  violated  that  law,  one  cannot  adopt  his  name. 
It  is,  nevertheless,  highly  conducive  to  accurate  indication  to 
append  to  the  (oldest)  specific  name  o?ie  good  reference  to  a 
standard  work,  especially  to  2i  figure,  with  an  accompanying 
synonym  if  necessary.  This  method  may  be  cumbrous,  but 
cumbrousness  is  a  far  less  evil  than  uncertainty. 

It,  moreover,  seems  hardly  possible  to  carry  out  the 
priority  principle,  without  the  historical  aid  afforded  by  ap- 
pending the  author's  name  to  the  specific  one.  If  I,  z,  priority 
viauy  called  a  species  C  Z>.,  it  implies  that  C.  D.  is  the  oldest 
name  that  I  know  of ;  but  in  order  that  you  and  others  may 
judge  of  the  propriety  of  that  name,  you  must  ascertain  when, 
and  by  whom,  the  name  was  first  coined.  Now,  if  to  the 
specific  name  C.  D.,  I  append  the  name  A.  B.,  of  its  first 
describer,  I  at  once  furnish  you  with  the  clue  to  the  dates 
when,  and  the  book  in  which,  this  description  was  given,  and 
I  thus  assist  you  in  determining  whether  C.  D.  be  really  the 
oldest,  and  therefore  the  correct,  designation. 

I  do,  however,  admit  that  the  priority  principle  (excellent 
as  it  is)  has  a  tendency,  when  the  author's  name  is  added,  to 
encourage  vanity  and  slovenly  work.  I  think,  however,  that 
much  might  be  done  to  discourage  those  obscure  and  unsatis- 
factory definitions  of  which  you  so  justly  complain,  by  writing 
down  the  practice.  Let  the  better  disposed  naturalists  com- 
bine to  make  a  formal  protest  agains.t  all  vague,  loose,  and 
inadequate  definitions  of  (supposed)  new  species.  Let  a 
committee  (say  of  the  British  Association)  be  appointed  to 
prepare  a  sort  of  Class  List  of  the  various  modern  works  in 
which  new  species  are  described,  arranged  in  order  of  merit. 
The  lowest  class  would  contain  the  worst  examples  of  the 
kind,  and  their  authors  would  thus  be  exposed  to  the  obloquy 
which  they  deserve,  and  be  gibbeted  in  terrorem  for  the  edifi- 
cation of  those  who  may  come  after. 

I  have  thus  candidly  stated  my  views  (I  hope  intelligibly) 
of  what  seems  best  to  be  done  in  the  present  transitional  and 
dangerous  state  of  systematic  zoology.  Innumerable  labour- 
ers, many  of  them  crotchety  and  half-educated,  are  rushing 


i849.]  NOMENCLATURE.  337 

into  the  field,  and  it  depends,  I  think,  on  the  present  genera- 
tion whether  the  science  is  to  descend  to  posterity  a  chaotic 
mass,  or  possessed  of  some  traces  of  law  and  organisation.  If 
we  could  only  get  a  congress  of  deputies  from  the  chief  scien- 
tific bodies  of  Europe  and  America,  something  might  be  done, 
but,  as  the  case  stands,  I  confess  I  do  not  clearly  see  my  way, 
beyond  humbly  endeavouring  to  reform  Number  One, 

Yours  ever, 

H.  E.  Strickland. 

C.  Darwin  to  Hugh  Strickland, 

Down,  Sunday  [Feb.  4th,  1849]. 

My  dear  Strickland, — I  am,  in  truth,  greatly  obliged  to 
you  for  your  long,  most  interesting,  and  clear  letter,  and  the 
Report.  I  will  consider  your  arguments,  which  are  of  the 
greatest  weight,  but  I  confess  I  cannot  yet  bring  myself  to 
reject  very  well-known  names,  not  in  one  country,  but  over  the 
world,  for  obscure  ones, — simply  on  the  ground  that  I  do  not 
believe  I  should  be  followed.  Pray  believe  that  I  should 
break  the  law  of  priority  only  in  rare  cases  ;  will  you  read  the 
enclosed  (and  return  it),  and  tell  me  whether  it  does  not 
stagger  you  ?  (N.  B.  I  promise  that  I  will  not  give  you  any 
more  trouble.)  I  want  simple  answers,  and  not  for  you  to 
waste  your  time  in  reasons  ;  I  am  curious  for  your  answer  in 
regard  to  Balanus.  I  put  the  case  of  Otion,  &c.,  to  W. 
Thompson,  who  is  fierce  for  the  law  of  priority,  and  he  gave 
it  up  in  such  well-known  names.  I  am  in  a  perfect  maze  of 
doubt  on  nomenclature.  In  not  one  large  genus  of  Cirripedia 
has  any  one  species  been  correctly  defined  ;  it  is  pure  guess- 
work (being  guided  by  range  and  commonness  and  habits)  to 
recognise  any  species  :  thus  I  can  make  out,  from  plates  or 
descriptions,  hardly  any  of  the  British  sessile  cirripedes.  I 
cannot  bear  to  give  new  names  to  all  the  species,  and  yet  I 
shall  perhaps  do  wrong  to  attach  old  names  by  little  better 
than  guess  ;  I  cannot  at  present  tell  the  least  which  of  two 
species  all  writers  have  meant  by  the  common  Anatifera 
16 


338  LIFE   AT    DOWN.     JETAT.  33-45-  11849. 

/^vis;  I  have,  therefore,  given  that  name  to  the  one  which  is 
rather  the  commonest.  Literally,  not  one  species  is  properly 
defined  ;  not  one  naturalist  has  ever  taken  the  trouble  to  open 
the  shell  of  any  species  to  describe  it  scientifically,  and  yet  all 
the  genera  have  half-a-dozen  synonyms.  For  argument's  sake^ 
suppose  I  do  my  work  thoroughly  well,  any  one  who  happens 
to  have  the  original  specimens  named,  I  will  say  by  Chenu, 
who  has  figured  and  named  hundreds  of  species,  will  be  able 
to  upset  all  my  names  according  to  the  law  of  priority  (for  he 
may  maintain  his  descriptions  are  sufficient),  do  you  think  it 
advantageous  to  science  that  this  should  be  done  :  I  think 
not,  and  that  convenience  and  high  merit  (here  put  as  mere 
argument)  had  better  come  into  some  play.  The  subject  is 
heart-breaking. 

I  hope  you  will  occasionally  turn  in  your  mind  my  argu- 
ment of  the  evil  done  by  the  "mihi"  attached  to  specific 
names  ;  I  can  most  clearly  see  the  excessive  evil  it  has  caused  ; 
in  mineralogy  I  have  myself  found  there  is  no  rage  to  merely 
name  ;  a  person  does  not  take  up  the  subject  without  he  in- 
tends to  work  it  out,  as  he  knows  that  his  only  claim  to  merit 
rests  on  his  work  being  ably  done,  and  has  no  relation  what- 
ever to  naming,  I  give  up  one  point,  and  grant  that  reference 
to  first  describer's  name  should  be  given  in  all  systematic 
works,  but  I  think  something  would  be  gained  if  a  reference 
was  given  without  the  author's  name  being  actually  appended 
as  part  of  the  binomial  name,  and  I  think,  except  in  sys- 
tematic works,  a  reference,  such  as  I  propose,  would  damp 
vanity  much.  I  think  a  very  wrong  spirit  runs  through  all 
Natural  History,  as  if  some  merit  was  due  to  a  man  for  merely 
naming  and  defining  a  species  ;  I  think  scarcely  any,  or  none, 
is  due ;  if  he  works  out  minutely  and  anatomically  any  one 
species,  or  systematically  a  whole  group,  credit  is  due,  but  I 
must  think  the  mere  defining  a  species  is  nothing,  and  that 
no  injustice  is  done  him  if  it  be  overlooked,  though  a  great 
inconvenience  to  Natural  History  is  thus  caused.  I  do  not 
think  more  credit  is  due  to  a  man  for  defining  a  species,  than 
to  a  carpenter  for  making  a  box.    But  I  am  foolish  and  rabid 


1849]  NOMENCLATURE.  33^ 

against  species-mongers,  or  rather  against  their  vanity  ;  it  is 
useful  and  necessary  work  which  must  be  done  ;  but  they  act 
as  if  they  had  actually  made  the  species,  and  it  was  their  own 
property. 

I  use  Agassiz's  nomenclator  ;  at  least  two-thirds  of  the 
dates  in  the  Cirripedia  are  grossly  wrong. 

I  shall  do  what  I  can  in  fossil  Cirripedia,  and  should  be 
very  grateful  for  specimens  ;  but  I  do  not  believe  that  species 
(and  hardly  genera)  can  be  denned  by  single  valves  ;  as  in 
every  recent  species  yet  examined  their  forms  vary  greatly  : 
to  describe  a  species  by  valves  alone,  is  the  same  as  to  de- 
scribe a  crab  from  small  portions  of  its  carapace  alone,  these 
portions  being  highly  variable,  and  not,  as  in  Crustacea, 
modelled  over  viscera.  I  sincerely  apologise  for  the  trouble 
which  I  have  given  you,  but  indeed  I  will  give  no  more. 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — In  conversation  I  found  Owen  and  Andrew  Smith 
much  inclined  to  throw  over  the  practice  of  attaching  au- 
thors* names  ;  I  believe  if  I  agitated  I  could  get  a  large 
party  to  join.  W.  Thompson  agreed  some  way  with  me,  but 
was  not  prepared  to  go  nearly  as  far  as  I  am. 


C  Darwin  to  Hugh  Strickland, 

Down,  Feb.  lOth  [1849]. 

My  dear  Strickland, — I  have  again  to  thank  you  cor- 
dially for  your  letter.  Your  remarks  shall  fructify  to  some 
extent,  and  I  will  try  to  be  more  faithful  to  rigid  virtue  and 
priority ;  but  as  for  calling  Balanus  "  Lepas  "  (which  I  did 
not  think  of),  I  cannot  do  it,  my  pen  won't  write  it — it  is  im- 
possible. I  have  great  hopes  some  of  my  difficulties  will  dis- 
appear, owing  to  wrong  dates  in  Agassiz,  and  to  my  having 
to  run  several  genera  into  one,  for  I  have  as  yet  gone,  in  but 
few  cases,  to  original  sources.     With  respect  to  adopting  my 


340 


LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45,  [1849. 


own  notions  in  my  Cirripedia  book,  I  should  not  like  to  do 
so  without  I  found  others  approved,  and  in  some  public 
way — nor,  indeed,  is  it  well  adapted,  as  I  can  never  recog- 
nise a  species  without  I  have  the  original  specimen,  which, 
fortunately,  I  have  in  many  cases  in  the  British  Museum. 
Thus  far  I  mean  to  adopt  my  notion,  as  never  putting  mihi 
or  *^  Darwin  "  after  my  own  species,  and  in  the  anatomical 
text  giving  no  authors'  names  at  all,  as  the  systematic  Part 
will  serve  for  those  who  want  to  know  the  History  of  a 
species  as  far  as  I  can  imperfectly  work  it  out.  .  .  . 

C  Darwin  to  J.  D,  Hooker, 

[The  Lodge,  Malvern, 

March  28th,  1849.] 

My  dear  Hooker, — Your  letter  of  the  13th  of  October 
has  remained  unanswered  till  this  day  !  What  an  ungrateful 
return  for  a  letter  which  interested  me  so  much,  and  which 
contained  so  much  and  curious  information.  But  I  have 
had  a  bad  winter. 

On  the  13th  of  November,  my  poor  dear  father  died,  and 
no  one  who  did  not  know  him  would  believe  that  a  man 
above  eighty-three  years  old  could  have  retained  so  tender 
and  affectionate  a  disposition,  with  all  his  sagacity  unclouded 
to  the  last.  I  was  at  the  time  so  unwell,  that  I  was  unable  to 
travel,  which  added  to  my  misery.  Indeed,  all  this  winter  I 
have  been  bad  enough  .  .  .  and  my  nervous  system  began  to 
be  affected,  so  that  my  hands  trembled,  and  head  was  often 
swimming.  I  was  not  able  to  do  anything  one  day  out  of 
three,  and  was  altogether  too  dispirited  to  write  to  you,  or  to 
do  anything  but  w^hat  I  was  compelled.  I  thought  I  was 
rapidly  going  the  way  of  all  flesh.  Having  heard,  accident- 
ally, of  two  persons  who  had  received  much  benefit  from  the 
water-cure,  I  got  Dr.  Gully's  book,  and  made  further  en- 
quiries, and  at  last  started  here,  with  wife,  children,  and  all 
our  servants.  We  have  taken  a  house  for  two  months,  and 
have  been  here  a  fortnight.     I  am  already  a  little  stronger. 


« 


1849]  HOMCEOPATHY. 


341 


.  .  .  Dr.  Gully  feels  pretty  sure  he  can  do  me  good,  which 
most  certainly  the  regular  doctors  could  not.  ...  I  feel  cer- 
tain that  the  water-cure  is  no  quackery. 

How  I  shall  enjoy  getting  back  to  Down  with  renovated 
health,  if  such  is  to  be  my  good  fortune,  and  resuming  the 
beloved  Barnacles.  Now  I  hope  that  you  will  forgive  me  for 
my  negligence  in  not  having  sooner  answered  your  letter.  I 
was  uncommonly  interested  by  the  sketch  you  give  of  your 
intended  grand  expedition,  from  which  I  suppose  you  will 
soon  be  returning.  How  earnestly  I  hope  that  it  may  prove 
in  every  way  successful.  .  .  . 

[When  my  father  was  at  the  Water-cure  Establishment  at 
Malvern  he  was  brought  into  contact  with  clairvoyance,  of 
which  he  writes  in  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  to  Fox, 
September,  1850. 

*^You  speak  about  Homoeopathy,  which  is  a  subject 
which  makes  me  more  wrath,  even  than  does  Clairvoyance. 
Clairvoyance  so  transcends  belief,  that  one's  ordinary  facul- 
ties are  put  out  of  the  question,  but  in  homoeopathy  common 
sense  and  common  observation  come  into  play,  and  both 
these  must  go  to  the  dogs,  if  the  infinitesimal  doses  have  any 
effect  whatever.  How  true  is  a  remark  I  saw  the  other  day 
by  Quetelet,  in  respect  to  evidence  of  curative  processes,  viz., 
that  no  one  knows  in  disease  what  is  the  simple  result  of 
nothing  being  done,  as  a  standard  with  which  to  compare 
homoeopathy,  and  all  other  such  things.  It  is  a  sad  flaw,  I 
cannot  but  think,  in  my  beloved  Dr.  Gully,  that  he  believes 
in  everything.  When  Miss was  very  ill,  he  had  a  clair- 
voyant girl  to  report  on  internal  changes,  a  mesmerist  to  put 

her  to  sleep — an  homoeopathist,  viz.  Dr. ,  and  himself  as 

hydropathist !  and  the  girl  recovered.'* 

A  passage  out  of  an  earlier  letter  to  Fox  (December, 
1844)  shows  that  he  was  equally  sceptical  on  the  subject  of 
mesmerism :  "  With  respect  to  mesmerism,  the  whole  country 
resounds  with  wonderful  facts  or  tales  ...  I  have  just  heard 


342 


LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.   33-45.  [1849. 


of  a  child,  three  or  four  years  old  (whose  parents  and  self  I 
well  knew)  mesmerised  by  his  father,  which  is  the  first  fact 
which  has  staggered  me.  I  shall  not  believe  fully  till  I  see 
or  hear  from  good  evidence  of  animals  (as  has  been  stated  is 
possible)  not  drugged,  being  put  to  stupor ;  of  course  the  im- 
possibihty  would  not  prove  mesmerism  false  ;  but  it  is  the 
only  clear  experimentum  cruets,  and  I  am  astonished  it  has 
not  been  systematically  tried.  If  mesmerism  was  investi- 
gated, like  a  science,  this  could  not  have  been  left  till  the 
present  day  to  be  done  satisfactorily,  as  it  has  been  I  believe 
left.  Keep  some  cats  yourself,  and  do  get  some  mesmeriser 
to  attempt  it.  One  man  told  me  he  had  succeeded,  but  his 
experiments  were  most  vague,  as  was  likely  from  a  man  who 
said  cats  were  more  easily  done  than  other  animals,  because 
they  were  so  electrical !  "] 

C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

Down,  December  4th  [1849]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — This  letter  requires  no  answer,  and  I 
write  from  exuberance  of  vanity.  Dana  has  sent  me  the 
Geology  of  the  United  States  Expedition,  and  I  have  just 
read  the  Coral  part.  To  begin  with  a  modest  speech,  /  am 
astonished  at  my  own  accuracy  1 1  If  I  were  to  rewrite  now  my 
Coral  book  there  is  hardly  a  sentence  I  should  have  to  alter, 
except  that  I  ought  to  have  attributed  more  effect  to  recent 
volcanic  action  in  checking  growth  of  coral.  When  I  say  all 
this  I  ought  to  add  that  the  consequences  of  the  theory  on 
areas  of  subsidence  are  treated  in  a  separate  chapter  to  which 
I  have  not  come,  and  in  this,  I  suspect,  we  shall  differ  more. 
Dana  talks  of  agreeing  with  my  theory  in  most  points  ;  I  can 
find  out  not  one  in  which  he  differs.  Considering  how  in- 
finitely more  he  saw  of  Coral  Reefs  than  I  did,  this  is  won- 
derfully satisfactory  to  me.  He  treats  me  most  courteously. 
There  now,  my  vanity  is  pretty  well  satisfied.  .  . 


1849.]  GEOLOGY.  343 

C.  Darwin  to  /.  D.  Hooker. 

Malvern,  April  9th,  1849. 

My  dear  Hooker, — The  very  next  morning  after  posting 
my  last  letter  (I  think  on  23rd  of  March),  I  received  your  two 
interesting  gossipaceous  and  geological  letters ;  and  the  latter 
I  have  since  exchanged  with  Lyell  for  his.  I  will  write 
higglety-pigglety  just  as  subjects  occur.  I  saw  the  Review 
in  the  *  Athenaeum,*  it  was  written  in  an  ill-natured  spirit ;  but 
the  whole  virus  consisted  in  saying  that  there  was  not  novelty 
enough  in  your  remarks  for  publication.  No  one,  nowadays, 
cares  for  reviews.  I  may  just  mention  that  my  Journal  got 
some  rea/  good  abuse,  "presumption,"  &c. — ended  v/ith  saying 
that  the  volume  appeared  "  made  up  of  the  scraps  and  rub- 
bish of  the  author's  portfolio."  I  most  truly  enter  into  what 
you  say,  and  quite  believe  you  that  you  care  only  for  the  re- 
view with  respect  to  your  father ;  and  that  this  alone  would 
make  you  like  to  see  extracts  from  your  letters  more  properly 
noticed  in  this  same  periodical.  I  have  considered  to  the 
very  best  of  my  judgment  whether  any  portion  of  your  present 
letters  are  adapted  for  the  ^  Athenaeum  '  (in  which  I  have  no 
interest ;  the  beasts  not  having  even  noticed  my  three  geologi- 
cal volumes  which  I  had  sent  to  them),  and  I  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  it  is  better  not  to  send  them.  I  feel  sure, 
considering  all  the  circumstances,  that  without  you  took  pains 
and  wrote  with  care,  a  condensed  and  finished  sketch  of  some 
striking  feature  in  your  travels,  it  is  better  not  to  send  any- 
thing. These  two  letters  are,  moreover,  rather  too  geologi- 
cal for  the  *  Athenaeum,*  and  almost  require  woodcuts.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  are  hardly  enough  details  for  a  commu- 
nication to  the  Geological  Society.  I  have  not  the  smallest 
doubt  that  your  facts  are  of  the  highest  interest  with  regard  to 
glacial  action  in  the  Himalaya ;  but  it  struck  both  Lyell  and 
myself  that  your  evidence  ought  to  have  been  given  more 
distinctly.  .  .  . 

I  have  written  so  lately  that  I  have  nothing  to  say  about 
myself ;    my  health  prevented  me  going  on  with  a  crusade 


344  LIFE   AT    DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1849. 

against  ''mihi"  and  "nobis,"  of  which  you  warn  me  of  the 
dangers.  I  showed  my  paper  to  three  or  four  Naturalists, 
and  they  all  agreed  with  me  to  a  certain  extent  :  with  health 
and  vigour,  I  would  not  have  shown  a  white  feather,  [and] 
with  aid  of  half-a-dozen  really  good  Naturalists,  I  believe 
something  might  have  been  done  against  the  miserable  and 
degrading  passion  of  mere  species  naming.  In  your  letter 
you  wonder  what  "  Ornamental  Poultry "  has  to  do  with 
Barnacles  ;  but  do  not  flatter  yourself  that  I  shall  not  yet  live 
to  finish  the  Barnacles,  and  then  make  a  fool  of  myself  on  the 
subject  of  species,  under  which  head  ornamental  Poultry  are 
very  interesting.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

The  Lodge,  Malvern  [June,  1849]. 

...  I  have  got  your  book,*  and  have  read  all  the  first  and 
a  small  part  of  the  second  volume  (reading  is  the  hardest 
work  allowed  here),  and  greatly  I  have  been  interested  by  it. 
It  makes  me  long  to  be  a  Yankee.  E.  desires  me  to  say  that 
she  quite  "  gloated  "  over  the  truth  of  your  remarks  on  re- 
ligious progress  ...  I  delight  to  think  how  you  will  disgust 
some  of  the  bigots  and  educational  dons.  As  yet  there  has 
not  been  much  Geology  or  Natural  History,  for  which  I  hope 
you  feel  a  little  ashamed.  Your  remarks  on  all  social  subjects 
strike  me  as  worthy  of  the  author  of  the  'Principles.'  And 
yet  (I  know  it  is  prejudice  and  pride)  if  I  had  written  the 
Principles,  I  never  would  have  written  any  travels;  but  I 
believe  I  am  more  jealous  about  the  honour  and  glory  of  the 
Principles  than  you  are  yourself.  ... 

C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

September  14th,  1849. 
...  I  go  on  with  my  aqueous  processes,  and  very  steadily 
but  slowly  gain  health  and  strength.    Against  all  rules,  I  dined 

*  '  A  Second  Visit  to  the  United  States.' 


1849-]  LORD   STANHOPE.  345 

at  Chevening  with  Lord  Mahon,  who  did  me  the  great  honour 
of  calling  on  me,  and  how  he  heard  of  me  I  can't  guess.  I 
was  charmed  with  Lady  Mahon,  and  any  one  might  have  been 
proud  at  the  pieces  of  agreeableness  which  came  from  her 
beautiful  lips  with  respect  to  you.  I  like  old  Lord  Stanhope 
very  much  ;  though  he  abused  Geology  and  Zoology  heartily. 
"  To  suppose  that  the  Omnipotent  God  made  a  world,  found 
it  a  failure,  and  broke  it  up,  and  then  made  it  again,  and 
again  broke  it  up,  as  the  Geologists  say,  is  all  fiddle  faddle." 
Describing  Species  of  birds  and  shells,  &c.,  is  all  fiddle 
f addle.  .  .  . 

I  am  heartily  glad  we  shall  meet  at  Birmingham,  as  I  trust 
we  shall,  if  my  health  will  but  keep  up.  I  work  now  every 
day  at  the  Cirripedia  for  2^  hours,  and  so  get  on  a  little,  but 
very  slowly.  I  sometimes,  after  being  a  whole  week  employed 
and  having  described  perhaps  only  two  species,  agree  men- 
tally with  Lord  Standhope,  that  it  is  all  fiddle  faddle  ;  how- 
ever, the  other  day  I  got  a  curious  case  of  a  unisexual,  instead 
of  hermaphrodite  cirripede,  in  which  the  female  had  the  com- 
mon cirripedial  character,  and  in  two  valves  of  her  shell  had 
two  little  pockets,  in  eac/i  of  which  she  kept  a  little  husband  ; 
I  do  not  know  of  any  other  case  where  a  female  invariably  has 
two  husbands.  I  have  one  still  odder  fact,  common  to  several 
species,  namely,  that  though  they  are  hermaphrodite,  they 
have  small  additional,  or  as  I  shall  call  them,  complemental 
males,  one  specimen  itself  hermaphrodite  had  no  less  than 
seven,  of  these  complemental  males  attached  to  it.  Truly  the 
schemes  and  wonders  of  Nature  are  illimitable.  But  I  am 
running  on  as  badly  about  my  cirripedia  as  about  Geology ; 
it  makes  me  groan  to  think  that  probably  I  shall  never  again 
have  the  exquisite  pleasure  of  making  out  some  new  district, 
of  evolving  geological  light  out  of  some  troubled  dark  region. 
So  I  must  make  the  best  of  my  Cirripedia.   .  .  . 


346  LIFE  AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1849. 

C,  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  October  I2tli,  1849. 

...  By  the  way,  one  of  the  pleasantest  parts  of  the  Brit- 
ish Association  was  my  journey  down  to  Birmingham  with 
Mrs.  Sabine,  Mrs.  Reeve,  and  the  Colonel  ;  also  Col.  Sykes 
and  Porter.  Mrs.  Sabine  and  myself  agreed  wonderfully  on 
many  points,  and  in  none  more  sincerely  than  about  you.  We 
spoke  about  your  letters  from  the  Erebus  ;  and  she  quite 
agreed  with  me,  that  you  and  the  author^  of  the  description 
of  the  cattle  hunting  in  the  Falklands,  would  have  made  a 
capital  book  together  !  A  very  nice  woman  she  is,  and  so  is 
her  sharp  and  sagacious  mother.  .  .  .  Birmingham  was  very  flat 
compared  to  Oxford,  though  I  had  my  wife  with  me.  We 
saw  a  good  deal  of  the  Lyells-  and  Horners  and  Robinsons 
(the  President)  ;  but  the  place  was  dismal,  and  I  was  pre- 
vented, by  being  unwell,  from  going  to  Warwick,  though  that, 
/.  ^.,  the  party,  by  all  accounts,  was  wonderfully  inferior  to 
Blenheim,  not  to  say  anything  of  that  heavenly  day  at  Drop- 
more.     One  gets  weary  of  all  the  spouting.   ... 

You  ask  about  my  cold-water  cure ;  I  am  going  on  very 
well,  and  am  certainly  a  little  better  every  month,  my  nights 
mend  much  slower  than  my  days.  I  have  built  a  douche,  and 
am  to  go  on  through  all  the  winter,  frost  or  no  frost.  My 
treatment  now  is  lamp  five  times  per  week,  and  shallow  bath 
for  five  minutes  afterwards  ;  douche  daily  for  five  minutes, 
and  dripping  sheet  daily.  The  treatment  is  wonderfully  tonic, 
and  I  have  had  more  better  consecutive  days  this  month 
than  on  any  previous  ones.  ...  I  am  allowed  to  work  now 
two  and  a  half  hours  daily,  and  I  find  it  as  much  as  I  can  do ; 
for  the  cold-water  cure,  together  with  three  short  walks,  is 
curiously  exhausting  ;  and  I  am  actually  forced  to  go  to  bed 
at  eight  o'clock  completely  tired.     I  steadily  gain  in  weight, 

*  Sir  J.  Hooker  wrote  the  spirited  description  of  cattle  hunting  in  Sir 
J.  Ross's  '  Voyage  of  Discovery  in  the  Southern  Regions,'  1847,  vol.  ii., 
P-  245. 


1849.]  WATER-CURE.  347 

and  eat  immensely,  and  am  never  oppressed  with  my  food. 
I  have  lost  the  involuntary  twitching  of  the  muscle,  and  all 
the  fainting  feelings,  &:c  — black  spots  before  eyes,  &c.  Dr. 
Gully  thinks  he  shall  quite  cure  me  in  six  or  nine  months 
more. 

The  greatest  bore,  which  I  find  in  the  water-cure,  is  the 
having  been  compelled  to  give  up  all  reading,  except  the 
newspapers  ;  for  my  daily  two  and  a  half  hours  at  the  Bar- 
nacles is  fully  as  much  as  I  can  do  of  anything  which  occu- 
pies the  mind  ;  I  am  consequently  terribly  behind  in  all  sci- 
entific books.  I  have  of  late  been  at  work  at  mere  species 
describing,  which  is  much  more  difficult  than  I  expected,  and 
has  much  the  same  sort  of  interest  as  a  puzzle  has  ;  but  I 
confess  I  often  feel  wearied  with  the  work,  and  cannot  help 
sometimes  asking  myself  what  is  the  good  of  spending  a  week 
or  fortnight  in  ascertaining  that  certain  just  perceptible  dif- 
ferences blend  together  and  constitute  varieties  and  not 
species.  As  long  as  I  am  on  anatomy  I  never  feel  myself  in 
that  disgusting,  horrid,  cui  bono,  inquiring,  humour.  What 
miserable  work,  again,  it  is  searching  for  priority  of  names. 
I  have  just  finished  two  species,  which  possess  seven  generic, 
and  twenty- four  specific  names!  My  chief  comfort  is,  that 
the  work  must  be  sometime  done,  and  I  may  as  well  do  it,  as 
any  one  else. 

I  have  given  up  my  agitation  against  mihi  and  nobis  j  my 
paper  is  too  long  to  send  to  you,  so  you  must  see  it,  if  you 
care  to  do  so,  on  your  return.  By-the-way,  you  say  in  your 
letter  that  you  care  more  for  my  species  work  than  for  the 
Barnacles  ;  now  this  is  too  bad  of  you,  for  I  declare  your 
decided  approval  of  my  plain  Barnacle  work  over  theoretic 
species  work,  had  very  great  influence  in  deciding  me  to  go 
on  with  the  former,  and  defer  my  species  paper.  .  .  . 

[The  following  letter  refers  to  the  death  of  his  little 
daughter,  which  took  place  at  Malvern  on  April  24,  1851  :] 


348  LIFE   AT    DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1851. 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox, 

Down,  April  29th  [1851]. 

My  dear  Fox, — I  do  not  suppose  you  will  have  heard 
of  our  bitter  and  cruel  loss.  Poor  dear  little  Annie,  when 
going  on  very  well  at  Malvern,  was  taken  with  a  vomiting 
attack,  which  was  at  first  thought  of  the  smallest  importance ; 
but  it  rapidly  assumed  the  form  of  a  low  and  dreadful  fever, 
which  carried  her  off  in  ten  days.  Thank  God,  she  suffered 
hardly  at  all,  and  expired  as  tranquilly  as  a  little  angel.  Our 
only  consolation  is  that  she  passed  a  short,  though  joyous  life 
She  was  my  favourite  child  ;  her  cordiality,  openness,  buoyant 
joyousness  and  strong  affections  made  her  most  loveable. 
Poor  dear  little  soul.     Well  it  is  all  over.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox. 

Down,  March  7th  [1852]. 

My  DEAR  Fox, — It  is  indeed  an  age  since  we  have  had 
any  communication,  and  very  glad  I  was  to  receive  your  note. 
Our  long  silence  occurred  to  me  a  few  weeks  since,  and  I  had 
then  thought  of  writing,  but  was  idle.  I  congratulate  and 
condole  with  you  on  your  tenth  child  ;  but  please  to  observe 
when  I  have  a  tenth,  send  only  condolences  to  me.  We  have 
now  seven  children,  all  well,  thank  God,  as  well  as  their 
mother  ;  of  these  seven,  five  are  boys ;  and  my  father  used  to 
say  that  it  was  certain  that  a  boy  gave  as  much  trouble  as 
three  girls  ;  so  that  bond  fide  we  have  seventeen  children.  It 
makes  me  sick  whenever  I  think  of  professions ;  all  seem 
hopelessly  bad,  and  as  yet  I  cannot  see  a  ray  of  light.  I 
should  very  much  like  to  talk  over  this  (by  the  way,  my  three 
bugbears  are  Californian  and  Australian  gold,  beggaring  me 
by  making  my  money  on  mortgage  worth  nothing ;  the  French 
coming  by  the  Westerham  and  Sevenoaks  roads,  and  there- 
fore enclosing  Down ;  and  thirdly,  professions  for  my  boys), 
and  I  should  like  to  talk  about  education,  on  which  you  ask 
me  what  we  are  doing.     No  one  can  more  truly  despise  the 


1852.]  EDUCATION.  34Q 

old  stereotyped  stupid  classical  education  than  I  do  ;  but  yet 
I  have  not  had  courage  to  break  through  the  trammels.  After 
many  doubts  we  have  just  sent  our  eldest  boy  to  Rugby^ 
where  for  his  age  he  has  been  very  well  placed.  ...  I  honour, 
admire,  and  envy  you  for  educating  your  boys  at  home. 
What  on  earth  shall  you  do  with  your  boys  ?  Towards  the 
end  of  this  month  we  go  to  see  W.  at  Rugby,  and  thence  for 
five  or  six  days  to  Susan  *  at  Shrewsbury  ;  I  then  return 
home  to  look  after  the  babies,  and  E.  goes  to  F.  Wedgwood's 
of  Etruria  for  a  week.  Very  many  thanks  for  your  most  kind 
and  large  invitation  to  Delamere,  but  I  fear  we  can  hardly 
compass  it.  I  dread  going  anywhere,  on  account  of  my 
stomach  so  easily  failing  under  any  excitement.  I  rarely 
even  now  go  to  London  ;  not  that  I  am  at  all  worse,  perhaps 
rather  better,  and  lead  a  very  comfortable  life  with  my  three 
hours  of  daily  work,  but  it  is  the  life  of  a  hermit.  My  nights 
are  always  bad,  and  that  stops  my  becoming  vigourous.  You 
ask  about  water-cure.  I  take  at  intervals  of  two  or  three 
months,  five  or  six  weeks  of  moderately  severe  treatment,  and 
always  with  good  effect.  Do  you  come  here,  I  pray  and  beg 
whenever  you  can  find  time ;  you  cannot  tell  how  much 
pleasure  it  would  give  me  and  E.  I  have  finished  the  ist 
vol.  for  the  Ray  Society  of  Pedunculated  Cirripedes,  which, 
as  I  think  you  are  a  member,  you  will  soon  get.  Read  what 
I  describe  on  the  sexes  of  Ibla  and  Scalpellum.  I  am  now 
at  work  on  the  Sessile  Cirripedes,  and  am  wonderfully  tired 
of  my  job  :  a  man  to  be  a  systematic  naturalist  ought  to  work 
at  least  eight  hours  per  day.  You  saw  through  me,  when 
you  said  that  I  must  have  wished  to  have  seen  the  effects  of 
the  [word  illegible]  Debacle,  for  I  was  saying  a  week  ago  to 
E.,  that  had  I  been  as  I  was  in  old  days,  I  would  have  been 
certainly  off  that  hour.  You  ask  after  Erasmus  ;  he  is  much 
as  usual,  and  constantly  more  or  less  unwell.  Susan  *  is  much 
better,  and  very  flourishing  and  happy.  Catherine*  is  at 
Rome,  and  has  enjoyed  it  in  a  degree  that  is  quite  astonish- 

*  His  sisters. 


350 


LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.    33-45.  [1^52. 


ing  to  my  old  dry  bones.  And  now  I  think  I  have  told  you 
enough,  and  more  than  enough  about  the  house  of  Darwin  ; 
so  my  dear  old  friend,  farewell.  What  pleasant  times  we  had 
in  drinking  coffee  in  your  rooms  at  Christ's  College,  and  think 
of  the  glories  of  Crux  major.*  Ah,  in  those  days  there  were 
no  professions  for  sons,  no  ill-health  to  fear  for  them,  no  Cali- 
fornian  gold,  no  French  invasions.  How  paramount  the 
future  is  to  the  present  when  one  is  surrounded  by  chil- 
dren. My  dread  is  hereditary  ill-health.  Even  death  is  bet- 
ter for  them.  .  My  dear  Fox,  your  sincere  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — Susan  has  lately  been  working  in  a  way  which  I 
think  truly  heroic  about  the  scandalous  violation  of  the  Act 
against  children  climbing  chimneys.  We  have  set  up  a  little 
Society  in  Shrewsbury  to  prosecute  those  who  break  the  law. 
It  is  all  Susan's  doing.  She  has  had  very  nice  letters  from 
Lord  Shaftesbury  and  the  Duke  of  Sutherland,  but  the  brutal 
Shropshire  squires  are  as  hard  as  stones  to  move.  The  Act 
out  of  London  seems  most  commonly  violated.  It  makes  one 
shudder  to  fancy  one  of  one's  own  children  at  seven  years 
old  being  forced  up  a  chimney — to  say  nothing  of  the  conse- 
quent loathsome  disease  and  ulcerated  limbs,  and  utter  moral 
degradation.  If  you  think  strongly  on  this  subject,  do  make 
some  enquiries;  add  to  your  many  good  works,  this  other 
one,  and  try  to  stir  up  the  magistrates.  There  are  several 
people  making  a  stir  in  different  parts  of  England  on  this 
subject.  It  is  not  very  likely  that  you  would  wish  for  such, 
but  I  could  send  you  some  essays  and  information  if  you  so 
liked,  either  for  yourself  or  to  give  away. 

C  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox, 

Down  [October  24th,  1852]. 

My  dear  Fox, — I  received  your  long  and  most  welcome 
letter  this  morning,  and  will  answer  it  this  evening,  as  I  shall 
be  very  busy  with  an  artist,  drawing  Cirripedia,  and  much 

*  The  beetle  Panagcetis  crux-major. 


i852.]  OLD   DAYS.  35 1 

overworked  for  the  next  fortnight.  But  first  you  deserve  to 
be  well  abused — and  pray  consider  yourself  well  abused — for 
thinking  or  writing  that  I  could  for  one  minute  be  bored  by 
any  amount  of  detail  about  yourself  and  belongings.  It  is 
just  what  I  like  hearing;  believe  me  that  I  often  think  of  old 
days  spent  with  you,  and  sometimes  can  hardly  believe  what  a 
jolly  careless  individual  one  was  in  those  old  days,  A  bright 
autumn  evening  often  brings  to  mind  some  shooting  excursion 
from  Osmaston.  I  do  indeed  regret  that  we  live  so  far  off 
each  other,  and  that  I  am  so  little  locomotive.  I  have  been 
unusually  well  of  late  (no  water-cure),  but  I  do  not  find  that 
I  can  stand  any  change  better  than  formerly.  .  .  The  other 
day  I  went  to  London  and  back,  and  the  fatigue,  though  so 
trifling,  brought  on  my  bad  form  of  vomiting.  I  grieve  to 
hear  that  your  chest  has  been  ailing,  and  most  sincerely  do 
I  hope  that  it  is  only  the  muscles  ;  how  frequently  the  voice 
fails  with  the  clergy.  I  can  well  understand  your  reluctance 
to  break  up  your  large  and  happy  party  and  go  abroad  ;  but 
your  life  is  very  valuable,  so  you  ought  to  be  very  cautious  in 
good  time.  You  ask  about  all  of  us,  now  five  boys  (oh  !  the 
professions  ;  oh  !  the  gold  ;  and  oh  !  the  French — these  three 
oh's  all  rank  as  dreadful  bugbears)  and  two  girls  .  .  .  but 
another  and  the  worst  of  my  bugbears  is  hereditary  weakness. 
All  my  sisters  are  well  except  Mrs.  Parker,  who  is  much  out  of 
health  ;  and  so  is  Erasmus  at  his  poor  average  :  he  has  lately 
moved  into  Queen  Anne  Street.  I  had  heard  of  the  intended 
marriage  *  of  your  sister  Frances.  I  believe  I  have  seen  her 
since,  but  my  memory  takes  me  back  some  twenty-five  years, 
w^hen  she  was  lying  down.  I  remember  well  the  delightful 
expression  of  her  countenance.  I  most  sincerely  wish  her  all 
happiness. 

I  see  I  have  not  answered  half  your  queries.  We  like  very 
well  all  that  we  have  seen  and  heard  of  Rugby,  and  have 
never  repented  of  sending  [W.]  there.  I  feel  sure  schools 
have  greatly  improved  since  our  days  ;  but  I  hate  schools  and 

*  To  the  Rev.  J.  Hughes. 


352 


LIFE   AT    DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45-  [1853. 


the  whole  system  of  breaking  through  the  affections  of  the 
family  by  separating  the  boys  so  early  in  life  ;  but  I  see  no 
help,  and  dare  not  run  the  risk  of  a  youth  being  exposed  to 
the  temptations  of  the  world  without  having  undergone  the 
milder  ordeal  of  a  great  school. 

I  see  you  even  ask  after  our  pears.  We  have  lots  of 
Beurrees  d'Aremberg,  Winter  Nelis,  Marie  Louise,  and  *^  Ne 
plus  Ultra,"  but  all  off  the  wall  ;  the  standard  dwarfs  have 
borne  a  few,  but  I  have  no  room  for  more  trees,  so  their 
names  would  be  useless  to  me.  You  really  must  make  a 
holiday  and  pay  us  a  visit  sometime ;  nowhere  could  you  be 
more  heartily  welcome.  I  am  at  work  at  the  second  volume 
of  the  Cirripedia,  of  which  creatures  I  am  wonderfully  tired. 
I  hate  a  Barnacle  as  no  man  ever  did  before,  not  even  a  sailor 
in  a  slow-sailing  ship.  My  first  volume  is  out ;  the  only  part 
worth  looking  at  is  on  the  sexes  of  Ibla  and  Scalpellum.  I 
hope  by  next  summer  to  have  done  with  my  tedious  work. 
Farewell, — do  come  whenever  you  can  possibly  manage  it. 

I  cannot  but  hope  that  the  carbuncle  may  possibly  do  you 
good  :  I  have  heard  of  all  sorts  of  weaknesses  disappearing 
after  a  carbuncle.  I  suppose  the  pain  is  dreadful,  I  agree 
most  entirely,  what  a  blessed  discovery  is  chloroform.  When 
one  thinks  of  one's  children,  it  makes  quite  a  little  difference 
in  one's  happiness.  The  other  day  I  had  five  grinders  (two 
by  the  elevator)  out  at  a  sitting  under  this  wonderful  sub- 
stance, and  felt  hardly  anything. 

My  dear  old  friend,  yours  very  affectionately, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox, 

Down,  January  29th  [1853]. 
My  dear  Fox, — Your  last  account  some  months  ago  was 
so  little  satisfactory  that  I  have  often  been  thinking  of  you, 
and  should  be  really  obliged  if  you  would  give  me  a  few  lines, 
and  tell  me  how  your  voice  and  chest  are.  I  most  sincerely 
hope  that  your  report  will  be  good.  .  .  .  Our  second  lad  has 


i853.]  EDUCATION.  353 

a  strong  mechanical  turn,  and  we  think  of  making  him  an 
engineer.  I  shall  try  and  find  out  for  him  some  less  classical 
school,  perhaps  Bruce  Castle.  I  certainly  should  like  to  see 
more  diversity  in  education  than  there  is  in  any  ordinary 
school — no  exercising  of  the  observing  or  reasoning  faculties, 
no  general  knowledge  acquired — I  must  think  it  a  wretched 
system.  On  the  other  hand,  a  boy  who  has  learnt  to  stick  at 
Latin  and  conquer  its  difficulties,  ought  to  be  able  to  stick  at 
any  labour.  I  should  always  be  glad  to  hear  anything  about 
schools  or  education  from  you.  I  am  at  my  old,  never-end- 
ing subject,  but  trust  I  shall  really  go  to  press  in  a  few  months 
with  my  second  volume  on  Cirripedes.  I  have  been  mu§h 
pleased  by  finding  some  odd  facts  in  my  first  volume  believed 
by  Owen  and  a  few  others,  whose  good  opinion  I  regard  as 
final.  ...  Do  write  pretty  soon,  and  tell  me  all  you  can 
about  yourself  and  family ;  and  I  trust  your  report  of  your- 
self may  be  much  better  than  your  last. 

...  I  have  been  very  little  in  London  of  late,  and  have 
not  seen  Lyell  since  his  return  from  America ;  how  lucky  he 
was  to  exhume  with  his  own  hand  parts  of  three  skeletons  of 
reptiles  out  of  the  Carboniferous  strata,  and  out  of  the  inside 
of  a  fossil  tree,  which  had  been  hollow  within. 

Farewell,  my  dear  Fox,  yours  affectionately, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C  Darwi7t  to  W.  D.  Fox. 

13  Sea  Houses,  Eastbourne, 

[July  15th?  i853l. 

My  dear  Fox, — Here  we  are  in  a  state  of  profound  idle- 
ness, which  to  me  is  a  luxury ;  and  we  should  all,  I  believe, 
have  been  in  a  state  of  high  enjoyment,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  detestable  cold  gales  and  much  rain,  which  always  gives 
much  ennui  to  children  away  from  their  homes.  I  received 
your  letter  of  13th  June,  when  working  like  a  slave  with  Mr. 
Sowerby  at  drawing  for  my  second  volume,  and  so  put  off 
answering  it  till  when  I  knew  I  should  be  at  leisure.     I  was 


354  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     JETAT.    33-45.  [1853. 

extremely  glad  to  get  your  letter.  I  had  intended  a  couple 
of  months  ago  sending  you  a  savage  or  supplicating  jobation 
to  know  how  you  were,  when  I  met  Sir  P.  Egerton,  who  told 
me  you  were  well,  and,  as  usual,  expressed  his  admiration  of 
your  doings,  especially  your  farming,  and  the  number  of  ani- 
mals, including  children,  which  you  kept  on  your  land. 
Eleven  children,  ave  Maria !  it  is  a  serious  look-out  for  you. 
Indeed,  I  look  at  my  five  boys  as  something  awful,  and  hate 
the  very  thoughts  of  professions,  &c.  If  one  could  insure 
moderate  health  for  them  it  would  not  signify  so  much,  for  I 
cannot  but  hope,  with  the  enormous  emigration,  professions 
\^11  somewhat  improve.  But  my  bugbear  is  hereditary  weak- 
ness. I  particularly  like  to  hear  all  that  you  can  say  about 
education,  and  you  deserve  to  be  scolded  for  saying  **  you  did 
not  mean  to  tor7ncnt  me  with  a  long  yarn.*'  You  ask  about 
Rugby.  I  like  it  very  well,  on  the  same  principle  as  my 
neighbour,  Sir  J.  Lubbock,  likes  Eton,  viz.,  that  it  is  not 
worse  than  any  other  school ;  the  expense,  with  all  6^^.,  6^^., 
including  some  clothes,  travelling  expenses,  &c.,  is  from  ;£'iio 
t0;^i20  per  annum.  I  do  not  think  schools  are  so  wicked  as 
they  were,  and  far  more  industrious.  The  boys,  I  think,  live 
too  secluded  in  their  separate  studies  ;  and  I  doubt  whether 
they  will  get  so  much  knowledge  of  character  as  boys  used  to 
do ;  and  this,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  one  good  of  public  schools 
over  small  schools.  I  should  think  the  only  superiority  of  a 
small  school  over  home  was  forced  regularity  in  their  work, 
which  your  boys  perhaps  get  at  your  home,  but  which  I  do 
not  believe  my  boys  would  get  at  my  home.  Otherwise,  it  is 
quite  lamentable  sending  boys  so  early  in  life  from  their  home. 
.  .  .  To  return  to  schools.  My  main  objection  to  them, 
as  places  of  education,  is  the  enormous  proportion  of  time 
spent  over  classics.  I  fancy  (though  perhaps  it  is  only  fancy) 
that  I  can  perceive  the  ill  and  contracting  effect  on  my  eldest 
boy's  mind,  in  checking  interest  in  anything  in  which  reason- 
ing and  observation  come  into  play.  Mere  memory  seems  to 
be  worked.  I  shall  certainly  look  out  for  some  school  with 
more  diversified  studies  for  my  younger  boys.     I  was  talking 


i853.]  CONDOLENCE.  355 

lately  to  the  Dean  of  Hereford,  who  takes  most  strongly  this 
view  ;  and  he  tells  me  that  there  is  a  school  at  Hereford  com- 
mencing on  this  plan  ;  and  that  Dr.  Kennedy  at  Shrewsbury 
is  going  to  begin  vigorously  to  modify  that  school.  ... 

I  am  extremely  glad  to  hear  that  you  approved  of  my  cirri- 
pedial  volume.  I  have  spent  an  almost  ridiculous  amount  of 
labour  on  the  subject,  and  certainly  would  never  have  under- 
taken it  had  I  foreseen  what  a  job  it  was.  I  hope  to  have 
finished  by  the  end  of  the  year.  Do  write  again  before  a  very 
long  time  ;  it  is  a  real  pleasure  to  me  to  hear  from  you. 
Farewell,  with  my  wife's  kindest  remembrances  to  yourself 
and  Mrs.  Fox. 

My  dear  old  friend,  yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 


C.  Darwin  to  W,  D.  Fox. 

Down,  August  loth  [1853]. 

My  dear  Fox, — I  thank  you  sincerely  for  writing  to  me 
so  soon  after  your  most  heavy  misfortune.  Your  letter 
affected  me  so  much.  We  both  most  truly  sympathise  with 
you  and  Mrs.  Fox.  We  too  lost,  as  you  may  remember,  not 
so  very  long  ago,  a  most  dear  child,  of  whom  I  can  hardly  yet 
bear  to  think  tranquilly ;  yet,  as  you  must  know  from  your 
own  most  painful  experience,  time  softens  and  deadens,  in  a 
manner  truly  wonderful,  one's  feelings  and  regrets.  At  first 
it  is  indeed  bitter.  I  can  only  hope  that  your  health  and 
that  of  poor  Mrs.  Fox  may  be  preserved,  and  that  time  may 
do  its  work  softly,  and  bring  you  all  together,  once  again,  as 
the  happy  family,  which,  as  I  can  well  believe,  you  so  lately 
formed. 

My  dear  Fox,  your  affectionate  friend, 

Charles  Darwin. 

[The  following  letter  refers  to  the  Royal  Society's  Medal, 
which  was  awarded  to  him  in  November,  1853  :] 


356  I^IFE   AT   DOWN.     zETAT.  33-45-  [1853. 

C  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  November  5th  [1853]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — Amongst  my  letters  received  this 
morning,  I  opened  first  one  from  Colonel  Sabine;  the  con- 
tents certainly  surprised  me  very  much,  but,  though  the  letter 
was  a  very  kind  one,  somehow,  I  cared  very  little  indeed  for 
the  announcement  it  contained.  I  then  opened  yours,  and 
such  is  the  effect  of  warmth,  friendship,  and  kindness  from 
one  that  is  loved,  that  the  very  same  fact,  told  as  you  told  it, 
made  me  glow  with  pleasure  till  my  very  heart  throbbed. 
Believe  me,  I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  pleasure  of  your  letter. 
Such  hearty,  affectionate  sympathy  is  worth  more  than  all 
the  medals  that  ever  were  or  will  be  coined.  Again,  my 
dear  Hooker,  I  thank  you.  I  hope  Lindley*  will  never  hear 
that  he  was  a  competitor  against  me  ;  for  really  it  is  almost 
ridiculous  (of  course  you  would  never  repeat  that  I  said  this, 
for  it  would  be  thought  by  others,  though  not,  I  believe,  by 
you,  to  be  affectation)  his  not  having  the  medal  long  before 
me ;  I  must  feel  sure  that  you  did  quite  right  to  propose  him  ; 


*  John  Lindley  (b.  1799,  d.  1865)  was  the  son  of  a  nurseryman  near 
Norwich,  through  whose  failure  in  business  he  was  thrown  at  the  age  of 
twenty  on  his  own  resources.  He  was  befriended  by  Sir  W.  Hooker,  and 
employed  as  assistant  librarian  by  Sir  J.  Banks.  He  seems  to  have  had 
enormous  capacity  of  work,  and  is  said  to  have  translated  Richard's  'Ana- 
lyse du  Fruit '  at  one  sitting  of  two  days  and  three  nights.  He  became 
Assistant-Secretary  to  the  Horticultural  Society,  and  in  1829  was  appointed 
Professor  of  Botany  at  University  College,  a  post  which  he  held  for  up- 
wards of  thirty  years.  His  writings  are  numerous  :  the  best  known  being 
perhaps  his  *  Vegetable  Kingdom,*  published  in  1846.  His  influence  in 
helping  to  introduce  the  natural  system  of  classification  was  considerable, 
and  he  brought  **  all  the  weight  of  his  teaching  and  all  the  force  of  his 
controversial  powers  to  support  it,"  as  against  the  Linnean  system  univer- 
sally taught  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  career.  Sachs  points  out  (Geschichte 
der  Botanik,  1875,  p.  161),  that  though  Lindley  adopted  in  the  main  a 
sound  classification  of  plants,  he  only  did  so  by  abandoning  his  own  the- 
oretical principle  that  the  physiological  importance  of  an  organ  is  a  meas- 
ure of  its  classificatory  value. 


i854.]  GEOLOGY.  357 

and  what  a  good,  dear,  kind  fellow  you  are,  nevertheless,  to 
rejoice  in  this  honour  being  bestowed  on  me. 

V^hdit  pleasure  I  have  felt  on  the  occasion,  I  owe  almost 
entirely  to  you. 

Farewell,  my  dear  Hooker,  yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — You  may  believe  what  a  surprise  it  was,  for  I  had 
never  heard  that  the  medals  could  be  given  except  for  papers 
in  the  '  Transactions.'  All  this  will  make  me  work  with  better 
heart  at  finishing  the  second  volume. 


C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

Down,  February  i8th  [1854]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — I  should  have  written  before,  had  it 
not  seemed  doubtful  whether  you  would  go  on  to  Teneriffe, 
but  now  I  am  extremely  glad  to  hear  your  further  progress  is 
certain  ;  not  that  I  have  much  of  any  sort  to  say,  as  you  may 
well  believe  when  you  hear  that  I  have  only  once  been  in 
London  since  you  started.  I  was  particularly  glad  to  see,  two 
days  since,  your  letter  to  Mr.  Horner,  with  its  geological 
news  ;  how  fortunate  for  you  that  your  knees  are  recovered. 
I  am  astonished  at  what  you  say  of  the  beauty,  though  I  had 
fancied  it  great.  It  really  makes  me  quite  envious  to  think 
of  your  clambering  up  and  down  those  steep  valleys.  And 
what  a  pleasant  party  on  your  return  from  your  expeditions. 
I  often  think  of  the  delight  which  I  felt  when  examining  vol- 
canic islands,  and  I  can  remember  even  particular  rocks 
which  I  struck,  and  the  smell  of  the  hot,  black,  scoriaceous 
cliffs  ;  but  of  those  hot  smells  you  do  not  seem  to  have  had 
much.  I  do  quite  envy  you.  How  I  should  like  to  be  with 
you,  and  speculate  on  the  deep  and  narrow  valleys. 

How  very  singular  the  fact  is  which  you  mention  about 
the  inclination  of  the  strata  being  greater  round  the  circum- 
ference than  in  the  middle  of  the  island  ;  do  you  suppose  the 
elevation  has  had  the  form  of  a  fiat  dome.    I  remember  in  the 


• 


358  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.  33-45.  [1854. 

Cordillera  being  often  struck  with  the  greater  abruptness  of 
the  strata  in  the  low  extreme  outermost  ranges,  compared 
with  the  great  mass  of  inner  mountains.  I  dare  say  you  will 
have  thought  of  measuring  exactly  the  width  of  any  dikes 
at  the  top  and  bottom  of  any  great  cliff  (which  was  done  by 
Mr.  Searle  [?]  at  St.  Helena),  for  it  has  often  struck  me  as 
very  odd  that  the  cracks  did  not  die  out  oftener  upwards.  I 
can  think  of  hardly  any  news  to  tell  you,  as  I  have  seen  no 
one  since  being  in  London,  when  I  was  delighted  to  see 
Forbes  looking  so  well,  quite  big  and  burly.  I  saw  at  the 
Museum  some  of  the  surprisingly  rich  gold  ore  from  North 
Wales.  Ramsay  also  told  me  that  he  has  lately  turned  a 
good  deal  of  New  Red  Sandstone  into  Permian,  together 
with  the  Labyrinthodon.  No  doubt  you  see  newspapers,  and 
know  that  E.  de  Beaumont  is  perpetual  Secretary,  and  will, 
I  suppose,  be  more  powerful  than  ever ;  and  Le  Verrier  has 
Arago's  place  in  the  Observatory.  There  was  a  meeting 
lately  at  the  Geological  Society,  at  which  Prestwich  (judging 
from  what  R.  Jones  told  me)  brought  forward  your  exact 
theory,  viz.  that  the  whole  red  clay  and  flints  over  the  chalk 
plateau  hereabouts  is  the  residuum  from  the  slow  dissolution 
of  the  chalk ! 

As  regards  ourselves,  we  have  no  news,  and  are  all  well. 
The  Hookers,  sometime  ago,  stayed  a  fortnight  with  us,  and, 
to  our  extreme  delight,  Henslow  came  down,  and  was  most 
quiet  and  comfortable  here.  It  does  one  good  to  see  so  com- 
posed, benevolent,  and  intellectual  a  countenance.  There 
have  been  great  fears  that  his  heart  is  affected  ;  but,  I  hope 
to  God,  without  foundation.  Hooker's  book  *  is  out,  and 
most  beautifully  got  up.  He  has  honoured  me  beyond  meas- 
ure by  dedicating  it  to  me !  As  for  myself,  I  am  got  to  the 
page  112  of  the  Barnacles,  and  that  is  the  sum  total  of  my 
history.  By-the-way,  as  you  care  so  much  about  North 
America,  I  may  mention  that  I  had  a  long  letter  from  a  ship- 
mate in  Australia,  who  says  the  Colony  is  getting  decidedly 

*  Sir  J.  Hooker's  *  Himalayan  Journal.' 


1854.]  'HIiMALAYAN   JOURNAL.'  359 

republican  from  the  influx  of  Americans,  and  that  all  the 
great  and  novel  schemes  for  v/orking  the  gold  are  planned 
and  executed  by  these  men.  What  a  go-a-head  nation  it  is ! 
Give  my  kindest  remembrances  to  Lady  Lyell,  and  to  Mrs, 
Bunbury,  and  to  Bunbury.  I  most  heartily  wish  that  the 
Canaries  may  be  ten  times  as  interesting  as  Madeira,  and 
that  everything  may  go  on  most  prosperously  with  your 
whole  party. 

My  dear  Lyell, 

Yours  most  truly  and  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  March  1st  [1854]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  finished  yesterday  evening  the 
first  volume,  and  I  very  sincerely  congratulate  you  on  hav- 
ing produced  a  first-class  book  * — a  book  which  certainly  will 
last.  I  cannot  doubt  that  it  will  take  its  place  as  a  standard, 
not  so  much  because  it  contains  real  solid  matter,  but  that  it 
gives  a  picture  of  the  whole  country.  One  can  feel  that  one 
has  seen  it  (and  desperately  uncomfortable  I  felt  in  going 
over  some  of  the  bridges  and  steep  slopes),  and  one  realises 
all  the  great  Physical  features.  You  have  in  truth  reason  to 
be  proud  ;  consider  how  few  travellers  there  have  been  with 
a  profound  knowledge  of  one  subject,  and  who  could  in 
addition  make  a  map  (which,  by-the-way,  is  one  of  the  most 
distinct  ones  I  ever  looked  at,  wherefore  blessings  alight  on 
your  head),  and  study  geology  and  meteorology !  I  thought 
I  knew  you  very  well,  but  I  had  not  the  least  idea  that  your 
Travels  were  your  hobby  ;  but  I  am  heartily  glad  of  it,  for  I 
feel  sure  that  the  time  will  never  come  when  you  and  Mrs. 
Hooker  will  not  be  proud  to  look  back  at  the  labour  be- 
stowed on  these  beautiful  volumes. 

Your  letter,  received  this  morning,  has  interested  me  ex- 


*  « 


Himalayan  Journal.' 


360  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     ^TAT.    33-45.  [1854. 

tremely^  and  I  thank  you  sincerely  for  telling  me  your  old 
thoughts  and  aspirations.  All  that  you  say  makes  me  even 
more  deeply  gratified  by  the  Dedication ;  but  you,  bad  man, 
do  you  remember  asking  me  how  I  thought  Lyell  would  like 
the  work  to  be  dedicated  to  him  ?  I  remember  how  strongly 
I  answered,  and  1  presume  you  wanted  to  know  what  I  should 
feel ;  whoever  would  have  dreamed  of  your  being  so  crafty  ? 
1  am  glad  you  have  shown  a  little  bit  of  ambition  about  your 
Journal,  for  you  must  know  that  I  have  often  abused  you  for 
not  caring  more  about  fame,  though,  at  the  same  time,  I  must 
confess,  I  have  envied  and  honoured  you  for  being  so  free 
(too  free,  as  I  have  always  thought)  of  this  "  last  infirmity  of, 
&c."  Do  not  say,  ^^  there  never  was  a  past  hitherto  to  me — 
the  phantom  was  always  in  view,'*  for  you  will  soon  find 
other  phantoms  in  view.  How  well  I  know  this  feeling,  and 
did  formerly  still  more  vividly;  but  I  think  my  stomach  has 
much  deadened  my  former  pure  enthusiasm  for  science  and 
knowledge. 

I  am  writing  an  unconscionably  long  letter,  but  I  must 
return  to  the  Journals,  about  which  I  have  hardly  said  any- 
thing in  detail.  Imprimis,  the  illustrations  and  maps  appear 
to  me  the  best  I  have  ever  seen  ;  the  style  seems  to  me 
everywhere  perfectly  clear  (how  rare  a  virtue),  and  some  pas- 
sages really  eloquent.  How  excellently  you  have  described 
the  upper  valleys,  and  how  detestable  their  climate  ;  I  felt 
quite  anxious  on  the  slopes  of  Kinchin  that  dreadful  snowy 
night.  Nothing  has  astonished  me  more  than  your  physical 
strength  ;  and  all  those  devilish  bridges  !  Well,  thank  good- 
ness !  it  is  not  very  likely  that  I  shall  ever  go  to  the  Hima- 
laya. Much  in  a  scientific  point  of  view  has  interested  me, 
especially  all  about  those  wonderful  moraines.  I  certainly 
think  I  quite  realise  the  valleys,  more  vividly  perhaps  from 
having  seen  the  valleys  of  Tahiti.  I  cannot  doubt  that  the 
Himalaya  owe  almost  all  their  contour  to  running  water,  and 
that  they  have  been  subjected  to  such  action  longer  than  any 
mountains  (as  yet  described)  in  the  world.  What  a  contrast 
with  the  Andes  ! 


1854]  TASMANIA.  361 

Perhaps  you  would  like  to  hear  the  very  little  that  I  can 
say  per  contra^  and  this  only  applied  to  the  beginning,  in 
which  (as  it  struck  me)  there  was  noX.  flow  enough  till  you  get 
to  Mirzapore  on  the  Ganges  (but  the  Thugs  were  7nost  inter- 
esting), where  the  stream  seemed  to  carry  you  on  more 
equably  with  longer  sentences  and  longer  facts  and  discus- 
sions, &c.  In  another  edition  (and  1  am  delighted  to  hear 
that  Murray  has  sold  all  off),  I  would  consider  whether  this 
part  could  not  be  condensed.  Even  if  the  meteorology  was 
put  in  foot-notes,  I  think  it  would  be  an  improvement.  All 
the  world  is  against  me,  but  it  makes  me  very  unhappy  to  see 
the  Latin  names  all  in  Italics,  and  all  mingled  with  English 
names  in  Roman  type  ;  but  I  must  bear  this  burden,  for  all 
men  of  Science  seem  to  think  it  would  corrupt  the  Latin  to 
dress  it  up  in  the  same  type  as  poor  old  English.  Well,  I 
am  very  proud  of  my  book ;  but  there  is  one  bore,  that  I  do 
not  much  like  asking  people  whether  they  have  seen  it,  and 
how  they  like  it,  for  I  feel  so  much  identified  with  it,  that 
such  questions  become  rather  personal.  Hence,  I  cannot 
tell  you  the  opinion  of  others.  You  will  have  seen  a  fairly 
good  review  in  the  *  Athenaeum.' 

What  capital  news  from  Tasmania :  it  really  is  a  very  re- 
markable and  creditable  fact  to  the  Colony.*  I  am  always 
building  veritable  castles  in  the  air  about  emigrating,  and 
Tasmania  has  been  my  head-quarters  of  late  ;  so  that  I  feel 
very  proud  of  my  adopted  country :  it  is  really  a  very  singu- 
lar and  delightful  fact,  contrasted  with  the  slight  appreciation 
of  science  in  the  old  country.  I  thank  you  heartily  for  your 
letter  this  morning,  and  for  all  the  gratification  your  Dedica- 
tion has  given  me ;  I  could  not  help  thinking  how  much 

would  despise  you  for  not  having  dedicated  it  to  some  great 
man,  who  would  have  done  you  and  it  some  good  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world.  Ah,  my  dear  Hooker,  you  were  very  soft  on 
this  head,  and  justify  what  I  say  about  not  caring  enough  for 

■^  This  refers  to  an   unsolicited   grant   by  the  Colonial  Government 
towards  the  expenses  of  Sir  J.  Hooker's  '  Flora  of  Tasmania.' 

17 


362  LIFE   AT   DOWN.     .^TAT.  33-45-  [1854. 

your  own  fame.  I  vrish  I  was  in  every  way  more  worthy  of 
your  good  opinion.  Farewell.  How  pleasantly  Mrs.  Hooker 
and  you  must  rest  from  one  of  your  many  labours.  .  .  . 

Again  farewell :  I  have  written  a  wonderfully  long  letter. 
Adios,  and  God  bless  you. 

My  dear  Hooker,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.S. — I  have  just  looked  over  my  rambling  letter;  I  see 
that  I  have  not  at  all  expressed  my  strong  admiration  at  the 
amount  of  scientific  work,  in  so  many  branches,  which  you 
have  effected.  It  is  really  grand.  You  have  a  right  to  rest 
on  your  oars  ;  or  even  to  say,  if  it  so  pleases  you,  that  *^  your 
meridian  is  past ; "  but  well  assured  do  I  feel  that  the  day  of 
your  reputation  and  general  recognition  has  only  just  begun 
to  dawn. 

[In  September,  1854,  his  Cirripede  work  was  practically 
finished,  and  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Hooker : 

*^  I  have  been  frittering  away  my  time  for  the  last  several 
weeks  in  a  wearisome  manner,  partly  idleness,  and  odds  and 
ends,  and  sending  ten  thousand  Barnacles  out  of  the  house 
all  over  the  world.  But  I  shall  now  in  a  day  or  two  begin  to 
look  over  my  old  notes  on  species.  What  a  deal  I  shall  have 
to  discuss  with  you  ;  I  shall  have  to  look  sharp  that  I  do  not 
'progress'  into  one  of  the  greatest  bores  in  life,  to  the  few 
like  you  with  lots  of  knowledge."] 


1 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE    GROWTH    OF    THE    ^ORIGIN    OF    SPECIES.' 

On  page  67,  the  growth  of  the  *  Origin  of  Species '  has 
been  briefly  described  in  my  father's  words.  The  letters 
given  in  the  present  and  following  chapters  will  illustrate  and 
amplify  the  history  thus  sketched  out. 

It  is  clear  that  in  the  early  part  of  the  voyage  of  the 
Beagle  he  did  not  feel  it  inconsistent  with  his  viev/s  to  express 
himself  in  thoroughly  orthodox  language  as  to  the  genesis  of 
new  species.  Thus  in  1834  he  wrote*  at  Valparaiso:  **I 
have  already  found  beds  of  recent  shells  yet  retaining  their 
colour  at  an  elevation  of  1300  feet,  and  beneath,  the  level 
country  is  strewn  with  them.  It  seems  not  a  very  improbable 
conjecture  that  the  want  of  animals  may  be  owing  to  none 
having  been  created  since  this  country  was  raised  from  the 
sea." 

This  passage  does  not  occur  in  the  published  *  Journal,' 
the  last  proof  of  which  was  finished  in  1837  ;  and  this  fact 
harmonizes  with  the  change  we  know  to  have  been  proceed- 
ing in  his  views.  But  in  the  published  *  Journal '  we  find  pas- 
sages which  show  a  point  of  view  more  in  accordance  with 
orthodox  theological  natural  history  than  with  his  later  views. 
Thus,  in  speaking  of  the  birds  Synallaxis  and  Scytalopus  (ist 
edit.  p.  353  ;  2nd  edit.  p.  289),  he  says  :  "When  finding,  as 
in  this  case,  any  animal  which  seems  to  play  so  insignificant 

*  MS.  Journals,  p.  46S. 


364    THE   GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES/ 

a  part  in  the  great  scheme  of  nature,  one  is  apt  to  wonder 
why  a  distinct  species  should  have  been  created." 

A  comparison  of  the  two  editions  of  the  *  Journal'  is  in- 
structive, as  giving  some  idea  of  the  development  of  his  views 
on  evolution.  It  does  not  give  us  a  true  index  of  the  mass 
of  conjecture  which  was  taking  shape  in  his  mind,  but  it 
shows  us  that  he  felt  sure  enough  of  the  truth  of  his  belief  | 
to  allow  a  stronger  tinge  of  evolution  to  appear  in  the  second 
edition.  He  has  mentioned  in  the  Autobiography  (p.  6S) 
that  it  was  not  until  he  read  Malthus  that  he  got  a  clear  view 
of  the  potency  of  natural  selection.  This  was  in  1838 — a 
year  after  he  finished  the  first  edition  (it  was  not  published 
tintil  1839),  ^^d  five  years  before  the  second  edition  was 
written  (1845).  Thus  the  turning-point  in  the  formation  of 
his  theory  took  place  between  the  writing  of  the  two  editions. 

I  will  first  give  a  few  passages  which  are  practically  the 
same  in  the  two  editions,  and  which  are,  therefore,  chiefly  of 
interest  as  illustrating  his  frame  of  mind  in  1837. 

The  case  of  the  tv/o  species  of  Molothrus  (ist  edit.  p.  61 ; 
2nd  edit.  p.  53)  must  have  been  one  of  the  earliest  instances 
noticed  by  him  of  the  existence  of  representative  species — a 
phenomenon  which  we  know  (*  Autobiography,'  p.  68)  struck 
him  deeply.  The  discussion  on  introduced  animals  (ist  edit, 
p.  139;  2nd  edit.  p.  120)  shows  how  much  he  was  impressed 
by  the  complicated  interdependence  of  the  inhabitants  of  a 
given  area. 

An  analogous  point  of  view  is  given  in  the  discussion  (ist 
edit.  p.  98  ;  2nd  edit.  p.  85)  of  the  mistaken  belief  that  large 
animals  require,  for  their  support,  a  luxuriant  vegetation  ;  the 
incorrectness  of  this  view  is  illustrated  by  the  comparison  of 
the  fauna  of  South  Africa  and  South  America,  and  the  vege- 
tation of  the  two  continents.  The  interest  of  the  discussion 
is  that  it  shows  clearly  our  d  priori  ignorance  of  the  condi- 
tions of  life  suitable  to  any  organism. 

There  is  a  passage  which  has  been  more  than  once  quoted 
as  bearing  on  the  origin  of  his  views.  It  is  where  he  dis- 
cusses the  striking  difference  between  the  species  of  mice  on 


THE    'NATURALIST'S   VOYAGE/  365 

the  east  and  west  of  the  Andes  (ist  edit.  p.  399)  :  "Unless 
we  suppose  the  same  species  to  have  been  created  in  two  dif- 
ferent countries,  we  ought  not  to  expect  any  closer  similarity 
between  the  organic  beings  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the 
Andes  than  on  shores  separated  by  a  broad  strait  of  the  sea." 
In  the  2nd  edit.  p.  327,  the  passage  is  almost  verbally  identi- 
cal, and  is  practically  the  same. 

There  are  other  passages  again  which  are  more  strongly 
evolutionary  in  the  2nd  edit.,  but  otherwise  are  similar  to  the 
corresponding  passages  in  the  ist  edition.  Thus,  in  describ- 
ing the  blind  Tuco-tuco  (ist  edit.  p.  60  ;  2nd  edit.  p.  52),  in 
the  first  edition  he  makes  no  allusion  to  what  Lamarck  might 
have  thought,  nor  is  the  instance  used  as  an  example  of  modi- 
fication, as  in  the  edition  of  1845. 

A  striking  passage  occurs  in  the  2nd  edit.  (p.  173)  on  the 
relationship  between  the  "  extinct  edentata  and  the  living 
sloths,  ant-eaters,  and  armadillos." 

"  This  wonderful  relationship  in  the  same  continent  be- 
tween the  dead  and  the  living,  will,  I  do  not  doubt,  hereafter 
throw  more  light  on  the  appearance  of  organic  beings  on  our 
earth,  and  their  disappearance  from  it,  than  any  other  class 
of  facts." 

This  sentence  does  not  occur  in  the  ist  edit.,  but  he  was 
evidently  profoundly  struck  by  the  disappearance  of  the  gigan- 
tic forerunners  of  the  present  animals.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  discussions  in  the  two  editions  is  most  instructive. 
In  both,  our  ignorance  of  the  conditions  of  life  is  insisted  on, 
but  in  the  second  edition,  the  discussion  is  made  to  lead  up 
to  a  strong  statement  of  the  intensity  of  the  struggle  for  life. 
Then  follows  a  comparison  between  rarity  ^  and  extinction, 
which  introduces  the  idea  that  the  preservation  and  domi- 
nance of  existing  species  depend  on  the  degree  in  which  they 
are  adapted  to  surrounding  conditions.     In  the  first  edition, 


*  In  the  second  edition,  p.  146,  the  destruction  of  Niata  cattle  by 
droughts  is  given  as  a  good  example  of  our  ignorance  of  the  causes  of  rar- 
ity or  extinction.     The  passage  does  not  occur  in  the  first  edition. 


366    THE   GROWTH    OF   THE   'ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES.' 

he  is  merely  "  tempted  to  believe  in  such  simple  relations  as 
variation  of  climate  and  food,  or  introduction  of  enemies,  or 
the  increased  number  of  other  species,  as  the  cause  of  the 
succession  of  races/*  But  finally  (ist  edit.)  he  ends  the 
chapter  by  comparing  the  extinction  of  a  species  to  the  ex- 
haustion and  disappearance  of  varieties  of  fruit-trees  :  as  if 
he  thought  that  a  mysterious  term  of  life  was  impressed  on 
each  species  at  its  creation. 

The  difference  of  treatment  of  the  Galapagos  problem  is 
of  some  interest.  In  the  earlier  book,  the  American  type  of 
the  productions  of  the  islands  is  noticed,  as  is  the  fact  that 
the  different  islands  possess  forms  specially  their  own,  but  the 
importance  of  the  whole  problem  is  not  so  strongly  put  for- 
ward.    Thus,  in  the  first  edition,  he  merely  says  : — 

"  This  similarity  of  type  between  distant  islands  and  con- 
tinents, while  the  species  are  distinct,  has  scarcely  been  suffi- 
ciently  noticed.  The  circumstance  would  be  explained,  ac- 
cording to  the  views  of  some  authors,  by  saying  that  the  crea- 
tive power  had  acted  according  to  the  same  law  over  a  wide 
area." — (ist  edit.  p.  474,) 

This  passage  is  not  given  in  the  second  edition,  and  the 
generalisations  on  geographical  distribution  are  much  wider 
and  fuller.     Thus  he  asks  : — 

'^Why  were  their  aboriginal  inhabitants,  associated  .  .  . 
in  different  proportions  both  in  kind  arid  number  from  those 
on  the  Continent,  and  therefore  acting  on  each  other  in  a  dif- 
ferent manner — why  were  they  created  on  American  types  of 
organisation  ?  " — (2nd  edit.  p.  393.) 

The  same  difference  of  treatment  is  shown  elsewhere  in 
this  chapter.  Thus  the  gradation  in  the  form  of  beak  pre- 
sented by  the  thirteen  allied  species  of  finch  is  described  in 
the  first  edition  (p.  461)  without  comment.  Whereas  in  the 
second  edition  (p.  380)  he  concludes  : — 

**  One  might  really  fancy  that  from  an  original  paucity  of 
birds  in  this  Archipelago,  one  species  has  been  taken  and 
modified  for  different  ends." 

On  the  whole  it  seems  to  me  remarkable  that  the  difference 


NOTE-BOOK   OF   1837.  367 

between  the  two  editions  is  not  greater ;  it  is  another  proof 
of  the  author's  caution  and  self-restraint  in  the  treatment  of 
his  theory.  After  reading  the  second  edition  of  the  '  Jour- 
nal/ we  find  with  a  strong  sense  of  surprise  how  far  devel- 
oped were  his  views  in  1837.  We  are  enabled  to  form  an 
opinion  on  this  point  from  the  note-books  in  which  he  wrote 
down  detached  thoughts  and  queries.  I  shall  quote  from  the 
first  note-book,  completed  between  July  1837  and  February 
1838  :  and  this  is  the  more  worth  doing,  as  it  gives  us  an  in- 
sight into  the  condition  of  his  thoughts  before  the  reading  of 
Malthus.  The  notes  are  written  in  his  most  hurried  style, 
so  many  words  being  omitted,  that  it  is  often  difficult  to 
arrive  at  the  meaning.  With  a  few  exceptions  (indicated  by 
square  brackets)  *  I  have  printed  the  extracts  as  written ;  the 
punctuation,  however,  has  been  altered,  and  a  few  obvious 
slips  corrected  where  it  seemed  necessary.  The  extracts  are 
not  printed  in  order,  but  are  roughly  classified. f 

"  Propagation  explains  why  modern  animals  same  type  as 
extinct,  which  is  law,  almost  proved." 

"  We  can  see  why  structure  is  common  in  certain  countries 
when  we  can  hardly  believe  necessary,  but  if  it  was  necessary 
to  one  forefather,  the  result  would  be  as  it  is.  Hence  ante- 
lopes at  Cape  of  Good  Hope;  marsupials  at  Australia." 

"  Countries  longest  separated  greatest  differences — if  sepa- 
rated from  immersage,  possibly  two  distinct  types,  but  each 
having  its  representatives — as  in  Australia." 

"  Will  this  apply  to  whole  organic  kingdom  when  our 
planet  first  cooled  ^  " 

The  two  following  extracts  show  that  he  applied  the  theory 

*  In  the  extracts  from  the  note-book  ordinary  brackets  represent  my 
father's  parentheses. 

f  On  the  first  page  of  the  note-book,  is  written  *'  Zoonomia  "  ;  this 
seems  to  refer  to  the  first  few  pages  in  which  reproduction  by  gemmation 
is  discussed,  and  where  the  "  Zoonomia  "  is  mentioned.  Many  pages  have 
been  cut  out  of  the  note-book,  probably  for  use  in  writing  the  Sketch  of 
1844,  and  these  would  have  no  doubt  contained  the  most  interesting 
extracts. 


368     THE   GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN  OF   SPECIES/ 

of  evolution  to  the  ^^  whole  organic  kingdom  "  from  plants  to 
man. 

'*  If  we  choose  to  let  conjecture  run  wild,  then  animals, 
our  fellow  brethren  in  pain,  disease,  death,  suffering  and  fam- 
ine— our  slaves  in  the  most  laborious  works,  our  companions 
in  our  amusements — they  may  partake  [of?]  our  origin  in  one 
common  ancestor — we  may  be  all  melted  together/* 

*^  The  different  intellects  of  man  and  animals  not  so  great 
as  between  living  things  without  thought  (plants),  and  living 
things  with  thought  (animals)." 

The  following  extracts  are  again  concerned  with  an  cl priori 
view  of  the  probability  of  the  origin  of  species  by  descent 
["  propagation,"  he  called  it]. 

*^  The  tree  of  life  should  perhaps  be  called  the  coral  of 
life,  base  of  branches  dead ;  so  that  passages  cannot  be 
seen." 

^'  There  never  may  have  been  grade  between  pig  and  tapir, 
yet  from  some  common  progenitor.  Now  if  the  intermediate 
ranks  had  produced  infinite  species,  probably  the  series  would 
have  been  more  perfect." 

At  another  place,  speaking  of  intermediate  forms  he 
says  : — 

^*  Cuvier  objects  to  propagation  of  species  by  saying,  why 
have  not  some  intermediate  forms  been  discovered  between 
Palaeotherium,  Megalonyx,  Mastodon,  and  the  species  now 
living  ?  Now  according  to  my  view  (in  S.  America)  parent  of 
all  Armadilloes  might  be  brother  to  Megatherium — uncle  now 
dead." 

Speaking  elsewhere  of  intermediate  forms,  he  remarks  : — 

^^  Opponents  will  say — show  them  me.  I  will  answer  yes,  if 
you  will  show  me  every  step  between  bulldog  and  grey- 
hound." 

Here  we  see  that  the  case  of  domestic  animals  was  already 
present  in  his  mind  as  bearing  on  the  production  of  natural 
species.  The  disappearance  of  intermediate  forms  naturally 
leads  up  to  the  subject  of  extinction,  with  which  the  next 
extract  begins. 


NOTE-BOOK   OF    1837.  36^ 

"  It  is  a  v/ohderful  fact,  horse,  elephant,  and  mastodon, 
dying  out  about  same  time  in  such  different  quarters. 

^^  Will  Mr.  Lyell  say  that  some  [same  ?]  circumstance 
killed  it  over  a  tract  from  Spain  to  South  America  ? — 
(Never). 

"  They  die,  without  they  change,  like  golden  pippins  ;  it 
is  a  generation  of  species  like  generation  of  individuals. 

''  Why  does  individual  die  ?  To  perpetuate  certain  peculi- 
arities (therefore  adaptation),  and  obliterate  accidental  varie- 
ties, and  to  accommodate  itself  to  change  (for,  of  course, 
change,  even  in  varieties,  is  accommodation).  Now  this 
argument  applies  to  species. 

^*  If  individual  cannot  propagate  he  has  no  issue — so  with 
species. 

'''  If  species  generate  other  species^  their  race  is  not  utterly 
cut  off  :~,like  golden  pippins,  if  produced  by  seed,  go  on — 
otherwise  all  die. 

"  The  fossil  horse  generated,  in  South  Africa,  zebra — and 
continued — perished  in  America. 

''  All  animals  of  same  species  are  bound  together  just  like 
buds  of  plants,  which  die  at  one  time,  though  produced  either 
sooner  or  later.  Prove  animals  like  plants — trace  gradation 
between  associated  and  non-associated  animals — and  the  story 
will  be  complete." 

Here  we  have  the  view  already  alluded  to  of  a  term  of  life 
impressed  on  a  species. 

But  in  the  following  note  we  get  extinction  connected  with 
unfavourable  variation,  and  thus  a  hint  is  given  of  natural 
selection : 

'^  W^ith  respect  to  extinction,  we  can  easily  see  that  [a] 
variety  of  [the]  ostrich  (Petise),  may  not  be  well  adapted, 
and  thus  perish  out ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  like  Orpheus  [a 
Galapagos  bird],  being  favourable,  many  might  be  produced. 
This  requires  [the]  principle  that  the  permanent  variations 
produced  by  confined  breeding  and  changing  circumstances 
are  continued  and  produced  according  to  the  adaptation  of 
such  circumstance,  and  therefore  that  death  of  species  is  a 


370 


THE   GROWTH   OF    THE    'ORIGIN    OF   SPECIES/ 


consequence  (contrary  to  what  would  appear  from  America) 
of  non-adaptation  of  circumstances." 

The  first  part  of  the  next  extract  has  a  similar  bearing. 
The  end  of  the  passage  is  of  much  interest,  as  showing  that 
he  had  at  this  early  date  visions  of  the  far-reaching  character 
of  the  theory  of  evolution  : — 

'*  With  belief  of  transmutation  and  geographical  grouping, 
we  are  led  to  endeavour  to  discover  causes  of  change ;  the 
manner  of  adaptation  (wish  of  parents  1 .?),  instinct  and  struct- 
ure becomes  full  of  speculation  and  lines  of  observation. 
View  of  generation  being  condensation,*  test  of  highest  or- 
ganisation intelligible  ....  My  theory  would  give  zest  to 
recent  and  fossil  comparative  anatomy  ;  it  would  lead  to  the 
study  of  instincts,  heredity,  and  mind-heredity,  whole  [of] 
metaphysics. 

"  It  would  lead  to  closest  examination  of  hybridity,  regene- 
ration, causes  of  change  in  order  to  know  what  we  have  come 
from  and  to  what  we  tend — to  what  circumstances  favour 
crossing  and  what  prevents  it — this,  and  direct  examination 
of  direct  passages  of  structure  in  species,  might  lead  to  laws 
of  change,  which  would  then  be  the  main  object  of  study,  to 
guide  our  speculations." 

The  following  two  extracts  have  a  similar  interest ;  the 
second  is  especially  interesting,  as  it  contains  the  germ  of 
concluding  sentence  of  the  *  Origin  of  Species  ' :  f  — 

"  Before  the  attraction  of  gravity  discovered  it  might  have 
been  said  it  was  as  great  a  difficulty  to  account  for  the 
movement  of  all  [planets]  by  one  law,  as  to  account  for  each 
separate  one  ;  so  to  say  that  all  mammalia  were  born  from 

*  I  imagine  him  to  mean  that  each  generation  is  "  condensed  "  to  a 
small  number  of  the  best  organized  individuals. 

\  'Origin  of  Species '  (edit,  i.),  p.  490  : — "  There  is  a  grandeur  in  this 
view  of  life,  with  its  several  powers,  having  been  originally  breathed  into 
a  few  forms  or  into  one  ;  and  that  whilst  this  planet  has  gone  cycling  on 
according  to  the  fixed  law  of  gravity,  from  so  simple  a  beginning  endless 
forms  most  beautiful  and  most  wonderful  have  been,  and  are  being 
evolved." 


NOTE-BOOK    OF    1837.  37 1 

one  stock,  and  since  distributed  by  such  means  as  we  can 
recognise,  may  be  thought  to  explain  nothing. 

"Astronomers  might  formerly  have  said  that  God  fore- 
ordered  each  planet  to  move  in  its  particular  destiny.  In  the 
same  manner  God  orders  each  animal  created  with  certain 
forms  in  certain  countries,  but  how  much  more  simple  and 
sublime  [a]  power — let  attraction  act  according  to  certain 
law,  such  are  inevitable  consequences — let  animals  be  cre- 
ated, then  by  the  fixed  laws  of  generation,  such  will  be  their 
successors. 

*^  Let  the  powers  of  transportal  be  such,  and  so  will  be  the 
forms  of  one  country  to  another — let  geological  changes  go 
at  such  a  rate,  so  will  be  the  number  and  distribution  of  the 
species ! !  " 

The  three  next  extracts  are  of  miscellaneous  interest : — 
**  When  one  sees  nipple  on  man's  breast,  one  does  not  say 
some  use,  but  sex  not  having  been  determined — so  with  use- 
less wings  under  elytra  of  beetles — born  from  beetles  with 
wings,  and  modified — if  simple  creation  merely,  would  have 
been  born  without  them." 

"  In  a  decreasing  population  at  any  one  moment  fewer 
closely  related  (few  species  of  genera) ;  ultimately  few  genera 
(for  otherwise  the  relationship  would  converge  sooner),  and 
lastly,  perhaps,  some  one  single  one.  Will  not  this  account 
for  the  odd  genera  with  few  species  which  stand  between 
great  groups,  which  we  are  bound  to  consider  the  increasing 
ones  ?  '* 

The  last  extract  which  I  shall  quote  gives  the  germ  of  his 
theory  of  the  relation  between  alpine  plants  in  various  parts 
of  the  world,  in  the  publication  of  which  he  was  forestalled 
by  E.  Forbes  (see  vol.  i.  p.  72).  He  says,  in  the  1837  note- 
book, that  alpine  plants,  *^  formerly  descended  lower,  there- 
fore [they  are]  species  of  lower  genera  altered,  or  northern 
plants." 

When  we  turn  to  the  Sketch  of  his  theory,  written  in  1844 
(still  therefore  before  the  second  edition  of  the  *  Journal '  was 
completed),  we  find  an  enormous  advance  made  on  the  note- 


372 


THE   GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN   OF    SPECIES.' 


book  of  1837.  The  Sketch  is  in  fact  a  surprisingly  complete 
presentation  of  the  argument  afterwards  familiar  to  us  in  the 
'  Origin  of  Species/  There  is  some  obscurity  as  to  the  date 
of  the  short  Sketch  which  formed  the  basis  of  the  1844  Essay. 
We  know  from  his  own  words  (vol.  i.,  p.  68),  that  it  was  in 
June  1842  that  he  first  wrote  out  a  short  sketch  of  his  views.* 
This  statement  is  given  with  so  much  circumstance  that  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  suppose  that  it  contains  an  error  of 
date.  It  agrees  also  with  the  following  extract  from  his 
Diary. 

1842.     May  i8th.     Went  to  Maer. 

^^  June  15th  to  Shrewsbury,  and  on  i8th  to  Capel  Curig. 
During  my  stay  at  Maer  and  Shrewsbury  (five  years  after 
commencement)  wrote  pencil-sketch  of  species  theory." 

Again  in  the  introduction  to  the  '  Origin,'  p.  i,  he  writes, 
"after  an  interval  of  five  years'  work"  [from  1837,  i.  e,  in 
1842],  *' I  allowed  myself  to  speculate  on  the  subject,  and 
drew  up  some  short  notes." 

Nevertheless  in  the  letter  signed  by  Sir  C.  Lyell  and  Sir 
J.  D.  Hooker,  which  serves  as  an  introduction  to  the  joint 
paper  of  Messrs.  C.  Darwin  and  A.  Wallace  on  the  *  Tendency 
of  Species  to  form  Varieties,' f  the  essay  of  1844  (extracts 
from  which  form  part  of  the  paper)  is  said  to  have  been 
"sketched  in  1839,  and  copied  in  1844."  This  statement  is 
obviously  made  on  the  authority  of  a  note  written  in  my 
father's  hand  across  the  Table  of  Contents  of  the  1844  Essay. 
It  is  to  the  following  effect:  "This  was  sketched  in  1839, 
and  copied  out  in  full,  as  here  written  and  read  by  you  in 
1844."  I  conclude  that  this  note  was  added  in  1858,  when 
the  MS.  was  sent  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  (see  Letter  of  June  29, 
1858,  p.  476.  There  is  also  some  further  evidence  on  this 
side  of  the  question.  Writing  to  Mr.  Wallace  (Jan.  25,  1859) 
my  father  says  : — "  Every  one  whom  I  have  seen  has  thought 

*  This  version  I  cannot  find,  and  it  was  probably  destroyed,  like  so 
much  of  his  MS.,  after  it  had  been  enlarged  and  re-copied  in  1844. 
f  *  Linn.  Soc.  Journal,'  1858,  p.  45. 


SKETCH   OF   1844.  373 

your  paper  very  well  written  and  interesting.  It  puts  my 
extracts  (written  in  1839,  now  just  twenty  years  ago  !),  which 
I  must  say  in  apology  were  never  for  an  instant  intended  for 
publication,  into  the  shade."  The  statement  that  the  earliest 
sketch  was  written  in  1839  has  been  frequently  made  in  bio- 
graphical notices  of  my  father,  no  doubt  on  the  authority  of 
the  *  Linnean  Journal,'  but  it  must,  I  think,  be  considered  as 
erroneous.  The  error  may  possibly  have  arisen  in  this  way. 
In  writing  on  the  Table  of  Contents  of  the  1844  MS.  that  it 
was  sketched  in  1839,  I  think  my  father  may  have  intended 
to  imply  that  the  framework  of  the  theory  was  clearly  thought 
out  by  him  at  that  date.  In  the  Autobiography  (p.  71)  he 
speaks  of  the  time,  ^' about  1839,  when  ^^^  theory  was  clearly 
conceived,"  meaning,  no  doubt,  the  end  of  1838  and  begin- 
ning of  1839,  when  the  reading  of  Malthus  had  given  him  the 
key  to  the  idea  of  natural  selection.  But  this  explanation 
does  not  apply  to  the  letter  to  Mr.  Wallace  ;  and  with  regard 
to  the  passage*  in  the  ^Linnean  Journal'  it  is  difficult  to 
understand  how  it  should  have  been  allowed  to  remain  as  it 
now  stands,  conveying,  as  it  clearly  does,  the  impression  that 
1839  was  the  date  of  his  earliest  written  sketch. 

The  sketch  of  1844  is  written  in  a  clerk's  hand,  in  two 
hundred  and  thirty-one  pages  folio,  blank  leaves  being  alter- 
nated with  the  MS.  with  a  view  to  amplification.  The  text 
has  been  revised  and  corrected,  criticisms  being  pencilled  by 
himself  on  the  margin.  It  is  divided  into  two  parts  :  I.  ^'  On 
the  variation  of  Organic  Beings  under  Domestication  and  in 
their  Natural  State."  II.  "  On  the  Evidence  favourable  and 
opposed  to  the  view  that  Species  are  naturally  formed  races 
descended  from  common  Stocks.'*  The  first  part  contains 
the  main  argument  of  the  *  Origin  of  Species.'  It  is  founded, 
as  is  the  argument  of  that  work,  on  the  study  of  domestic 
animals,  and  both  the  Sketch  and  the  *  Origin '  open  with  a 

*  My  father  certainly  saw  the  proofs  of  the  paper,  for  he  added  a  foot- 
note  apologising  for  the  style  of  the  extracts,  on  the  ground  that  the  '*  work 
was  never  intended  for  publication." 


374    ^^^   GROWTH    OF   THE    'ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES/ 

chapter  on  variation  under  domestication  and  on  artificial 
selection.  This  is  followed,  in  both  essays,  by  discussions  on 
variation  under  nature,  on  natural  selection,  and  on  the 
struggle  for  life.  Here,  any  close  resemblance  between  the 
two  essays  with  regard  to  arrangement  ceases.  Chapter  III. 
of  the  Sketch,  which  concludes  the  first  part,  treats  of  the 
variations  which  occur  in  the  instincts  and  habits  of  animals, 
and  thus  corresponds  to  some  extent  with  Chapter  VII.  of 
the  'Origin*  (ist  edit.).  It  thus  forms  a  complement  to  the 
chapters  which  deal  with  variation  in  structure.  It  seems  to 
have  been  placed  thus  early  in  the  Essay  to  prevent  the  hasty 
rejection  of  the  whole  theory  by  a  reader  to  whom  the  idea  of 
natural  selection  acting  on  instincts  might  seem  impossible. 
This  is  the  more  probable,  as  the  Chapter  on  Instinct  in  the 
^Origin'  is  specially  mentioned  (Introduction,  p.  5)  as  one  of 
the  "most  apparent  and  gravest  difficulties  on  the  theory." 
Moreover  the  chapter  in  the  Sketch  ends  with  a  discussion, 

*^  whether  any  particular  corporeal  structures are  so 

wonderful  as  to  justify  the  rejection  primd  facie  of  our  the- 
ory.'* Under  this  heading  comes  the  discussion  of  the  eye, 
which  in  the  *  Origin'  finds  its  place  in  Chapter  VI.  under 
''Difficulties  on  Theory/*  The  second  part  seems  to  have 
been  planned  in  accordance  with  his  favourite  point  of  view 
with  regard  to  his  theory.  This  is  briefly  given  in  a  letter  to 
Dr.  Asa  Gray,  November  nth,  1859  :  "I  cannot  possibly  be- 
lieve that  a  false  theory  would  explain  so  many  classes  of 
facts,  as  I  think  it  certainly  does  explain.  On  these  grounds 
I  drop  my  anchor,  and  believe  that  the  difficulties  will 
slowly  disappear/'  On  this  principle,  having  stated  the 
theory  in  the  first  part,  he  proceeds  to  show  to  what  ex- 
tent various  wide  series  of  facts  can  be  explained  by  its 
means. 

Thus  the  second  part  of  the  Sketch  corresponds  roughly 
to  the  nine  concluding  Chapters  of  the  First  Edition  of  the 
*  Origin.'  But  we  must  exclude  Chapter  VII.  (*  Origin ') 
on  Instinct,  which  forms  a  chapter  in  the  first  part  of  the 
Sketch,  and  Chapter  VIII.  (^  Origin  ')  on  Hybridism,  a  subject 


SKETCH    OF   1844.  375 

treated  in  the  Sketch  with  *  Variation  under  Nature  '  in  the 
first  part. 

The  following  list  of  the  chapters  of  the  second  part  of  the 
Sketch  will  illustrate  their  correspondence  with  the  final 
chapters  of  the  'Origin.* 

Chapter  I.  **  On  the  kind  of  intermediateness  necessary, 
and  the  number  of  such  intermediate  forms." 

This  includes  a  geological  discussion,  and  corresponds  to 
parts  of  Chapters  VI.  and  IX.  of  the  '  Origin.' 

Chapter  II.  ''  The  gradual  appearance  and  disappearance 
of  organic  beings."  Corresponds  to  Chapter  X.  of  the 
'  Origin.* 

Chapter  III.  "  Geographical  Distribution/*  Corresponds 
to  Chapters  XI.  and  XII.  of  the  'Origin.* 

Chapter  IV.  ''Affinities  and  Classification  of  Organic 
beings.** 

Chapter  V.  "Unity  of  Type/*  Morphology,  Embryology. 

Chapter  VL  Rudimentary  Organs. 

These  three  chapters  correspond  to  Chapter  XII.  of  the 
'Origin.' 

Chapter  VII.  Recapitulation  and  Conclusion.  The  final 
sentence  of  the  Sketch,  which  we  saw  in  its  first  rough  form 
in  the  Note  Book  of  1837,  closely  resembles  the  final  sentence 
of  the  '  Origin,'  much  of  it  being  identical.  The  '  Origin  *  is 
not  divided  into  two  "  Parts,'*  but  we  see  traces  of  such  a 
division  having  been  present  in  the  writer's  mind,  in  this  re- 
semblance between  the  second  part  of  the  Sketch  and  the 
final  chapters  of  the  '  Origin.*  That  he  should  speak  *  of  the 
chapters  on  transition,  on  instinct,  on  hybridism,  and  on  the 
geological  record,  as  forming  a  group,  may  be  due  to  the  di- 
vision of  his  early  MS.  into  two  parts. 

Mr.  Huxley,  who  was  good  enough  to  read  the  Sketch  at 
my  request,  while  remarking  that  the  "  main  lines  of  argu- 
ment,*' and  the  illustrations  employed  are  the  same,  points 
out  that  in  the  1844  Essay,  "much  more  weight  is  attached 

*  *  Origin,'  Introduction,  p.  5. 


376    THE   GROWTH   OF   THE   'ORIGIN   OF    SPECIES/ 

to  the  influence  of  external  conditions  in  producing  variation, 
and  to  the  inheritance  of  acquired  habits  than  in  the 
^Origin/" 

It  is  extremely  interesting  to  find  in  the  Sketch  the  first 
mention  of  principles  familiar  to  us  in  the  *  Origin  of  Species/ 
Foremost  among  these  may  be  mentioned  the  principle  of 
Sexual  Selection,  which  is  clearly  enunciated.  The  important 
form  of  selection  known  as  *^  unconscious,"  is  also  given.  Here 
also  occurs  a  statement  of  the  law  that  peculiarities  tend  to 
appear  in  the  offspring  at  an  age  corresponding  to  that  at 
which  they  occurred  in  the  parent. 

Professor  Newton,  who  was  so  kind  as  to  look  through 
the  1844  Sketch,  tells  me  that  my  father's  remarks  on  the 
migration  of  birds,  incidentally  given  in  more  than  one 
passage,  show  that  he  had  anticipated  the  views  of  some  later 
writers. 

With  regard  to  the  general  style  of  the  Sketch,  it  is  not  to 
be  expected  that  it  should  have  all  the  characteristics  of  the 
*  Origin,'  and  we  do  not,  in  fact,  find  that  balance  and  con- 
trol, that  concentration  and  grasp,  which  are  so  striking  in 
the  work  of  1859. 

In  the  Autobiography  (p.  6S,  vol.  i)  my  father  has  stated 
what  seemed  to  him  the  chief  flaw  of  the  1844  Sketch  ;  he 
had  overlooked  **  one  problem  of  great  importance,**  the 
problem  of  the  divergence  of  character.  This  point  is  dis- 
cussed in  the  *  Origin  of  Species,'  but,  as  it  may  not  be  familiar 
to  all  readers,  I  will  give  a  short  account  of  the  difficulty  and 
its  solution.  The  author  begins  by  stating  that  varieties 
differ  from  each  other  less  than  species,  and  then  goes  on  : 
**  Nevertheless,  according  to  my  view,  varieties  are  species  in 
process  of  formation How  then  does  the  lesser  dif- 
ference between  varieties  become  augmented  into  the  greater 
difference  between  species."*  He  shows  how  an  analogous 
divergence  takes  place  under  domestication  where  an  origin- 
ally uniform  stock  of  horses  has  been  split  up  into  race-horses, 

*  'Origin,*  1st  edit.  p.  III. 


PRINCIPLE   OF    DIVERGENCE. 


377 


dray-horses,  &c.,  and  then  goes  on  to  explain  how  the  same 
principle  applies  to  natural  species.  "  From  the  simple  cir- 
cumstance that  the  more  diversified  the  descendants  from  any- 
one species  become  in  structure,  constitution,  and  habits,  by 
so  much  will  they  be  better  enabled  to  seize  on  many  and 
widely  diversified  places  in  the  polity  of  nature,  and  so  be 
enabled  to  increase  in  numbers." 

The  principle  is  exemplified  by  the  fact  that  if  on  one 
plot  of  ground  a  single  variety  of  wheat  be  sown,  and  on  to 
another  a  mixture  of  varieties,  in  the  latter  case  the  produce 
is  greater.  More  individuals  have  been  able  to  exist  because 
they  were  not  all  of  the  same  variety.  An  organism  becomes 
more  perfect  and  more  fitted  to  survive  when  by  division  of 
labour  the  different  functions  of  life  are  performed  by  differ- 
ent organs,  In  the  same  way  a  species  becomes  more  efficient 
and  more  able  to  survive  when  different  sections  of  the  species 
become  differentiated  so  as  to  fill  different  stations. 

In  reading  the  Sketch  of  1844,  I  have  found  it  difficult  to 
recognise  the  absence  of  any  definite  statement  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  divergence  as  a  flaw  in  the  Essay.  Descent  with 
modification  implies  divergence,  and  we  become  so  habituated 
to  a  belief  in  descent,  and  therefore  in  divergence,  that  we  do 
not  notice  the  absence  of  proof  that  divergence  is  in  itself  an 
advantage.  As  shown  in  the  Autobiography,  my  father  in 
1876  found  it  hardly  credible  that  he  should  have  overlooked 
the  problem  and  its  solution. 

The  following  letter  will  be  more  in  place  here  than  its 
chronological  position,  since  it  shows  what  was  my  father's 
feeling  as  to  the  value  of  the  Sketch  at  the  time  of  its  com- 
pletion.] 

C.  Darwin  to  Mrs.  Darwin. 

Down,  July  5,  1844. 

I  have  just  finished  my  sketch  of  my  species  theory.  If, 
as  I  believe,  my  theory  in  time  be  accepted  even  by  one  com- 
petent judge,  it  will  be  a  considerable  step  in  science. 


378 


THE   GROWTH   OF   THE   ^ORIGIN    OF   SPECIES/ 


I  therefore  write  this  in  case  of  my  eudden  death,  as  my 
most  solemn  and  last  request,  which  I  am  sure  you  will  con- 
sider the  same  as  if  legally  entered  in  my  w411,  that  you  will 
devote  ;£"4oo  to  its  publication,  and  further,  will  yourself,  or 
through  Hensleigh,*  take  trouble  in  promoting  it.  I  wish 
that  my  sketch  be  given  to  some  competent  person,  with  this 
sum  to  induce  him  to  take  trouble  in  its  improvement  and 
enlargement.  I  give  to  him  all  my  books  on  Natural  History, 
which  are  either  scored  or  have  references  at  the  end  to  the 
pages,  begging  him  carefully  to  look  over  and  consider  such 
passages  as  actually  bearing,  or  by  possibility  bearing,  on 
this  subject.  I  wish  you  to  make  a  list  of  all  such  books  as 
some  temptation  to  an  editor.  I  also  request  that  you  will 
hand  over  [to]  him  all  those  scraps  roughly  divided  in  eight 
or  ten  brown  paper  portfolios.  The  scraps,  with  copied  quota- 
tions from  various  works,  are  those  which  may  aid  my  editor. 
I  also  request  that  you,  or  some  amanuensis,  will  aid  in  de- 
ciphering any  of  the  scraps  which  the  editor  may  think  possi- 
bly of  use.  I  leave  to  the  editor's  judgment  whether  to  in- 
terpolate these  facts  in  the  text,  or  as  notes,  or  under  appen- 
dices. As  the  looking  over  the  references  and  scraps  will  be 
a  long  labour,  and  as  the  correcting  and  enlarging  and  altering 
my  sketch  will  also  take  considerable  time,  I  leave  this  sum  of 
;^4oo  as  some  remuneration,  and  any  profits  from  the  work. 
I  consider  that  for  this  the  editor  is  bound  to  get  the  sketch 
published  either  at  a  publisher's  or  his  own  risk.  Many  of 
the  scrap  in  the  portfolios  contains  mere  rude  suggestions  and 
early  views,  now  useless,  and  many  of  the  facts  will  probably 
turn  out  as  having  no  bearing  on  my  theory. 

With  respect  to  editors,  Mr.  Lyell  would  be  the  best  if  he 
would  undertake  it ;  I  believe  he  would  find  the  work  pleas- 
ant, and  he  would  learn  some  facts  new  to  him.  As  the  ed- 
itor must  be  a  geologist  as  well  as  a  naturalist,  the  next  best 
editor  would  be  Professor  Forbes  of  London.  The  next  best 
(and  quite  best  in  many  respects)  would  be  Professor  Hens- 

*  Mr.  H.  Wedgwood. 


SKETCH    OF    1844.  375 

low.  Dr.  Hooker  would  be  very  good.  The  next,  Mr.  Strick- 
land."* If  none  of  these  would  undertake  it,  I  would  request 
you  to  consult  with  Mr.  Lyell,  or  some  other  capable  man  for 
some  editor,  a  geologist  and  naturalist.  Should  one  other 
hundred  pounds  make  the  difference  of  procuring  a  good 
editor,  request  earnestly  that  you  will  raise  ;^Soo. 

My  remaining  collections  in  Natural  History  may  be  given 
to  any  one  or  any  museum  where  it  would  be  accepted.  .  .  . 

[The  following  note  seems  to  have  formed  part  of  the 
original  letter,  but  may  have  been  of  later  date  : 

'^  Lyell,  especially  with  the  aid  of  Hooker  (and  if  any  good 
zoological  aid),  would  be  best  of  all.  Without  an  editor  will 
pledge  himself  to  give  up  time  to  it,  it  would  be  of  no  use 
paying  such  a  sum. 

'*  If  there  should  be  any  difficulty  in  getting  an  editor  who 
would  go  thoroughly  into  the  subject,  and  think  of  the  bear- 
ing of  the  passages  marked  in  the  books  and  copied  out  of 
scraps  of  paper,  then  let  my  sketch  be  published  as  it  is, 
stating  that  it  was  done  several  years  ago  f  and  from  memory 
without  consulting  any  works,  and  with  no  intention  of  pub- 
lication in  its  present  form." 

The  idea  that  the  Sketch  of  1844  might  remain,  in  the 
event  of  his  death,  as  the  only  record  of  his  work,  seems  to 
have  been  long  in  his  mind,  for  in  August  1854,  when  he  had 
finished  with  the  Cirripedes,  and  was  thinking  of  beginning 
his  "  species  work,"  he  added  on  the  back  of  the  above  letter, 
"  Hooker  by  far  best  man  to  edit  my  species  volume.     August 

1854."] 

*  After  Mr.  Strickland's  name  comes  the  following  sentence,  which  has 
been  erased  but  remained  legible.  **  Professor  Owen  would  be  very  good  ; 
but  I  presume  he  would  not  undertake  such  a  work." 

\  The  words  "  several  years  ago  and,"  seem  to  have  been  added  at  a 
later  date. 


CHAPTER   XL 

THE    GROWTH    OF    THE    *  ORIGIN    OF    SPECIES.' 
LETTERS,    1 843-1 85 6. 


[The  history  of  my  father's  life  is  told  more  completely 
in  his  correspondence  with  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  than  in  any  other 
series  of  letters  ;  and  this  is  especially  true  of  the  history  of 
the  growth  of  the  ^  Origin  of  Species.'  This,  therefore,  seems 
an  appropriate  place  for  the  following  notes,  which  Sir  Joseph 
Hooker  has  kindly  given  me.  They  give,  moreover,  an  in- 
teresting picture  of  his  early  friendship  with  my  father  : — 

"My  first  meeting  with  Mr.  Darwin  was  in  1839,  in  Tra- 
falgar Square.  I  was  walking  with  an  officer  who  had  been 
his  shipmate  for  a  short  time  in  the  Beagle  seven  years  be- 
fore, but  who  had  not,  I  believe,  since  m.et  him.  I  was  intro- 
duced ;  the  interview  was  of  course  brief,  and  the  memory  of 
him  that  I  carried  away  and  still  retain  was  that  of  a  rather 
tall  and  rather  broad-shouldered  man,  with  a  slight  stoop, 
an  agreeable  and  animated  expression  when  talking,  beetle 
brows,  and  a  hollow  but  mellow  voice  ;  and  that  his  greeting 
of  his  old  acquaintance  was  sailor-like — that  is,  delightfully 
frank  and  cordial  I  observed  him  well,  for  I  was  already 
aware  of  his  attainments  and  labours,  derived  from  having 
read  various  proof-sheets  of  his  then  unpublished  *  Journal.' 
These  had  been  submitted  to  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir  Charles) 
Lyell  by  Mr.  Darwin,  and  by  him  sent  to  his  father,  Ch.  Lyell, 
Esq.,  of  Kinnordy,  who  (being  a  very  old  friend  of  my  father, 
and  taking  a  kind  interest  in  my  projected  career  as  a  natu- 


i843.]  SIR  J.    D.    HOOKER'S   REMINISCENCES.  381 

ralist)  bad  allowed  me  to  peruse  them.  At  this  time  I  was 
hurrying  on  my  studies,  so  as  to  take  my  degree  before  volun- 
teering to  accompany  Sir  James  Ross  in  the  Antarctic  Expe- 
dition, which  had  just  been  determined  on  by  the  Admiralty; 
and  so  pressed  for  time  was  I,  that  I  used  to  sleep  with  the 
sheets  of  the  ^  Journal '  under  my  pillow,  that  I  might  read 
them  between  waking  and  rising.  They  impressed  me  pro- 
foundly, I  might  say  despairingly,  with  the  variety  of  acquire- 
ments, mental  and  physical,  required  in  a  naturalist  who 
should  follow  in  Darwin's  footsteps,  whilst  they  stimulated  me 
to  enthusiasm  in  the  desire  to  travel  and  observe. 

^'  It  has  been  a  permanent  source  of  happiness  to  me 
that  I  knew  so  much  of  Mr.  Darwin's  scientific  work  so  many 
years  before  that  intimacy  began  which  ripened  into  feelings 
as  near  to  those  of  reverence  for  his  life,  works,  and  char- 
acter as  is  reasonable  and  proper.  It  only  remains  to  add 
to  this  little  episode  that  I  received  a  copy  of  the  ^  Journal ' 
complete, — a  gift  from  Mr.  Lyell, — a  few  days  before  leaving 
England. 

^'  Very  soon  after  the  return  of  the  Antarctic  Expedition 
my  correspondence  with  Mr.  Darwin  began  (December,  1843) 
by  his  sending  me  a  long  letter,  warmly  congratulating  me  on 
my  return  to  my  family  and  friends,  and  expressing  a  wish  to 
hear  more  of  the  results  of  the  expedition,  of  which  he  had 
derived  some  knowledge  from  private  letters  of  my  own 
(written  to  or  communicated  through  Mr.  Lyell).  Then, 
plunging  at  once  into  scientific  matters,  he  directed  my  atten- 
tion to  the  importance  of  correlating  the  Fuegian  Flora  with 
that  of  the  Cordillera  and  of  Europe,  and  invited  me  to  study 
the  botanical  collections  which  he  had  made  in  the  Galapagos 
Islands,  as  well  as  his  Patagonian  and  Fuegian  plants. 

^*  This  led  to  me  sending  him  an  outline  of  the  conclusions 
I  had  formed  regarding  the  distribution  of  plants  in  the 
southern  regions,  and  the  necessity  of  assuming  the  destruc- 
tion of  considerable  areas  of  land  to  account  for  the  relations 
of  the  flora  of  the  so-called  Antarctic  Islands.  I  do  not  sup- 
pose that  any  of  these  ideas  were  new  to  him,  but  they  led 


382  GROWTH   OF   THE   'ORIGIN.'  [1843. 

to  an  animated  and  lengthy  correspondence  full  of  instruc- 
tion/* 

Here  follows  the  letter  (1843)  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  above 
referred  to.] 

My  dear  Sir, — I  had  hoped  before  this  time  to  have  had 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  and  congratulating  you  on  your 
safe  return  from  your  long  and  glorious  voyage.  But  as  I 
seldom  go  to  London,  we  may  not  yet  meet  for  some  time — 
without  you  are  led  to  attend  the  Geological  Meetings. 

I  am  anxious  to  know  what  you  intend  doing  with  all  your 
materials — I  had  so  much  pleasure  in  reading  parts  of  some 
of  your  letters,  that  I  shall  be  very  sorry  if  I,  as  one  of  the 
public,  have  no  opportunity  of  reading  a  good  deal  more. 
I  suppose  you  are  very  busy  now  and  full  of  enjoyment: 
how  well  I  remember  the  happiness  of  my  first  few  months 
of  England — it  was  worth  all  the  discomforts  of  many  a  gale  ! 
But  I  have  run  from  the  subject,  which  made  me  write,  of 
expressing  my  pleasure  that  Henslow  (as  he  informed  me 
a  few  days  since  by  letter)  has  sent  to  you  my  small  collec- 
tion of  plants.  You  cannot  think  how  much  pleased  I  am, 
as  I  feared  they  would  have  been  all  lost,  and  few  as  they  are, 
they  cost  me  a  good  deal  of  trouble.  There  are  a  very  few 
notes,  which  I  believe  Henslow  has  got,  describing  the 
habitats,  &c.,  of  some  few  of  the  more  remarkable  plants. 
I  paid  particular  attention  to  the  Alpine  flowers  of  Tierra  del 
Fuego,  and  I  am  sure  I  got  every  plant  which  was  in  flower 
in  Patagonia  at  the  seasons  when  we  were  there.  I  have  long 
thought  that  some  general  sketch  of  the  Flora  of  the  point  of 
land,  stretching  so  far  into  the  southern  seas,  would  be  very 
curious.  Do  make  comparative  remarks  on  the  species  allied 
to  the  European  species,  for  the  advantage  of  botanical  igno- 
ramuses like  myself.  It  has  often  struck  me  as  a  curious 
point  to  find  cut,  whether  there  are  many  European  genera 
in  T.  del  Fuego  which  are  not  found  along  the  ridge  of  the 
Cordillera;  the  separation  in  such  case  would  be  so  enormous. 
Do  point  out  in  any  sketch  you  draw  up,  what  genera  are 


1843]  GALAPAGOS   FLORA.  383 

American  and  what  European,  and  how  great  the  differences 
of  the  species  are,  when  the  genera  are  European,  for  the 
sake  of  the  ignoramuses. 

I  hope  Henslow  will  send  you  my  Galapagos  plants  (about 
which  Humboldt  even  expressed  to  me  considerable  curiosity) 
— I  took  much  pains  in  collecting  all  I  could.  A  Flora  of 
this  archipelago  would,  I  suspect,  offer  a  nearly  parallel  case 
to  that  of  St.  Helena,  which  has  so  long  excited  interest. 
Pray  excuse  this  long  rambling  note,  and  believe  me,  my  dear 
sir,  yours  very  sincerely,  C.  Darwin. 

Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  present  my  respectful  compli- 
ments to  Sir  W.  Hooker. 

[Referring  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker's  work  on  the  Galapagos 
Flora,  my  father  wrote  in  1846  : 

^^  I  cannot  tell  you  how  delighted  and  astonished  I  am  at 
the  results  of  your  examination ;  how  wonderfully  they  sup- 
port my  assertion  on  the  differences  in  the  animals  of  the 
different  islands,  about  which  I  have  always  been  fearful  " 

Again  he  wrote  (1849)  • — 

"  I  received  a  few  weeks  ago  your  Galapagos  papers,*  and 
I  have  read  them  since  being  here.  I  really  cannot  express 
too  strongly  my  admiration  of  the  geographical  discussion : 
to  my  judgment  it  is  a  perfect  model  of  what  such  a  paper 
should  be;  it  took  me  four  days  to  read  and  think  over. 
How  interesting  the  Flora  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  appears 
to  be,  how  I  wish  there  were  materials  for  you  to  treat  its 
flora  as  you  have  done  the  Galapagos.  In  the  Systematic 
paper  I  was  rather  disappointed  in  not  finding  general  remarks 
on  affinities,  structures,  Src,  such  as  you  often  give  in  con- 
versation, and  such  as  De  Candolle  and  St.  Hilaire  introduced 

*  These  papers  include  the  results  of  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker's  examination 
of  my  father's  Galapagos  plants,  and  were  published  by  the  Linnean 
Society  in  1849. 


384  GROWTH   OF   THE   'ORIGIN.'  [1844. 

in  almost  all  their  papers,  and  which  make  them  interesting 
even  to  a  non-Botantist." 

"Very  soon  afterwards  [continues  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker]  in  a 
letter  dated  January  1844,  the  subject  of  the  ^  Origin  of  Spe- 
cies'  was  brought  forward  by  him,  and  I  believe  that  I  was 
the  first  to  whom  he  communicated  his  then  new  ideas  on  the 
subject,  and  which  being  of  interest  as  a  contribution  to  the 
history  of  Evolution,  I  here  copy  from  his  letter  "  : — ] 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

[January  nth,  1844.] 

Besides  a  general  interest  about  the  southern  lands,  I  have 
been  now  ever  since  my  return  engaged  in  a  very  presump- 
tuous work,  and  I  know  no  one  individual  who  would  not 
say  a  very  foolish  one.  I  was  so  struck  with  the  distri- 
bution of  the  Galapagos  organisms,  &c.  &c.,  and  with  the 
character  of  the  American  fossil  mammifers,  &c.  &c.,  that  I 
determined  to  collect  blindly  every  sort  of  fact,  which  could 
bear  any  way  on  what  are  species.  I  have  read  heaps  of 
agricultural  and  horticultural  books,  and  have  never  ceased 
collecting  facts.  At  last  gleams  of  light  have  come,  and  I  am 
almost  convinced  (quite  contrary  to  the  opinion  I  started 
with)  that  species  are  not  (it  is  like  confessing  a  murder) 
immutable.  Heaven  forfend  me  from  Lamarck  nonsense  of 
a  *^  tendency  to  progression,"  *' adaptations  from  the  slow 
willing  of  animals,"  &c.!  But  the  conclusions  I  am  led  to  are 
not  widely  different  from  his  ;  though  the  means  of  change 
are  wholly  so.  I  think  I  have  found  out  (here's  presump- 
tion !)  the  simple  way  by  which  species  become  exquisitely 
adapted  to  various  ends.  You  will  now  groan,  and  think  to 
yourself,  "on  what  a  man  have  I  been  wasting  my  time 
and  writing  to.'*  I  should,  five  years  ago,  have  thought 
so.  .  .  . 

[The  following  letter  written  on  February  23,  1844,  shows 
that  the  acquaintanceship  with   Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  was  then 


1844.]  GALAPAGOS   FLORA.  385 

fast  ripening  into  friendship.  The  letter  is  chiefly  of  interest 
as  showing  the  sort  of  problems  then  occupying  my  father's 
mind :] 

Dear  Hooker, — I  hope  you  will  excuse  the  freedom  of 
my  address,  but  I  feel  that  as  co-circum-wanderers  and  as 
fellow  labourers  (though  myself  a  very  weak  one)  we  may 
throw  aside  some  of  the  old-world  formality.  ...  I  have  just 
finished  a  little  volume  on  the  volcanic  islands  which  we 
visited.  I  do  not  know  how  far  you  care  for  dry  simple 
geology,  but  I  hope  you  will  let  me  send  you  a  copy.  I 
suppose  I  can  send  it  from  London  by  common  coach  con- 
veyance. 

...  I  am  going  to  ask  you  some  more  questions,  though  I 
daresay,  without  asking  them,  I  shall  see  answers  in  your 
work,  when  published,  which  will  be  quite  time  enough  for 
my  purposes.  First  for  the  Galapagos,  you  will  see  in  my 
Journal,  that  the  Birds,  though  peculiar  species,  have  a  most 
Dbvious  S.  American  aspect  :  I  have  just  ascertained  the 
same  thing  holds  good  with  the  sea-shells.  It  is  so  with 
those  plants  which  are  peculiar  to  this  archipelago  ;  you  state 
that  their  numerical  proportions  are  continental  (is  not  this  a 
^ery  curious  fact  ?)  but  are  they  related  in  forms  to  S.  Amer- 
ica. Do  you  know  of  any  other  case  of  an  archipelago,  with 
the  separate  islands  possessing  distinct  representative  species? 
[  have  always  intended  (but  have  not  yet  done  so)  to  examine 
iWebb  and  Berthelot  on  the  Canary  Islands  for  this  object. 
Talking  with  Mr.  Bentham,  he  told  me  that  the  separate 
slands  of  the  Sandwich  Archipelago  possessed  distinct  repre- 
sentative species  of  the  same  genera  of  Labiatae  :  would  not 
:his  be  worth  your  enquiry  ?  How  is  it  with  the  Azores  ;  to 
3e  sure  the  heavy  western  gales  would  tend  to  diffuse  the 
jame  species  over  that  group. 

I  hope  you  will  (I  dare  say  my  hope  is  quite  superfluous) 
ittend  to  this  general  kind  of  affinity  in  isolated  islands, 
hough  I  suppose  it  is  more  difficult  to  perceive  this  sort  of 
Relation  in  plants,  than  in  birds  or  quadrupeds,  the  groups  of 
18 


386  GROWTH  OF  THE  *  ORIGIN.'  [1844. 

which  are,  I  fancy,  rather  more  confined.  Can  St.  Helena  be 
classed,  though  remotely,  either  with  Africa  or  S.  America.^ 
From  some  facts,  which  I  have  collected,  I  have  been  led  to 
conclude  that  the  fauna  of  mountains  are  either  remarkably 
similar  (sometimes  in  the  presence  of  the  same  species  and  at 
other  times  of  same  genera),  or  that  they  are  remarkably  dis- 
similar ;  and  it  has  occurred  to  me  that  possibly  part  of  this 
peculiarity  of  the  St.  Helena  and  Galapagos  floras  may  be 
attributed  to  a  great  part  of  these  two  Floras  being  moun- 
tain Floras.  I  fear  my  notes  will  hardly  serve  to  distinguish 
much  of  the  habitats  of  the  Galapagos  plants,  but  they  may 
in  some  cases;  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  green,  leafy  plants 
come  from  the  summits  of  the  islands,  and  the  thin  brown 
leafless  plants  come  from  the  lower  arid  parts  :  would  you  be 
so  kind  as  to  bear  this  remark  in  mind,  when  examining  my 
collection. 

I  will  trouble  you  with  only  one  other  question.  In  dis- 
cussion with  Mr.  Gould,  I  found  that  in  most  of  the  genera 
of  birds  which  range  over  the  whole  or  greater  part  of  the 
world,  the  individual  species  have  wider  ranges,  thus  the  Owl 
is  mundane,  and  many  of  the  species  have  very  wide  ranges. 
So  I  believe  it  is  with  land  and  fresh-water  shells — and  I 
might  adduce  other  cases.  Is  it  not  so  with  Cryptogamic 
plants  ;  have  not  most  of  the  species  wide  ranges,  in  those 
genera  which  are  mundane  ?  I  do  not  suppose  that  the 
converse  holds,  viz. — that  w^ien  a  species  has  a  wide  range, 
its  genus  also  ranges  wide.  Will  you  so  far  oblige  me  by 
occasionally  thinking  over  this  ?  It  would  cost  me  vast 
trouble  to  get  a  Hst  of  mundane  phanerogamic  genera  and 
then  search  how  far  the  species  of  these  genera  are  apt  to 
range  wide  in  their  several  countries ;  but  you  might  occa- 
sionally, in  the  course  of  your  pursuits,  just  bear  this  in  mind, 
though  perhaps  the  point  may  long  since  have  occurred  to_ 
you  or  other  Botanists.  Geology  is  bringing  to  light  interest- 
ing facts,  concerning  the  ranges  of  shells ;  I  think  it  is  pretty 
well  established,  that  according  as  the  geographical  range  of 
a  species  is  wide,  so  is  its  persistence  and  duration  in  time.    I 


1844.]  SIR  J.    D.    HOOKER'S   REMINISCENCES.  387 

hope  you  will  try  to  grudge  as  little  as  you  can  the  trouble  of 
my  letters,  and  pray  believe  me  very  truly  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S.  I  should  feel  extremely  obliged  for  your  kind  offer 
of  the  sketch  of  Humboldt ;  I  venerate  him,  and  after  having 
had  the  pleasure  of  conversing  with  him  in  London,  I  shall 
still  more  like  to  have  any  portrait  of  him. 

[What  follows  is  quoted  from  Sir  J.  Hooker's  notes. 

'^  The  next  act  in  the  drama  of  our  lives  opens  with  per- 
sonal intercourse.    This  began  with  an  invitation  to  breakfast 
with  him  at  his  brother's  (Erasmus  Darwin's)  house  in  Park 
Street ;  which  was  shortly  afterwards  followed  by  an  invita- 
tion to  Down  to  meet  a  few  brother  Naturalists.    In  the  short 
intervals  of  good  health  that  followed  the  long  illnesses  which 
oftentimes  rendered  life  a  burthen  to  him,  between  1844  ^^^ 
1847,  I  had  many  such  invitations,  and  delightful  they  were. 
A  more  hospitable  and  more  attractive  home  under  every 
point  of  view  could  not  be  imagined — -of  Society  there  were 
most  often  Dr.  Falconer,  Edward  Forbes,  Professor  Bell,  and 
Mr.  Waterhouse — there    were    long   walks,  romps  with   the 
children  on  hands  and    knees,  music    that  haunts  me  still. 
Darwin's  own  hearty  manner,  hollow  laugh,  and  thorough 
enjoyment  of  home  life  with   friends  ;    strolls  with  him  all 
ogether,  and  interviews  with  us  one  by  one  in  his  study,  to 
discuss   questions  in    any  branch  of   biological  or   physical 
[knowledge  that  we  had  followed  ;  and  which  I  at  any  rate 
Iways  left  with  the  feeling  that  I  had  imparted  nothing  and 
arried  away  more  than  1  could  stagger  under.     Latterly,  as 
is  health  became  more  seriously  affected,  I  was  for  days  and 
weeks  the  only  visitor,  bringing  my  work  with  me  and  enjoy- 
ng  his  society  as  opportunity  offered.     It  was  an  established 
ule  that  he  every  day  pumped  me,  as  he  called  it,  for  half 
n    hour  or   so  after  breakfast   in  his  study,  w^hen   he  first 
rought  out  a  heap  of  slips  with  questions  botanical,  geo- 
raphical,  &c.,  for  me  to  answer,  and  concluded  by  telling 


388  GROWTH    OF   THE   'ORIGIN.'  [1844. 

me  of  the  progress  he  had  made  in  his  own  work,  asking  my 
opinion  on  various  points.  I  saw  no  more  of  him  till  about 
noon,  when  I  heard  his  mellow  ringing  voice  calling  my 
name  under  my  window — this  was  to  join  him  in  his  daily 
forenoon  walk  round  the  sand-walk.*  On  joining  him  I 
found  him  in  a  rough  grey  shooting-coat  in  summer,  and 
thick  cape  over  his  shoulders  in  winter,  and  a  stout  staff  in 
his  hand ;  away  we  trudged  through  the  garden,  where  there 
was  always  some  experiment  to  visit,  and  on  to  the  sand- 
walk,  round  which  a  fixed  number  of  turns  were  taken,  during 
which  our  conversation  usually  ran  on  foreign  lands  and  seas, 
old  friends,  old  books,  and  things  far  off  to  both  mind  and 
eye. 

"  In  the  afternoon  there  was  another  such  walk,  after  which 
he  again  retired  till  dinner  if  well  enough  to  join  the  family ; 
if  not,  he  generally  managed  to  appear  in  the  drawing-room, 
where  seated  in  his  high  chair,  with  his  feet  in  enormous  car- 
pet shoes,  supported  on  a  high  stool — he  enjoyed  the  music 
or  conversation  of  his  family." 

Here  follows  a  series  of  letters  illustrating  the  growth  of 
my  father's  views,  and  the  nature  of  his  work  during  this 
period."! 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down  [1844]. 

.  .  .  The  conclusion,  which  I  have  come  at  is,  that  those 
areas,  in  which  species  are  most  numerous,  have  oftenest  been 
divided  and  isolated  from  other  areas,  united  and  again  di- 
vided ;  a  process  implying  antiquity  and  some  changes  in  the 
external  conditions.  This  will  justly  sound  very  hypothetical. 
I  cannot  give  my  reasons  in  detail ;  but  the  most  general  con- 
clusion, which  the  geographical  distribution  of  all  organic 
beings,  appears  to  me  to  indicate,  is  that  isolation  is  the  chief 
concomitant  or  cause  of  the  appearance  of  new  forms  (I  well 

*  See  p.  93. 


i844-]  MUTABILITY   OF   SPECIES.  389 

know  there  are  some  staring  exceptions).  Secondly,  from 
seeing  how  often  the  plants  and  animals  swarm  in  a  country, 
when  introduced  into  it,  and  from  seeing  what  a  vast  number 
of  plants  will  live,  for  instance  in  England,  if  kept  free  from 
weeds^  and  native  plants^  I  have  been  led  to  consider  that  the 
spreading  and  number  of  the  organic  beings  of  any  country 
depend  less  on  its  external  features,  than  on  the  number  of 
forms,  which  have  been  there  originally  created  or  produced. 
I  much  doubt  whether  you  will  find  it  possible  to  explain 
the  number  of  forms  by  proportional  differences  of  exposure  ; 
and  I  cannot  doubt  if  half  the  species  in  any  country  were 
destroyed  or  had  not  been  created,  yet  that  country  would 
appear  to  us  fully  peopled.  With  respect  to  original  creation 
or  production  of  new  forms,  I  have  said  that  isolation  appears 
the  chief  element.  Hence,  with  respect  to  terrestrial  pro- 
ductions, a  tract  of  country,  which  had  oftenest  within  the 
late  geological  periods  subsided  and  been  converted  into 
islands,  and  reunited,  I  should  expect  to  contain  most  forms. 
But  such  speculations  are  amusing  only  to  one  self,  and 
in  this  case  useless,  as  they  do  not  show  any  direct  line  of 
observation  :  if  I  had  seen  how  hypothetical  [is]  the  little, 
which  I  have  unclearly  written,  I  would  not  have  troubled 
you  with  the  reading  of  it.  Believe  me, — at  last  not  hypo- 
thetically,  Yours  very  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  1844. 

...  I  forget  my  last  letter,  but  it  must  have  been  a  very 
silly  one,  as  it  seems  I  gave  my  notion  of  the  number  of 
species  being  in  great  degree  governed  by  the  degree  to 
which  the  area  had  been  often  isolated  and  divided  ;  I  must 
have  been  cracked  to  have  written  it,  for  I  have  no  evidence, 
without  a  person  be  willing  to  admit  all  my  views,  and  then 
it  does  follow  ;  but  in  my  most  sanguine  moments,  all  I 
expect,  is  that  I  shall  be  able  to  show  even  to  sound  Natu- 
ralists, that  there  are  two  sides  to  the  question  of  the  immu- 


390  GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN.'  [1844. 

tability  of  species ; — that  facts  can  be  viewed  and  grouped 
under  the  notion  of  allied  species  having  descended  from 
common  stocks.  With  respect  to  books  on  this  subject,  I 
do  not  know  of  any  systematical  ones,  except  Lamarck^s, 
which  is  veritable  rubbish  ;  but  there  are  plenty,  as  Lyell, 
Pritchard,  &c.,  on  the  view  of  the  immutability.  Agassiz 
lately  has  brought  the  strongest  argument  in  favour  of  immu- 
tability. Isidore  G.  St.  Hilaire  has  written  some  good  Essays, 
tending  towards  the  mutability-side,  in  the  *  Suites  a  Buffon,* 
entitled  "  Zoolog,  Generale."  Is  it  not  strange  that  the  author, 
of  such  a  book,  as  the  *  Animaux  sans  Vertebres  *  should  have 
written  that  insects,  which  never  see  their  eggs,  should  will 
(and  plants,  their  seeds)  to  be  of  particular  forms,  so  as  to 
become  attached  to  particular  objects.  The  other,  common 
(specially  Germanic)  notion  is  hardly  less  absurd,  viz.  that 
climate,  food,  &c.,  should  make  a  Pediculus  formed  to  climb 
hair,  or  wood-pecker,  to  climb  trees.  I  believe  all  these 
absurd  views  arise,  from  no  one  having,  as  far  as  I  know, 
approached  the  subject  on  the  side  of  variation  under  domes- 
tication, and  having  studied  all  that  is  known  about  domesti- 
cation. I  was  very  glad  to  hear  your  criticism  on  island-floras 
and  on  non-diffusion  of  plants  :  the  subject  is  too  long  for  a 
letter:  I  could  defend  myself  to  some  considerable  extent, 
but  I  doubt  whether  successfully  in  your  eyes,  or  indeed  in 
my  own.  ... 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down  [July,  1844]. 

...  I  am  now  reading  a  wonderful  book  for  facts  on 
variation — Bronn, '  Geschichte  der  Natur.'  It  is  stiff  German  : 
it  forestalls  me,  sometimes  I  think  delightfully,  and  some- 
times cruelly.  You  will  be  ten  times  hereafter  more  horrified 
at  me  than  at  H.  Watson.  I  hate  arguments  from  results, 
but  on  my  views  of  descent,  really  Natural  History  becomes 
a  sublimely  grand  result-giving  subject  (now  you  may  quiz 
me  for  so  foolish  an  escape  of  mouth).  ...  I  must  leave  this 


1845-1  MUTABILITY   OF    SPECIES.  39I 

letter  till  to-morrow,  for  I  am  tired  ;  but  I  so  enjoy  writing 
to  you,  that  I  must  inflict  a  little  more  on  you. 

Have  you  any  good  evidence  for  absence  of  insects  in 
small  islands  ?  I  found  thirteen  species  in  Keeling  Atoll. 
Flies  are  good  fertilizers,  and  I  have  seen  a  microscopic  Thrips 
and  a  Cecidomya  take  flight  from  a  flower  in  the  direction  of 
another  with  pollen  adhering  to  them.  In  Arctic  countries  a 
bee  seems  to  go  as  far  N.  as  any  flower 


C  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker, 

Shrewsbury  [September,  1845]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  write  a  line  to  say  that  Cosmos  * 
arrived  quite  safely  [N.B.  One  sheet  came  loose  in  Pt.  I.], 
and  to  thank  you  for  your  nice  note.  I  have  just  begun  the 
introduction,  and  groan  over  the  style,  which  in  such  parts  is 
full  half  the  battle.  How  true  many  of  the  remarks  are  (/.  e, 
as  far  as  I  can  understand  the  wretched  English)  on  the 
scenery ;  it  is  an  exact  expression  of  one's  own  thoughts. 

I  wish  I  ever  had  any  books  to  lend  you  in  return  for  the 
many  you  have  lent  me.   .  .  . 

All  of  what  you  kindly  say  about  my  species  work  does 
not  alter  one  iota  my  long  self-acknowledged  presumption  in 
accumulating  facts  and  speculating  on  the  subject  of  varia- 
tion, without  having  worked  out  my  due  share  of  species.  But 
now  for  nine  years  it  has  been  anyhow  the  greatest  amuse- 
ment to  me. 

Farewell,  my  dear  Hooker,  I  grieve  more  than  you  can 
well  believe,  over  our  prospect  of  so  seldom  meeting. 

I  have  never  perceived  but  one  fault  in  you,  and  that  you 
have  grievously,  viz,  modesty  ;  you  form  an  exception  to 
Sydney  Smith's  aphorism,  that  merit  and  modesty  have  no 
other  connection,  except  in  their  first  letter.     Farewell, 

C.  Darwin. 

*  A  translation  of  Humboldt's  '  Kosmos.' 


392  GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN.'  [1845. 

C.  Darwin  to  L.  Jenyns  {^Blojne field), 

Down,  Oct.  I2th,  [1845]. 
My  dear  Jenyns, — Thanks  for  your  note.  I  am  sorry  to 
say  I  have  not  even  the  tail-end  of  a  fact  in  English  Zoology 
to  communicate.  I  have  found  that  even  trifling  observations 
require,  in  my  case,  some  leisure  and  energy,  both  of  which 
ingredients  I  have  had  none  to  spare,  as  writing  my  Geology 
thoroughly  expends  both.  I  had  always  thought  that  I  would 
keep  a  journal  and  record  everything,  but  in  the  way  I  now 
live  I  find  I  observe  nothing  to  record.  Looking  after  my 
garden  and  trees,  and  occasionally  a  very  little  walk  in  an 
idle  frame  of  mind,  fills  up  every  afternoon  in  the  same  man- 
ner. I  am  surprised  that  with  all  your  parish  affairs,  you  have 
had  time  to  do  all  that  which  you  have  done.  I  shall  be  very 
glad  to  see  your  little  work  *  (and  proud  should  I  have  been 
if  I  could  have  added  a  single  fact  to  it).  My  work  on  the 
species  question  has  impressed  me  very  forcibly  with  the 
importance  of  all  such  works  as  your  intended  one,  contain- 
ing what  people  are  pleased  generally  to  call  trifling  facts. 
These  are  the  facts  which  make  one  understand  the  working 
or  economy  of  nature.  There  is  one  subject,  on  which  I  am 
very  curious,  and  which  perhaps  you  may  throw  some  light 
on,  if  you  have  ever  thought  on  it ;  namely,  what  are  the 
checks  and  what  the  periods  of  life,— by  which  the  increase 
of  any  given  species  is  limited.  Just  calculate  the  increase 
of  any  bird,  if  you  assume  that  only  half  the  young  are  reared, 
and  these  breed  :  within  the  natural  (/.  e.^  if  free  from  acci- 
dents) life  of  the  parents  the  number  of  individuals  will  be- 
come enormous,  and  I  have  been  much  surprised  to  think 
how  great  destruction  must  annually  or  occasionally  be  falling 

*  Mr.  Jenyns'  *  Observations  in  Natural  History.*  It  is  prefaced  by  an 
Introduction  on  **  Habits  of  observing  as  connected  with  the  study  of 
Natural  History,"  and  followed  by  a  *'  Calendar  of  Periodic  Phenomena  in 
Natural  History,"  with  "  Remarks  on  the  importance  of  such  Registers,'* 
My  father  seems  to  be  alluding  to  this  Register  in  the  P.S.  to  the  letter 
dated  Oct.  17,  1846. 


i845.]  STRUGGLE   FOR   LIFE.  353 

on  every  species,  yet  the  means  and  period  of  such  destruc- 
tion is  scarcely  perceived  by  us. 

I  have  continued  steadily  reading  and  collecting  facts  on 
variation  of  domestic  animals  and  plants,  and  on  the  question 
of  what  are  species.  I  have  a  grand  body  of  facts,  and  I 
think  I  can  draw  some  sound  conclusions.  The  general  con- 
clusions at  which  I  have  slowly  been  driven  from  a  directly 
opposite  conviction,  is  that  species  are  mutable,  and  that 
allied  species  are  co-descendants  from  common  stocks.  I 
know  how  much  I  open  myself  to  reproach  for  such  a  con- 
clusion, but  I  have  at  least  honestly  and  deliberately  come  to 
it.  I  shall  not  publish  on  this  subject  for  several  years.  At 
present  I  am  on  the  Geology  of  South  America.  I  hope  to 
pick  up  from  your  book  some  facts  on  slight  variations  in 
structure  or  instincts  in  the  animals  of  your  acquaintance. 

Believe  me,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  L.  Jenyns.^ 

Down,  [1845  ?]. 

My  dear  Jenyns, — I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for 
the  trouble  you  have  taken  in  having  written  me  so  long 
a  note.  The  question  of  where,  when,  and  how  the  check 
to  the  increase  of  a  given  species  falls  appears  to  me  par- 
ticularly interesting,  and  our  difficulty  in  answering  it  shows 
how  really  ignorant  we  are  of  the  lives  and  habits  of  our  most 
familiar  species.  I  was  aware  of  the  bare  fact  of  old  birds 
driving  away  their  young,  but  had  never  thought  of  the  effect 
you  so  clearly  point  out,  of  local  gaps  in  number  being  thus 
immediately  filled  up.  But  the  original  difficulty  remains; 
for  if  your  farmers  had  not  killed  your  sparrows  and  rooks, 
what  would  have  become  of  those  which  now  immigrate  into 
your  parish.?  in  the  middle  of  England  one  is  too  far  distant 
from  the  natural  limits  of  the  rook  and  sparrow  to  suppose 

*  Rev.  L.  Blomefield. 


394  GROWTH   OF   THE   ♦ORIGIN."  [1845. 

that  the  young  are  thus  far  expelled  from  Cambridgeshire. 
The  check  must  fall  heavily  at  some  time  of  each  species'  life  ; 
for,  if  one  calculates  that  only  half  the  progeny  are  reared 
and  bred,  how  enormous  is  the  increase  !  One  has,  however, 
no  business  to  feel  so  much  surprise  at  one's  ignorance,  when 
one  knows  how  impossible  it  is  without  statistics  to  con- 
jecture the  duration  of  life  and  percentage  of  deaths  to  births 
in  mankind.  If  it  could  be  shown  that  apparently  the  birds 
of  passage  which  breed  here  and  increase,  return  in  the  suc- 
ceeding years  in  about  the  same  number,  whereas  those  that 
come  here  for  their  winter  and  non-breeding  season  annually, 
come  here  with  the  same  numbers,  but  return  with  greatly 
decreased  numbers,  one  would  know  (as  indeed  seems 
probable)  that  the  check  fell  chiefly  on  full-grown  birds 
in  the  winter  season,  and  not  on  the  eggs  and  very  young 
birds,  which  has  appeared  to  me  often  the  most  probable 
period.  If  at  any  time  any  remarks  on  this  subject  should 
occur  to  you,  I  should  be  most  grateful  for  the  benefit  of 
them. 

With  respect  to  my  far  distant  work  on  species,  I  m\ist 
have  expressed  myself  with  singular  inaccuracy  if  I  led  you 
to  suppose  that  I  meant  to  say  that  my  conclusions  were 
inevitable.  They  have  become  so,  after  years  of  weighing 
puzzles,  to  myself  alone ;  but  in  my  wildest  day-dream,  I 
never  expect  more  than  to  be  able  to  show  that  there  are  two 
sides  to  the  question  of  the  immutability  of  species,  /.  e. 
whether  species  are  directly  created  or  by  intermediate  laws  (as 
with  the  life  and  death  of  individuals).  I  did  not  approach 
the  subject  on  the  side  of  the  difficulty  in  determining  what 
are  species  and  what  are  varieties,  but  (though,  why  I  should 
give  you  such  a  history  of  my  doings  it  would  be  hard  to  say) 
from  such  facts  as  the  relationship  between  the  living  and 
extinct  mammifers  in  South  America,  and  between  those  liv- 
ing on  the  Continent  and  on  adjoining  islands,  such  as  the 
Galapagos.  It  occurred  to  me  that  a  collection  of  all  such 
analogous  facts  would  throw  light  either  for  or  against  the 
view  of  related  species  being  co-descendants  from  a  common 


1846.]  MR.  JENYNS'   *  OBSERVATIONS.'  395 

stock.  A  long  searching  amongst  agricultural  and  horticult- 
ural books  and  people  makes  me  believe  (I  well  know  how 
absurdly  presumptuous  this  must  appear)  that  I  see  the  way 
in  which  new  varieties  become  exquisitely  adapted  to  the 
external  conditions  of  life  and  to  other  surrounding  beings. 
I  am  a  bold  man  to  lay  myself  open  to  being  thought  a  com- 
plete fool,  and  a  most  deliberate  one.  From  the  nature  of 
the  grounds  which  make  me  believe  that  species  are  mutable 
in  form,  these  grounds  cannot  be  restricted  to  the  closest- 
allied  species  ;  but  how  far  they  extend  I  cannot  tell,  as  my 
reasons  fall  away  by  degrees,  when  applied  to  species  more 
and  more  remote  from  each  other.  Pray  do  not  think  that  I 
am  so  blind  as  not  to  see  that  there  are  numerous  immense 
difficulties  in  my  notions,  but  they  appear  to  me  less  than  on 
the  common  view.  I  have  drawn  up  a  sketch  and  had  it 
copied  (in  200  pages)  of  my  conclusions ;  and  if  I  thought  at 
some  future  time  that  you  would  think  it  worth  reading,  I 
should,  of  course,  be  most  thankful  to  have  the  criticism  of 
so  competent  a  critic.  Excuse  this  very  long  and  egotistical 
and  ill-written  letter,  which  by  your  remarks  you  had  led  me 
into,  and  believe  me.  Yours  very  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  L.  Jenyns. 

Down,  Oct.  17th,  1846. 

Dear  Jenyns, — I  have  taken  a  most  ungrateful  length 
of  time  in  thanking  you  for  your  very  kind  present  of  your 

*  Observations.'  But  I  happened  to  have  had  in  hand  several 
other  books,  and  have  finished  yours  only  a  few  days  ago.  I 
found  it  very  pleasant  reading,  and  many  of  your  facts  inter- 
ested me  much.  I  think  I  was  more  interested,  which  is  odd, 
with  your  notes  on  some  of  the  lower  animals  than  on  the 
higher  ones.  The  introduction  struck  me  as  very  good  ;  but 
this  is  what  I  expected,  for  I  well  remember  being  quite  de- 
lighted with  a  preliminary  essay  to  the  first  number  of  the 

*  Annals  of  Natural  History.'     I  missed  one  discussion,  and 


396  GROWTH   OF   THE   'ORIGIN/  [1846. 

think  myself  ill-used,  for  I  remember  your  saying  you  would 
make  some  remarks  on  the  weather  and  barometer,  as  a  guide 
for  the  ignorant  in  prediction.  I  had  also  hoped  to  have 
perhaps  met  with  some  remarks  on  the  amount  of  variation  in 
our  common  species.  Andrew  Smith  once  declared  he  would 
get  some  hundreds  of  specimens  of  larks  and  sparrows  from 
all  parts  of  Great  Britain,  and  see  whether,  with  finest  meas- 
urements, he  could  detect  any  proportional  variations  in  beaks 
or  limbs,  &c.  This  point  interests  me  from  having  lately 
been  skimming  over  the  absurdly  opposite  conclusions  of 
Gloger  and  Brehm ;  the  one  making  half-a-dozen  species  out 
of  every  common  bird,  and  the  other  turning  so  many  re- 
puted species  into  one.  Have  you  ever  done  anything  of  this 
kind,  or  have  you  ever  studied  Gloger's  or  Brehm's  w^orks  ? 
I  was  interested  in  your  account  of  the  martins,  for  I  had  just 
before  been  utterly  perplexed  by  noticing  just  such  a  pro- 
ceeding as  you  describe  :  I  counted  seven,  one  day  lately, 
visiting  a  single  nest  and  sticking  dirt  on  the  adjoining  wall. 
I  may  mention  that  I  once  saw  some  squirrels  eagerly  splitting 
those  little  semi-transparent  spherical  galls  on  the  back  of  oak- 
leaves  for  the  maggot  within  ;  so  that  they  are  insectivorous. 
A  Cychrus  rostratus  once  squirted  into  my  eyes  and  gave  me 
extreme  pain  ;  and  I  must  tell  you  what  happened  to  me  on 
the  banks  of  the  Cam,  in  my  early  entomological  days  :  under 
a  piece  of  bark  I  found  two  Carabi  (I  forget  which),  and 
caught  one  in  each  hand,  when  lo  and  behold  I  saw  a  sacred 
Fanagceus  crux  major !  I  could  not  bear  to  give  up  either  of 
my  Carabi^  and  to  lose  Fanagceus  was  out  of  the  question ;  so 
that  in  despair  I  gently  seized  one  of  the  Carabi  between  my 
teeth,  when  to  my  unspeakable  disgust  and  pain  the  little  in- 
considerate beast  squirted  his  acid  down  my  throat,  and  I  lost 
both  Carabi  2c^di  Fanagceus!  I  was  quite  astonished  to  hear 
of  a  terrestrial  Flanaria  ;  for  about  a  year  or  two  ago  I  de- 
scribed in  the  *  Annals  of  Natural  History  *  several  beautifully 
coloured  terrestrial  species  of  the  Southern  Hemisphere,  and 
thought  it  quite  a  new  fact.  By  the  way,  you  speak  of  a 
sheep  with  a  broken  leg  not  having  flukes  :  I  have  heard  my 


,1849.]  VARIABILITY.  397 

father  aver  that  a  fever,  or  any  serious  accident^  as  a  broken 
limb,  will  cause  in  a  man  all  the  intestinal  worms  to  be  evacu- 
ated. Might  not  this  possibly  have  been  the  case  with  the 
flukes  in  their  early  state  ? 

I  hope  you  were  none  the  worse  for  Southampton  ;  *  I  wish 
I  had  seen  you  looking  rather  fatter.  I  enjoyed  my  week 
extremely,  and  it  did  me  good.  I  missed  you  the  last  few 
days,  and  we  never  managed  to  see  much  of  each  other  ;  but 
there  were  so  many  people  there,  that  I  for  one  hardly  saw 
anything  of  any  one.  Once  again  I  thank  you  very  cordially 
for  your  kind  present,  and  the  pleasure  it  has  given  me,  and 
believe  me,  Ever  most  truly  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.S. — I  have  quite  forgotten  to  say  how  greatly  interested 
I  was  with  your  discussion  on  the  statistics  of  animals  :  when 
will  Natural  History  be  so  perfect  that  such  points  as  you 
discuss  will  be  perfectly  known  about  any  one  animal  ? 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Malvern,  June  13  [1849]. 

...  At  last  I  am  going  to  press  with  a  small  poor  first- 
fruit  of  my  confounded  Cirripedia,  viz.  the  fossil  pedunculate 
cirripedia.  You  ask  what  effect  studying  species  has  had  on 
my  variation  theories;  I  do  not  think  much — I  have  felt 
some  difficulties  more.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  been 
struck  (and  probably  unfairly  from  the  class)  with  the  varia- 
bility of  every  part  in  some  slight  degree  of  every  species. 
When  the  same  organ  is  rigorously  compared  in  many  indi- 
viduals, I  always  find  some  slight  variability,  and  conse- 
quently that  the  diagnosis  of  species  from  minute  differences 
is  always  dangerous.  I  had  thought  the  same  parts  of  the 
same  species  more  resemble  (than  they  do  anyhow  in  Cirri- 
pedia) objects  cast   in   the  same   mould.     Systematic   work 


*  The  meeting  of  the  British  Association. 


398  GROWTH   OF   THE   'ORIGIN.'  [1849. 

would  be  easy  were  it  not  for  this  confounded  variation, 
which,  however,  is  pleasant  to  me  as  a  speculatist,  though 
odious  to  me  as  a  systematist.  Your  remarks  on  the  dis- 
tinctness (so  unpleasant  to  me)  of  the  Himalayan  Rubi,  wil- 
lows, &c.,  compared  with  those  of  northern  [Europe  ?],  &c., 
are  very  interesting  ;  if  my  rude  species-sketch  had  any  small 
share  in  leading  you  to  these  observations,  it  has  already 
done  good  and  ample  service,  and  may  lay  its  bones  in  the 
earth  in  peace.  I  never  heard  anything  so  strange  as  Fal- 
coner's neglect  of  your  letters  ;  I  am  extremely  glad  you  are 
cordial  with  him  again,  though  it  must  have  cost  you  an 
effort.  Falconer  is  a  man  one  must  love.  .  .  .  May  you  pros- 
per in  every  way,  my  dear  Hooker. 

Your  affectionate  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  Wednesday  [September,  n.  d.]. 
.  .  .  Many  thanks  for  your  letter  received  yesterday, 
which,  as  always,  set  me  thinking :  I  laughed  at  your  attack 
at  my  stinginess  in  changes  of  level  towards  Forbes,*  being 
so  liberal  towards  myself ;  but  I  must  maintain,  that  I  have 
never  let  down  or  upheaved  our  mother-earth's  surface,  for 
the  sake  of  explaining  any  one  phenomenon,  and  I  trust  I 
have  very  seldom  done  so  without  some  distinct  evidence. 
So  I  must  still  think  it  a  bold  step  (perhaps  a  very  true  one) 

*  Edward  Forbes,  born  in  the  Isle  of  Man  18 15,  died  1854.  His  best 
known  work  was  his  Report  on  the  distribution  of  marine  animals  at  dif- 
ferent depths  in  the  Mediterranean.  An  important  memoir  of  his  is  re- 
ferred to  in  my  father's  *  Autobiography,'  p.  72.  He  held  successively  the 
posts  of  Curator  to  the  Geological  Society's  Museum,  and  Professor  of 
Natural  History  in  the  Museum  of  Practical  Geology ;  shortly  before  he 
died  he  was  appointed  Professor  of  Natural  History  in  the  University  of 
Edinburgh.  He  seems  to  have  impressed  his  contemporaries  as  a  man  of 
strikingly  versatile  and  vigorous  mind.  The  above  allusion  to  changes  of 
level  refers  to  Forbes's  tendency  to  explain  the  facts  of  geographical  dis- 
tribution by  means  of  an  active  geological  imagination. 


1849]  LAMARCK,    THE    *  VESTIGES.'  399 

to  sink  into  the  depths  of  ocean,  within  the  period  of  existing 
species,  so  large  a  tract  of  surface.  But  there  is  no  amount 
or  extent  of  change  of  level,  which  I  am  not  fully  prepared 
to  admit,  but  I  must  say  I  should  like  better  evidence,  than 
the  identity  of  a  few  plants,  which  J>ossiMy  {I  do  not  say 
probably)  might  have  been  otherwise  transported.  Particu- 
lar thanks  for  your  attempt  to  get  me  a  copy  of  *  L'Espece,'* 
and  almost  equal  thanks  for  your  criticisms  on  him  :  I  rather 
misdoubted  him,  and  felt  not  much  inclined  to  take  as  gospel 
his  facts.  I  find  this  one  of  my  greatest  difficulties  with 
foreign  authors,  viz.  judging  of  their  credibility.  How  pain- 
fully (to  me)  true  is  your  remark,  that  no  one  has  hardly  a 
right  to  examine  the  question  of  species  who  has  not  minutely 
described  many.  I  was,  however,  pleased  to  hear  from  Owen 
(who  is  vehemently  opposed  to  any  mutability  in  species), 
that  he  thought  it  was  a  very  fair  subject,  and  that  there  was 
a  mass  of  facts  to  be  brought  to  bear  on  the  question,  not 
hitherto  collected.  My  only  comfort  is  (as  I  mean  to  attempt 
the  subject),  that  I  have  dabbled  in  several  branches  of  Natu- 
ral History,  and  seen  good  specific  men  work  out  my  species, 
and  know  something  of  geology  (an  indispensable  union) ; 
and  though  I  shall  get  more  kicks  than  half-pennies,  I  will, 
life  serving,  attempt  my  work.  T.amarck  is  the  only  excep- 
tion, that  I  can  think  of,  of  an  accurate  describer  of  species 
at  least  in  the  Invertebrate  Kingdom,  who  has  disbelieved  in 
permanent  species,  but  he  in  his  absurd  though  clever  work 
has  done  the  subject  harm,  as  has  Mr.  Vestiges,  and,  as  (some 
future  loose  naturalist  attempting  the  same  speculations  will 
perhaps  say)  has  Mr.  D.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin. 

*  Probably  Godron's  essay,  published  by  the  Academy  of  Nancy  in 
1848-49,  and  afterwards  as  a  separate  book  in  1859. 


400  GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN.*  [1853. 

C.  Darwin  to  /.  D,  Hooker. 

Down,  September  25th   [1853]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  have  read  your  paper  with  great 
interest ;  it  seems  all  very  clear,  and  will  form  an  admirable 
introduction  to  the  New  Zealand  Flora,  or  to  any  Flora  in  the 
world.  How  few  generalizers  there  are  among  systematists  ; 
I  really  suspect  there  is  something  absolutely  opposed  to  each 
other  and  hostile  in  the  two  frames  of  mind  required  for 
systematising  and  reasoning  on  large  collections  of  facts. 
Many  of  your  arguments  appear  to  me  very  well  put,  and, 
as  far  as  my  experience  goes,  the  candid  way  in  which  you 
discuss  the  subject  is  unique.  The  whole  will  be  very  use- 
ful to  me  whenever  I  undertake  my  volume,  though  parts  take 
the  wind  very  completely  out  of  my  sails  ;  it  will  be  all  nut^ 
to  me  .  .  .  for  I  have  for  some  time  determined  to  give  the 
arguments  on  both  sides  (as  far  as  I  could),  instead  of  arguing 
on  the  mutability  side  alone. 

In  my  own  Cirripedial  work  (by  the  way,  thank  you  for 
the  dose  of  soft  solder  ;  it  does  one — or  at  least  me — a  great 
deal  of  good) — in  my  own  work  I  have  not  felt  conscious 
that  disbelieving  in  the  mere  permanence  of  species  has  made 
much  difference  one  way  or  the  other ;  in  some  few  cases  (if 
publishing  avowedly  on  doctrine  of  non-permanence),  I 
should  not  have  affixed  names,  and  in  some  few  cases 
should  have  affixed  names  to  remarkable  varieties.  Cer- 
tainly I  have  felt  it  humiliating,  discussing  and  doubting, 
and  examining  over  and  over  again,  when  in  my  own  mind 
the  only  doubt  has  been  whether  the  form  varied  to-day  or 
yesterday  (not  to  put  too  fine  a  point  on  it,  as  Snagsby  *  would 
say).  After  describing  a  set  of  forms  as  distinct  species, 
tearing  up  my  MS.,  and  making  them  one  species,  tearing  that 
up  and  making  them  separate,  and  then  making  them  one 
again  (which  has  happened  to  me),  I  have  gnashed  my  teeth, 
cursed  species,  and  asked  what  sin  I  had  committed  to  be 

*  In  *  Bleak  House.' 


i853.]  NEW  ZEALAND   FLORA.  4OI 

SO  punished.  But  I  must  confess  that  perhaps  nearly  the 
same  thing  would  have  happened  to  me  on  any  scheme  of 
work. 

I  am  heartily  glad  to  hear  your  Journal  *  is  so  much  ad- 
vanced ;  how  magnificently  it  seems  to  be  illustrated !  An 
^^  Oriental  Naturalist,'' with,  lots  of  imagination  and  not  too 
much  regard  to  facts,  is  just  the  man  to  discuss  species  !  I 
think  your  title  of  '  A  Journal  of  a  Naturalist  in  the  East  * 
very  good  ;  but  whether  "  in  the  Himalaya ''  would  not  be 
better,  I  have  doubted,  for  the  East  sounds  rather  yague.  .  .  . 

C.  Darivin  to  J,  JD,  Hooker. 

[1853] 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  have  no  remarks  at  all  worth 
sending  you,  nor,  indeed,  was  it  likely  that  I  should,  con- 
sidering how  perfect  and  elaborated  an  essay  it  is.f  As  far 
as  my  judgment  goes,  it  is  the  most  important  discussion 
on  the  points  in  question  ever  published.  I  can  say  no  more. 
I  agree  with  almost  everything  you  say ;  but  I  require  much 
time  to  digest  an  essay  of  such  quality.  It  almost  made  me 
gloomy,  partly  from  feeling  I  could  not  answer  some  points 
which  theoretically  I  should  have  liked  to  have  been  differ- 
ent, and  partly  from  seeing  so  far  better  done  that  I  could  hdcw^ 
done,  discussions  on  some  points  which  I  had  intended  to 
have  taken  up.  .  .  . 

I  much  enjoyed  the  slaps  you  have  given  to  the  provincial 
species-mongers.  I  wish  I  could  have  been  of  the  slightest 
use  :  I  have  been  deeply  interested  by  the  whole  essay,  and 
congratulate  you  on  having  produced  a  memoir  which  I  be- 
lieve will  be  memorable.  I  was  deep  in  it  when  your  most 
considerate  note  arrived,  begging  me  not  to  hurry.  I  thank 
Mrs.  Hooker  and  yourself  most  sincerely  for  your  wish  to  see 
me.  I  will  not  let  another  summer  pass  without  seeing  you 
at  Kew,  for  indeed  I  should  enjoy  it  much.  .  .  . 


*  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker's  '  Himalayan  Journal.' 
f  '  New  Zealand  Flora/  1853. 


402  GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN/  [1854. 

You  do  me  really  more  honour  than  I  have  any  claim  to, 
putting  me  in  after  Lyell  on  ups  and  downs.  In  a  year  or 
two*s  time,  when  I  shall  be  at  my  species  book  (if  I  do  not 
break  down),  I  shall  gnash  my  teeth  and  abuse  you  for  having 
put  so  many  hostile  facts  so  confoundedly  well. 

Ever  yours  affectionately, 

C.   Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  March  26th  [1854]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  had  hoped  that  you  would  have 
had  a  little  breathing-tim_e  after  your  Journal,  but  this  seems 
to  be  very  far  from  the  case;  and  I  am  the  more  obliged 
(and  somewhat  contrite)  for  the  long  letter  received  this 
morning,  most  juicy  with  news  and  most  interesting  to  me  in 
many  ways.  I  am  very  glad  indeed  to  hear  of  the  reforms, 
&c.,  in  the  Royal  Society.  With  respect  to  the  Club,*  I  am 
deeply  interested  ;  only  two  or  three  days  ago,  I  was  regret- 
ting to  my  wife,  how  I  was  letting  drop  and  being  dropped 
by  nearly  all  my  acquaintances,  and  that  I  would  endeavour 
to  go  oftener  to  London  ;  I  was  not  then  thinking  of  the  Club, 
which,  as  far  as  any  one  thing  goes,  would  answer  my  exact 
object  in  keeping  up  old  and  making  some  new  acquaintances. 

*  The  Philosophical  Club,  to  which  my  father  was  elected  (as  Professor 
Bonney  is  good  enough  to  inform  me)  on  April  24,  1854.  He  resigned  his 
membership  in  1864.  The  Club  was  founded  in  1847.  The  number  of 
members  being  limited  to  47,  it  was  proposed  to  christen  it  **the  Club  of 
47,"  but  the  name  was  never  adopted.  The  nature  of  the  Club  may  be 
gathered  from  its  first  rule  :  "  The  purpose  of  the  Club  is  to  promote  as  much 
as  possible  the  scientific  objects  of  the  Royal  Society  ;  to  facilitate  inter- 
course between  those  Fellows  who  are  actively  engaged  in  cultivating  the 
various  branches  of  Natural  Science,  and  who  have  contributed  to  its  prog- 
ress ;  to  increase  the  attendance  at  the  evening  meetings,  and  to  encour- 
age the  contribution  and  discussion  of  papers."  The  Club  met  for  dinner 
(at  first)  at  6,  and  the  chair  was  to  be  quitted  at  8.15,  it  being  expected  that 
members  would  go  to  the  Royal  Society.  Of  late  years  the  dinner  has 
been  at  6.30,  the  Society  meeting  in  the  afternoon. 


i854.]  HUMBOLDT— AGASSIZ.  403 

I  will  therefore  come  up  to  London  for  every  (with  rare  ex- 
ceptions) Club- day,  and  then  my  head,  I  think,  will  allow  me 
on  an  average  to  go  to  every  other  meeting.  But  it  is  griev- 
ous how  often  any  change  knocks  me  up.  I  will  further 
pledge  myself,  as  I  told  Lyell,  to  resign  after  a  year,  if  I  did 
not  attend  pretty  often,  so  that  I  should  at  worst  encumber 
the  Club  temporarily.  If  you  can  get  me  elected,  I  certainly 
shall  be  very  much  pleased.  Very  many  thanks  for  answers 
about  Glaciers.  I  am  very  glad  to  hear  of  the  second  Edit.* 
so  very  soon;  but  am  not  surprised,  for  I  have  heard  of 
several,  in  our  small  circle,  reading  it  with  very  much  pleasure. 
I  shall  be  curious  to  hear  what  Humboldt  will  say :  it  will,  I 
should  think,  delight  him,  and  meet  with  more  praise  from 
him  than  any  other  book  of  Travels,  for  I  cannot  remember 
one,  which  has  so  many  subjects  in  common  with  him.    What 

a  wonderful    old  fellow  he  is By  the  way,  I   hope, 

when  you  go  to  Hitcham,  towards  the  end  of  May,  you  will 
be  forced  to  have  some  rest.  I  am  grieved  to  hear  that  all 
the  bad  symptoms  have  not  left  Henslow ;  it  is  so  strange 
and  new  to  feel  any  uneasiness  about  his  health.  I  am 
particularly  obliged  to  you  for  sending  me  Asa  Gray*s  letter  ; 
how  very  pleasantly  he  writes.  To  see  his  and  your  caution 
on  the  species-question  ought  to  overwhelm  me  in  confusion 
and  shame ;  it  does  make  me  feel  deuced  uncomfortable.  .  .  . 
It  is  delightful  to  hear  all  that  he  says  on  Agassiz  :  how  very 
singular  it  is  that  so  eminently  clever  a  man,  with  such  itnmense 
knowledge  on  many  branches  of  Natural  History,  should 
write  as  he  does.  Lyell  told  me  that  he  was  so  delighted  with 
one  of  his  (Agassiz)  lectures  on  progressive  development,  &c., 
&c.,  that  he  went  to  him  afterwards  and  told  him,  ^^  that  it 
was  so  delightful,  that  he  could  not  help  all  the  time  wishing 
it  was  true.*'  I  seldom  see  a  Zoological  paper  from  North 
America,  without  observing  the  impress  of  Agassiz's  doc- 
trines— another  proof,  by  the  way,  of  how  great  a  man  he  is. 
I  was   pleased   and  surprised  to  see  A.  Gray's  remarks  on 


*  Of  the  Himalayan  Journal. 


404  GROWTH   OF   THE   'ORIGIN.'  [1854. 

crossing,  obliterating  varieties,  on  which,  as  you  know,  I  have 
been  collecting  facts  for  these  dozen  years.  How  awfully  flat 
I  shall  feel,  if  when  I  get  my  notes  together  on  species,  &c.,  &c., 
the  whole  thing  explodes  like  an  empty  puff-ball.  Do  not 
work  yourself  to  death.  Ever  yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  Nov.  5th  [1854]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  was  delighted  to  get  your  note 
yesterday.  I  congratulate  you  very  heartily,*  and  whether 
you  care  much  or  little,  I  rejoice  to  see  the  highest  scientific 
judgment-court  in  Great  Britain  recognise  your  claims.  I  do 
hope  Mrs.  Hooker  is  pleased,  and  E.  desires  me  particularly 
to  send  her  cordial  congratulations.  ...  I  pity  you  from  the 
very  bottom  of  my  heart  about  your  after-dinner  speech, 
which  I  fear  I  shall  not  hear.  Without  you  have  a  very 
much  greater  soul  than  I  have  (and  I  believe  that  you  have), 
you  will  find  the  medal  a  pleasant  little  stimulus,  when  work 
goes  badly,  and  one  ruminates  that  all  is  vanity,  it  is  pleasant 
to  have  some  tangible  proof,  that  others  have  thought  some- 
thing of  one's  labours. 

Good-bye  my  dear  Hooker,  I  can  assure  [you]  that  we 
both  most  truly  enjoyed  your  and  Mrs.  Hooker's  visit  here. 
Farewell.  My  dear  Hooker,  your  sincere  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker. 

March  7  [1855]. 

...  I  have  just  finished  working  well  at  Wollaston'sf 
*  Insecta  Maderensia  ' :  it  is  an  adinirable  work.  There  is  a 
very  curious  point  in  the  astounding  proportion  of  Coleoptera 

*  On  the  award  to  him  of  the  Royal  Society's  Medal. 
\  Thomas  Vernon  Wollaston  died  (in  his  fifty-seventh  year,  as  I  believe) 
on  Jan.  4,  1878.     His  health  forcing  him  in  early  manhood  to  winter  in 


1855.]  INSECTA   MADERENSIA.  405 

that  are  apterous  ;  and  I  think  I  have  guessed  the  reason, 
viz.,  that  powers  of  flight  would  be  injurious  to  insects  inha- 
biting a  confined  locality,  and  expose  them  to  be  blown  to  the 
sea :  to  test  this,  I  find  that  the  insects  inhabiting  the  Dezerte 
Grande,  a  quite  small  islet,  would  be  still  more  exposed  to 
this  danger,  and  here  the  proportion  of  apterous  insects  is 
even  considerably  greater  than  on  Madeira  Proper.  WoUas- 
ton  speaks  of  Madeira  and  the  other  Archipelagoes  as  being 
"  sure*and  certain  witnesses  of  Forbes'  old  continent,*'  and  of 
course  the  Entomological  world  implicitly  follows  this  view. 
But  to  my  eyes  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  facts  more 
opposed  to  such  a  view.  It  is  really  disgusting  and  humi- 
liating to  see  directly  opposite  conclusions  drawn  from  the 
same  facts. 

I  have  had  some  correspondence  with  Wollaston  on  this 
and  other  subjects,  and  I  find  that  he  coolly  assumes,  (i)  that 
formerly  insects  possessed  greater  migratory  powers  than  now, 

(2)  that  the  old  land  was  specially  rich  in  centres  of  creation, 

(3)  that  the  uniting  land  was  destroyed  before  the  special 
creations  had  time  to  diffuse,  and  (4)  that  the  land  was  broken 
down  before  certain  families  and  genera  had  time  to  reach 
from  Europe  or  Africa  the  points  of  land  in  question.  Are 
not  these  a  jolly  lot  of  assumptions?  and  yet  I  shall  see  for 
the  next  dozen  or  score  of  years  Wollaston  quoted  as  proving 
the  former  existence  of  poor  Forbes'  Atlantis. 


the  south,  he  devoted  himself  to  a  study  of  the  Coleoptera  of  Madeira,  the 
Cape  de  Verdes,  and  St.  Helena,  whence  he  deduced  evidence  in  support 
of  the  belief  in  the  submerged  continent  of  *  Atlantis.*  In  an  obituary 
notice  by  Mr.  Rye  (*  Nature,'  1878)  he  is  described  as  v/orking  persistently 
"  upon  a  broad  conception  of  the  science  to  which  he  was  devoted,"  while 
being  at  the  same  time  "accurate,  elaborate,  and  precise  ad punctum^  and 
naturally  of  a  minutely  critical  habit."  His  first  scientific  paper  was 
written  when  he  was  an  undergraduate  at  Jesus  College,  Cambridge.  While 
at  the  University,  he  was  an  Associate  and  afterwards  a  Member  of  the 
Ray  Club  :  this  is  a  small  society  which  still  meets  once  a  week,  and  where 
the  undergraduate  members,  or  Associates,  receive  much  kindly  encourage- 
ment from  their  elders. 


4o6  GROWTH   OF   THE   ^ORIGIN.'  [1855. 

I  hope  I  have  not  wearied  you,  but  I  thought  you  would 
like  to  hear  about  this  book,  which  strikes  me  as  excellent  \xi 
its  facts,  and  the  author  a  most  nice  and  modest  man. 

Most  truly  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to    W,  D,  Fox, 

Down,  March  19th  [1S55]. 

My  dear  Fox, — How  long  it  is  since  we  have  had  any 
communication,  and  I  really  want  to  hear  how  the  world  goes 
with  you  ;  but  my  immediate  object  is  to  ask  you  to  observe 
a  point  for  me,  and  as  I  know  now  you  are  a  very  busy  man 
with  too  much  to  do,  I  shall  have  a  good  chance  of  your 
doing  what  I  want,  as  it  would  be  hopeless  to  ask  a  quite 
idle  man.  As  you  have  a  Noah's  Ark,  I  do  not  doubt  that 
you  have  pigeons.  (How  I  wish  by  any  chance  they  were 
fantails !)  Now  what  I  want  to  know  is,  at  what  age  nestling 
pigeons  have  their  tail  feathers  sufficiently  developed  to  be 
counted.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  saw  a  young  pigeon.  I  am 
hard  at  work  at  my  notes  collecting  and  comparing  them,  in 
order  in  some  two  or  three  years  to  write  a  book  with  all  the 
facts  and  arguments,  which  I  can  collect,  for  and  versus  the 
immutability  of  species.  I  want  to  get  the  young  of  our 
domestic  breeds,  to  see  how  young,  and  to  what  degree  the 
differences  appear.  I  must  either  breed  myself  (which  is  no 
amusement  but  a  horrid  bore  to  me)  the  pigeons  or  buy  their 
young  ;  and  before  I  go  to  a  seller,  whom  I  have  heard  of 
from  Yarrell,  I  am  really  anxious  to  know  something  about  I 
their  development,  not  to  expose  my  excessive  ignorance, 
and  therefore  be  excessively  liable  to  be  cheated  and  gulled.  \ 
With  respect  to  the  one  point  of  the  tail  feathers,  it  is  of  course 
in  relation  to  the  wonderful  development  of  tail  feathers  in 
the  adult  fantail.  If  you  had  any  breed  of  poultry  pure,  I 
would  beg  a  chicken  with  exact  age  stated,  about  a  week  or 
fortnight  old  !  to  be  sent  in  a  box  by  post,  if  you  could  have 
the  heart  to  kill  one  ;  and  secondly,  would  let  me  pay  post- 


iS55.]  FEATHERS— SKELETONS.  407 

age.  .  .  Indeed,  I  should  be  very  glad  to  have  a  nestling 
I  common  pigeon  sent,  for  I  mean  to  make  skeletons,  and  have 
already  just  begun  comparing  wild  and  tame  ducks.  And  I 
think  the  results  rather  curious,*  for  on  weighing  the  several 
bones  very  carefully,  when  perfectly  cleaned  the  proportional 
weights  of  the  two  have  greatly  varied,  the  foot  of  the  tame 
having  largely  increased.  How  I  v/ish  I  could  get  a  little 
wild  duck  of  a  week  old,  but  that  I  know  is  almost  impos- 
sible. 

With  respect  to  ourselves,  I  have  not  much  to  say ;  we 
have  now  a  terribly  noisy  house  with  the  whooping  cough, 
but  otherwise  are  all  well.  Far  the  greatest  fact  about  myself 
is  that  I  have  at  last  quite  done  with  the  everlasting  barnacles. 
At  the  end  of  the  year  we  had  two  of  our  little  boys  very  ill 
with  fever  and  bronchitis,  and  all  sorts  of  ailments.  Partly 
for  amusement,  and  partly  for  change  of  air,  we  went  to  Lon- 
don and  took  a  house  for  a  month,  but  it  turned  out  a  great 
failure,  for  that  dreadful  frost  just  set  in  when  we  went,  and 
all  our  children  got  unwell,  and  E.  and  I  had  coughs  and 
colds  and  rheumatism  nearly  all  the  time.  We  had  put  down 
first  on  our  list  of  things  to  do,  to  go  and  see  Mrs.  Fox,  but 
literally  after  waiting  some  time  to  see  whether  the  weather 
would  not  improve,  we  had  not  a  day  when  we  both  could 
go  out. 

I  do  hope  before  very  long  you  will  be  able  to  manage 
to  pay  us  a  visit.  Time  is  slipping  away,  and  we  are  getting 
oldish.     Do  tell  us  about  yourself  and  all  your  large  family. 

I  know  you  will  help  me  if  you  can  with  information  about 
the  young  pigeons  ;  and  anyhow  do  write  before  very  long. 
My  dear  Fox,  your  sincere  old  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 


*  **  I  have  just  been  testing  practically  what  disuse  does  in  reducing 
parts  ;  I  have  made  skeleton  of  wild  and  tame  duck  (oh,  the  smell  of  well- 
boiled,  high  duck  !  !)  and  I  find  the  tame-duck  wing  ought,  according  to 
scale  of  wild  prototype,  to  have  its  two  wings  360  grains  in  weight,  but  it 
has  it  only  3I7-"— A  letter  to  Sir  J.  Hooker,  1855. 


4o8  GROWTH    OF   THE    'ORIGIN.'  [1855. 

P.S. — Amongst  all  sorts  of  odds  and  ends,  with  which  I 
am  amusing  myself,  I  am  comparing  the  seeds  of  the  varia- 
tions of  plants.  I  had  formerly  some  wild  cabbage  seeds, 
which  I  gave  to  some  one,  was  it  to  you  ?  It  is  a  thousand  to 
one  it  was  thrown  away,  if  not  I  should  be  very  glad  of  a 
pinch  of  it. 

[The  following  extract  from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Fox  (March 
27th,  1855)  refers  to  the  same  subject  as  the  last  letter,  and 
gives  some  account  of  the  '^  species  work  :  "  *'  The  way  I 
shall  kill  young  things  will  be  to  put  them  under  a  tumbler 
glass  with  a  teaspoon  of  ether  or  chloroform,  the  glass  being 
pressed  down  on  some  yielding  surface,  and  leave  them  for 
an  hour  or  two,  young  have  such  power  of  revivication.  (I 
have  thus  killed  moths  and  butterflies.)  The  best  way  would 
be  to  send  them  as  you  procure  them,  in  pasteboard  chip-box 
by  post,  on  which  you  could  write  and  just  tie  up  with  string  ; 
and  you  will  really  make  me  happier  by  allowing  me  to  keep 
an  account  of  postage,  &c.  Upon  my  word  I  can  hardly 
believe  that  any  ane  could  be  so  good-natured  as  to  take  such 
trouble  and  do  such  a  very  disagreeable  thing  as  kill  babies ; 
and  I  am  very  sure  I  do  not  know  one  soul  who,  except  your- 
self, would  do  so.  I  am  going  to  ask  one  thing  more  ;  should 
old  hens  of  any  above  poultry  (not  duck)  die  or  become  so 
old  as  to  be  useless^  I  wish  you  would  send  her  to  me  per  rail, 
addressed  to  ^^  C.  Darwin,  care  of  Mr.  Acton,  Post-office, 
Bromley,  Kent."  Will  you  keep  this  address.^  as  shortest 
way  for  parcels.  But  I  do  not  care  so  much  for  this,  as  I 
could  buy  the  old  birds  dead  at  Baily  to  make  skeletons.  I 
should  have  written  at  once  even  if  I  had  not  heard  from 
you,  to  beg  you  not  to  take  trouble  about  pigeons,  for  Yarrell 
has  persuaded  me  to  attempt  it,  and  I  am  now  fitting  up  a 
place,  and  have  written  to  Baily  about  prices,  &c.,  &c.  Soine- 
thne  (when  you  are  better)  I  should  like  very  much  to  hear  a 
little  about  your  "'  Little  Call  Duck  **  ;  why  so  called  ?  And 
where  you  got  it  ?  and  what  it  is  like  ?  .  .  .  I  was  so  ignorant 
I  did  not  even  know  there  were  three  varieties  of  Dorking 
fowl :  how  do  they  differ  ?  .  .  . 


I 


1855]  .  MUTABILITY   OF    SPECIES.  409 

I  forget  whether  I  ever  told  you  what  the  object  of  my 
present  w^ork  is, — it  is  to  view  all  facts  that  I  can  master 
(eheu,  eheu,  how  ignorant  I  find  I  am)  in  Natural  History 
(as  on  geographical  distribution,  palaeontology,  classification, 
hybridism,  domestic  animals  and  plants,  &c.,  &c.,  &c.)  to  see 
how  far  they  favour  or  are  opposed  to  the  notion  that  wild 
species  are  mutable  or  immutable :  I  mean  with  my  utmost 
power  to  give  all  arguments  and  facts  on  both  sides.  I  have 
a  number  of  people  helping  me  in  every  way,  and  giving  me 
most  valuable  assistance  ;  but  I  often  doubt  whether  the  sub- 
ject will  not  quite  overpower  me. 

So  much  for  the  quasi-business  part  of  my  letter.  I  am 
very  very  sorry  to  hear  so  indifferent  account  of  your  health  : 
with  your  large  family  your  life  is  very  precious,  and  I  am 
sure  with  all  your  activity  and  goodness  it  ought  to  be  a 
lappy  one,  or  as  happy  as  can  reasonably  be  expected  with 
all  the  cares  of  futurity  on  one. 

One  cannot  expect  the  present  to  be  like  the  old  Crux- 
major  days  at  the  foot  of  those  noble  willow  stumps,  the 
memory  of  which  I  revere.  I  now  find  my  little  entomology 
which  I  wholly  owe  to  you,  comes  in  very  useful.  I  am  very 
^lad  to  hear  that  you  have  given  yourself  a  rest  from  Sun- 
lay  duties.  How  much  illness  you  have  had  in  your  life ! 
farewell  my  dear  Fox.  I  assure  you  I  thank  you  heartily  for 
jowx  proffered  assistance."] 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox. 

Down,  May  7th  [1855]. 
My  dear  Fox, — My  correspondence  has  cost  you  a  deal 
if  trouble,  though  this  note  will  not.  I  found  yours  on  my 
eturn  home  on  Saturday  after  a  week's  work  in  London. 
Vhilst  there  I  saw  Yarrell,  who  told  me  he  had  carefully  ex- 
Imined  all  points  in  the  Call  Duck,  and  did  not  feel  any 
[loubt  about  it  being  specifically  identical,  and  that  it  had 
iTossed  freely  with  common  varieties  in  St.  James's  Park.  I 
jhould  therefore  be  very  glad  for  a  seven-days*  duckling  and 
19 


4IO  GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN.'  ,  [1855. 

for  one  of  the  old  birds,  should  one  ever  die  a  natural  death. 
Yarrell  told  me  that  Sabine  had  collected  forty  varieties  of 
the  common  duck  !  .  .  .  Well,  to  return  to  business  ;  nobody, 
I  am  sure,  could  fix  better  for  me  than  you  the  characteristic 
age  of  little  chickens  ;  with  respect  to  skeletons,  I  have  feared 
it  would  be  impossible  to  make  them,  but  I  suppose  I  shall 
be  able  to  measure  limbs,  &c.,  by  feeling  the  joints.  What 
you  say  about  old  cocks  just  confirms  what  I  thought,  and  I 
will  make  my  skeletons  of  old  cocks.  Should  an  old  wild 
turkey  ever  die,  please  remember  me ;  I  do  not  care  for  a 
baby  turkey,  nor  for  a  mastiff.  Very  many  thanks  for  your 
offer.  I  have  puppies  of  bull-dogs  and  greyhound  in  salt, 
and  I  have  had  cart-horse  and  race-horse  young  colts  care- 
fully measured.  Whether  I  shall  do  any  good  I  doubt.  I 
am  getting  out  of  my  depth. '   Most  truly  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

[An  extract  from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Fox  may  find  a  place  here, 
though  of  a  later  date,  viz.  July,  1855  : 

**  Many  thanks  for  the  seven  days'  old  white  Dorking,  and 
for  the  other  promised  ones.  I  am  getting  quite  a  *  chamber 
of  horrors,'  I  appreciate  your  kindness  even  more  than  be- 
fore ;  for  I  have  done  the  black  deed  and  murdered  an  angelic 
little  fantail  and  pouter  at  ten  days  old.  I  tried  chloroform, 
and  ether  for  the  first,  and  though  evidently  a  perfectly  easy 
death,  it  was  prolonged  ;  and  for  the  second  I  tried  putting 
lumps  of  cyanide  of  potassium  in  a  very  large  damp  bottle, 
half  an  hour  before  putting  in  the  pigeon,  and  the  prussic 
acid  gas  thus  generated  was  very  quickly  fatal." 

A  letter  to  Mr.  Fox  (May  23rd,  1855)  gives  the  first  men- 
tion of  my  father's  laborious  piece  of  work  on  the  breeding 
of  pigeons  : 

**  I  write  now  to  say  that  I  have  been  looking  at  some  of 
our  mongrel  chickens,  and  I  should  say  one  week  old  would 


i855.]  PIGEON    FANCYING.  4II 

do  very  well.  The  chief  points  which  I  am,  and  have  been 
for  years,  very  curious  about,  is  to  ascertain  whether  the 
young  of  our  domestic  breeds  differ  as  much  from  each  other 
as  do  their  parents,  and  I  have  no  faith  in  anything  short  of 
actual  measurement  and  the  Rule  of  Three.  I  hope  and  be- 
lieve I  am  not  giving  so  much  trouble  without  a  motive  of 
sufficient  worth.  I  have  got  my  fantails  and  pouters  (choice 
birds,  I  hope,  as  I  paid  20^.  for  each  pair  from  Baily)  in  a 
grand  cage  and  pigeon-house,  and  they  are  a  decided  amuse- 
ment to  me,  and  delight  to  H." 

In  the  course  of  my  father's  pigeon-fancying  enterprise  he 
necessarily  became  acquainted  with  breeders,  and  was  fond 
of  relating  his  experiences  as  a  member  of  the  Columbarian 
and  Philoperistera  Clubs,  where  he  met  the  purest  enthusiasts 
of  the  "  fancy,**  and  learnt  much  of  the  mysteries  of  their  art. 
In  writing  to  Mr.  Huxley  some  years  afterwards,  he  quotes 
from  a  book  on  *  Pigeons  *  by  Mr.  J-.  Eaton,  in  illustration  of 
the  '^  extreme  attention  and  close  observation  '*  necessary  to 
be  a  good  fancier. 

"In  his  [Mr.  Eaton's]  treatise,  devoted  to  the  Almond 
Tumbler  alone^  which  is  a  sub-variety  of  the  short-faced  vari- 
ety, which  is  a  variety  of  the  Tumbler,  as  that  is  of  the  Rock- 
pigeon,  Mr.  Eaton  says  :  *  There  are  some  of  the  young  fan- 
ciers who  are  over-covetous,  who  go  for  all  the  five  properties 
at  once  [/.  ^.,  the  five  characteristic  points  which  are  mainly 
attended  to, — C.  D.],  they  have  their  reward  by  getting  noth- 
ing.' In  short,  it  is  almost  beyond  the  human  intellect  to 
attend  to  all  the  excellencies  of  the  Almond  Tumbler  ! 

"  To  be  a  good  breeder,  and  to  succeed  in  improving  any 
breed,  beyond  everything  enthusiasm  is  required.  Mr.  Eaton 
has  gained  lots  of  prizes,  listen  to  him. 

"  ^  If  it  was  possible  for  noblemen  and  gentlemen  to  know 
the  amazing  amount  of  solace  and  pleasure  derived  from  the 
Almond  Tumbler,  when  they  begin  to  understand  their  (/.  <?., 
the  tumbler's)  properties,  I  should  think  that  scarce  any 
nobleman  or  gentleman  would  be  without  their  aviaries  of 
Almond  Tumblers.'  " 


412  GROWTH   OF   THE   'ORIGIN/  [1855. 

My  father  was  fond  of  quoting  this  passage,  and  always 
with  a  tone  of  fellow-feeling  for  the  author,  though,  no  doubt, 
he  had  forgotten  his  own  wonderings  as  a  child  that  **  every 
gentleman  did  not  become  an  ornithologist/'— ('Autobiogra- 
phy,' p.  32.) 

To  Mr.  W.  B.  Tegetmeier,  the  well-known  writer  on  poul- 
try, &c.,  he  was  indebted  for  constant  advice  and  co-opera- 
tion. Their  correspondence  began  in  1855,  and  lasted  to 
1881,  when  my  father  wrote  :  "I  can  assure  you  that  I  often 
look  back  with  pleasure  to  the  old  days  when  I  attended  to 
pigeons,  fowls,  &c.,  and  when  you  gave  me  such  valuable  as- 
sistance. I  not  rarely  regret  that  I  have  had  so  little  strength 
that  I  have  not  been  able  to  keep  up  old  acquaintances  and 
friendships."  My  fathers's  letters  to  Mr.  Tegetmeier  consist 
almost  entirely  of  series  of  questions  relating  to  the  different 
breeds  of  fowls,  pigeons,  &c.,  and  are  not,  therefore,  interest- 
ing. In  reading  through  the  pile  of  letters,  one  is  much 
struck  by  the  diligence  of  the  writer's  search  for  facts,  and  it 
is  made  clear  that  Mr.  Tegetmeier's  knowledge  and  judgment 
were  completely  trusted  and  highly  valued  by  him.  Numer- 
ous phrases,  such  as  ''  your  note  is  a  mine  of  wealth  to  me," 
occur,  expressing  his  sense  of  the  value  of  Mr.  Tegetmeier's 
help,  as  well  as  words  expressing  his  warm  appreciation  of 
Mr.  Tegetmeier's  unstinting  zeal  and  kindness,  or  his  "pure 
and  disinterested  love  of  science."  On  the  subject  of  hive- 
bees  and  their  combs,  Mr.  Tegetmeier's  help  was  also  valued 
by  my  father,  who  wrote,  "your  paper  on  *  Bees-cells,'  read 
before  the  British  Association,  was  highly  useful  and  suggest- 
tive  to  me." 

To  work  out  the  problems  on  the  Geographical  Distribu- 
tions of  animals  and  plants  on  evolutionary  principles,  he  had 
to  study  the  means  by  which  seeds,  eggs,  &c.,  can  be  trans- 
ported across  wide  spaces  of  ocean.  It  was  this  need  which 
gave  an  interest  to  the  class  of  experiment  to  which  the  fol- 
lowing letters  allude.] 


1855.]  LIZARDS.  413 

C.  Darwin  to  W,  D.  Fox. 

Down,  May  17th  [1855]. 

My  dear  Fox, — You  will  hate  the  very  sight  of  my  hand- 
writing ;  but  after  this  time  I  promise  I  will  ask  for  nothing 
more,  at  least  for  a  long  time.  As  you  live  on  sandy  soil, 
have  you  lizards  at  all  common  ?  If  you  have,  should  you 
think  it  too  ridiculous  to  offer  a  reward  for  me  for  lizard's 
eggs  to  the  boys  in  your  school ;  a  shilling  for  every  half- 
dozen,  or  more  if  rare,  till  you  got  two  or  three  dozen  and 
send  them  to  me  ?  If  snake's  eggs  were  brought  in  mistake 
it  would  be  very  well,  for  I  want  such  also  ;  and  we  have 
neither  lizards  nor  snakes  about  here.  My  object  is  to  see 
whether  such  eggs  will  float  on  sea  water,  and  whether  they 
will  keep  alive  thus  floating  for  a  month  or  two  in  my  cellar. 
I  am  trying  experiments  on  transportation  of  all  organic 
beings  that  I  can  ;  and  lizards  are  found  on  every  island,  and 
therefore  I  am  veiy  anxious  to  see  whether  their  eggs  stand 
sea  water.  Of  course  this  note  need  not  be  answered,  with- 
out, by  a  strange  and  favourable  chance,  you  can  some  day 
answer  it  with  the  eggs.    Your  most  troublesome  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

April  13th  [1855].  * 
...  I  have  had  one  experiment  some  little  time  in  pro- 
gress, which  will,  I  think,  be  interesting,  namely,  seeds  in  salt 
water  immersed  in  water  of  32°-33°,  which  I  have  and  shall 
long  have,  as  I  filled  a  great  tank  with  snow.  When  I  wrote 
last  I  was  going  to  triumph  over  you,  for  my  experiment  had 
in  a  slight  degree  succeeded;  but  this,  with  infinite  baseness, 
I  did  not  tell,  in  hopes  that  you  would  say  that  you  would 
eat  all  the  plants  which  I  could  raise  after  immersion.  It  is 
very  aggravating  that  I  cannot  in  the  least  remember  what 
you  did  formerly  say  that  made  me  think  you  scofled  at  the 
experiments  vastly;   for  you  now  seem  to  view  the  experi- 


414 


GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN/ 


[1855. 


ment  like  a  good  Christian.  I  have  in  small  bottles  out  of 
doors,  exposed  to  variation  of  temperature,  cress,  radish, 
cabbages,  lettuces,  carrots,  and  celery,  and  onion  seed — four 
great  families.  These,  after  immersion  for  exactly  one  week, 
have  all  germinated,  which  I  did  not  in  the  least  expect  (and 
thought  how  you  would  sneer  at  me)  ;  for  the  water  of  nearly 
all,  and  of  the  cress  especially,  smelt  very  badly,  and  the 
cress  seed  emitted  a  wonderful  quantity  of  mucus  (the  *  Ves- 
tiges* would  have  expected  them  to  turn  into  tadpoles),  so 
as  to  adhere  in  a  mass  ;  but  these  seeds  germinated  and 
grew  splendidly.  The  germination  of  all  (especially  cress 
and  lettuces)  has  been  accelerated,  except  the  cabbages, 
which  have  come  up  very  irregularly,  and  a  good  many,  I 
think,  dead.  One  would  have  thought,  from  their  native 
habitat,  that  the  cabbage  would  have  stood  well.  The  Um- 
belliferae  and  onions  seem  to  stand  the  salt  well.  I  wash  the 
seed  before  planting  them.  I  have  written  to  the  Gardeners' 
Chronicle^  though  I  doubt  whether  it  was  worth  while.  If 
my  success  seems  to  make  it  worth  while,  I  will  send  a  seed 
list,  to  get  you  to  mark  some  different  classes  of  seeds.  To- 
day I  replant  the  same  seeds  as  above  after  fourteen  days' 
immersion.  As  many  sea-currents  go  a  mile  an  hour,  even 
in  a  week  they  might  be  transported  168  miles  ;  the  Gulf 
Stream  is  said  to  go  fifty  and  sixty  miles  a  day.  So  much 
and  too  much  on  this  head ;  but  my  geese  are  always 
swans.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

[April  14th,  1855.] 
.  .  .  You  are  a  good  man  to  confess  that  you  expected  the 
cress  would  be  killed  in  a  week,  for  this  gives  me  a  nice  little 


*  A  few  words  asking  for  information.  The  results  were  published  in 
the  '  Gardeners'  Chronicle,'  May  26,  Nov.  24,  1855.  In  the  same  year  (p. 
789)  he  sent  a  P.  S.  to  his  former  paper,  correcting  a  misprint  and  add- 
ing a  few  words  on  the  seeds  of  the  Leguminosse.  A  fuller  paper  on  the 
germination  of  seeds  after  treatment  in  salt  water,  appeared  in  the  '  Lin- 
nsean  Soc.  Journal,'  1857,  P-  130. 


1855.]  GERMINATION   EXPERIMENTS.  415 

triumph.  The  children  at  first  were  tremendously  eager,  and 
asked  me  often,  **  whether  1  should  beat  Dr.  Hooker  !  "  The 
cress  and  lettuce  have  just  vegetated  well  after  twenty-one 
days*  immersion.  But  I  will  write  no  more,  which  is  a  great 
virtue  in  me  ;  for  it  is  to  me  a  very  great  pleasure  telling  you 
everything  I  do. 

...  If  you  knew  some  of  the  experiments  (if  they  may  be 
so-called)  which  I  am  trying,  you  would  have  a  good  right 
to  sneer,  for  they  are  so  absurd  even  m  my  opinion  that  I  dare 
not  tell  you. 

Have  not  some  men  a  nice  notion  of  experimentising.^ 
I  have  had  a  letter  telling  me  that  seeds  must  have  great 
power  of  resisting  salt  water,  for  otherwise  how  could  they 
get  to  islands  }     This  is  the  true  way  to  solve  a  problem  ! 


C  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker, 

Down  [1855]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — You  have  been  a  very  good  man  to 
exhale  some  of  your  satisfaction  in  writing  two  notes  to  me ; 
you  could  not  have  taken  a  better  line  in  my  opinion ;  but 
as  for  showing  your  satisfaction  in  confounding  my  experi- 
ments, I  assure  you  I  am  quite  enough  confounded — those 
horrid  seeds,  which,  as  you  truly  observe,  if  they  sink  they 
won't  float. 

I  have  written  to  Scoresby  and  have  had  a  rather  dry 
answer,  but  very  much  to  the  purpose,  and  giving  me  no 
hopes  of  any  law  unknown  to  me  which  might  arrest  their 
everlasting  descent  into  the  deepest  depths  of  the  ocean.  By 
the  way  it  was  very  odd,  but  I  talked  to  Col.  Sabine  for  half 
an  hour  on  the  subject,  and  could  not  make  him  see  with 
respect  to  transportal  the  difficulty  of  the  sinking  question ! 
The  bore  is,  if  the  confounded  seeds  will  sink,  I  have  been 
taking  all  this  trouble  in  salting  the  ungrateful  rascals  for 
nothing. 

Everything  has  been  going  wrong  with  me  lately  ;  the  fish 
at  the  Zoolog.  Soc.  ate  up  lots  of  soaked  seeds,  and  in  imagi- 


4i6  GROWTH   OF   THE   'ORIGIN.'  [1855. 

nation  they  had  in  my  mind  been  swallowed,  fish  and  all, 
by  a  heron,  had  been  carried  a  hundred  miles,  been  voided 
on  the  banks  of  some  other  lake  and  germinated  splendidly, 
when  lo  and  behold,  the  fish  ejected  vehemently,  and  with 
disgust  equal  to  my  own,  all  the  seeds  from  their  mouths.* 

But  I  am  not  going  to  give  up  the  floating  yet :  in  first 
place  I  must  try  fresh  seeds,  though  of  course  it  seems  far 
more  probable  that  they  will  sink  ;  and  secondly,  as  a  last 
resource,  I  must  believe  in  the  pod  or  even  whole  plant  or 
branch  being  washed  into  the  sea  ;  with  floods  and  slips  and 
earthquakes  ;  this  must  continually  be  happening,  and  if  kept 
wet,  I  fancy  the  pods,  &c.  &c.,  would  not  open  and  shed  their 
seeds.     Do  try  your  Mimosa  seed  at  Kew. 

I  had  intended  to  have  asked  you  whether  the  Mimosa 
scandens  and  Guilandina  bonduc  grows  at  Kew,  to  try  fresh 
seeds  R.  Brown  tells  me  he  believes  four  W.  Indian  seeds 
have  been  washed  on  shores  of  Europe.  I  was  assured  at 
Keeling  Island  that  seeds  were  not  rarely  washed  on  shore  : 
so  float  they  must  and  shall !  What  a  long  yarn  I  have  been 
spinning. 

If  you  have  several  of  the  Loffoden  seeds,  do  soak  some 
in  tepid  water,  and  get  planted  with  the  utmost  care :  this  is 
an  experiment  after  my  own  heart,  with  chances  1000  to  i 
against  its  success. 

*  In  describing  these  troubles  to  Mr.  Fox,  my  father  wrote : — "  All 
nature  is  pei*verse  and  will  not  do  as  I  wish  it ;  and  just  at  present  I  wish 
I  had  my  old  barnacles  to  work  at,  and  nothing  new."  The  experiment 
ultimately  succeeded,  and  he  wrote  to  Sir  J.  Hooker: — **I  find  fish  will 
greedily  eat  seeds  of  aquatic  grasses,  and  that  millet-seed  put  into  fish 
and  given  to  a  stork,  and  then  voided,  will  germinate.  So  this  is  the  nur- 
sery rhyme  of  *  this  is  the  stick  that  beats  the  pig,'  &c.,  &c.'* 


i855.]  THE   GARDENERS'   CHRONICLE.  417 

C  Darwin  to  J.  D,  Hooker. 

Down,  May  nth  [1855]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  have  just  received  your  note.  I 
am  most  sincerely  and  heartily  glad  at  the  news  *  it  contains, 
and  so  is  my  wife.  Though  the  income  is  but  a  poor  one, 
yet  the  certainty,  I  hope,  is  satisfactory  to  yourself  and  Mrs. 
Hooker.  As  it  must  lead  in  future  years  to  the  Directorship, 
I  do  hope  you  look  at  it,  as  a  piece  of  good  fortune.  For  my 
own  taste  I  cannot  fancy  a  pleasanter  position,  than  the  Head 
of  such  a  noble  and  splendid  place  ;  far  better,  I  should 
think,  than  a  Professorship  in  a  great  town.  The  more  I 
think  of  it,  the  gladder  I  am.  But  I  will  say  no  more  ;  except 
that  I  hope  Mrs.  Hooker  is  pretty  well  pleased.  .  .  . 

As  the  Gardeners'  Chronicle  put  in  my  question,  and  took 
notice  of  it,  I  think  I  am  bound  to  send,  which  I  had  thought 
of  doing  next  week,  my  first  report  to  Lindley  to  give  him 
the  option  of  inserting  it  ;  but  I  think  it  likely  that  he  may 
not  think  it  fit  for  a  Gardening  periodical.  When  my  experi- 
ments are  ended  (should  the  results  appear  worthy)  and  should 
the  *  Linnean  Journal'  not  object  to  the  previous  publication 
of  imperfect  and  provisional  reports,  I  should  be  delighted  to 
insert  the  final  report  there  ;  for  it  has  cost  me  so  much 
trouble,  that  I  should  think  that  probably  the  result  was 
worthy  of  more  permanent  record  than  a  newspaper ;  but  I 
think  I  am  bound  to  send  it  first  to  Lindley. 

I  begin  to  think  the  floating  question  more  serious  than 
the  germinating  one  ;  and  am  making  all  the  enquiries  which  I 
an  on  the  subject,  and  hope  to  get  some  little  light  on  it.  .  .  . 

I  hope  you  managed  a  good  meeting  at  the  Club.     The 
jTreasurership  must  be  a  plague  to  you,  and  I  hope  you  will 
ot  be  Treasurer  for  long :  I  know  I  would  much  sooner  give 
p  the  Club  than  be  its  Treasurer. 

Farewell,  Mr.  Assistant  Director  and  dear  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 

*  The  appointment  of  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  as  Assistant  Director  of  the 
Loyal  Gardens  at  Kew. 


4i8  GROWTH   OF   THE    »  ORIGIN.'  [1855. 

C.  Darwin  to  /.  D,  Hooker, 

June  5th,  1855. 

....  Miss  Thorley  *  and  I  are  doing  a  little  Botanical 
work  I  for  our  amusement,  and  it  does  amuse  me  very  much, 
viz.,  making  a  collection  of  all  the  plants,  which  grow  in  a  field, 
which  has  been  allowed  to  run  waste  for  fifteen  years,  but 
which  before  was  cultivated  from  time  immemorial  ;  and  we 
are  also  collecting  all  the  plants  in  an  adjoining  and  similar 
but  cultivated  field  ;  just  for  the  fun  of  seeing  what  plants 
have  arrived  or  died  out.  Hereafter  we  shall  want  a  bit  of 
help  in  naming  puzzlers.  How  dreadfully  difficult  it  is  to 
name  plants. 

What  a  remarkably  nice  and  kind  letter  Dr.  A.  Gray  has 
sent  me  in  answer  to  my  troublesome  queries ;  I  retained 
your  copy  of  his  '  Manual '  till  I  heard  from  him,  and  when  I 
have  answered  his  letter,  I  will  return  it  to  you. 

I  thank  you  much  for  Hedysarum :  I  do  hope  it  is  not 
very  precious,  for  as  I  told  you  it  is  for  probably  a  most  fool- 
ish purpose.  I  read  somewhere  that  no  plant  closes  its  leaves 
so  promptly  in  darkness,  and  I  want  to  cover  it  up  daily  for 
half  an  hour,  and  see  if  I  can  teach  it  to  close  by  itself,  or 

more  easily  than  at  first  in  darkness I  cannot  make 

out  why  you  would  prefer  a  continental  transmission,  as  I 
think  you  do,  to  carriage  by  sea.  I  should  have  thought 
you  would  have  been  pleased  at  as  many  means  of  trans- 
mission as  possible.  For  my  own  pet  theoretic  notions,  it 
is  quite  indifferent  whether  they  are  transmitted  by  sea  or 
land,  as  long  as  some  tolerably  probable  way  is  shown.  But 
it  shocks  my  philosophy  to  create  land,  without  some  other 
and  independent  evidence.  Whenever  we  meet,  by  a  very- 
few  words  I  should,  I  think,  more  clearly  understand  your 
views.  .  .  . 

I  have  just  made  out  my  first  grass,  hurrah  !  hurrah  !  I 
must  confess  that  fortune  favours  the  bold,  for,  as  good  luck 

*  A  lady  who  was  for  many  years  a  governess  in  the  family. 


i855.]  COLLECTING   PLANTS. 


419 


would  have  it,  it  was  the  easy  Anthoxanthum  odoratujn  :  never- 
theless it  is  a  great  discovery ;  I  never  expected  to  make  out 
a  grass  in  all  my  life,  so  hurrah  !  It  has  done  my  stomach 
surprising  good.   .  .  . 

C  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  [June?]  15th,  [1855]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  just  write  one  line  to  say  that  the 
Hedysarum  is  come  quite  safely^  and  thank  you  for  it. 

You  cannot  imagine  what  amusement  you  have  given 
me  by  naming  those  three  grasses  :  I  have  just  got  paper 
to  dry  and  collect  all  grasses.  If  ever  you  catch  quite  a 
beginner,  and  want  to  give  him  a  taste  of  Botany,  tell 
him  to  make  a  perfect  list  of  some  little  field  or  wood.  Both 
Miss  Thorley  and  I  agree  that  it  gives  a  really  uncommon 
interest  to  the  work,  having  a  nice  little  definite  world  to 
work  on,  instead  of  the  awful  abyss  and  immensity  of  all 
British  Plants. 

Adios.  I  was  really  consummately  impudent  to  express 
my  opinion  "  on  the  retrograde  step,*'  *  and  I  deserved  a  good 
snub,  and  upon  reflection  I  am  very  glad  you  did  not  answer 
me  in  Gardeners'  Chronicle, 

I  have  been  very  much  interested  with  the  Florula.f 

[Writing  on  June  5  th  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker,  my  father  men- 
tions a  letter  from  Dr.  Asa  Gray.  The  letter  referred  to  was 
an  answer  to  the  following  :] 


*  "  To  imagine  such  enormous  geological  changes  within  the  period  of 
the  existence  of  now  living  beings,  on  no  other  ground  but  to  account  for 
their  distribution,  seems  to  me,  in  our  present  state  of  ignorance  on  the 
means  of  transportal,  an  almost  retrograde  step  in  science." — Extract  from 
the  paper  on  'Salt  Water  and  Seeds'  in  Gardeners'  Chronicle,  May  26, 
1855. 

f  Godron's  *  Florula  Juvenalis,'  which  gives  an  interesting  account  of 
plants  introduced  in  imported  wool. 


420  GROWTH   OF   THE    'ORIGIN.'  [1855. 

C.  Darwin  to  Asa  Gray,^ 

Down,  April  25th  [1855.] 
My  dear  Sir, — I  hope  that  you  will  remember  that  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  being  introduced  to  you  at  Kew.  I  want  to 
beg  a  great  favour  of  you,  for  which  I  well  know  I  can  offer 
no  apology.  But  the  favour  will  not,  I  think,  cause  you  much 
trouble,  and  will  greatly  oblige  me.  As  I  am  no  botanist,  it 
will  seem  so  absurd  to  you  my  asking  botanical  questions ; 
that  I  may  premise  that  I  have  for  several  years  been  collect- 
ing facts  on  "variation,"  and  when  I  find  that  any  general 
remark  seems  to  hold  good  amongst  animals,  I  try  to  test 
it  in  Plants.  [Here  follows  a  request  for  information  on 
American  Alpine  plants,  and  a  suggestion  as  to  publishing 
on  the  subject.]  I  can  assure  you  that  I  perceive  how  pre- 
sumptuous it  is  in  me,  not  a  botanist,  to  make  even  the  most 
trifling  suggestion  to  such  a  botanist  as  yourself ;  but  from 
what  I  saw  and  have  heard  of  you  from  our  dear  and  kind 
friend  Hooker,  I  hope  and  think  that  you  will  forgive  me,  and 
believe  me,  with  much  respect, 

Dear  sir,  yours  very  faithfully, 

Charles  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  Asa  Gray. 

Down,  June  8th  [1855]. 
My  dear  Sir> — I  thank  you  cordially  for  your  remarkably 
kind  letter  of  the  22d  ult.,  and  for  the  extremely  pleasant 
and  obliging  manner  in  which  you  have  taken  my  rather 
troublesome  questions.  I  can  hardly  tell  you  how  much 
your  list  of  Alpine  plants  has  interested  me,  and  I  can  now 

*  The  well-known  American  Botanist.  My  father's  friendship  with  Dr. 
Gray  began  with  the  correspondence  of  which  the  present  is  the  first  letter. 
An  extract  from  a  letter  to  Sir  J.  Hooker,  1857,  shows  that  my  father's 
strong  personal  regard  for  Dr.  Gray  had  an  early  origin :  **  I  have  been 
glad  to  see  A.  Gray's  letters  ;  there  is  always  something  in  them  that  shows 
that  he  is  a  very  loveable  man." 


! 


I 


1855]  SUGGESTIONS   AND   QUERIES.  42 1 

in  some  degree  picture  to  myself  the  plants  of  your  Alpine 

summits.     The  new  edit,  of  your  Manual  is  capital  news  for 

me.      I   know  from   your  preface  how  pressed  you  are  for 

room,  but  it  would  take  no  space  to  append  (Eu)  in  brackets 

to  any  European  plant,  and,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  this 

would  answer  every  purpose.*     From   my  own  experience, 

whilst  making  out  English  plants  in  our  manuals,  it  has  often 

struck  me  how  much  interest  it  would  give  if  some  notion 

Df  their  range  had  been  given ;  and  so,  I  cannot  doubt,  your 

American  inquirers  and  beginners  would  much  like  to  know 

which  of  their  plants  were  indigenous  and  which  European. 

iVould  it  not  be  well  in  the  Alpine  plants  to  append  the  very 

>ame  addition  which  you  have  now  sent  me  in  MS.  ?  though 

lere,  owing  to  your  kindness,  I  do  not  speak  selfishly,  but 

nerely  pro  bono  Americano  publico,     I  presume  it  would  be 

:oo  troublesome  to  give  in  your  manual  the  habitats  of  those 

slants  found  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  likewise  those 

ound  in  Eastern  Asia,  taking  the  Yenesei  (.'^), — which,  if  I 

•emember  right,  according  to  Gmelin,  is  the  main  partition 

ine  of  Siberia.     Perhaps  Siberia  more  concerns  the  northern 

Flora  of  North  America.     The  ranges  of  the  plants  to  the 

ast  and  west,  viz.,  whether  most  found  are  in  Greenland  and 

A^estern  Europe,  or  in  E.  Asia,  appears  to  me  a  very  interest- 

ng  point  as  tending  to  show  whether  the  migration  has  been 

eastward  or  westward.      Pray  believe  me   that    I    am    most 

mtirely  conscious   that  the  only  use  of  these   remarks  is  to 

how  a  botanist  what    points  a  non-botanist   is    curious    to 

earn  ;  for  I  think  every  one  who  studies  profoundly  a  subject 

ften  becomes  unaware  [on]  what  points  the  ignorant  require 

nformation.     I  am  so  very  glad  that  you  think  of  drawing  up 

ome  notice  on  your  geographical  distribution,  for  the  area 

>f  the  Manual  strikes  me  as  in  some  points  better  adapted 

or  comparison  with  Europe  than  that  of  the  whole  of  North 

\.merica.     You  ask  me  to  state  definitely  some  of  the  points 

>n  which  I  much  wish  for  information  ;  but  I  really  hardly 


This  suggestion  Dr.  Gray  adopted  in  subsequent  editions. 


422  GROWTH   OF    THE   'ORIGIN/  [1855. 

can,  for  they  are  so  vague  ;  and  I  rather  wish  to  see  what 
results  will  come  out  from  comparisons,  than  have  as  yet 
defined  objects.  I  presume  that,  like  other  botanists,  you 
would  give,  for  your  area,  the  proportion  (leaving  out  intro- 
duced plants)  to  the  whole  of  the  great  leading  families  :  this 
is  one  point  I  had  intended  (and,  indeed,  have  done  roughly) 
to  tabulate  from  your  book,  but  of  course  I  could  have  done 
it  only  very  imperfectly.  I  should  also,  of  course,  have  ascer- 
tained the  proportion,  to  the  whole  Flora,  of  the  European 
plants  (leaving  out  introduced)  and  of  the  separate  great 
families^  in  order  to  speculate  on  means  of  transportal.  By 
the  way,  I  ventured  to  send  a  few  days  ago  a  copy  of  the 
Gardeners'  Chronicle  with  a  short  report  by  me  of  some 
trifling  experiments  which  I  have  been  trying  on  the  power 
of  seeds  to  withstand  sea  water.  I  do  not  know  whether  it 
has  struck  you,  but  it  has  me,  that  it  would  be  advisable 
for  botanists  to  give  in  whole  numbers^  as  well  as  in  the  lowest 
fraction,  the  proportional  numbers  of  the  families,  thus  I  make 
out  from  your  Manual  that  of  the  indigenous  plants  the  pro- 
portion of  the  Umbelliferae  are  y^  9  s  —  tV  \  fo^>  without  one 
knows  the  whole  numbers,  one  cannot  judge  how  really  close 
the  numbers  of  the  plants  of  the  same  family  are  in  two  dis- 
tant countries  ;  but  very  likely  you  may  think  this  superfluous. 
Mentioning  these  proportional  numbers,  I  may  give  you  an 
instance  of  the  sort  of  points,  and  how  vague  and  futile  they 
often  are,  which  I  attempt  to  work  out  .  .  .  ;  reflecting  on  R. 
Brown's  and  Hooker's  remark,  that  near  identity  of  propor- 
tional numbers  of  the  great  families  in  two  countries,  shows 
probably  that  they  were  once  continuously  united,  I  thought 
I  would  calculate  the  proportions  of,  for  instance,  the  intro- 
duced Compositae  in  Great  Britain  to  all  the  introduced 
plants,  and  the  result  was,  \%  =  9^2  •  ^^  ^^^  aboriginal  or 
indigenous  flora  the  proportion  is  yV;  ^i^d  in  many  other 
cases  I  found  an  equally  striking  correspondence  I  then 
took  your  Manual,  and  worked  out  the  same  question ;  here 
I  find  in  the  Compositae  an  almost  equally  striking  correspond- 
ence, viz.  ^Ve  =  B  in  the  introduced  plants,  and  tt%  =  i  i^^ 


1855]  SUGGESTIONS   AND   QUERIES.  423 

the  indigenous  ;  but  when  I  came  to  the  other  families  I 
found  the  proportion  entirely  different,  showing  that  the  co- 
incidences in  the  British  Flora  were  probably  accidental  ! 

You  will,  I  presume,  give  the  proportion  of  the  species  to 
the  genera,  /.  ^.,  show  on  an  average  how  many  species  each 
genus  contains  ;  though  I  have  done  this  for  myself. 

If  it  would  not  be  too  troublesome,  do  you  not  think  it 
would  be  very  interesting,  and  give  a  very  good  idea  of  your 
Flora,  to  divide  the  species  into  three  groups,  viz.,  (a)  species 
common  to  the  old  world,  stating  numbers  common  to  Europe 
and  Asia ;  (^)  indigenous  species,  but  belonging  to  genera 
found  in  the  old  world  ;  and  (c)  species  belonging  to  genera 
confined  to  America  or  the  New  World.  To  make  (according 
to  my  ideas)  perfection  perfect,  one  ought  to  be  told  whether 
there  are  other  cases,  like  Erica,  of  genera  common  in  Europe 
or  in  Old  World  not  found  in  your  area.  But  honestly  I  feel 
that  it  is  quite  ridiculous  my  writing  to  you  at  such  length  on 
the  subject ;  but,  as  you  have  asked  me,  I  do  it  gratefully, 
and  write  to  you  as  I  should  to  Hooker,  who  often  laughs 
at  me  unmercifully,  and  I  am  sure  you  have  better  reason 
to  do  so. 

There  is  one  point  on  which  I  am  mosf  anxious  for  infor- 
mation, and  I  mention  it  with  the  greatest  hesitation,  and 
only  in  the  /u/l  belief  that  you  will  believe  me  that  I  have 
not  the  folly  and  presumption  to  hope  for  a  second  that  you 
will  give  it,  without  you  can  with  very  little  trouble.  The 
point  can  at  present  interest  no  one  but  myself,  which  makes 
the  case  wholly  different  from  geographical  distribution.  The 
only  way  in  which,  I  think,  you  possibly  could  do  it  with  little 
trouble  would  be  to  bear  in  mind,  whilst  correcting  your  proof- 
sheets  of  the  Manual,  my  question  and  put  a  cross  or  mark 
to  the  species,  and  whenever  sending  a  parcel  to  Hooker  to 
let  me  have  such  old  sheets.  But  this  would  give  you  the 
trouble  of  remembering  my  question,  and  I  can  hardly  hope 
or  expect  that  you  will  do  it.  But  I  will  just  mention  what  I 
want ;  it  is  to  have  marked  the  "close  species"  in  a  Flora,  so 
as  to  compare  in  different  Floras  whether  the  same  genera 


424 


GROWTH   OF   THE   'ORIGIN.' 


[1855. 


have  "close  species,'*  and  for  other  purposes  too  vague  to 
enumerate.  I  have  attempted,  by  Hooker's  help,  to  ascertain 
in  a  similar  way  whether  the  different  species  of  the  same 
genera  in  distant  quarters  of  the  globe  are  variable  or  present 
varieties.  The  definition  I  should  give  of  a  "  dose  species " 
was  one  that  you  thought  specifically  distinct,  but  which  you 
could  conceive  some  other  good  botanist  might  think  only  a 
race  or  variety;  or,  again,  a  species  that  you  had  trouble, 
though  having  opportunities  of  knowing  it  well,  in  discrimi- 
nating from  some  other  species.  Supposing  that  you  were 
inclined  to  be  so  very  kind  as  to  do  this,  and  could  (which  I 
do  not  expect)  spare  the  time,  as  I  have  said,  a  mere  cross 
to  each  such  species  in  any  useless  proof-sheets  would  give 
me  the  information  desired,  which,  I  may  add,  I  know  must 
be  vague. 

How  can  I  apologise  enough  for  all  my  presumption  and 
the  extreme  length  of  this  letter  .'^  The  great  good  nature  of 
your  letter  to  me  has  been  partly  the  cause,  so  that,  as  is  too 
often  the  case  in  this  world,  you  are  punished  for  your  good 
deeds.     With  hearty  thanks,  believe  me. 

Yours  very  truly  and  gratefully, 

Ch.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin    to  J,  D,  Hooker. 

Down,  i8th  [July,  1855]. 
...   I  think   I  am  getting  a  mild  case  about  Charlock 
seed;  *  but  just  as  about  salting,  ill  luck  to  it,  I  cannot 
remember  how  many  years  you  would  allow  that  Charlock 


*"''  In  the  Gardeners  Chronicle^  1855,  p.  758,  appeared  a  notice  (half  a 
column  in  length)  by  my  father  on  the  '*  Vitality  of  Seeds."  The  facts 
related  refer  to  the  *'  Sand- walk  "  ;  the  wood  was  planted  in  1846  on  a 
piece  of  pasture  land  laid  down  as  grass  in  1840.  In  1855,  on  the  soil 
being  dug  in  several  places,  Charlock  {Brassica  sinapistruni)  sprang  up 
freely.  The  subject  continued  to  interest  him,  and  I  find  a  note  dated 
July  2nd,  1874,  in  which  my  father  recorded  that  forty-six  plants  of  Char- 
lock sprang  up  in  that  year  over  a  space  (14  x  7  feet)  which  had  been  dug 
to  a  considerable  depth. 


18551  VITALITY   OF    SEEDS.  425 

seed  might  live  in  the  ground.  Next  time  you  write,  show 
a  bold  face,  and  say  in  how  many  years,  you  think,  Charlock 
seed  would  probably  all  be  dead.  A  man  told  me  the  other 
day  of,  as  I  thought,  a  splendid  instance, — and  splendid  it 
was,  for  according  to  his  evidence  the  seed  came  up  alive  out 
of  the  lower  part  of  the  London  Clay  !  !  !  I  disgusted  him  by 
telling  him  that  Palms  ought  to  have  come  up. 

You  ask  how  far  I  go  in  attributing  organisms  to  a  com- 
mon descent ;  I  answer  I  know  not ;  the  way  in  which  I  in- 
tend treating  the  subject,  is  to  show  {as  far  as  I  can)  the  facts 
and  arguments  for  and  against  the  common  descent  of  the 
species  of  the  same  genus  ;  and  then  show  how  far  the  same 
arguments  tell  for  or  against  forms,  more  and  more  widely 
different  :  and  when  we  come  to  forms  of  different  orders 
and  classes,  there  remain  only  some  such  arguments  as  those 
which  can  perhaps  be  deduced  from  similar  rudimentary 
structures,  and  very  soon  not  an  argument  is  left. 

[The  following  extract  from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Fox  [Oct. 
1855,*  gives  a  brief  mention  of  the  last  meeting  of  the  British 
Association  which  he  attended :]  "  I  really  have  no  news  : 
the  only  thing  we  have  done  for  a  long  time,  was  to  go  to 
Glasgow  ;  but  the  fatigue  was  to  me  more  than  it  was  worth, 
and  E.  caught  a  bad  cold.  On  our  return  we  stayed  a  single 
day  at  Shrewsbury,  and  enjoyed  seeing  the  old  place.  I  saw 
a  little  of  Sir  Philip  \  (whom  I  liked  much),  and  he  asked  me 
why  on  earth  I  instigated  you  to  rob  his  poultry-yard  ? '' 
The  meeting  was  a  good  one,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll  spoke 
excellently."] 


*  In  this  year  he  published  (*  Phil.  Mag.*  x.)  a  paper  *  On  the  power  of 
icebergs  to  make  rectilinear  uniformly-directed  grooves  across  a  subma- 
ine  undulatory  surface." 

f  Sir  P.  Egerton  was  a  neighbour  of  Mr.  Fox. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

THE    UNFINISHED    BOOK. 
May  1856  to  June  1858. 

[In  the  Autobiographical  chapter  (page  69,)  my  father 
wrote: — ^*  Early  in  1856  Lyell  advised  me  to  write  out  my 
views  pretty  fully,  and  I  began  at  once  to  do  so  on  a  scale 
three  or  four  times  as  extensive  as  that  which  was  afterwards 
followed  in  my  '  Origin  of  Species ;  '  yet  it  was  only  an  ab- 
stract of  the  materials  which  I  had  collected."  The  letters 
in  the  present  chapter  are  chiefly  concerned  with  the  prepara- 
tion of  this  unfinished  book. 

The  work  was  begun  on  May  14th,  and  steadily  continued 
up  to  June  1858,  when  it  was  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of 
Mr.  Wallace's  MS.  During  the  two  years  which  we  are  now 
considering  he  wrote  ten  chapters  (that  is  about  one-half)  of 
the  projected  book.  He  remained  for  the  most  part  at  home, 
but  paid  several  visits  to  Dr.  Lane's  Water-Cure  Establish- 
ment at  Moor  Park,  during  one  of  which  he  made  a  pilgrim- 
age to  the  shrine  of  Gilbert  White  at  Selborne.] 

LETTERS. 


C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell, 

May  3  [1856J. 

.  .  .  With  respect  to  your  suggestion  of  a  sketch  of  my 
views,  I  hardly  know  what  to  think,  but  will  reflect  on  it,  but 
it  goes  against  my  prejudices.  To  give  a  fair  sketch  would  be 
absolutely  impossible,  for  every  proposition  requires  such  an 


1856.]  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  427 

array  of  facts.  If  I  were  to  do  anything,  it  could  only  refer 
to  the  main  agency  of  change — selection — and  perhaps  point 
out  a  very  few  of  the  leading  features,  which  countenance 
such  a  view,  and  some  few  of  the  main  difficulties.  But  I  do 
not  know  what  to  think ;  I  rather  hate  the  idea  of  writing 
for  priority,  yet  I  certainly  should  be  vexed  if  any  one  were 
to  publish  my  doctrines  before  me.  Anyhow,  I  thank  you 
heartily  for  your  sympathy.  I  shall  be  in  London  next  week, 
and  I  will  call  on  you  on  Thursday  morning  for  one  hour  pre- 
cisely, so  as  not  to  lose  much  of  your  time  and  my  own ;  but 
will  you  let  me  this  time  come  as  early  as  9  o'clock,  for  I 
have  much  which  I  must  do  in  the  morning  in  my  strongest 
time  ?     Farewell,  my  dear  old  patron. 

Yours, 

C.   Darwin. 

By  the  way,  f/iree  plants  have  come  up  out  of  the  earth, 
perfectly  enclosed  in  the  roots  of  the  trees.  And  twenty-nine 
plants  in  the  table-spoonful  of  mud,  out  of  the  little  pond  ; 
Hooker  was  surprised  at  this,  and  struck  with  it,  when  I 
showed  him  how  much  mud  I  had  scraped  off  one  duck's 
feet. 

If  I  did  publish  a  short  sketch,  where  on  earth  should  I 
publish  it  ? 

If  I  do  no/  hear,  I  shall  understand  that  I  may  come  from 
9  to  10  on  Thursday. 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker, 

May  9th.  [1856]. 
...  I  very  much  want  advice  and  truthful  consolation  if 
you  can  give  it.  I  had  a  good  talk  with  Lyell  about  my 
species  work,  and  he  urges  me  strongly  to  publish  something. 
I  am  fixed  against  any  periodical  or  Journal,  as  I  positively 
will  not  expose  myself  to  an  Editor  or  a  Council,  allowing  a 
publication  for  which  they  might  be  abused.  If  I  publish 
anything  it  must  be  a  very  thin  and  little  volume,  giving  a 
sketch  of  my  views  and  difficulties  ;  but  it  is  really  dreadfully 


428  THE   UNFINISHED    BOOK.  [1856. 

unphilosophical  to  give  a  resume\  without  exact  references, 
of  an  unpublished  work.  But  Lyell  seemed  to  think  I  might 
do  this,  at  the  suggestion  of  friends,  and  on  the  ground,  which 
I  might  state,  that  I  had  been  at  work  for  eighteen  *  years, 
and  yet  could  not  publish  for  several  years,  and  especially  as 
I  could  point  out  difficulties  which  seemed  to  me  to  require 
especial  investigation,  Now  what  think  you  ?  I  should  be 
really  grateful  for  advice.  I  thought  of  giving  up  a  couple  of 
months  and  writing  such  a  sketch,  and  trying  to  keep  my 
judgement  open  whether  or  no  to  publish  it  when  completed. 
It  will  be  simply  impossible  for  me  to  give  exact  references ; 
anything  important  I  should  state  on  the  authority  of  the 
author  generally ;  and  instead  of  giving  all  the  facts  on  which 
I  ground  my  opinion,  I  could  give  by  memory  only  one  or 
two.  In  the  Preface  I  would  state  that  the  work  could  not 
be  considered  strictly  scientific,  but  a  mere  sketch  or  outline 
of  a  future  work  in  which  full  references,  &c.^  should  be 
given.  Eheu,  eheu,  I  believe  I  should  sneer  at  any  one  else 
doing  this,  and  my  only  comfort  is,  that  I  truly  never  dreamed 
of  it,  till  Lyell  suggested  it,  and  seems  deliberately  to  think 
it  advisable. 

I  am  in  a  peck  of  troubles  and  do  pray  forgive  me  for 
troubling  you. 

Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

C»  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

May  nth  [1856]. 
.  .   .  Now  for  a  more  important !  subject,  viz.,  my  own  self  : 
I    am   extremely  glad    you    think  well  of  a  separate  "  Pre- 
liminary Essay  "  (/.  ^.,  if  anything  whatever  is  published;  for 
Lyell  seemed  rather  to  doubt  on  this  head)  f  ;  but  I   cannot 

*  The  interval  of  eighteen  years,  from  1837  when  he  began  to  collect 
facts,  would  bring  the  date  of  this  letter  to  1855,  not  1856,  nevertheless 
the  latter  seems  the  more  probable  date. 

f  The  meaning  of  tne  sentence  in  parentheses  is  obscure. 


1856.]  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK.  429 

bear  the  idea  of  begging  some  Editor  and  Council  to  publish, 
and  then  perhaps  to  have  to  apologise  humbly  for  having  led 
them  into  a  scrape.  In  this  one  respect  I  am  in  the  state 
which,  according  to  a  very  wise  saying  of  my  father's,  is  the 
only  fit  state  for  asking  advice,  viz.,  with  my  mind  firmly  made 
up,  and  then,  as  my  father  used  to  say,  good  advice  was  very 
comfortable,  and  it  was  easy  to  reject  bad  advice.  But 
Heaven  knows  I  am  not  in  this  state  with  respect  to  publish- 
ing at  all  any  preliminary  essay.  It  yet  strikes  me  as  quite 
unphilosophical  to  publish  results  without  the  full  details 
which  have  led  to  such  results. 

It  is  a  melancholy,  and  I  hope  not  quite  true  view  of  yours 
that  facts  will  prove  anything,  and  are  therefore  superfluous  ! 
But  I  have  rather  exaggerated,  I  see,  your  doctrine.  I  do 
not  fear  being  tied  down  to  error,  /.  ^.,  I  feel  pretty  sure  I 
should  give  up  anything  false  published  in  the  preliminary 
essay,  in  my  larger  work  ;  but  I  may  thus,  it  is  very  true,  do 
mischief  by  spreading  error,  which  as  I  have  often  heard  you 
say  is  much  easier  spread  than  corrected.  I  confess  I  lean 
more  and  more  to  at  least  making  the  attempt  and  drawing 
up  a  sketch  and  trying  to  keep  my  judgement,  whether  to 
publish,  open.  But  I  always  return  to  my  fixed  idea  that  it 
is  dreadfully  unphilosophical  to  publish  without  full  details. 
I  certainly  think  my  future  work  in  full  would  profit  by  hear- 
ing what  my  friends  or  critics  (if  reviewed)  thought  of  the 
outline. 

To  any  one  but  you  I  should  apologise  for  such  long  dis- 
cussion on  so  personal  an  affair  ;  but  I  believe,  and  indeed 
you  have  proved  it  by  the  trouble  you  have  taken,  that  this 
would  be  superfluous. 

Yours  truly  obliged, 

Ch.   Darwin. 

P.  S.  What  you  say  (for  I  have  just  re-read  your  letter) 
that  the  Essay  might  supersede  and  take  away  all  novelty 
and  value  from  any  future  larger  Book,  is  very  true ;  and  that 
would  grieve  me  beyond  everything.     On   the   other  hand 


430  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1856. 

(again  from  Lyell's  urgent  advice),  I  published  a  preliminary 
sketch  of  the  Coral  Theory,  and  this  did  neither  good  nor 
harm.  I  begin  most  heartily  to  wish  that  Lyell  had  never  put 
this  idea  of  an  Essay  into  my  head. 

From  a  letter  to  Sir  C,  Lyell  \^/uly,  1856]. 

*^  I  am  deHghted  that  I  may  say  (with  absolute  truth)  that    \ 
my  essay  is  published  at  your  suggestion,  but  I  hope  it  will    * 
not  need  so  much  apology  as  I  at  first  thought ;  for  I  have 
resolved  to  make  it  nearly  as  complete  as  my  present  materials    j 
allow.     I  cannot  put  in  all  which  you   suggest,  for  it  would 
appear  too  conceited." 


From  a  letter  to  W.  D,  Fox, 

Down,  June  14th  [1856]. 

".  .  .  What  you  say  about  my  Essay,  I  dare  say  is  very 
true  ;  and  it  gave  me  another  fit  of  the  wibber-gibbers  :  I 
hope  that  I  shall  succeed  in  making  it  modest.  One  great 
motive  is  to  get  information  on  the  many  points  on  which  I 
want  it.  But  I  tremble  about  it,  which  I  should  not  do,  if  I 
allowed  some  three  or  four  more  years  to  elapse  before  pub- 
lishing anything.  .  .  .*' 

[The  following  extracts  from  letters  to  Mr.  Fox  are  worth 
giving,  as  showing  how  great  was  the  accumulation  of  mate- 
rial which  now  had  to  be  dealt  with. 

June  14th  [1856]. 

**  Very  many  thanks  for  the  capital  information  on  cats ;  I 
see  I  had  blundered  greatly,  but  I  know  I  had  somewhere 
your  orignal  notes;  but  my  notes  are  so  numerous  during 
nineteen  years*  collection,  that  it  would  take  me  at  least  a 
year  to  go  over  and  classify  them.'' 

Nov.  1856.  *^  Sometimes  I  fear  I  shall  break  down,  for  my 
subject  gets  bigger  and  bigger  with  each  month's  work."] 


1856.]  CONTINENTAL   EXTENSION.  43 1 

C  Darwin  to  C  Lyell. 

Down,  i6th  [June,  1856]. 

My  dear  Lyeli,, — I  am  going  to  do  the  most  impudent 
thing  in  the  world.  But  my  blood  gets  hot  with  passion  and 
turns  cold  alternately  at  the  geological  strides,  which  many  of 
your  disciples  are  taking. 

Here,  poor  Forbes  made  a  continent  to  [/.  ^.,  extending  to] 
North  America  and  another  (or  the  same)  to  the  Gulf  weed ; 
Hooker  makes  one  from  New  Zealand  to  South  America  and 
round  the  World  to  Kerguelen  Land.  Here  is  Wollaston 
speaking  of  Madeira  and  P.  Santo  "  as  the  sure  and  certain 
witnesses  of  a  former  continent.''  Here  is  Woodward  writes 
to  me,  if  you  grant  a  continent  over  200  or  300  miles  of  ocean 
depths  (as  if  that  was  nothing),  why  not  extend  a  continent 
to  every  island  in  the  Pacific  and  Atlantic  Oceans  ?  And  all 
this  within  the  existence  of  recent  species !  If  you  do  not 
stop  this,  if  there  be  a  lower  region  for  the  punishment  of 
geologists,  I  believe,  my  great  master,  you  will  go  there.  Why, 
your  disciples  in  a  slow  and  creeping  manner  beat  all  the  old 
Catastrophists  who  ever  lived.  You  will  live  to  be  the  great 
chief  of  the  Catastrophists. 

There,  I  have  done  myself  a  great  deal  of  good,  and  have 
exploded  my  passion. 

So  my  master,  forgive  me,  and  believe  me,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S.  Don't  answer  this,  I  did  it  to  ease  myself.' 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker. 

Down  [June]  17th,  1856. 

...  I  have  been  very  deeply  interested  by  Wollaston's 

book,*  though  I  differ  greatly  from  many  of  his  doctrines. 

Did  you  ever  read  anything  so  rich,  considering  how  very  far 

he  goes,  as  his  denunciations  against  those  who  go  further : 

*  *  The  Variation  of  Species/  "1856. 


432  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1856. 

"most  mischievous/*  "absurd,"  "unsound."  Theology  is  at 
the  bottom  of  some  of  this.  I  told  him  he  was  like  Calvin 
burning  a  heretic.  It  is  a  very  valuable  and  clever  book  in 
my  opinion.  He  has  evidently  read  very  little  out  of  his  own 
line.  I  urged  him  to  read  the  New  Zealand  essay.  His 
Geology  also  is  rather  eocene^  as  I  told  him.  In  fact  I  wrote 
most  frankly  ;  I  fear  too  frankly  ;  he  says  he  is  sure  that  ultra- 
honesty  is  my  characteristic  :  I  do  not  know  whether  he  meant 
it  as  a  sneer  ;  I  hope  not.  Talking  of  eocene  geology,  I  got 
so  wrath  about  the  Atlantic  continent,  more  especially  from 
a  note  from  Woodward  (who  has  published  a  capital  book  on 
shells),  who  does  not  seem  to  doubt  that  every  island  in  the 
Pacific  and  Atlantic  are  the  remains  of  continents,  submerged 
within  period  of  existing  species,  that  I  fairly  exploded,  and 
wrote  to  Lyell  to  protest,  and  summed  up  all  the  continents 
created  of  late  years  by  Forbes  (the  head  sinner !)  yourself^ 
Wollaston,  and  Woodward,  and  a  pretty  nice  little  extension 
of  land  they  make  altogether  !  I  am  fairly  rabid  on  the 
question  and  therefore,  if  not  wrong  already,  am  pretty  sure 
to  become  so  .  .  . 

I  have  enjoyed  your  note  much.     Adios, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S.  [June]  i8th.  Lyell  has  written  me  a  capital  letter 
on  your  side,  which  ought  to  upset  me  entirely,  but  I  cannot 
say  it  does  quite. 

Though  I  must  try  and  cease  being  rabid  and  try  to  feel 
humble,  and  allow  you  all  to  make  continents,  as  easily  as  a 
cook  does  pancakes. 


C,  Darwin  to  C,  Lyell. 

Down,  June  25th  [1856]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — I  will  have  the  following  tremendous 
letter  copied  to  make  the  reading  easier,  and  as  I  want  to 
keep  a  copy. 

As  you  say  you  would  like  to  hear  my  reasons  for  being 


1856.]  CONTINENTAL   EXTENSION.  433 

most  unwilling  to  believe  in  the  continental  extensions  of  late 
authors,  I  gladly  write  them,  as,  without  I  am  convinced  of 
my  error,  I  shall  have  to  give  them  condensed  in  my  essay, 
when  I  discuss  single  and  multiple  creation;  I  shall  therefore 
be  particularly  glad  to  have  your  general  opinion  on  them. 
I  m^ay  quite  likely  have  persuaded  myself  in  my  wrath  that 
there  is  more  in  them  than  there  is.    If  there  was  much  more 
reason  to  admit  a  continental  extension  in  any  one  or  two 
instances  (as  in  Madeira)  than  in  other  cases,  I  should  feel  no 
difficulty  whatever.     But  if  on  account  of  European  plants, 
and  littoral  sea  shells,  it  is  thought  necessary  to  join  Madeira 
to  the  mainland,  Hooker  is  quite  right  to  join  New  Holland 
to  New  Zealand,  and  Auckland  Island  (and  Raoul  Island  to 
N.  E.),  and  these  to  S.  America  and  the  Falklands,  and  these 
to  Tristan  d'Acunha,  and  these  to   Kerguelen  Land  ;  thus 
making,    either    strictly  at    the    same    tim.e,  or   at   different 
periods,  but  all  within  the  life  of  recent  beings,  an  almost 
circumpolar  belt  of  land.     So  again  Galapagos  and  Juan  Fer- 
nandez must  be  joined  to  America  ;  and  if  we  trust  to  littoral 
sea  shells,  the  Galapagos  must  have  been  joined  to  the  Pa- 
cific Islands  (2400  miles  distant)  as  well  as  to  America,  and 
as  Woodward  seems  to  think  all  the  islands  in  the  Pacific 
into  a  magnificent  continent ;  also  the  islands  in  the  Southern 
Indian  Ocean  into  another  continent,  with  Madagascar  and 
frica,  and  perhaps  India.     In  the  North  Atlantic,  Europe 
ill  stretch   half-way  across  the    ocean  to  the  Azores,   and 
jfurther  north  right  across.     In  short,  we  must  suppose  proba- 
ly,  half  the   present   ocean  was  land  within  the  period  of 
iving  organisms.     The  Globe  within  this  period  must  have 
ad  a  quite  different  aspect.     Now  the  only  way  to  test  this, 
hat  I  can  see,  is  to  consider  whether  the  continents  have  un- 
ergone  within  this   same  period  such  wonderful  permuta- 
ions.     In  all  North  and  South  and  Central  America,  we  have 
)oth  recent  and  miocene  (or  eocene)  shells,  quite  distinct  on 
he  opposite  sides,  and  hence  I  cannot  doubt  thdit  fundament- 
lly  America  has  held  its  place  since  at  least,  the  miocene 
eriod.     In  Africa  almost  all  the  living  shells  are  distinct  on 
20 


434  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1856. 

the  opposite  sides  of  the  inter-tropical  regions,  short  as  the 
distance  is  compared  to  the  range  of  marine  mollusca,  in  un- 
interrupted seas  ;  hence  I  infer  that  Africa  has  existed  since 
our  present  species  were  created.  Even  the  isthmus  of  Suez 
and  the  Aralo -Caspian  basin  have  had  a  great  antiquity.  So 
I  imagine,  from  the  tertiary  deposits,  has  India.  In  Austra- 
lia the  great  fauna  of  extinct  marsupials  shows  that  before 
the  present  mammals  appeared,  Australia  was  a  separate  con- 
tinent. I  do  not  for  one  second  doubt  that  very  large  por- 
tions of  all  these  continents  have  undergone  great  changes  of 
level  within  this  period,  but  yet  I  conclude  that  fundament- 
ally they  stood  as  barriers  in  the  sea,  where  they  now  stand  ; 
and  therefore  I  should  require  the  weightiest  evidence  to 
make  me  believe  in  such  immense  changes  within  the  period 
of  living  organisms  in  our  oceans,  where,  moreover,  from  the 
great  depths,  the  changes  must  have  been  vaster  in  a  vertical 
sense. 

Secondly,  Submerge  our  present  continents,  leaving  a  few 
mountain  peaks  as  islands,  and  what  will  the  character  of  the 
islands  be, — Consider  that  the  Pyrenees,  Sierra  Nevada,  Apen- 
nines, Alps,  Carpathians,  are  non-volcanic,  Etna  and  Caucasus, 
volcanic.  In  Asia,  Altai  and  Himalaya,  I  believe  non-vol- 
canic. In  North  Africa  the  non-volcanic,  as  I  imagine,  Alps 
of  Abyssinia  and  of  the  Atlas.  In  South  Africa,  the  Snow 
Mountains,  In  Australia,  the  non-volcanic  Alps.  In  North 
America,  the  White  Mountains,  Alleghanies  and  Pvocky 
Mountains — some  of  the  latter  alone,  I  believe,  volcanic.  In 
South  America  to  the  east,  the  non-volcanic  [Silla.?]  of  Ca- 
racas, and  Itacolumi  of  Brazil,  further  south  the  Sierra  Ven- 
tanas,  and  in  the  Cordilleras,  many  volcanic  but  not  all.  Now 
compare  these  peaks  with  the  oceanic  islands  ;  as  far  as 
known  all  are  volcanic,  except  St.  PauFs  (a  strange  bedevilled 
rock),  and  the  Seychelles,  if  this  latter  can  be  called  oceanic, 
in  the  line  of  Madagascar  ;  the  Falklands,  only  500  miles  off, 
are  only  a  shallow  bank ;  New  Caledonia,  hardly  oceanic,  is 
another  exception.  This  argument  has  to  me  great  weight. 
Compare  on   a  Geographical   map,  islands  which,  we  have 


1 


11 


1856.]  CONTINENTAL  EXTENSION.  435 

several  reasons  to  suppose,  were  connected  with  mainland,  as 
Sardinia,  and  how  different  it  appears.  Believing,  as  I  am 
inclined,  that  continents  as  continents,  and  oceans  as  oceans, 
are  of  immense  antiquity — I  should  say  that  if  any  of  the 
existing  oceanic  islands  have  any  relation  of  any  kind  to  con- 
tinents, they  are  forming  continents  ;  and  that  by  the  time 
they  could  form  a  continent,  the  volcanoes  would  be  denuded 
to  their  cores,  leaving  peaks  of  syenite,  diorite,  or  porphyry. 
But  have  we  nowhere  any  last  wreck  of  a  continent,  in  the 
midst  of  the  ocean  ?  St.  Paul's  Rock,  and  such  old  battered 
volcanic  islands,  as  St.  Helena,  may  be  ;  but  I  think  we  can 
see  some  reason  why  we  should  have  less  evidence  of  sink- 
ing than  of  rising  continents  (if  my  view  in  my  Coral  volume 
has  any  truth  in  it,  viz.  :  that  volcanic  outbursts  accompany 
rising  areas),  for  during  subsidence  there  will  be  no  compen- 
sating agent  at  work,  in  rising  areas  there  will  be  the  additional 
element  of  outpoured  volcanic  matter. 

Thirdly.  Considering  the  depth  of  the  ocean,  I  was,  be- 
fore I  got  your  letter,  inclined  vehemently  to  dispute  the  vast 
amount  of  subsidence,  but  I  must  strike  my  colours.  With 
respect  to  coral  reefs,  I  carefully  guarded  against  its  being 
supposed  that  a  continent  was  indicated  by  the  groups  of 
atolls.  It  is  difficult  to  guess,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the  amount 
of  subsidence  indicated  by  coral  reefs  ;  but  in  such  large 
areas  as  the  Lowe  Archipelago,  the  Marshall  Archipelago, 
and  Laccadive  group,  it  would,  judging,  from  the  heights  of 
existing  oceanic  archipelagoes,  be  odd,  if  some  peaks  of  from 
8000  to  10,000  feet  had  not  been  buried.  Even  after  your 
letter  a  suspicion  crossed  me  whether  it  would  be  fair  to 
argue  from  subsidences  in  the  middle  of  the  greatest  oceans 
to  continents;  but  refreshing  my  memory  by  talking  with 
Ramsay  in  regard  to  the  probable  thickness  in  one  vertical 
line  of  the  Silurian  and  carboniferous  formation,  it  seems 
there  must  have  been  at  least  10,000  feet  of  subsidence  during 
these  formations  in  Europe  and  North  America,  and  therefore 
during  the  continuance  of  nearly  the  same  set  of  organic 
beings.     But  even  12,000  feet  would  not  be  enough  for  the 


436  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1856. 

Azores,  or  for  Hooker's  continent ;  I  believe  Hooker  does  not 
infer  a  continuous  continent,  but  approximate  groups  of 
islands,  with,  if  we  may  judge  from  existing  continents,  not 
profoundly  deep  sea  between  them ;  but  the  argument  from 
the  volcanic  nature  of  nearly  every  existing  oceanic  island 
tell  against  such  supposed  groups  of  islands, — for  I  presume 
he  does  not  suppose  a  mere  chain  of  volcanic  islands  belting 
the  southern  hemisphere. 

Fourthly.  The  supposed  continental  extensions  do  not 
seem  to  me,  perfectly  to  account  for  all  the  phenomena  of 
distribution  on  islands;  as  the  absence  of  mammals  and 
Batrachians;  the  absence  of  certain  great  groups  of  insects 
on  Madeira,  and  of  Acaciae  and  Banksias,  &c.,  in  New  Zea- 
land ;  the  paucity  of  plants  in  some  cases,  &c.  Not  that 
those  who  believe  in  various  accidental  means  of  dispersal, 
can  explain  most  of  these  cases  ;  but  they  may  at  least  say 
that  these  facts  seem  hardly  compatible  with  former  continu- 
ous land. 

Finally.  For  these  several  reasons,  and  especially  consider- 
ing it  certain  (in  which  you  will  agree)  that  we  are  extremely 
ignorant  of  means  of  dispersal,  I  cannot  avoid  thinking  that 
Forbes'  *  Atlantis,'  was  an  ill-service  to  science,  as  checking 
a  close  study  of  means  of  dissemination.  I  shall  be  really 
grateful  to  hear,  as  briefly  as  you  like,  whether  these  argu- 
ments have  any  weight  with  you,  putting  yourself  in  the 
position  of  an  honest  judge.  I  told  Hooker  that  I  was  going 
to  write  to  you  on  this  subject ;  and  I  should  like  him  to  read 
this  ;  but  whether  he  or  you  will  think  it  worth  time  and  post- 
age remains  to  be  proved. 

Yours  most  truly, 

Charles  Darwin. 

[On  July  8th  he  wrote  to  Sir  Charles  Lyell. 

"  I  am  sorry  you  cannot  give  any  verdict  on  Continental 
extensions  ;  and  I  infer  that  you  think  my  argument  of  not    » 
much  weight  against  such  extensions.     I  know  I  wish  I  could 
believe  so."] 


i856]  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION.  437 

C.  Darwin  to  Asa  Gray. 

Down,  July  20th  [1856]. 

...  It  is  not  a  little  egotistical,  but  I  should  like  to  tell 
you  (and  I  do  not  think  I  have)  how  I  view  my  work= 
Nineteen  years  (!)  ago  it  occurred  to  me  that  whilst  otherwise 
employed  on  Nat.  Hist.,  I  might  perhaps  do  good  if  I  noted 
any  sort  of  facts  bearing  on  the  question  of  the  origin  of 
species,  and  this  I  have  since  been  doing.  Either  species 
have  been  independently  created,  or  they  have  descended 
from  other  species,  like  varieties  from  one  species.  I  think  it 
can  be  shown  to  be  probable  that  man  gets  his  most  distinct 
varieties  by  preserving  such  as  arise  best  worth  keeping  and 
destroying  the  others,  but  I  should  fill  a  quire  if  I  were  to  go 
on.  To  be  brief,  I  assume  that  species  arise  like  our  domestic 
varieties  with  much  extinction ;  and  then  test  this  hypothesis 
by  comparison  with  as  many  general  and  pretty  well-estab- 
lished propositions  as  I  can  find  made  out, — in  geographical 
distribution,  geological  history,  affinities,  &c.,  &c.  And  it 
seems  to  me  that,  supposing  that  such  hypothesis  were  to 
explain  such  general  propositions,  we  ought,  in  accordance 
with  the  common  way  of  following  all  sciences,  to  admit  it  till 
some  better  hypothesis  be  found  out.  For  to  my  mind  to 
say  that  species  were  created  so  and  so  is  no  scientific  expla- 
nation, only  a  reverent  way  of  saying  it  is  so  and  so.  But  it 
is  nonsensical  trying  to  show  how  I  try  to  proceed  in  the 
compass  of  a  note.  But  as  an  honest  man,  I  must  tell  you 
that  I  have  come  to  the  heterodox  conclusion  that  there  are 
no  such  things  as  independently  created  species — that  species 
are  only  strongly  defined  varieties.  I  know  that  this  will 
make  you  despise  me.  I  do  not  much  underrate  the  many 
huge  difficulties  on  this  view,  but  yet  it  seems  to  me  to  explain 
too  much,  otherwise  inexplicable,  to  be  false.  Just  to  allude 
to  one  point  in  your  last  note,  viz.,  about  species  of  the  same 
genus  generally  having  a  common  or  continuous  area  ;  if  they 
are  actual  lineal  descendants  of  one  species,  this  of  course 
would  be  the  case  ;  and  the  sadly  too  many  exceptions  (for 


438  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1356. 

me)  have  to  be  explained  by  climatal  and  geological  changes. 
A  fortiori  on  this  view  (but  on  exactly  same  grounds),  all  the 
individuals  of  the  same  species  should  have  a  continous  dis- 
tribution. On  this  latter  branch  of  the  subject  I  have  put  a 
chapter  together,  and  Hooker  kindly  read  it  over.  I  thought 
the  exceptions  and  difficulties  were  so  great  that  on  the  whole 
the  balance  weighed  against  my  notions,  but  I  was  much 
pleased  to  find  that  it  seemed  to  have  considerable  weight 
with  Hooker,  who  said  he  had  never  been  so  much  staggered 
about  the  permanence  of  species. 

I  must  say  one  word  more  in  justification  (for  I  feel  sure 
that  your  tendency  will  be  to  despise  me  and  my  crotchets), 
that  all  my  notions  about  how  species  change  are  derived 
from  long  continued  study  of  the  works  of  (and  converse 
with)  agriculturists  and  horticulturists ;  and  I  believe  I  see 
my  way  pretty  clearly  on  the  means  used  by  nature  to  change 
her  species  and  adapt  them  to  the  wondrous  and  exquis- 
itely beautiful  contingencies  to  which  every  living  being  is 
exposed.  .  .  . 

C,  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  July  30tli,  1856. 
My  dear  Hooker, — Your  letter  is  of  much  value  to  me. 
I  was  not  able  to  get  a  definite  answer  from  Lyell,"^  as  you 
will  see  in  the  enclosed  letters,  though  I  inferred  that  he 
thought  nothing  of  my  arguments.  Had  it  not  been  for  this 
correspondence,  I  should  have  written  sadly  too  strongly. 
You  may  rely  on  it  I  shall  put  my  doubts  moderately.  There 
never  was  such  a  predicament  as  mine  :  here  you  continental 
extensionists  would  remove  enormous  difficulties  opposed  to 
me,  and  yet  I  cannot  honestly  admit  the  doctrine,  and  must 
therefore  say  so.  I  cannot  get  over  the  fact  that  not  a  frag- 
ment of  secondary  or  palaeozoic  rock  has  been  found  on  any 
island  above  500  or  600  miles  from  a  mainland.  You  rather 
misunderstand  me  when  you  think  I  doubt  the  possibility  of 

*  On  the  continental  extensions  of  Forbes  and  others. 


1856.]  CLASSIFICATION. 


439 


subsidence  of  20,000  or  30,000  feet  ;  it  is  only  probability,  con- 
sidering such  evidence  as  we  have  independently  of  distribu- 
tion. I  have  not  yet  worked  out  in  full  detail  the  distribution 
of  mammalia,  both  identical  and  allied,  with  respect  to  the  one 
element  of  depth  of  the  sea  ;  but  as  far  as  I  have  gone,  the 
results  are  to  me  surprisingly  accordant  with  my  very  most 
troublesome  belief  in  not  such  great  geographical  changes  as 
you  believe  ;  and  in  mammalia  we  certainly  know  more  of 
means  of  distribution  than  in  any  other  class.  Nothing  is  so 
vexatious  to  me,  as  so  constantly  finding  myself  drawing 
different  conclusions  from  better  judges  than  myself,  from  the 
same  facts. 

I  fancy  I  have  lately  removed  many  (not  geographical) 
great  difficulties  opposed  to  my  notions,  but  God  knows  it 
may  be  all  hallucination. 

Please  return  LyelFs  letters. 

What  a  capital  letter  of  Lyell's  that  to  you  is,  and  what  a 
wonderful  man  he  is.  I  differ  from  him  greatly  in  thinking 
that  those  who  believe  that  species  are  not  fixed  will  multiply 
specific  names  :  I  know  in  my  own  case  my  most  frequent 
source  of  doubt  was  whether  others  would  not  think  this  or 
that  was  a  God-created  Barnacle,  and  surely  deserved  a  name. 
Otherwise  I  should  only  have  thought  whether  the  amount 
of  difference  and  permanence  was  sufficient  to  justify  a  name  : 
I  am,  also,  surprised  at  his  thinking  it  immaterial  whether 
species  are  absolute  or  not  :  whenever  it  is  proved  that  all 
species  are  produced  by  generation,  by  laws  of  change,  what 
good  evidence  we  shall  have  of  the  gaps  in  formations.  And 
what  a  science  Natural  History  will  be,  when  we  are  in  our 
graves,  when  all  the  laws  of  change  are  thought  one  of  the 
most  important  parts  of  Natural  History. 

I  cannot  conceive  why  Lyell  thinks  such  notions  as  mine 
or  of  '  Vestiges,'  will  invalidate  specific  centres.  But  I  must 
not  run  on  and  take  up  your  time.  My  MS.  will  not,  I  fear, 
be  copied  before  you  go  abroad.     With  hearty  thanks. 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 


440  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1856. 

P.  S. — After  giving  much  condensed,  my  argument  versus 
continental  extensions,  I  shall  append  some  such  sentence, 
as  that  two  better  judges  than  myself  have  considered  these 
arguments,  and  attach  no  weight  to  them. 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D,  Hooker, 

Down,  August  5th  [1856]. 
...  I  quite  agree  about  Lyell's  letters  to  me,  which, 
though  to  me  interesting,  have  afforded  me  no  new  light. 
Your  letters,  under  the  geological  point  of  view,  have  been 
more  valuable  to  me.  You  cannot  imagine  how  earnestly  1 
wish  I  could  swallow  continental  extension,  but  I  cannot ; 
the  more  I  think  (and  I  cannot  get  the  subject  out  of  my 
head),  the  more  difficult  I  jfind  it.  If  there  were  only  some 
half-dozen  cases,  I  should  not  feel  the  least  difficulty  ;  but 
the  generality  of  the  facts  of  all  islands  (except  one  or  two) 
having  a  considerable  part  of  their  productions  in  common 
with  one  or  more  mainlands  utterly  staggers  me.  What  a 
wonderful  case  of  the  Epacridae  !  It  is  most  vexatious,  also 
humiliating,  to  me  that  I  cannot  follow  and  subscribe  to  the 
way  in  which  you  strikingly  put  your  view  of  the  case.  I 
look  at  your  facts  (about  Eucalyptus,  &c.)  as  damning  against 
continental  extension,  and  if  you  like  also  damning  against  | 
migration,  or  at  least  of  enormous  difficulty.  I  see  the  ground  | 
of  our  difference  (in  a  letter  I  must  put  myself  on  an  equality  \ 
in  arguing)  lies,  in  my  opinion,  that  scarcely  anything  is  \ 
known  of  means  of  distribution.  I  quite  agree  with  A.  De  * 
Candolle's  (and  I  dare  say  your)  opinion  that  it  is  poor  work 
putting  together  the  merely  J^osssi^le  means  of  distribution  ; 
but  I  see  no  other  way  in  which  the  subject  can  be  attacked, 
for  I  think  that  A.  De  Candolle's  argument,  that  no  plants 
have  been  introduced  into  England  except  by  man's  agency, 
of  no  weight.  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  theory  of  conti- 
nental extension  does  do  some  little  harm  as  stopping  investi- 
gation of  the  means  of  dispersal,  which,  whether  negative  or 
positive,  seems  to  me  of  value ;  when  negatived,  then  every 


1856.]  SPECIFIC    CENTRES. 


441 


one  who  believes  in  single  centres  will  have  to  admit  conti- 
nental extensions. 

...  I  see  from  your  remarks  that  you  do  not  understand 
my  notions  (whether  or  no  worth  anything)  about  modifica- 
tion ;  I  attribute  very  little  to  the  direct  action  of  climate, 
&c.  I  suppose,  in  regard  to  specific  centres,  we  are  at  cross 
purposes  ;  I  should  call  the  kitchen  garden  in  which  the  red 
cabbage  was  produced,  or  the  farm  in  which  Bakewell  made 
the  Shorthorn  cattle,  the  specific  centre  of  these  species  !  And 
surely  this  is  centralisation  enough  ! 

I  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  all  your  assistance  ;  and 
whether  or  no  my  book  may  be  wretched,  you  have  done 
your  best  to  make  it  less  wretched.  Sometimes  I  am  in  very 
good  spirits  and  sometimes  very  low  about  it.  My  own  mind 
is  decided  on  the  question  of  the  origin  of  species  ;  but,  good 
heavens,  how  little  that  is  worth  !  .  .  . 

[With  regard  to  ^*  specific  centres,"  a  passage  from  a  letter 
dated  July  25,  1856,  by  Sir  Charles  T.yell  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker 
(*  Life,'  ii.  p.  216)  is  of  interest  : 

"  I  fear  much  that  if  Darwin  argues  that  species  are  phan- 
toms, he  will  also  have  to  admit  that  single  centres  of  disper- 
sion are  phantoms  also,  and  that  would  deprive  me  of  much 
of  the  value  which  I  ascribe  to  the  present  provinces  of  ani- 
mals and  plants,  as  illustrating  modern  and  tertiary  changes 
in  physical  geography." 

He  seems  to  have  recognised,  however,  that  the  phantom 
doctrine  would  soon  have  to  be  faced,  for  he  wrote  in  the 
same  letter :  ^*  Whether  Darwin  persuades  you  and  me  to 
renounce  our  faith  in  species  (when  geological  epochs  are 
2onsidered)  or  not,  I  foresee  that  many  will  go  over  to  the 
Indefinite  modifiability  doctrine." 

In  the  autumn  my  father  was  still  working  at  geographical 
distribution,  and  again  sought  the  aid  of  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker, 

A  Letter  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  [&//.,  1856]. 
''  In  the  course  of  some  weeks,  you  unfortunate  wretch, 
rou  will  have  my  MS.  on  one  point  of  Geographical  Distribu- 


442  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1856. 

tion.  I  will,  however,  never  ask  such  a  favour  again  ;  but  in 
regard  to  this  one  piece  of  MS.,  it  is  of  infinite  importance  to 
me  for  you  to  see  it ;  for  never  in  my  life  have  I  felt  such 
difficulty  what  to  do,  and  I  heartily  wish  I  could  slur  the 
whole  subject  over." 

In  a  letter  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  (June,  1856),  the  following 
characteristic  passage  occurs,  suggested,  no  doubt,  by  the 
kind  of  work  which  his  chapter  on  Geographical  Distribution 
entailed  : 

"  There  is  wonderful  ill  logic  in  his  [E.  Forbes']  famous 
and  admirable  memoir  on  distribution,  as  it  appears  to  me, 
now  that  I  have  got  it  up  so  as  to  give  the  heads  in  a  page. 
Depend  on  it,  my  saying  is  a  true  one,  viz.,  that  a  compiler 
is  a  great  man,  and  an  original  man  a  commonplace  man. 
Any  fool  can  generalise  and  speculate  ;  but,  oh,  my  heavens  ! 
to  get  up  at  second  hand  2,  New  Zealand  Flora,  that  is  work."] 

C  Darwin  to  W.  D,  Fox, 

Oct.  3  [1856]. 

...  I  remember  you  protested  against  Lyell's  advice  of 
writing  a  sketch  of  my  species  doctrines.     Well,  when  I  began 
I  found  it  such  unsatisfactory  work  that  I  have  desisted,  and 
am  now  drawing  up  my  work  as  perfect  as  my  materials  of 
nineteen  years'  collecting  suffice,  but  do  not  intend  to  stop 
to  perfect  any  line  of  investigation  beyond  current  work. 
Thus  far  and  no  farther  I  shall  follow  Lyell's  urgent  advice. 
Your  remarks  weighed  with  me  considerably.     I  find  to  my 
sorrow  it  will  run  to  quite  a  big  book.    I  have  found  my  care-  | 
ful  work  at  pigeons  really  invaluable,  as  enlightening  me  on 
many  points  on  variation  under  domestication.     The  copious  |  , 
old  literature,  by  which  I  can  trace  the  gradual  changes  in 
the  breeds  of  pigeons  has  been  extraordinarily  useful  to  me. 
I  have  just  had  pigeons  and  fowls  alive  from  the  Gambia!      i 
Rabbits  and  ducks  I  am  attending  to  pretty  carefully,  but^ 
less  so  than  pigeons.     I  find  most  remarkable  differences  in 
the  skeletons  of  rabbits.     Have  you  ever  kept  any  odd  breeds  | 


1856.]  BOTANICAL   GEOGRAPHY.  443 

of  rabbits,  and  can  you  give  me  any  details?  One  other 
question :  You  used  to  keep  hawks  ;  do  you  at  all  know, 
after  eating  a  bird,  how  soon  after  they  throw  up  the  pellet  ? 
No  subject  gives  me  so  much  trouble  and  doubt  and  diffi- 
culty as  the  means  of  dispersal  of  the  same  species  of  terres- 
trial productions  on  the  oceanic  islands.  Land  mollusca  drive 
me  mad,  and  I  cannot  anyhow  get  their  eggs  to  experimentise 
their  power  -of  floating  and  resistance  to  the  injurious  action 
of  salt  water.  I  w^ill  not  apologise  for  writing  so  much  about 
my  own  doings,  as  I  believe  you  will  like  to  hear.  Do  some- 
time, I  beg  you,  let  me  hear  how  you  get  on  in  health  ;  and 
if  so  inclined^  let  me  have  some  words  on  call-ducks. 
My  dear  Fox,  yours  affectionately, 

Ch.  Darwin. 

[With  regard  to  his  book  he  wrote  (Nov.  loth)  to  Sir 
Charles  Lyell  : 

"  I  am  working  very  steadily  at  my  big  book  ;  I  have 
found  it  quite  impossible  to  publish  any  preliminary  essay  or 
sketch  ;  but  am  doing  my  work  as  completely  as  my  present 
materials  allow  without  waiting  to  perfect  them.  And  this 
much  acceleration  I  owe  to  you."] 


C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  Sunday  [Oct.  1856.] 
My  dear  Hooker, — The  seeds  are  come  all  safe,  many 
thanks  for  them.  I  was  very  sorry  to  run  away  so  soon  and 
miss  any  part  of  my  most  pleasant  evening  ;  and  I  ran  away 
like  a  Goth  and  Vandal  without  wishing  Mrs.  Hooker  good- 
bye ;  but  I  was  only  just  in  time,  as  I  got  on  the  platform  the 
train  had  arrived. 

I  was  particularly  glad  of  our  discussion  after  dinner  ; 
fighting  a  battle  with  you  always  clears  my  mind  w^onderfuUy. 
I  groan  to  hear  that  A.  Gray  agrees  with  you  about  the  con- 
dition of  Botanical  Geography.    All  I  know  is  that  if  you  had 


444  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1856. 

had  to  search  for  light  in  Zoological  Geography  you  would 

by  contrast,  respect  your  own  subject  a  vast  deal  more  than 

you  now  do.     The  hawks  have  behaved  like  gentlemen,  and 

have  cast  up  pellets  with  lots  of  seeds  in  them  ;  and  I  have 

just  had  a  parcel  of  partridge's  feet  well  caked  with  mud  ! ! !  * 

Adios. 

Your  insane  and  perverse  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  Nov.  4th  [1856]. 
My  dear  Hooker, — I  thank  you  more  cordially  than  you 
will  think  probable,  for  your  note.  Your  verdict  f  has  been 
a  great  relief.  On  my  honour  I  had  no  idea  whether  or  not 
you  would  say  it  was  (and  I  knew  you  would  say  it  very 
kindly)  so  bad,  that  you  would  have  begged  me  to  have  burnt 
the  whole.  To  my  own  mind  my  MS.  relieved  me  of  some 
few  difficulties,  and  the  difficulties  seemed  to  me  pretty  fairly 
stated,  but  I  had  become  so  bewildered  with  conflicting  facts, 
evidence,  reasoning  and  opinions,  that  I  felt  to  myself  that  I 
had  lost  all  judgment.  Your  general  verdict  is  incomparably 
more  favourable  than  I  had  anticipated.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  Nov.  23rd  [1856]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  fear  I  shall  weary  you  with  letters, 
but  do  not  answer  this,  for  in  truth  and  without  flattery,  I  so 
value  your  letters,  that  after  a  heavy  batch,  as  of  late,  I  feel 
that  I  have  been  extravagant  and  have  drawn  too  much 
money,  and  shall  therefore  have  to  stint  myself  on  another 
occasion. 

When  I  sent  my  MS.  I  felt  strongly  that  some  preliminary 

*  The  mud  in  such  cases  often  contains  seeds,  so  that  plants  are  thus 
transported. 

t  On  the  MS.  relating  to  geographical  distribution. 


-^ 


i856.]  NATURAL   SELECTION.  445 

questions  on  the  causes  of  variation  ought  to  have  been  sent 
you.  Whether  I  am  right  or  wrong  in  these  points  is  quite  a 
separate  question,  but  the  conclusion  which  I  have  come  to, 
quite  independently  of  geographical  distribution,  is  that  ex- 
ternal conditions  (to  which  naturalists  so  often  appeal)  do  by 
themselves  very  little.  How  much  they  do  is  the  point  of  all 
others  on  which  I  feel  myself  very  weak.  I  judge  from  the 
facts  of  variation  under  domestication,  and  I  may  yet  get 
more  light.  But  at  present,  after  drawing  up  a  rough  copy 
on  this  subject,  my  conclusion  is  that  external  conditions  do 
extremely  little,  except  in  causing  mere  variability.  This 
mere  variability  (causing  the  child  not  closely  to  resemble  its 
parent)  I  look  at  as  very  different  from  the  formation  of  a 
marked  variety  or  new  species.  (No  doubt  the  variability  is 
governed  by  laws,  some  of  which  I  am  endeavouring  very 
obscurely  to  trace.)  The  formation  of  a  strong  variety  or 
species  I  look  at  as  almost  wholly  due  to  the  selection  of  what 
may  be  incorrectly  called  chance  variations  or  variability. 
This  power  of  selection  stands  in  the  most  direct  relation  to 
time,  and  in  the  state  of  nature  can  be  only  excessively  slow. 
Again,  the  slight  differences  selected,  by  which  a  race  or  spe- 
cies is  at  last  formed,  stands,  as  I  think  can  be  shown  (even 
with  plants,  and  obviously  with  animals),  in  a  far  more  im- 
portant relation  to  its  associates  than  to  external  conditions. 
Therefore,  according  to  my  principles,  whether  right  or  wrong, 
I  cannot  agree  with  your  proposition  that  time,  and  altered 
conditions,  and  altered  associates,  are  '*  convertible  terms.  ' 
I  look  at  the  first  and  the  last  as  far  more  important :  time 
being  important  only  so  far  as  giving  scope  to  selection.  God 
knows  whether  you  will  perceive  at  what  I  am  driving.  I 
shall  have  to  discuss  and  think  more  about  your  difficulty  of 
the  temperate  and  sub-arctic  forms  in  the  S.  hemisphere  than 
I  have  yet  done.  But  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  I  am  right 
(if  my  general  principles  are  right),  that  there  would  be  little 
tendency  to  the  formation  of  a  new  species,  during  the  period 
of  migration,  whether  shorter  or  longer,  though  considerable 
variability  may  have  supervened.  .  .  . 


446  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1857. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Dec.  24th  [1856]. 
.  .  .  How  I  do  wish  I  lived  near  you  to  discuss  matters 
with.  I  have  just  been  comparing  definitions  of  species,  and 
stating  briefly  how  systematic  naturalists  work  out  their  sub- 
jects. Aquilegia  in  the  Flora  Indica  was  a  capital  example 
for  me.  It  is  really  laughable  to  see  what  different  ideas  are 
prominent  in  various  naturalists*  minds,  when  they  speak  of 
*'  species ;  '*  in  some,  resemblance  is  everything  and  descent 
of  little  weight — in  some,  resemblance  seems  to  go  for  noth- 
ing, and  Creation  the  reigning  idea — in  some,  descent  is  the 
key, — in  some,  sterility  an  unfailing  test,  with  others  it  is  not 
worth  a  farthing.  It  all  comes,  I  believe,  from  trying  to  de- 
fine the  undefinable.  I  suppose  you  have  lost  the  odd  black 
seed  from  the  birds'  dung,  which  germinated, — anyhow,  it  is 
not  worth  taking  trouble  over.  I  have  now  got  about  a  dozen 
seeds  out  of  small  birds'  dung.     Adios, 

My  dear  Hooker,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  Asa  Gray, 

Down,  Jan.  ist  [1857?]. 
My  dear  Dr  Gray, — I  have  received  the  second  part  of 
your  paper,*  and  though  I  have  nothing  particular  to  say,  I 
must  send  you  my  thanks  and  hearty  admiration.  The  whole 
paper  strikes  me  as  quite  exhausting  the  subject,  and  I  quite 
fancy  and  flatter  myself  I  now  appreciate  the  character  of 
your  Flora.  What  a  difference  in  regard  to  Europe  your  re- 
mark in  relation  to  the  genera  makes  !  I  have  been  eminently 
glad  to  see  your  conclusion  in  regard  to  the  species  of  large 
genera  widely  ranging;  it  is  in  strict  conformity  with  the  re- 
sults I  have  worked  out  in  several  ways.  It  is  of  great  impor- 
tance to  my  notions.     By  the  way  you  have  paid  me  a  great 

*    Statistics  of  the  Flora  of  the  Northern  U.  States.'     Sillima^i's  Jour- 
nal, 1857 


1857.1  TREES   AND   SHRUBS.  447 

compliment  :*  to  be  simply  mentioned  even  in  such  a  paper 
I  consider  a  very  great  honour.  One  of  your  conclusions 
makes  me  groan,  viz.,  that  the  line  of  connection  of  the  strictly 
alpine  plants  is  through  Greenland.  I  should  extremely  like 
to  see  your  reasons  published  in  detail,  for  it  "  riles  ''  me  (this 
is  a  proper  expression,  is  it  not  ?)  dreadfully.  Lyell  told  me, 
that  Agassiz  having  a  theory  about  when  Saurians  were  first 
created,  on  hearing  some  careful  observations  opposed  to  this, 
said  he  did  not  believe  it,  "  for  Nature  never  lied."  I  am  just 
in  this  predicament,  and  repeat  to  you  that,  *'  Nature  never 
lies,'*  ergo,  theorisers  are  always  right.  .  .  . 

Overworked  as  you  are,  I  dare  say  you  will  say  that  I  am 
an  odious  plague  ;  but  here  is  another  suggestion !  I  was  led 
by  one  of  my  wild  speculations  to  conclude  (though  it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  geographical  distribution,  yet  it  has  with 
your  statistics)  that  trees  would  have  a  strong  tendency  to 
have  flowers  with  dioecious,  monoecious  or  polygamous  struct- 
ure. Seeing  that  this  seemed  so  in  Persoon,  I  took  one  little 
British  Flora,  and  discriminating  trees  from  bushes  according 
to  Loudon,  I  have  found  that  the  result  was  in  species,  genera 
and  families,  as  I  anticipated.  So  I  sent  my  notions  to  Hooker 
to  ask  him  to  tabulate  the  New  Zealand  Flora  for  this  end, 
and  he  thought  my  result  sufficiently  curious,  to  do  so ;  and 
the  accordance  with  Britain  is  very  striking,  and  the  more  so, 
as  he  made  three  classes  of  trees,  bushes,  and  herbaceous 
plants.  (He  says  further  he  shall  work  the  Tasmanian  Flora 
on  the  same  principle.)  The  bushes  hold  an  intermediate 
position  between  the  other  two  classes.  It  seems  to  me  a 
curious  relation  in  itself,  and  is  very  much  so,  if  my  theory 
and  explanation  are  correct. f 

With  hearty  thanks,  your  most  troublesome  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 


*  "  From  some  investigations  of  his  own,  this  sagacious  naturalist  in- 
clines to  think  that  large  genera  range  over  a  larger  area  than  the  species 
of  small  genera  do." — Asa  Gray,  loc.  cit. 

\  See  'Origin,'  Ed.  i.,  p.  100. 


448  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1857. 

C,  Darwin  to  /.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  April  12th  [1857J. 

My  dear  Hooker, — Your  letter  has  pleased  rae  much, 
for  I  never  can  get  it  out  of  my  head,  that  I  take  unfair 
advantage  of  your  kindness,  as  I  receive  all  and  give  nothing. 
What  a  splendid  discussion  you  could  write  on  the  whole 
subject  of  variation !  The  cases  discussed  in  your  last  note 
are  valuable  to  me  (though  odious  and  damnable),  as  showing 
how  profoundly  ignorant  we  are  on  the  causes  of  variation. 
I  shall  just  allude  to  these  cases,  as  a  sort  of  sub-division 
of  polymorphism  a  little  more  definite,  I  fancy,  than  the 
variation  of,  for  instance,  the  Rubi,  and  equally  or  more  per- 
plexing. 

I  have  just  been  putting  my  notes  together  on  variations 
apparently  due  to  the  immediate  and  direct  action  of  external 
causes ;  and  I  have  been  struck  with  one  result.  The  most 
firm  sticklers  for  independent  creation  admit,  that  the  fur  of 
the  same  species  is  thinner  towards  the  south  of  the  range  of 
the  same  species  than  to  the  north — that  the  same  shells  are 
brighter-coloured  to  the  south  than  north ;  that  the  same 
[shell]  is  paler-coloured  in  deep  water — that  insects  are  smaller 
and  darker  on  mountains — more  livid  and  testaceous  near  sea 
— that  plants  are  smaller  and  more  hairy  and  with  brighter 
flowers  on  mountains :  now  in  all  such,  and  other  cases,  dis- 
tinct species  in  the  two  zones  follow  the  same  rule,  which 
seems  to  me  to  be  most  simply  explained  by  species,  being 
only  strongly  marked  varieties,  and  therefore  following  the 
same  laws  as  recognised  and  admitted  varieties.  I  mention 
all  this  on  account  of  the  variation  of  plants  in  ascending 
mountains  ;  I  have  quoted  the  foregoing  remark  only  gener- 
ally with  no  examples,  for  I  add,  there  is  so  much  doubt  and 
dispute  what  to  call  varieties ;  but  yet  I  have  stumbled  on  so 
many  casual  remarks  on  varieties  of  plants  on  mountains 
being  so  characterised,  that  I  presume  there  is  some  truth  in 
it.  What  think  you  ?  Do  you  believe  there  is  any  tendency 
in  varieties,  as  generally  so  called,  of  plants  to  become  more 


i857.]  WATER-CURE.  44^ 

hairy  and  with  proportionally  larger  and  brighter-coloured 
flowers  in  ascending  a  mountain  ? 

I  have  been  interested  in  my  "weed  garden,"  of  3X2  feet 
square :  I  mark  each  seedling  as  it  appears,  and  I  am 
astonished  at  the  number  that  come  up,  and  still  more  at 
the  number  killed  by  slugs,  &c.  Already  59  have  been  so 
killed  ;  I  expected  a  good  many,  but  I  had  fancied  that  this 
was  a  less  potent  check  than  it  seems  to  be,  and  I  attributed 
almost  exclusively  to  mere  choking,  the  destruction  of  the 
seedlings.  Grass-seedlings  seem  to  suffer  much  less  than 
exogens.  .  .  , 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker. 

Moor  Park,  Farnham  [April  (?)  1857]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — Your  letter  has  been  forwarded  to 
me  here,  where  I  am  undergoing  hydropathy  for  a  fortnight, 
having  been  here  a  week,  and  having  already  received  an 
amount  of  good  which  is  quite  incredible  to  myself  and  quite 
unaccountable.  I  can  walk  and  eat  like  a  hearty  Christian, 
and  even  my  nights  are  good.  I  cannot  in  the  least  under- 
stand how  hydropathy  can  act  as  it  certainly  does  on  me 
It  dulls  one's  brain  splendidly  ;  I  have  not  thought  about 
a  single  species  of  any  kind  since  leaving  home.  Your  note 
has  taken  me  aback  ;  I  thought  the  hairiness,  &c.,  of  Alpine 
species  was  generally  admitted  ;  I  am  sure  I  have  seen  it 
alluded  to  a  score  of  times  Falconer  was  haranguing  on  it 
jthe  other  day  to  me  Meyen  or  Gay,  or  some  such  fellow 
[whom  you  would  despise),  I  remember,  makes  some  remark 
3n  Chilian  Cordillera  plants.  Wimmer  has  written  a  little  book 
3n  the  same  lines,  and  on  varieties  being  so  characterised  in 
:he  Alps.  But  after  writing  to  you,  I  confess  I  was  staggered 
3y  finding  one  man  (Moquin-Tandon,  I  think)  saying  that 
Alpine  flowers  are  strongly  inclined  to  be  white,  and  Linnaeus 
jaying  that  cold  makes  plants  apetalous^  eten  the  same 
pecies  !  Are  Arctic  plants  often  apetalous  ?  My  general 
relief  from  my  compiling  work  is  quite  to  agree  with  what 


450  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1857. 

you  say  about  the  little  direct  influence  of  climate ;  and  I 
have  just  alluded  to  the  hairiness  of  Alpine  plants  as  an  ex- 
ception. The  odoriferousness  would  be  a  good  case  for  me  if 
I  knew  of  varieties  being  more  odoriferous  in  dry  habitats. 

I  fear  that  I  have  looked  at  the  hairiness  of  Alpine  plants 
as  so  generally  acknowledged  that  I  have  not  marked  pas- 
sages, so  as  at  all  to  see  what  kind  of  evidence  authors  ad- 
vance. I  must  confess,  the  other  day,  when  I  asked  Falconer, 
whether  he  knew  of  individual  plants  losing  or  acquiring  hairi- 
ness when  transported,  he  did  not.  But  now  this  second^  my 
memory  flashes  on  me,  and  I  am  certain  I  have  somewhere 
got  marked  a  case  of  hairy  plants  from  the  Pyrenees  losing 
hairs  when  cultivated  at  Montpellier.  Shall  you  think  me 
very  impudent  if  I  tell  you  that  I  have  sometimes  thought 
that  (quite  independently  of  the  present  case),  you  are  a  little 
too  hard  on  bad  observers ;  that  a  remark  made  by  a  bad 
observer  cannot  be  right ;  an  observer  who  deserves  to  be 
damned  you  would  utterly  damn.  I  feel  entire  deference 
to  any  remark  you  make  out  of  your  own  head  ;  but  when  in 
opposition  to  some  poor  devil,  I  somehow  involuntarily  feel 
not  quite  so  much,  but  yet  much  deference  for  your  opinion, 
I  do  not  know  in  the  least  whether  there  is  any  truth  in  this 
my  criticism  against  you,  but  I  have  often  thought  I  would 
tell  you  it. 

I  am  really  very  much  obliged  for  your  letter,  for,  though 
I  intended  to  put  only  one  sentence  and  that  vaguely,  I  should 
probably  have  put  that  much  too  strongly. 

Ever,  my  dear  Hooker,  yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin 

P.  S.  This  note,  as  you  see,  has  not  anything  requiring  an 
answer. 

The  distribution  of  fresh-water  molluscs  has  been  a  horrid 
incubus  to  me,  but  I  think  I  know  my  way  now  ;  when 
first  hatched  they  are  very  active,  and  I  have  had  thirty 
or  forty  crawl  on  a  dead  duck's  foot  ;  and  they  cannot  be 
jerked  off,  and  will  live  fifteen  and  even  twenty-four  hours 
out  of  water. 


i857]  NOVARA   EXPEDITION.  45 1 

[The  following  letter  refers  to  the  expedition  of  the  Aus- 
trian frigate  Novara;  Lyell  had  asked  my  father  for  sugges- 
tions.] 

C,  Darwin  to  C.  LyelL 

Down,  Feb.  nth  [1857]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — I  was  glad  to  see  in  the  newspapers 
about  the  Austrian  Expedition.     I  have  nothing  to  add  geolo- 

Igically  to  my  notes  in  the  Manual.*  I  do  not  know  whether 
the  Expedition  is  tied  down  to  call  at  only  fixed  spots.  But 
if  there  be  any  choice  or  power  in  the  scientific  men  to 
influence  the  places — this  would  be  most  desirable.  It  is  my 
most  deliberate  conviction  that  nothing  would  aid  more, 
Natural  History,  than  careful  collecting  and  investigating  all 
the  productions  of  the  most  isolated  islands,  especially  of  the 
southern  hemisphere.  Except  Tristan  d'Acunha  and  Ker- 
guelen  Land,  they  are  very  imperfectly  known ;  and  even  at 
Kerguelen  Land,  how  much  there  is  to  make  out  about  the 
lignite  beds,  and  whether  there  are  signs  of  old  Glacial  action. 
Every  sea  shell  and  insect  and  plant  is  of  value  from  such 
spots.  Some  one  in  the  Expedition  especially  ought  to  have 
Hooker's  New  Zealand  Essay.  What  grand  work  to  explore 
Rodriguez,  with  its  fossil  birds,  and  little  known  productions 
of  every  kind.  Again  the  Seychelles,  which,  with  the  Cocos 
so  near,  must  be  a  remnant  of  some  older  land.  The  outer 
island  of  Juan  Fernandez  is  little  known.  The  investigation 
of  these  little  spots  by  a  band  of  naturalists  would  be  grand ; 
St.  Paul's  and  Amsterdam  would  be  glorious,  botanically, 
and  geologically.  Can  you  not  recommend  them  to  get  my 
*  Journal  *  and  *  Volcanic  Islands  '  on  account  of  the  Galapa- 
gos. If  they  come  from  the  north  it  will  be  a  shame  and  a 
sin  if  they  do  not  call  at  Cocos  Islet,  one  of  the  Galapagos. 
I  always  regretted  that  I  was  not  able  to  examine  the  great 

t|[  ■ 

*  The  article  "  Geology  "  in  the  Admiralty  Manual  of  Scientific  En- 
quiry. 


452 


THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK. 


[1857. 


craters  on  Albemarle  Island,  one  of  the  Galapagos.  In  New 
Zealand  urge  on  them  to  look  out  for  erratic  boulders  and 
marks  of  old  glaciers. 

Urge  the  use  of  the  dredge  in  the  Tropics ;  how  little  or 
nothing  we  know  of  the  limit  of  life  downward  in  the  hot 
seas  ? 

My  present  work  leads  me  to  perceive  how  much  the 
domestic  animals  have  been  neglected  in  out  of  the  way- 
countries. 

The  Revillagigedo  Island  off  Mexico,  I  believe,  has  never 
been  trodden  by  foot  of  naturalist. 

If  the  expedition  sticks  to  such  places  as  Rio,  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  Ceylon  and  Australia,  &c.,  it  will  not  do  much. 

Ever  yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

[The  following  passage  occurs  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Fox,  Feb- 
ruary 22,  1857,  and  has  reference  to  the  book  on  Evolution 
on  which  he  was  still  at  work.  The  remainder  of  the  letter 
is  made  up  in  details  of  no  interest : 

**I  am  got  most  deeply  interested  in  my  subject;  though 
I  wish  I  could  set  less  value  on  the  bauble  fame,  either  present; 
or  posthumous,  than  I  do,  but  not  I  think,  to  any  extrem( 
degree  :  yet,  if  I  know  myself,  I  would  work  just  as  hard, 
though  with  less  gusto,  if  I  knew  that  my  book  would  be  pub- 
lished for  ever  anonymously.*'] 


C.  Darwin  to  A.  R.  Wallace. 


Moor  Park,  May  1st,  1857. 

My  dear  Sir, — I  am  much  obliged  for  your  letter  of 
October  loth,  from  Celebes,  received  a  few  days  ago ;  in  a 
laborious  undertaking,  sympathy  is  a  valuable  and  real  en- 
couragement.    By  your  letter  and  even  still  more  by  your 


1857.]  ARGUMENT    FROM    DOMESTICATION.  453 

paper  *  in  the  Annals,  a  year  or  more  ago,  I  can  plainly  see 
that  we  have  thought  much  alike  and  to  a  certain  extent  have 
come  to  similar  conclusions.  In  regard  to  the  Paper  in  the 
Annals,  I  agree  to  the  truth  of  almost  every  word  of  your 
paper  ;  and  I  dare  say  that  you  will  agree  with  me  that  it  is 
very  rare  to  find  oneself  agreeing  pretty  closely  with  any 
theoretical  paper ;  for  it  is  lamentable  how  each  man  draws 
his  own  different  conclusions  from  the  very  same  facts.  This 
summer  will  make  the  20th  year  (!)  since  I  opened  my  first 
note-book,  on  the  question  how  and  in  what  way  do  species 
and  varieties  differ  from  each  other.  I  am  now  preparing  my 
work  for  publication,  but  I  find  the  subject  so  very  large,  that 
though  I  have  written  many  chapters,  I  do  not  suppose  I  shall 
go  to  press  for  two  years.  I  have  never  heard  how  long  you 
intend  staying  in  the  Malay  Archipelago  ;  I  wish  I  might 
profit  by  the  publication  of  your  Travels  there  before  my 
work  appears,  for  no  doubt  you  will  reap  a  large  harvest  of 
facts.  I  have  acted  already  in  accordance  with  your  advice 
of  keeping  domestic  varieties,  and  those  appearing  in  a  state 
of  nature,  distinct  ;  but  I  have  sometimes  doubted  of  the 
wisdom  of  this,  and  therefore  I  am  glad  to  be  backed  by  your 
opinion.  I  must  confess,  however,  I  rather  doubt  the  truth 
of  the  now  very  prevalent  doctrine  of  all  our  domestic  animals 
having  descended  from  several  wild  stocks;  though  I  do  not 
doubt  that  it  is  so  in  some  cases.  I  think  there  is  rather 
better  evidence  on  the  sterility  of  hybrid  animals  than  you 
seem  to  admit :  and  in  regard  to  plants  the  collection  of 
carefully  recorded  facts  by  Kolreuter  and  Gaertner  (and 
Herbert,]  is  enormous.  I  most  entirely  agree  with  you  on  the 
little  effects  of  **  climatal  conditions,"  which  one  sees  referred 
to  ad  nauseam  in  all  books  :  I  suppose  some  very  little  effect 
must  be  attributed  to  such  influences,  but  I  fully  believe  that 
they  are  very  slight.  It  is  really  impossible  to  explain  my 
views  (in  the  compass  of  a  letter),  on  the  causes  and  means 


*  *  On  the  law  that  has  regulated  the  introduction  of  new  species. '- 
Ann.  Nat.  Hist.,  1855. 


454  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1857. 

of  variation  in  a  state  of  nature  ;  but  I  have  slowly  adopted  a 
distinct  and  tangible  idea, — whether  true  or  false  others  must 
judge  ;  for  the  firmest  conviction  of  the  truth  of  a  doctrine  by 
its  author,  seems,  alas,  not  to  be  the  slightest  guarantee  of 
truth  !  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D,  Hooker, 

Moor  Park,  vSaturday  [May  2nd,  1857J. 

My  dear  Hooker, — You  have  shaved  the  hair  off  the 
Alpine  plants  pretty  effectually.  The  case  of  the  Anthyllis 
will  make  a  *^  tie  "  with  the  believed  case  of  Pyrenees  plants 
becoming  glabrous  at  low  levels.  If  I  do  find  that  I  have 
marked  such  facts,  I  will  lay  the  evidence  before  you.  I 
wonder  how  the  belief  could  have  originated  !  Was  it  through 
final  causes  to  keep  the  plants  warm  ?  Falconer  in  talk 
coupled  the  two  facts  of  woolly  Alpine  plants  and  mammals. 
How  candidly  and  meekly  you  took  my  Jeremiad  on  your 
severity  to  second-class  men.  After  I  had  sent  it  off,  an  ugly 
little  voice  asked  me,  once  or  twice,  how  much  of  my  noble 
defence  of  the  poor  in  spirit  and  in  fact,  was  owing  to  your 
having  not  seldom  smashed  favourite  notions  of  my  own.  I 
silenced  the  ugly  little  voice  with  contempt,  but  it  would 
whisper  again  and  again.  I  sometimes  despise  myself  as  a 
poor  compiler  as  heartily  as  you  could  do,  though  I  do  7iot 
despise  my  whole  work,  as  I  think  there  is  enough  known  to 
lay  a  foundation  for  the  discussion  on  the  origin  of  species. 
I  have  been  led  to  despise  and  laugh  at  myself  as  a  compiler, 
for  having  put  down  that  "Alpine  plants  have  large  flowers," 
and  now  perhaps  I  may  write  over  these  very  words,  "Alpine 
plants  have  small  or  apetalous  flowers !  "  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  [May]  i6th  [1857]. 
My  dear  Hooker, — You   said — I  hope  honestly — that 
you  did  not  dislike  my  asking  questions  on  general  points, 
you  of  course  answering  or  not  as  time  or  inclination  might 


i857.]  VARIABILITY, 


455 


IS  a 

■1 


serve.  I  find  in  the  animal  kingdom  that  the  proposition 
that  any  part  or  organ  developed  normally  (/.  ^.,  not  a  mon- 
strosity) in  a  species  in  any  high  or  unusual  degree,  compared 
with  the  same  part  or  organ  in  allied  species,  tends  to  be 
highly  variable.  I  cannot  doubt  this  from  my  mass  of  col- 
lected facts.  To  give  an  instance,  the  Cross-bill  is  very  ab- 
normal in  the  structure  of  its  bill  compared  with  other  allied 
Fringillidae,  and  the  beak  is  eminently  variable.  The  Himan- 
topus,  remarkable  from  the  wonderful  length  of  its  legs,  is 
very  variable  in  the  length  of  its  legs.  I  could  give  many 
most  striking  and  curious  illustrations  in  all  classes;  so  many 
that  I  think  it  cannot  be  chance.  But  I  have  none  in  the 
vegetable  kingdom,  owing,  as  I  believe,  to  my  ignorance.  If 
Nepenthes  consisted  of  one  or  two  species  in  a  group  with 
a  pitcher  developed,  then  I  should  have  expected  it  to  have 
been  very  variable  ;  but  I  do  not  consider  Nepenthes  a  case 
in  point,  for  when  a  whole  genus  or  group  has  an  organ, 
however  anomalous,  I  do  not  expect  it  to  be  variable, — it  is 
only  when  one  or  few  species  differ  greatly  in  some  one  part 
or  organ  from  the  forms  closely  allied  to  it  in  all  other  re- 
spects, that  I  believe  such  part  or  organ  to  be  highly  variable. 
Will  you  turn  this  in  your  mind  }  it  is  an  important  apparent 
law  (!)  for  me. 

^  Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — I  do  not  know  how  far  you  will  care  to  hear,  but 
I  find  Moquin-Tandon  treats  in  his  *  Teratologic '  on  villosity 
of  plants,  and  seems  to  attribute  more  to  dryness  than  alti- 
tude ;  but  seems  to  think  that  it  must  be  admitted  that 
mountain  plants  are  villose,  and  that  this  villosity  is  only 
in  part  explained  by  De  Candolle's  remark  that  the  dwarfed 
condition  of  mountain  plants  would  condense  the  hairs,  and 
so  give  them  the  appearance  of  being  more  hairy.  He  quotes 
Senebier,  ^  Physiologic  Vegetale,'  as  authority — I  suppose  the 
first  authority,  for  mountain  plants  being  hairy. 

If  I  could  show  positively  that  the  endemic  species  were 


456  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1857. 

more  hairy  in  dry  districts,  then    the  case  of   the  varieties 
becoming   more   hairy  in  dry  ground  would   be  a  fact  for 


me. 


C.  Darwin  to  /.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  June  3rd  [1857]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  am  going  to  enjoy  myself  by 
having  a  prose  on  my  own  subjects  to  you,  and  this  is  a 
greater  enjoyment  to  me  than  you  will  readily  understand,  as 
I  for  months  together  do  not  open  my  mouth  on  Natural 
History.  Your  letter  is  of  great  value  to  me,  and  staggers  me 
in  regard  to  my  proposition.  I  dare  say  the  absence  of  bo- 
tanical facts  may  in  part  be  accounted  for  by  the  difficulty 
of  measuring  slight  variations.  Indeed,  after  writing,  this 
occurred  to  me  ;  for  I  have  Crucianella  siylosa  coming  into 
flower,  and  the  pistil  ought  to  be  very  variable  in  length,  and 
thinking  of  this  I  at  once  felt  how  could  one  judge  whether  it 
was  variable  in  any  high  degree.  How  different,  for  instance, 
from  the  beak  of  a  bird  !  But  I  am  not  satisfied  with  this 
explanation,  and  am  staggered.  Yet  I  think  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  law  ;  I  have  had  so  many  instances,  as  the  follow- 
ing :  I  wrote  to  Wollaston  to  ask  him  to  run  through  the  Ma- 
deira Beetles  and  tell  me  whether  any  one  presented  anything 
very  anomalous  in  relation  to  its  allies.  He  gave  me  a  unique 
case  of  an  enormous  head  in  a  female,  and  then  I  found  in 
his  book,  already  stated,  that  the  size  of  the  head  was  astofi- 
ishingly  variable.  Part  of  the  difference  with  plants  may  be 
accounted  for  by  many  of  my  cases  being  secondary  male  or 
female  characters,  but  then  I  have  striking  cases  with  her- 
maphrodite Cirripedes.  The  cases  seem  to  me  far  too  numer- 
ous for  accidental  coincidences,  of  great  variability  and  ab- 
normal development.  I  presume  that  you  will  not  object  to 
my  putting  a  note  saying  that  you  had  reflected  over  the  case, 
and  though  one  or  two  cases  seemed  to  support,  quite  as  many 
or  more  seemed  wholly  contradictory.    This  want  of  evidence 


1857]  VARIABILITY.  457 

is  the  more  surprising  to  me,  as  generally  1  find  any  propo- 
sition more  easily  tested  by  observations  in  botanical  works, 
which  I  have  picked  up,  than  in  zoological  works.  I  never 
dreamed  that  you  had  kept  the  subject  at  all  before  your 
mind.  Altogether  the  case  is  one  more  of  my  many  horrid 
puzzles.  My  observations,  though  on  so  infinitely  a  small 
scale,  on  the  struggle  for  existence,  begin  to  make  me  see  a 
little  clearer  how  the  fight  goes  on.  Out  of  sixteen  kinds  of 
seed  sown  on  my  meadow,  fifteen  have  germinated,  but  now 
they  are  perishing  at  such  a  rate  that  I  doubt  whether  more 
than  one  will  flower.  Here  we  have  choking  which  has  taken 
place  likewise  on  a  great  scale,  with  plants  not  seedlings,  in 
a  bit  of  my  lawn  allowed  to  grow  up.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
a  bit  of  ground,  2  by  3  feet,  I  have  daily  marked  each  seed- 
ling weed  as  it  has  appeared  during  March,  April  and  May, 
and  357  have  come  up,  and  of  these  277  have  already  been 
killed,  chiefly  by  slugs.  By  the  way,  at  Moor  Park,  I  saw 
rather  a  pretty  case  of  the  effects  of  animals  on  vegetation  : 
there  are  enormous  commons  with  clumps  of  old  Scotch  firs 
on  the  hills,  and  about  eight  or  ten  years  ago  some  of  these 
commons  were  enclosed,  and  all  round  the  clumps  nice  young 
trees  are  springing  up  by  the  million,  looking  exactly  as  if 
planted,  so  many  are  of  the  same  age.  In  other  parts  of  the 
2ommon,  not  yet  enclosed,  I  looked  for  miles  and  not  one 
^oung  tree  could  be  seen.  I  then  went  near  (within  quarter 
Df  a  mile  of  the  clumps)  and  looked  closely  in  the  heather, 
md  there  I  found  tens  of  thousands  of  young  Scotch  firs 
thirty  in  one  square  yard)  with  their  tops  nibbled  off  by  the 
ew  cattle  which  occasionally  roam  over  these  wretched  heaths. 
3ne  little  tree,  three  inches  high,  by  the  rings  appeared  to  be 
wenty-six  years  old,  with  a  short  stem  about  as  thick  as  a 
►tick  of  sealing-wax.  What  a  wondrous  problem  it  is,  what 
play  of  forces,  determining  the  kind  and  proportion  of  each 
lant  in  a  square  yard  of  turf!  It  is  to  my  mind  truly  won- 
lerful.  And  yet  we  are  pleased  to  wonder  when  some  animal 
)r  plant  becomes  extinct. 

I  am  so  sorry  that  you  will  not  be  at  the  Club.    I  see  Mrs. 

21 


-.eg  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1857. 

Hooker  is  going  to  Yarmouth  ;  I  trust  that  the  health  of  your 
children  is  not  the  motive.     Good-bye. 

My  dear  Hooker,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — I  believe  you  are  afraid  to  send  me  a  ripe  Edwardsia 
pod,  for  fear  I  should  float  it  from  New  Zealand  to  Chile  1 !  ! 


C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  June  5  [1857]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  honour  your  conscientious  care 
about  the  medals.*  Thank  God  !  I  am  only  an  amateur  (but 
a  much  interested  one)  on  the  subject. 

It  is  an  old  notion  of  mine  that  more  good  is  done  by 
giving  medals  to  younger  men  in  the  early  part  of  their 
career,  than  as  a  mere  reward  to  men  whose  scientific  career 
is  nearly  finished.  Whether  medals  ever  do  any  good  is  a 
question  which  does  not  concern  us,  as  there  the  medals  are. 
I  am  almost  inclined  to  think  that  I  would  rather  lower  the 
standard,  and  give  medals  to  young  workers  than  to  old 
ones  with  no  especial  claims.  With  regard  to  especial  claims, 
I  think  it  just  deserving  your  attention,  that  if  general  claims 
are  once  admitted,  it  opens  the  door  to  great  laxity  in  giving 
them.  Think  of  the  case  of  a  very  rich  man,  who  aided  solely 
with  his  money,  but  to  a  grand  extent — or  such  an  inconceiv- 
able prodigy  as  a  minister  of  the  Crown  who  really  cared  for 
science.  Would  you  give  such  men  medals.^  Perhaps 
medals  could  not  be  better  applied  than  exclusively  to  such 
men.  I  confess  at  present  I  incline  to  stick  to  especial  claims 
which  can  be  put  down  on  paper.  .  .  . 

1  am  much  confounded  by  your  showing  that  there  are 
not  obvious  instances  of  my  (or  rather  Waterhouse's)  law  of 
abnormal  developments  being  highly  variable.  I  have  been 
thinking  more  of  your  remark  about  the  difficulty  of  judging 


*  The  Royal  Society's  medals. 


1857.]  VARIABILITY.  459 

or  comparing  variability  in  plants  from  the  great  general 
variability  of  parts.  I  should  look  at  the  law  as  more  com- 
pletely smashed  if  you  would  turn  in  your  mind  for  a  little 
while  for  cases  of  great  variability  of  an  organ,  and  tell  me 
whether  it  is  moderately  easy  to  pick  out  such  cases  ;  for  if 
they  can  be  picked  out,  and,  notwithstanding,  do  not  coincide 
with  great  or  abnormal  development,  it  would  be  a  complete 
smasher.  It  is  only  beginning  in  your  mind  at  the  variability 
end  of  the  question  instead  of  at  the  abnormality  end.  Per- 
haps cases  in  which  ^  part  is  highly  variable  in  all  the  species 
of  a  group  should  be  excluded,  as  possibly  being  something 
distinct,  and  connected  with  the  perplexing  subject  of  poly- 
morphism. Will  you  perfect  your  assistance  by  further  con- 
sidering, for  a  little,  the  subject  this  way  ? 

I  have  been  so  much  interested  this  morning  in  comparing 
all  my  notes  on  the  variation  of  the  several  species  of  the 
genus  Equus  and  the  results  of  their  crossing.  Taking  most 
strictly  analogous  facts  amongst  the  blessed  pigeons  for  my 
guide,  I  believe  I  can  plainly  see  the  colouring  and  marks  of 
the  grandfather  of  the  Ass,  Horse,  Quagga,  Hemionus  and 
Zebra,  some  millions  of  generations  ago !  Should  not  I 
[have]  sneer[ed]  at  any  one  who  made  such  a  remark  to  me 
a  few  years  ago  ;  but  my  evidence  seems  to  me  so  good  that 
I  shall  publish  my  vision  at  the  end  of  my  little  discussion  on 
this  genus. 

I  have  of  late  inundated  you  with  my  notions,  you  best  of 
friends  and  philosophers. 

Adios, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Moor  Park,  Farnham,  June  25tli  [1857].     . 

My  Dear  Hooker,— This  requires  no  answer,  but  I  will 
ask  you  whenever  we  meet.  Look  at  enclosed  seedling  gqrses, 
especially  one  with  the  top  knocked  off.  The  leaves  suc- 
ceeding the  cotyledons   being  almost  clover-like  in  shape, 


460  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1S58. 

seems  to  me  feebly  analogous  to  embryonic  resemblances  in 
young  animals,  as,  for  instance,  the  young  lion  being  striped. 
I  shall  ask  you  whether  this  is  so.*  .  .   . 

Dr.  Lane  f  and  wife,  and  mother-in-law,   Lady  Drysdale, 
are  some  of  the  nicest  people  I  have  ever  met. 

I  return  home  on  the  30th.     Good-bye,  my  dear  Hooker. 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin, 

[Here  follows  a  group  of  letters,  of  various  dates,  bearing 
on  the  question  of  large  genera  varying.] 


C  J^ancnn  to  J.  Z>.  Hooker. 

March  nth  [1S5SJ. 

I  was  led  to  all  this  work  by  a  remark  of  Fries,  that  the 
species  in  large  genera  were  more  closely  related  to  each 
other  than  in  small  genera ;  and  if  this  were  so,  seeing  that 
varieties  and  species  are  so  hardly  distinguishable,  I  concluded 
that  I  should  find  more  varieties  in  the  large  genera  than  in 
the  small.  .  .  .  Some  day  I  hope  you  will  read  my  short 
discussion  on  the  whole  subject.  You  have  done  me  infinite 
service,  whatever  opinion  I  come  to,  in  drawing  my  attention 
to  at  least  the  possibility  or  the  probability  of  botanists  record- 
ing more  varieties  in  the  Jarge  than  in  the  small  genera.  It 
will  be  hard  work  for  me  to  be  candid  in  coming  to  my  con- 
clusion. 

Ever  yours,  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — I  shall  be  several  weeks  at  my  present  job.  The 
work  has  been  turning  out  badly  for  me  this  morning,  and  I 
am  sick  at  heart ;  and,  oh !  how  I  do  hate  species  and  varieties. 

*  See  *  Power  of  Movements  in  Plants,'  p.  414. 
f  The  physician  at  Moor  Park. 


jB57.)  LAKGK    (iKNKRA    VAKVINCi.  ^gf 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

July  I4tli  I1B57?]. 

...  I  write  now  to  supplicate  most  earnestly  a  favour, 
viz.,  the  loan  of  J^oreaUy  Flore  du  centre  de  la  France,  either 
\st  or  2nd  edition^  last  best  ;  also  ^*  Flora  Ratisbonensis/*  by 
Dr.  Flirnrohr,  in  *  Natiirhist.  Topograj^hie  von  Regensburg, 
1839.'  If  you  cTin  possibly  spare  them,  will  you  send  them  at 
r)nce  to  the  enclosed  address.  If  you  have  not  them,  will 
you  send  one  line  by  return  of  post :  as  1  must  try  whether 
Kippist  *  can  anyhow  find  them,  which  I  fear  will  be  nearly 
impossible  in  the  Linnean  Lil^rary,  in  which  1  know  they  are. 

Ihave  been  making  some  calculations  about  varieties,  &c., 
and  talking  yesterday  with  Lubbock,  he  has  pointed  out  to 
me  the  grossest  blunder  which  I  have  made  in  principle,  and 
which  entails  two  or  three  weeks*  lost  work  ;  and  I  am  at  a 
dead-lock  till  I  have  these  books  to  go  over  again,  and  see 
what  the  result  of  calculation  on  the  right  principle  is.  I  am 
the  most  miserable,  bemuddled,  stupid  dog  in  all  England, 
and  am  ready  to  cry  with  vexation  at  my  blindness  and 
presumption. 

Ever  yours,  most  miserably, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  John  Luhhock. 

Down,  [July]  14th  [1857]. 

My  dear  Lubbock, —  You  have  done  me  the  greatest 
possible  service  in  helping  me  to  clarify  my  brains.  If  1  am 
as  muzzy  on  all  subjects  as  I  am  on  proportion  and  chance, 
— what  a  book  I  shall  produce  ! 

I  have  divided  the  New  Zealand  Flora  as  you  suggested. 
There  are  329  species  in  genera  of  4  and  upwards,  and  323  in 
genera  of  3  and  less. 

♦The  late  Mr,  Kippist  was  at  this  time  in  charge  of  the  Linnean 
Society's  Library. 


462  THE    UNFINISHED    BOOK.  [1857. 

The  339  species  have  51  species  presenting  one  or  more 
varieties.  The  323  species  have  only  37.  Proportionately 
(339  •  3^3  *  •  51  •  48*5)  they  ought  to  have  had  48J  species 
presenting  vars.  So  that  the  case  goes  as  I  want  it,  but  not 
strong  enough,  without  it  be  general,  for  me  to  have  much 
confidence  in.  I  am  quite  convinced  yours  is  the  right  way  ; 
I  had  thought  of  it,  but  should  never  have  done  it  had  it  not 
been  for  my  most  fortunate  conversation  with  you. 

I  am  quite  shocked  to  find  how  easily  I  am  muddled,  for 
I  had  before  thought  over  the  subject  much,  and  concluded 
my  way  was  fair.     It  is  dreadfully  erroneous. 

What  a  disgraceful  blunder  you  have  saved  me  from.  I 
heartily  thank  you. 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — It  is  enough  to  make  me  tear  up  all  my  MS.  and 
give  up  in  despair. 

It  will  take  me  several  weeks  to  go  over  all  my  materials. 
But  oh,  if  you  knew  how  thankful  I  am  to  you  ! 


C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  Aug.  [1857]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — It  is  a  horrid  bore  you  cannot  come 
soon,  and  I  reproach  myself  that  I  did  not  write  sooner. 
How  busy  you  must  be  !  with  such  a  heap  of  botanists  at 
Kew.  Only  think,  I  have  just  had  a  letter  from  Henslow, 
saying  he  will  come  here  between  nth  and  15th  I  Is  not 
that  grand  ?  Many  thanks  about  Furnrohr.  I  must  humbly 
supplicate  Kippist  to  search  for  it :  he  most  kindly  got  Bo- 
reau  for  me. 

I  am  got  extremely  interested  in  tabulating,  according  to 
mere  size  of  genera,  the  species  having  any  varieties  marked 
by  Greek  letters  or  otherwise  :  the  result  (as  far  as  I  have  yet 
gone)  seems  to  me  one  of  the  most  important  arguments  I 
have  yet  met  with,  that  varieties  are  only  small  species — 01^ 


I 


i857.]  LARGE    GENERA   VARYING.  463 

species  only  strongly  marked  varieties.  The  subject  is  in 
many  ways  so  very  important  for  me  ;  I  wish  much  you  would 
think  of  any  well-worked  Psoras  with  from  1000-2000  species, 
with  the  varieties  marked.  It  is  good  to  have  hair-splitters 
and  lumpers.*     I  have  done,  or  am  doing  : — 


Babington 

. 

.      [•      British  Flora 
H.  C.  Watson      ) 

Henslow 

.         . 

London  Cat< 

dlogue. 

Boreau    . 

.         , 

France. 

Miquel     . 

,         , 

Holland. 

Asa  Gray 

. 

N.  U.  States. 

Hooker   . 

3  N.  Zealand. 

(  Fragment  of  Indian  Flora 

Wollaston 

.         , 

Madeira  insects. 

Has  not  Koch  published  a  good  German  Flora  .'^  Does 
he  mark  varieties  ?  Could  you  send  it  me  ?  Is  there  not 
some  grand  Russian  Flora,  which  perhaps  has  varieties 
marked  ?     The  Floras  ought  to  be  well  known. 

I  am  in  no  hurry  for  a  few  weeks.  Will  you  turn  this  in 
your  head  when,  if  ever,  you  have  leisure  ?  The  subject  is 
very  important  for  my  work,  though  I  clearly  see  inany  causes 
of  error.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  Asa  Gray. 

Down,  Feb.  2i.st  [1859]. 

My  dear  Gray, — My  last  letter  begged  no  favour,  this 
one  does  :  but  it  will  really  cost  you  very  little  trouble  to 
answer  to  me,  and  it  will  be  of  very  great  service  to  me,  owing 
to  a  remark  made  to  me  by  Hooker,  which  I  cannot  credit, 
and  which  was  suggested  to  him  by  one  of  my  letters.  He 
suggested  my  asking  you,  and  I  told  him  I  would  not  give 
the  least  hint  what  he  thought.     I  generally  believe  Hooker 

*  Those  who  make  many  species  are  the  "splitters,"  and  those  who 
make  few  are  the  "lumpers." 


464  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1857. 

implicitly,  but  he  is  sometimes,  I  think,  and  he  confesses  it, 
rather  over  critical,  and  his  ingenuity  in  discovering  flaws 
seems  to  me  admirable.  Here  is  my  question  : — "  Do  you 
think  that  good  botanists  in  drawing  up  a  local  Flora,  whether 
small  or  large,  or  in  making  a  Prodromus  like  De  Candolle's, 
would  almost  universally,  but  unintentionally  and  uncon- 
sciously, tend  to  record  (/.  e.^  marking  with  Greek  letters 
and  giving  short  characters)  varieties  in  the  large  or  in  the 
small  genera  ?  Or  would  the  tendency  be  to  record  the  va- 
rieties about  equally  in  genera  of  all  sizes  ?  Are  you  your- 
self conscious  on  reflection  that  you  have  attended  to,  and 
recorded  more  carefully  the  varieties  in  large  or  small,  or  very 
small  genera?*' 

I  know  what  fleeting  and  trifling  things  varieties  very  often 
are  ;  but  my  query  applies  to  such  as  have  been  thought 
worth  marking  and  recording.  If  you  could  screw  time  to 
send  me  ever  so  brief  an  answer  to  this,  pretty  soon^  it  would 
be  a  great  service  to  me. 

Yours  most  truly  obliged, 

Ch.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — Do  you  know  whether  any  one  has  ever  published 
any  remarks  on  the  geographical  range  of  varieties  of  plants 
in  comparison  with  the  species  to  which  they  are  supposed  to 
belong  ?  I  have  in  vain  tried  to  get  some  vague  idea,  and 
with  the  exception  of  a  little  information  on  this  head  given 
me  by  Mr.  Watson  in  a  paper  on  Land  Shells  in  U.  States,  I 
have  quite  failed  ;  but  perhaps  it  would  be  difficult  for  you 
to  give  me  even  a  brief  answer  on  this  head,  and  if  so  I  am 
not  so  unreasonable,  I  assure  you^  as  to  expect  it. 

If  you  are  writing  to  England  soon,  you  could  enclose 
other  letters  [for]  me  to  forward. 

Please  observe  the  question  is  not  whether  there  are  more 
or  fewer  varieties  in  larger  or  smaller  genera,  but  whether 
there  is  a  stronger  or  weaker  tendency  in  the  minds  of  bota- 
nists to  record  such  in  large  or  small  genera. 


1858.]  LARGE    GENERA   VARYING.  465 

C,  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  May  6th  [1858]. 

...  I  send  by  this  post  my  MS.  on  the  "commonness/' 
*^  range/'  and  "  variation  "  of  species  in  large  and  small  gen- 
era. You  have  undertaken  a  horrid  job  in  so  very  kindly 
offering  to  read  it,  and  I  thank  you  warmly.  I  have  just  cor- 
rected the  copy,  and  am  disappointed  in  finding  how  tough 
and  obscure  it  is  ;  but  I  cannot  make  it  clearer,  and  at  pres- 
ent I  loathe  the  very  sight  of  it.  The  style  of  course  requires 
further  correction,  and  if  published  I  must  try,  but  as  yet  see 
not  how,  to  make  it  clearer. 

If  you  have  much  to  say  and  can  have  patience  to  con- 
sider the  whole  subject,  I  would  meet  you  in  London  on  the 
Phil.  Club  day,  so  as  to  save  you  the  trouble  of  writing.  For 
Heaven's  sake,  you  stern  and  awful  judge  and  sceptic,  re- 
member that  my  conclusions  may  be  true,  notwithstanding 
that  Botanists  may  have  recorded  more  varieties  in  large  than 
in  small  genera.  It  seems  to  me  a  mere  balancing  of  proba- 
bilities. Again  I  thank  you  most  sincerely,  but  I  fear  you 
will  find  it  a  horrid  job. 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — As  usual.  Hydropathy  has  made  a  man  of  me  for  a 
short  time:  I  hope  the  sea  will  do  Mrs.  Hooker  much  good. 


C.  Darwin  to  A.  R.  Wallace. 

Down,  Dec.  22nd,  1857. 

My  dear  Sir, — I  thank  you  for  your  letter  of  Sept.  27th. 
I  am  extremely  glad  to  hear  that  you  are  attending  to  distri- 
bution in  accordance  with  theoretical  ideas.  I  am  a  firm  be- 
liever that  without  speculation  there  is  no  good  and  original 
observation.  Few  travellers  have  attended  to  such  points  as 
you  are  now  at  work  on  ;  and,  indeed,  the  whole  subject  of 
distribution  of  animals  is  dreadfully  behind  that  of  plants. 


r 


t>  466  THE   UNFINISHED   BOOK,  [1857. 

You  say  that  you  have  been  somewhat  surprised  at  no  notice 
having  been  taken  of  your  paper  in  the  Annals.*  I  cannot 
say  that  I  am,  for  so  very  few  naturalists  care  for  anything 
beyond  the  mere  description  of  species.  But  you  must  not 
suppose  that  your  paper  has  not  been  attended  to  :  two  very 
good  men,  Sir  C.  Lyell,  and  Mr.  E.  Blyth  at  Calcutta,  spe- 
cially called  my  attention  to  it.  Though  agreeing  with  you  on 
your  conclusions  in  that  paper,  I  believe  I  go  much  further 
than  you  ;  but  it  is  too  long  a  subject  to  enter  on  my  specu- 
lative notions.  I  have  not  yet  seen  your  paper  on  the  distri- 
bution of  animals  in  the  Aru  Islands.  I  shall  read  it  with  the 
utmost  interest ;  for  I  think  that  the  most  interesting  quarter 
of  the  whole  globe  in  respect  to  distribution,  and  I  have  long 
been  very  imperfectly  trying  to  collect  data  for  the  Malay 
Archipelago.  I  shall  be  quite  prepared  to  subscribe  to  your 
doctrine  of  subsidence  ;  indeed,  from  the  quite  independent 
evidence  of  the  Coral  Reefs  I  coloured  my  original  map  (in 
my  Coral  volume)  of  the  Aru  Islands  as  one  of  subsidence, 
but  got  frightened  and  left  it  uncoloured.  But  I  can  see 
that  you  are  inclined  to  go  much  further  than  I  am  in  re- 
gard to  the  former  connection  of  oceanic  islands  with  con-  j 
tinents.  Ever  since  poor  E.  Forbes  propounded  this  doc-  j 
trine  it  has  been  eagerly  followed ;  and  Hooker  elaborately 
discusses  the  former  connection  of  all  the  Antarctic  Islands 
and  New  Zealand  and  South  America.  About  a  year  ago 
I  discussed  this  subject  much  with  Lyell  and  Hooker  (for 
I  shall  have  to  treat  of  it),  and  wrote  out  my  arguments  in 
opposition  ;  but  you  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  neither  Lyell 
nor  Hooker  thought  much  of  my  arguments.  Nevertheless, 
for  once  in  my  life,  I  dare  withstand  the  almost  preter- 
natural sagacity  of  Lyell. 

You  ask  about  land-shells  on  islands  far  distant  from  con- 
tinents :  Madeira  has  a  few  identical  with  those  of  Europe, 
and  here  the  evidence  is  really  good,  as  some  of  them  are 


I 


*  *  On  the  law  that  has  regulated  the  introduction  of  New  Species. 
Ann.  Nat.  Hist.,  1855. 


J 


1858.]  CONTINENTAL   EXTENSION.  467 

sub-fossil.  In  the  Pacific  Islands  there  are  cases  of  identity, 
which  I  cannot  at  present  persuade  myseh'  to  account  for  by 
introduction  through  man's  agency  ;  although  Dr.  Aug.  Gould 
has  conclusively  shown  that  many  land-shells  have  thus  been 
distributed  over  the  Pacific  by  man's  agency.  These  cases  of 
introduction  are  most  plaguing.  Have  you  not  found  it  so  in 
the  Malay  Archipelago }  It  has  seemed  to  me  in  the  lists  of 
mammals  of  Timor  and  other  islands,  that  several  in  all  prob- 
ability have  been  naturalised.  .  .  . 

You  ask  whether  I  shall  discuss  **  man."  I  think  I  shall 
avoid  the  whole  subject,  as  so  surrounded  with  prejudices  ; 
though  I  fully  admit  that  it  is  the  highest  and  most  interesting 
problem  for  the  naturalist.  My  work,  on  which  I  have  now 
been  at  work  more  or  less  for  twenty  years,  will  not  fix  or 
settle  anything;  but  I  hope  it  will  aid  by  giving  a  large  col- 
lection of  facts,  with  one  definite  end.  I  get  on  very  slowly, 
partly  from  ill-health,  partly  from  being  a  very  slow  worker, 
I  have  got  about  half  written  ;  but  I  do  not  suppose  I  shall 
published  under  a  couple  of  years.  I  have  now  been  three 
whole  months  on  one  chapter  on  Hybridism ! 

I  am  astonished  to  see  that  you  expect  to  remain  out  three 
or  four  years  more.  What  a  wonderful  deal  you  wull  have 
seen,  and  what  interesting  areas — the  grand  Malay  Archi- 
pelago and  the  richest  parts  of  South  America  !  I  infinitely 
admire  and  honour  your  zeal  and  courage  in  the  good  cause 
of  Natural  Science  ;  and  you  have  my  very  sincere  and  cordial 
good  wishes  for  success  of  all  kinds,  and  may  all  your  theories 
succeed,  except  that  on  Oceanic  Islands,  on  which  subject  I 
will  do  battle  to  the  death. 

Pray  believe  me,  my  dear  sir,  yours  very  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  W,  D.  Fox. 

Feb.  8th  [1858]. 
...  I  am  working  very  hard  at  my  book,  perhaps  too 
hard.     It   will   be  very  big,  and  I  am  become  most  deeply 
interested  in  the  way  facts  fall  into  groups.    I  am  like  Croesus 


468  THE    UNFINISHED    BOOK.  [1858. 

overwhelmed  with  my  riches  in  facts,  and  I  mean  to  make  my 
book  as  perfect  as  ever  I  can.  I  shall  not  go  to  press  at  soon- 
est for  a  couple  of  years.  ... 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Feb.  23rd  [1858]. 

...  I  was  not  much  struck  with  the  great  Buckle,  and  I 
admired  the  way  you  stuck  up  about  deduction  and  induc- 
tion. I  am  reading  his  book,*  which,  with  much  sophistry, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  is  wonderfully  clever  and  original,  and  with 
astounding  knowledge. 

I  saw  that  you  admired  Mrs.  Farrer's  ^  Questa  tomba  *  of 
Beethoven  thoroughly  ;  there  is  something  grand  in  her  sweet 
tones. 

Farewell.  I  have  partly  written  this  note  to  drive  bee's- 
cells  out  of  my  head  ;  for  I  am  half-mad  on  the  subject  to 
try  to  make  out  some  simple  steps  from  which  all  the  won- 
drous angles  may  result.f 

I  was  very  glad  to  see  Mrs.  Hooker  on  Friday  ;  how  well 
she  appears  to  be  and  looks. 

Forgive  your  intolerable  but  affectionate  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  W.  D,  Fox. 

Down,  April  i6th  [1858]. 

My  dear  Fox, — I  want  you  to  observe  one  point  for  me, 
on  which  I  am  extremely  much  interested,  and  which  will  give 
you  no  trouble  beyond  keeping  your  eyes  open,  and  that  is  a 
habit  I  know  full  well  that  you  have. 

I  find  horses  of  various  colours  often  have  a  spinal  band 
or  stripe  of  different  and  darker  tint  than  the  rest  of  the  body ; 
rarely  transverse  bars  on  the  legs,  generally  on  the  under-side 

*  *The  Histoiy  of  Civilisation.' 

f  He  had  much  correspondence  on  this  subject  with  the  late  Professor 
Miller  of  Cambridge. 


1858.]  STRIPED   HORSES.  469 

of   the  front  legs,    still    more  rarely  a  very  faint  transverse 
shoulder-stripe  like  an  ass. 

Is  there  any  .breed  of  Delamere  forest  ponies  ?  I  have 
found  out  little  about  ponies  in  these  respects.  Sir  P.  Eger- 
ton  has,  I  believe,  some  quite  thoroughbred  chestnut  horses  ; 
have  any  of  them  the  spinal  stripe  ?  Mouse-coloured  ponies, 
or  rather  small  horses,  often  have  spinal  and  leg  bars.  So 
have  dun  horses  (by  dun  I  mean  real  colour  of  cream  mixed 
with  brown,  bay,  or  chestnut).  So  have  sometimes  chestnuts, 
but  I  have  not  yet  got  a  case  of  spinal  stripe  in  chestnut,  race 
horse,  or  in  quite  heavy  cart-horse.  Any  fact  of  this  nature 
of  such  stripes  in  horses  would  be  mos^  useful  to  me.  There 
is  a  parallel  case  in  the  legs  of  the  donkey,  and  I  have  col- 
lected some  most  curious  cases  of  stripes  appearing  in  va- 
rious crossed  equine  animals.  I  have  also  a  large  mass  of 
parallel  facts  in  the  breeds  of  pigeons  about  the  wing  bars. 
I  suspect  it  will  throw  light  on  the  colour  of  the  primeval 
horse.  So  do  help  me  if  occasion  turns  up.  .  .  .  My  health 
has  been  lately  very  bad  from  overwork,  and  on  Tuesday  I  go 
for  a  fortnight's  hydropathy.  My  work  is  everlasting.  Fare- 
well. 

My  dear  Fox,  I  trust  you  are  well.     Farewell, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Moor  Park,  Farnham  [April  26th,  1858]. 

...  I  have  just  had  the  innermost  cockles  of  my  heart 
rejoiced  by  a  letter  from  Lyell.  I  said  to  him  (or  he  to  me) 
that  I  believed  from  the  character  of  the  flora  of  the  Azores, 
that  icebergs  must  have  been  stranded  there;  and  that  I  ex- 
pected erratic  boulders  would  be  detected  embedded  between 
the  upheaved  lava-beds  ;  and  I  got  Lyell  to  write  to  Hartung 
to  ask,  and  now  H.  says  my  question  explains  what  had 
astounded  him,  viz.,  large  boulders  (and  some  polished)  of 
mica-schist,  quartz,  sandstone,  &c.,  some  embedded,  and  some 
40  and  50  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  so  that  he  had 


470  THE    UNFINISHED   BOOK.  [1858. 

inferred  that  they  had  not  been  brought  as  ballast.     Is  this 
not  beautiful  ? 

The  water-cure  has  done  me  some  good,  but  I  [am]  noth- 
ing to  boast  of  to-day,  so  good-bye. 

My  dear  friend,  yours, 

C.  D. 

C.  Darwin  to  C.  LyelL 

Moor  Park,  Farnham,  April  26th  [1858]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — I  have  come  here  for  a  fortnight's 
hydropathy,  as  my  stomach  had  got,  from  steady  work,  into  a 
horrid  state.  I  am  extremely  much  obliged  to  you  for  send- 
ing me  Hartung's  interesting  letter.  The  erratic  boulders  are 
splendid.  It  is  a  grand  case  of  floating  ice  versus  glaciers. 
He  ought  to  have  compared  the  northern  and  southern  shores 
of  the  islands.  It  is  eminently  interesting  to  me,  for  I  have 
written  a  very  long  chapter  on  the  subject,  collecting  briefly 
all  the  geological  evidence  of  glacial  action  in  different  parts 
of  the  world,  and  then  at  great  length  (on  the  theory  of  spe- 
cies changing)  I  have  discussed  the  migration  and  modifica- 
tion of  plants  and  animals,  in  sea  and  land,  over  a  large  part 
of  the  world.  To  my  mind,  it  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  the 
whole  subject  of  distribution,  if  combined  with  the  modifica- 
tion of  species.  Indeed,  I  venture  to  speak  with  some  little 
confidence  on  this,  for  Hooker,  about  a  year  ago,  kindly  read 
over  my  chapter,  and  though  he  then  demurred  gravely  to 
the  general  conclusion,  I  was  delighted  to  hear  a  week  or  two 
ago  that  he  was  inclined  to  come  round  pretty  strongly  to  my 
views  of  distribution  and  change  during  the  glacial  period.  I 
had  a  letter  from  Thompson,  of  Calcu-tta,  the  other  day, 
which  helps  me  much,  as  he  is  making  out  for  me  what  heat 
our  temperate  plants  can  endure.  But  it  is  too  long  a  sub- 
ject for  a  note;  and  I  have  written  thus  only  because  Har- 
tung*s  note  has  set  the  whole  subject  afloat  in  my  mind 
again.  But  I  will  write  no  more,  for  my  object  here  is  to 
think  about  nothing,  bathe  much,  walk  much,  eat  much,  and 


1858.]  KOSSUTH.  471 

read  much  novels.     Farewell,  with  many  thanks,  and   very 

kind  remembrance  to  Lady  Lyell. 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  Mrs,  Darwin, 

Moor  Park,  Wednesday,  April  [1858]. 
The  weather  is  quite  delicious.  Yesterday,  after  writing 
to  you,  I  strolled  a  little  beyond  the  glade  for  an  hour  and  a 
half,  and  enjoyed  myself — the  fresh  yet  dark-green  of  the 
grand  Scotch  firs,  the  brown  of  the  catkins  of  the  old  birches, 
with  their  white  stems,  and  a  fringe  of  distant  green  from  the 
larches  made  an  excessively  pretty  view.  At  last  I  fell  fast 
asleep  on  the  grass,  and  awoke  with  a  chorus  of  birds  singing 
around  me,  and  squirrels  running  up  the  trees,  and  some 
woodpeckers  laughing,  and  it  was  as  pleasant  and  rural  a 
scene  as  ever  I  saw,  and  I  did  not  care  one  penny  how  any 
of  the  beasts  or  birds  had  been  formed.  I  sat  in  the  drawing- 
room  till  after  eight,  and  then  went  and  read  the  Chief  Jus- 
tice's summing  up,  and  thought  Bernard  *  guilty,  and  then 
read  a  bit  of  my  novel,  which  is  feminine,  virtuous,  clerical, 
philanthropical,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  but  very  decidedly 
flat.  I  say  feminine,  for  the  author  is  ignorant  about  money 
matters,  and  not  much  of  a  lady — for  she  makes  her  men  say, 
"  My  Lady.''  I  like  Miss  Craik  very  much,  though  we  have 
some  battles,  and  differ  on  every  subject.  I  like  also  the 
Hungarian  ;  a  thorough  gentleman,  formerly  attache  at  Paris, 
and  then  in  the  Austrian  cavalry,  and  now  a  pardoned  exile, 
with  broken  health.  He  does  not  seem  to  like  Kossuth,  but 
says,  he  is  certain  [he  is]  a  sincere  patriot,  most  clever  and 
eloquent,  but  weak,  with  no  determination  of  character.  .  .  . 

*  Simon  Bernard  was  tried  in  April  1858  as  an  accessory  to  Orsini's 
attempt  on  the  life  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French.  The  verdict  was  **  not 
guilty." 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE    WRITING    OF    THE    *  ORIGIN    OF    SPECIES.' 
June  i8,  1858,  to  November,  1859. 

[The  letters  given  in  the  present  chapter  tell  their  story 
with  sufficient  clearness,  and  need  but  a  few  words  of  expla- 
nation. Mr.  Wallace's  Essay,  referred  to  in  the  first  letter, 
bore  the  sub-title,  *  On  the  Tendency  of  Varieties  to  depart 
indefinitely  from  the  Original  Type,'  and  was  published  in  the 
Linnean  Society's  Journal  (1858,  vol.  iii.  p.  53)  as  part  of  the 
joint  paper  of  ^^  Messrs.  C.  Darwin  and  A.  Wallace,"  of  which 
the  full  title  was  '  On  the  Tendency  of  Species  to  form  Varie- 
ties ;  and  on  the  Perpetuation  of  Varieties  and  Species  by 
Natural  Means  of  Selection.* 

My  father's  contribution  of  the  paper  consisted  of  (i)  Ex- 
tracts from  the  sketch  of  1844  ;  (2)  part  of  a  letter  addressed 
to  Dr.  Asa  Gray,  dated  September  5,  1857,  and  which  is 
given  at  p.  120.  The  paper  was  **  communicated  "  to  the 
Society  by  Sir  Charles  Lyell  and  Sir  Joseph  Hooker,  in  whose 
prefatory  letter,  a  clear  account  of  the  circumstances  of  the 
case  is  given. 

Referring  to  Mr.  Wallace's  Essay,  they  wrote  : 

**  So  highly  did  Mr.  Darwin  appreciate  the  value  of  the 
views  therein  set  forth,  that  he  proposed,  in  a  letter  to  Sir 
Charles  Lyell,  to  obtain  Mr.  Wallace's  consent  to  allow  the 
Essay  to  be  published  as  soon  as  possible.  Of  this  step  we 
highly  approved,  provided  Mr.  Darwin  did  not  withold  from 
the  public,  as  he  was  strongly  inclined  to  do  (in  favour  of 
Mr.  Wallace),  the  memoir  which  he  had  himself  written  on 
the  same  subject,  and  which,  as  before  stated,  one  of  us  had 


1858.]  MR.    WALLACE'S    MANUSCRIPT.  473 

perused  in  1844,  and  the  contents  of  which  we  had  both  of 
us  been  privy  to  for  many  years.  On  representing  this  to 
Mr.  Darwin,  he  gave  us  permission  to  make  what  use  we 
thought  proper  of  his  memoir,  &c.  ;  and  in  adopting  our 
present  course,  of  presenting  it  to  the  Linnean  Society,  we 
have  explained  to  him  that  we  are  not  solely  considering  the 
relative  claims  to  priority  of  himself  and  his  friend,  but  the 
interests  of  science  generally.''] 

LETTERS. 

:  C  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

Down,  i8th  [June  1858]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — Some  year  or  so  ago  you  recommended 
me  to  read  a  paper  by  Wallace  inthe  ^Annals,'  *  which  had 
interested  you,  and,  as  I  was  writing  to  him,  I  knew  this 
would  please  him  much,  so  I  told  him.  He  has  to-day  sent 
me  the  enclosed,  and  asked  me  to  forward  it  to  you.  It  seems 
to  me  well  worth  reading.  Your  words  have  come  true  with 
a  vengeance — that  I  should  be  forestalled.  You  said  this, 
when  I  explained  to  you  here  very  briefly  my  views  of  ^  Nat- 
ural Selection  '  depending  on  the  struggle  for  existence.  I 
never  saw  a  more  striking  coincidence  ;  if  Wallace  had  my 
MS.  sketch  written  out  in  1842,  he  could  not  have  made  a 
better  short  abstract !  Even  his  terms  now  stand  as  heads  of 
my  chapters.  Please  return  me  the  MS.,  which  he  does  not 
say  he  wishes  me  to  publish,  but  I  shall  of  course,  at  once 
I  write  and  offer  to  send  to  any  journal.  So  all  my  originality, 
whatever  it  may  amount  to,  will  be  smashed,  though  my  book, 
if  it  will  ever  have  any  value,  will  not  be  deteriorated  ;  as  all 
the  labour  consists  in  the  application  of  the  theory. 

I  hope  you  will  approve  of  Wallace's  sketch,  that  I  may 
tell  him  what  you  say. 

My  dear  Lyell,  yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

*  Annals  and  Mag.  of  Nat.  Hist.,  1855. 


474    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

Down,  Friday  [June  25,  1858]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — I  am  very  sorry  to  trouble  you,  busy 
as  you  are,  in  so  merely  a  personal  an  affair  ;  but  if  you  will 
give  me  your  deliberate  opinion,  you  will  do  me  as  great  a 
service  as  ever  man  did,  for  I  have  entire  confidence  in  your 
judgment  and  honour 

There  is  nothing  in  Wallace's  sketch  which  is  not  written 
out  much  fuller  in  my  sketch,  copied  out  in  1844,  and  read 
by  Hooker  some  dozen  years  ago.  About  a  year  ago  I  sent 
a  short  sketch,  of  which  I  have  a  copy,  of  my  views  (owing 
to  correspondence  on  several  points)  to  Asa  Gray,  so  that 
I  could  most  truly  say  and  prove  that  I  take  nothing  from 
Wallace.  I  should  be  extremely  glad  now  to  publish  a  sketch 
of  my  general  views  in  about  a  dozen  pages  or  so  ;  but  I  can- 
not persuade  myself  that  I  can  do  so  honourably.  Wallace 
says  nothing  about  publication,  and  I  enclose  his  letter.  But 
as  I  had  not  intended  to  publish  any  sketch,  can  I  do  so  hon- 
ourably, because  Wallace  has  sent  me  an  outline  of  his  doc- 
trine .'^  I  would  far  rather  burn  my  whole  book,  than  that  he 
or  any  other  man  should  think  that  I  had  behaved  in  a  paltry 
spirit.  Do  you  not  think  his  having  sent  me  this  sketch  ties 
my  hands  ?  ...  If  I  could  honourably  publish,  I  would  state 
that  I  was  induced  now  to  publish  a  sketch  (and  I  should  be 
very  glad  to  be  permitted  to  say,  to  follow  your  advice  long 
ago  given)  from  Wallace  having  sent  me  an  outline  of  my 
general  conclusions.  We  differ  only,  [in]  that  I  was  led  to 
my  views  from  what  artificial  selection  has  done  for  domestic 
animals.  I  would  send  Wallace  a  copy  of  my  letter  to  Asa 
Gray,  to  show  him  that  I  had  not  stolen  his  doctrine.  But  I 
cannot  tell  whether  to  publish  now  would  not  be  base  and 
paltry.  This  was  my  first  impression,  and  I  should  have 
certainly  acted  on  it  had  it  not  been  for  your  letter. 

This  is  a  trumpery  affair  to  trouble  you  with,  but  you  can- 
not tell  how  much  obliged  I  should  be  for  your  advice. 

By  the  way,  would  you  object  to  send  this  and  your  an- 


1858.]  PRIORITY.  475 

swer  to  Hooker  to  be  forwarded  to  me,  for  then  I  shall  have 
the  opinion  of  my  two  best  and  kindest  friends.  This  letter 
is  miserably  written,  and  I  write  it  now,  that  I  may  for  a 
time  banish  the  whole  subject ;  and  I  am  worn  out  with 
musing  .  .  . 

My  good  dear  friend  forgive  me.  This  is  a  trumpery  let- 
ter, influenced  by  trumpery  feelings. 

Yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

I  will  never  trouble  you  or  Hooker  on  the  subject  again. 

C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

Down,  26th  [June,  1858]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — Forgive  me  for  adding  a  P.S.  to  make 
the  case  as  strong  as  possible  against  myself. 

Wallace  might  say,  "You  did  not  intend  publishing  an 
abstract  of  your  views  till  you  received  my  communication. 
Is  it  fair  to  take  advantage  of  my  having  freely,  though 
unasked,  communicated  to  you  my  ideas,  and  thus  prevent 
me  forestalling  you  ? "  The  advantage  which  I  should  take 
being  that  I  am  induced  to  publish  from  privately  knowing 
that  Wallace  is  in  the  field.  It  seems  hard  on  me  that  I 
should  be  thus  compelled  to  lose  my  priority  of  rtiany  years* 
standing,  but  I  cannot  feel  at  all  sure  that  this  alters  the 
justice  of  the  case.  First  impressions  are  generally  right,  and 
I  at  first  thought  it  would  be  dishonourable  in  me  now  to 
publish. 

Yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — I  have  always  thought  you  would  make  a  first-rate 
Lord  Chancellor ;  and  I  now  appeal  to  you  as  a  Lord 
Chancellor. 


y 


476    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  Tuesday  [June  29,  1858J. 

....  I  have  received  your  letters.  I  cannot  think  now* 
on  the  subject,  but  soon  will.  But  I  can  see  that  you  have 
acted  with  more  kindness,  and  so  has  Lyell,  even  that  I  could 
have  expected  from  you  both,  most  kind  as  you  are. 

I  can  easily  get  my  letter  to  Asa  Gray  copied,  but  it  is  too 
short. 

....  God  bless  you.     You  shall  hear  soon,  as  soon  as  I 

can  think. 

Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker, 

Tuesday  night  [June  29,  1858]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  have  just  read  your  letter,  and  see 
you  want  the  papers  at  once.  I  am  quite  prostrated,  and 
can  do  nothing,  but  I  send  Wallace,  and  the  abstract  f  of  my 
letter  to  Asa  Gray,  which  gives  most  imperfectly  only  the 
means  of  change,  and  does  not  touch  on  reasons  for  believing 
that  species  do  change.  I  dare  say  all  is  too  late.  I  hardly 
care  about.it.  But  you  are  too  generous  to  sacrifice  so  much 
time  and  kindness.  It  is  most  generous,  most  kind.  I  send 
my  sketch  of  1844  solely  that  you  may  see  by  your  own 
handwriting  that  you  did  read  it.  I  really  cannot  bear  to 
look  at  it.  Do  not  waste  much  time.  It  is  miserable  in  me 
to  care  at  all  about  priority. 

The  table  of  contents  will  show  what  it  is. 

I  would  make  a  similar,  but  shorter  and  more  accurate 
sketch  for  the  ^  Linnean  Journal/ 

*  So  soon  after  the  death,  from  scarlet  fever,  of  his  infant  child. 

f  "  Abstract  "  is  here  used  in  the  sense  of  "  extract ;  "  in  this  sense  also 
it  occurs  in  the  *  Linnean  Journal,'  where  the  sources  of  my  father's  paper 
are  described. 


1858.]  THE   LETTER   TO   DR.    GRAY.  477 

I  will  do  anything.     God  bless  you,  my  dear  kind  friend. 
I  can  write  no  more.     I  send  this  by  my  servant  to  Kew. 

Yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

[The  following  letter  is  that  already  referred  to  as  form- 
ing part  of  the  joint  paper  published  in  the  Linnean  Society's 
'Journal/  1858]:— 

C,  Darwin  to  Asa  Gray. 

Down,  Sept.*  5th  [1857]. 

My  dear  Gray, — I  forget  the  exact  words  which  I  used 
in  my  former  letter,  but  I  dare  say  I  said  that  I  thought  you 
would  utterly  despise  me  when  I  told  you  what  views  I  had 
arrived  at,  which  I  did  because  I  thought  I  was  bound  as  an 
honest  man  to  do  so.  I  should  have  been  a  strange  mortal, 
seeing  how  much  I  owe  to  your  quite  extraordinary  kindness, 
if  in  saying  this  I  had  meant  to  attribute  the  least  bad  feeling 
to  you.  Permit  me  to  tell  you  that,  before  I  had  ever  corre- 
sponded with  you.  Hooker  had  shown  me  several  of  your  let- 
ters (not  of  a  private  nature),  and  these  gave  me  the  warmest 
feeling  of  respect  to  you  ;  and  I  should  indeed  be  ungrateful 
if  your  letters  to  me,  and  all  I  have  heard  of  you,  had  not 
strongly  enhanced  this  feeling.  But  I  did  not  feel  in  the  least 
sure  that  when  you  knew  whither  I  was  tending,  that  you 
might  not  think  me  so  wild  and  foolish  in  my  views  (God 
knows,  arrived  at  slowly  enough,  and  I  hope  conscientiously), 
that  you  would  think  me  worth  no  more  notice  or  assistance. 
To  give  one  example :  the  last  time  I  saw  my  dear  old  friend 
Falconer,  he  attacked  me  most  vigorously,  but  quite  kindly, 
and  told  me,  "You  will  do  more  harm  than  any  ten  Naturalists 
will  do  good.     I  can  see  that  you  have  already  corrupted  and 

*  The  date  is  given  as  October  in  the  '  Linnean  Journal.'  Tlie  ex- 
tracts were  printed  from  a  duplicate  undated  copy  in  my  father's  posses- 
sion, on  which  he  had  written,  **  This  was  sent  to  Asa  Gray  8  or  9  months 
ago,  I  think  October  1857. 


478    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     L1S58. 

half-spoiled  Hooker !  !  "  Now  when  I  see  such  strong  feeling 
in  my  oldest  friends,  you  need  not  wonder  that  I  always  ex- 
pect my  views  to  be  received  with  contempt.  But  enough 
and  too  much  of  this. 

I  thank  you  most  truly  for  the  kind  spirit  of  your  last  letter. 
I  agree  to  every  word  in  it,  and  think  I  go  as  far  as  almost 
any  one  in  seeing  the  grave  difficulties  against  my  doctrine. 
With  respect  to  the  extent  to  which  I  go,  all  the  arguments 
in  favour  of  my  notions  fall  rapidly  away,  the  greater  the  scope 
of  forms  considered.  But  in  animals,  embryology  leads  me  to 
an  enormous  and  frightful  range.  The  facts  which  kept  me 
longest  scientifically  orthodox  are  those  of  adaptation — the 
pollen-masses  in  asclepias  —  the  mistletoe,  with  its  pollen 
carried  by  insects,  and  seed  by  birds — the  woodpecker,  with 
its  feet  and  tail,  beak  and  tongue,  to  climb  the  tree  and  secure 
insects.  To  talk  of  climate  or  Lamarckian  habit  producing 
such  adaptations  to  other  organic  beings  is  futile.  This  diffi- 
culty I  believe  I  have  surmounted.  As  you  seem  interested 
in  the  subject,  and  as  it  is  an  tm?nense  advantage  to  me  to 
write  to  you  and  to  hear,  ever  so  briefly,  what  you  think,  I 
will  enclose  (copied,  so  as  to  save  you  trouble  in  reading) 
the  briefest  abstract  of  my  notions  on  the  means  by  which 
Nature  makes  her  species.  Why  I  think  that  species  have 
really  changed,  depends  on  general  facts  in  the  affinities, 
embryology,  rudimentary  organs,  geological  history,  and  geo- 
graphical distribution  of  organic  beings.  In  regard  to  my 
Abstract,  you  must  take  immensely  on  trust,  each  paragraph 
occupying  one  or  two  chapters  in  my  book.  You  will,  per- 
haps, think  it  paltry  in  me,  when  I  ask  you  not  to  mention 
my  doctrine  ;  the  reason  is,  if  any  one,  like  the  author  of  the 
*  Vestiges,'  were  to  hear  of  them,  he  might  easily  work  them 
in,  and  then  I  should  have  to  quote  from  a  work  perhaps 
despised  by  naturalists,  and  this  would  greatly  injure  any 
chance  of  my  views  being  received  by  those  alone  whose 
opinions  I  value.  [Here  follows  a  discussion  on  ''  large 
genera  varying,"  which  has  no  direct  cannection  with  the 
remainder  of  the  letter.] 


I 


1858.]  THE    LETTER    TO    DR.    GRAY.  47^ 

I.  It  is  wonderful  what  the  principle  of  Selection  by  Man, 
that  is  the  picking  out  of  individuals  with  any  desired  quality, 
and  breeding  from  them,  and  again  picking  out,  can  do. 
Even  breeders  have  been  astonished  at  their  own  results. 
They  can  act  on  differences  inappreciable  to  an  uneducated 
eye.  Selection  has  been  methodically  followed  in  Europe  for 
only  the  last  half  century.  But  it  has  occasionally,  and  even 
in  some  degree  methodically,  been  followed  in  the  most 
ancient  times.  There  must  have  been  also  a  kind  of  uncon- 
scious selection  from  t":e  most  ancient  times,  namely,  in  the 
preservation  of  the  individual  animals  (without  any  thought 
of  their  offspring)  most  useful  to  each  race  of  man  in  his  par- 
ticular circumstances.  The  "  roguing,"  as  nursery-men  call 
the  destroying  of  varieties,  which  depart  from  their  type,  is  a 
kind  of  selection.  I  am  convinced  that  intentional  and  oc- 
casional selection  has  been  the  main  agent  in  making  our 
domestic  races.  But,  however  this  may  be,  its  great  power 
of  modification  has  been  indisputedly  shown  in  late  times. 
Selection  acts  only  by  the  accumulation  of  very  slight  or 
greater  varations,  caused  by  external  conditions,  or  by  the 
mere  fact  that  in  generation  the  child  is  not  absolutely  similar 
to  its  parent.  Man,  by  this  power  of  accumulating  variations, 
adapts  living  beings  to  his  wants — he  may  be  said  to  make 
the  wool  of  one  sheep  good  for  carpets,  and  another  for 
cloth,  &c. 

II.  Now,  suppose  there  was  a  being,  who  did  not  judge  by 
mere  external  appearance,  but  could  study  the  whole  internal 
organisation — who  never  was  capricious^ — who  should  go  on 
selecting  for  one  end  during  millions  of  generations,  who  will 
say  what  he  might  not  effect !  In  nature  we  have  some  slight 
variations,  occasionally  in  all  parts  :  and  I  think  it  can  be 
shown  that  a  change  in  the  conditions  of  existence  is  the 
main  cause  of  the  child  not  exactly  resembling  its  parents ; 
and  in  nature,  geology  shows  us  what  changes  have  taken 
place,  and  are  taking  place.  We  have  almost  unlimited  time : 
no  one  but  a  practical  geologist  can  fully  appreciate  this  : 
think  of  the  Glacial  period,  during  the  whole  of  which  the 


48o    THE  WRITING  OF  THE     ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [185S. 

same  species  of  shells  at  least  have  existed  ;  there  must 
have  been  daring  this  period,  millions  on  millions  of  gene- 
rations. 

III.  I  think  it  can  be  shown  that  there  is  such  an  unerring 
power  at  work,  or  Natural  Selection  (the  title  of  my  book), 
which  selects  exclusively  for  the  good  of  each  organic  being. 
The  elder  De  Candolle,  W.  Herbert,  and  Lyell,  have  written 
strongly  on  the  struggle  for  life  ;  but  even  they  have  not 
written  strongly  enough.  Reflect  that  every  being  (even  the 
elephant)  breeds  at  such  a  rate  that,  in  a  few  years,  or  at  most 
a  few  centuries  or  thousands  of  years,  the  surface  of  the  earth 
would  not  hold  the  progeny  of  any  one  species.  I  have  found  ft 
it  hard  constantly  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  increase  of  every 
single  species  is  checked  during  some  part  of  its  life,  or  dur-  | 
ing  some  shortly  recurrent  generation.  Only  a  few  of  those 
annually  born  can  live  to  propagate  their  kind.  What  a 
trifling  difference  must  often  determine  which  shall  survive 
and  which  perish  ! 

IV.  Now  take  the  case  of  a  country  undergoing  some 
change  ;  this  will  tend  to  cause  some  of  its  inhabitants  to  vary 
slightly  ;  not  but  what  I  believe  most  beings  vary  at  all  times 
enough  for  selection  to  act  on.  Some  of  its  inhabitants  will 
be  exterminated,  and  the  remainder  will  be  exposed  to  the 
mutual  action  of  a  different  set  of  inhabitants,  which  I  believe 
to  be  more  important  to  the  life  of  each  being  than  mere 
climate.  Considering  the  infinitely  various  ways  beings  have 
to  obtain  food  by  struggling  with  other  beings,  to  escape 
danger  at  various  times  of  life,  to  have  their  eggs  or  seeds 
disseminated,  &c.,  &c.,  I  cannot  doubt  that  during  millions 
of  generations  individuals  of  a  species  will  be  born  with  some 
slight  variation  profitable  to  some  part  of  its  economy  ;  such 
will  have  a  better  chance  of  surviving,  propagating  this  varia- 
tion, which  again  will  be  slowly  increased  by  the  accumulative 
action  of  natural  selection ;  and  the  variety  thus  formed  will 
either  coexist  with,  or  more  commonly  will  exterminate  its 
parent  form.  An  organic  being  like  the  woodpecker,  or  the 
mistletoe,  may  thus  come  to  be  adapted  to  a  score  of  contin- 


i858.]  THE    LETTER    TO   DR.    GRAY.  481 

gencies  ;  natural  selection,  accumulating  those  slight  variations 
in  all  parts  of  its  structure  which  are  in  any  way  useful  to  it, 
during  any  part  of  its  life. 

V.  Multiform  difficulties  will  occur  to  every  one  on  this 
theory.  Most  can,  I  think,  be  satisfactorily  answered. — 
**  Natura  non.  facit  saltum  '*  answer  some  of  the  most  obvi- 
ous. The  slowness  of  the  change,  and  only  a  very  few  under- 
going change  at  any  one  time  answers  others.  The  extreme 
imperfections  of  our  geological  records  answers  others. 

VI.  One  other  principle,  which  may  be  called  the  principle 
of  divergence,  plays,  I  believe,  an  important  part  in  the  origin 
of  species.  The  same  spot  will  support  more  life  if  occupied 
by  very  diverse  forms  :  we  see  this  in  the  many  generic  forms 
in  a  square  yard  of  turf  (I  have  counted  twenty  species 
belonging  to  eighteen  genera),  or  in  the  plants  and  insects, 
on  any  little  uniform  islet,  belonging  to  almost  as  many 
genera  and  families  as  to  species.  We  can  understand  this 
with  the  higher  animals,  whose  habits  we  best  understand. 
We  know  that  it  has  been  experimentally  shown  that  a  plot 
of  land  will  yield  a  greater  weight,  if  cropped  with  several 
species  of  grasses,  than  with  two  or  three  species.  Now  every 
single  organic  being,  by  propagating  rapidly,  may  be  said  to 
be  striving  its  utmost  to  increase  in  numbers.  So  it  will  be 
with  the  offspring  of  any  species  after  it  has  broken  into 
varieties,  or  sub-species,  or  true  species.  And  it  follows,  I 
think,  from  the  foregoing  facts,  that  the  varying  offspring  of 
each  species  will  try  (only  a  few  will  succeed)  to  seize  on  as 
many  and  as  diverse  places  in  the  economy  of  nature  as 
possible.  Each  new  variety  or  species  when  formed  will 
generally  take  the  place  of,  and  so  exterminate  its  less  well- 
fitted  parent.  This,  I  believe,  to  be  the  origin  of  the  classifi- 
cation or  arrangement  of  all  organic  beings  at  all  times. 
These  always  seem  to  branch  and  sub-branch  like  a  tree  from 
a  common  trunk ;  the  flourishing  twigs  destroying  the  less 
vigorous — the  dead  and  lost  branches  rudely  representing 
extinct  genera  and  families. 

This  sketch  is  most  imperfect ;  but  in  so  short  a  space  I 
22 


482    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

cannot  make  it  better.  Your  imagitiation  must  fill  up  many 
wide  blanks.  Without  some  reflection,  it  will  appear  all  rub- 
bish ;  perhaps  it  will  appear  so  after  reflection. 

C.  D. 

P.  S. — This  little  abstract  touches  only  the  accumulative 
power  of  natural  selection,  which  I  look  at  as  by  far  the  most 
important  element  in  the  production  of  new  forms.  The  laws 
governing  the  incipient  or  primordial  variation  (unimportant 
except  as  the  groundwork  for  selection  to  act  on,  in  which 
respect  it  is  all  important),  I  shall  discuss  under  several  heads, 
but  I  can  come,  as  you  may  well  believe,  only  to  very  partial 
and  imperfect  conclusions. 

[The  joint  paper  of  Mr.  Wallace  and  my  father  w^as  read 
at  the  Linnean  Society  on  the  evening  of  July  ist.  Sir  Charles 
Lyell  and  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  were  present,  and  both,  I  believe, 
made  a  few  remarks,  chiefly  with  a  view  of  impressing  on 
those  present  the  necessity  of  giving  the  most  careful  consid- 
eration to  what  they  had  heard.  There  was,  however,  no 
semblance  of  a  discussion.  Sir  Joseph  Hooker  writes  to  me  : 
'^  The  interest  excited  was  intense,  but  the  subject  was  too 
novel  and  too  ominous  for  the  old  school  to  enter  the  lists, 
before  armouring.  After  the  meeting  it  was  talked  over  with 
bated  breath  :  Lyell's  approval,  and  perhaps  in  a  small  way 
mine,  as  his  lieutenant  in  the  affair,  rather  overawed  the  Fel- 
lows, who  would  otherwise  have  flown  out  against  the  doctrine. 
We  had,  too,  the  vantage  ground  of  being  familiar  with  the 
authors  and  their  theme."] 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  July  5th  [1858J. 

My  dear  Hooker, — We  are  become  more  happy  and 
less  panic-struck,  now  that  we  have  sent  out  of  the  house 
every  child,  and  shall  remove  H.,  as  soon  as  she  can  move. 
The  first  nurse  became  ill  with  ulcerated  throat  and  quinsey^ 
and  the  second  is  now  ill  with  the  scarlet  fever,  but,  thank 


1858.]  THE  PROPOSED  BOOK.  483 

God,  is  recovering.  You  may  imagine  how  frightened  we 
have  been.  It  has  been  a  most  miserable  fortnight.  Thank 
you  much  for  your  note,  telling  me  that  all  had  gone  on 
prosperously  at  the  Linnean  Society.  You  must  let  me  once 
again  tell  you  how  deeply  I  feel  your  generous  kindness  and 
LyelFs  on  this  occasion.  But  in  truth  it  shames  me  that  you 
should  have  lost  time  on  a  mere  point  of  priority.  I  shall  be 
curious  to  see  the  proofs.  I  do  not  in  the  least  understand 
whether  my  letter  to  A.  Gray  is  to  be  printed  ;  I  suppose  not, 
only  your  note  ;  but  I  am  quite  indifferent,  and  place  myself 
absolutely  in  your  and  LyelFs  hands. 

I  can  easily  prepare  an  abstract  of  my  whole  work,  but  I 
can  hardly  see  how  it  can  be  made  scientific  for  a  Journal, 
without  giving  facts,  which  would  be  impossible.  Indeed,  a 
mere  abstract  cannot  be  very  short.  Could  you  give  me  any 
idea  how  many  pages  of  the  Journal  could  probably  be  spared 
me? 

Directly  after  my  return  home,  I  would  begin  and  cut  my 
cloth  to  my  measure.  If  the  Referees  were  to  reject  it  as  not 
strictly  scientific,  I  could,  perhaps,  publish  it  as  a  pamphlet. 

With  respect  to  my  big  interleaved  abstract,*  would  you 
send  it  any  time  before  you  leave  England,  to  the  enclosed 
address  ?  If  you  do  not  go  till  August  yth-ioth,  I  should 
prefer  it  left  with  you.  I  hope  you  have  jotted  criticisms  on 
my  MS.  on  big  Genera,  &c.,  sufficient  to  make  you  remember 
your  remarks,  as  I  should  be  infinitely  sorry  to  lose  them. 
And  I  see  no  chance  of  our  meeting  if  you  go  soon  abroad. 
We  thank  you  heartily  for  your  invitation  to  join  you :  I  can 
fancy  nothing  which  I  should  enjoy  more ;  but  our  children 
are  too  delicate  for  us  to  leave;  I  should  be  mere  living 
lumber. 

Lastly,  you  said  you  would  write  to  Wallace  ;  I  certainly 
should  much  like  this,  as  it  would  quite  exonerate  me  :  if  you 
would  send  me  your  note,  sealed  up,  I  would  forward  it  with 
my  own,  as  I  know  the  address,  &c. 

*  The  Sketch  of  1844. 


484    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

Will  you  answer  me  sometime  about  your  notions  of  the 
length  of  my  abstract. 

If  you  see  Lyell,  will  you  tell  him  how  truly  grateful  I 
feel  for  his  kind  interest  in  this  affair  of  mine.  You  must 
know  that  I  look  at  it,  as  very  important,  for  the  reception  of 
the  view  of  species  not  being  immutable,  the  fact  of  the  great- 
est Geologist  and  Botanist  in  England  taking  any  sort  of  in- 
terest in  the  subject  :  I  am  sure  it  will  do  much  to  break  down 
prejudices. 

Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D,  Hooker, 

Miss  Wedgwood's,  Hartfield,  Tunbridge  Wells, 

[July  13th,  1858]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — Your  letter  to  Wallace  seems  to  me 
perfect,  quite  clear  and  most  courteous.  I  do  not  think  it 
could  possibly  be  improved,  and  I  have  to  day  forwarded  it 
with  a  letter  of  my  own.  I  always  thought  it  very  possible 
that  I  might  be  forestalled,  but  I  fancied  that  I  had  a  grand 
enough  soul  not  to  care ;  but  I  found  myself  mistaken  and 
punished  ;  I  had,  however,  quite  resigned  myself,  and  had 
written  half  a  letter  to  Wallace  to  give  up  all  priority  to  him, 
and  should  certainly  not  have  changed  had  it  not  been  for 
Lyell's  and  your  quite  extraordinary  kindness.  I  assure  you 
I  feel  it,  and  shall  not  forget  it.  I  am  more  than  satisfied  at 
what  took  place  at  the  Linnean  Society.  I  had  thought 
that  your  letter  and  mine  to  Asa  Gray  were  to  be  only  an 
appendix  to  Wallace's  paper. 

We  go  from  here  in  a  few  days  to  the  sea-side,  probably 
to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  on  my  return  (after  a  battle  with 
pigeon  skeletons)  I  will  set  to  work  at  the  abstract,  though 
how  on  earth  I  shall  make  anything  of  an  abstract  in  thirty 
pages  of  the  Journal,  I  know  not,  but  will  try  my  best.  I 
shall  order  Bentham;  is  it  not  a  pity  that  you  should  waste 
time  in  tabulating  varieties  ">  for  I  can  get  the  Down  school- 
master to  do  it  on  my  return,  and  can  tell  you  all  the  results. 


1858.]  NATURAL   SELECTION.  485 

I  must  try  and  see  you  before  your  jouxney ;  but  do  not 
think  I  am  fishing  to  ask  you  to  come  to  Down,  for  you  will 
have  no  time  for  that. 

You  cannot  imagine  how  pleased  I  am  that  die  notion  <rf 
Natural  Selection  has  acted  as  a  purgative  on  your  bowels  of 
immutability.  Whenever  naturalists  can  kx>k  at  qiectes 
changing  as  certain,  what  a  magnificent  field  wili  be  open, — 
on  all  the  laws  of  variation, — on  the  genealogy  of  all  liying 
beings, — on  their  lines  of  migration,  &c^  &:c.  Pray  thank 
Mrs.  Hooker  for  her  very  kind  little  note,  and  pray,  say 
truly  obliged  I  am,  and  in  truth  ashamed  to  think  that 
should  have  had  the  trouble  of  copying  my  ugiy  MS-  It 
extraordinarily  kind  in  her.     Farewell,  my  dear  kind  ftiend. 

Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwix. 

P.  S. — I  have  had  some  fun  here  in  watching  a  slave-mak- 
ing ant  ;  for  I  could  not  help  rather  doubting  the  wondeifol 
stories,  but  I  have  now  seen  a  defeated  marauding  party, 
and  I  have  seen  a  migration  from  one  nest  to  another  of  the 
slave-makers,  carrying  their  slaves  (who  are  Aamst^  and  not 
field  niggers)  in  their  mouths ! 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  is  a  tnie  generalisation  that, 
when  honey  is  secreted  at  one  point  of  the  circle  of  the 
corolla,  if  the  pistil  bends,  it  always  bends  into  the  line  of  the 
gangway  to  the  honey.  The  Larkspur  is  a  good  instance,  in 
contrast  to  Columbine, — if  you  think  of  it,  just  attend  to  this 
little  point, 

C.   Darsoim  to  C.  Lydl, 

King's  Head  Hotel,  Sandown,  Isle  of  \lr%fat, 

Jttty  iSdi  [1S5S]. 

.  .  .  We  are  established  here  for  ten  days,  and  thaa  go  on 
to  Shanklin,  which  seems  more  amusing  to  one,  like  myself, 
who  cannot  walk.  We  hope  much  that  the  sea  may  do  H. 
and  L.  good.  And  if  it  does,  our  expedition  will  answer,  but 
not  otherwise. 


486    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

I  have  never  half  thanked  you  for  all  the  extraordinary 
trouble  and  kindness  you  showed  me  about  Wallace's  affair. 
Hooker  told  me  what  was  done  at  the  Linnean  Society,  and  I 
am  far  more  than  satisfied,  and  I  do  not  think  that  Wallace 
can  think  my  conduct  unfair  in  allowing  you  and  Hooker  to 
do  whatever  you  thought  fair.  I  certainly  was  a  little  annoyed 
to  lose  all  priority,  but  had  resigned  myself  to  my  fate.  I  am 
going  to  prepare  a  longer  abstract ;  but  it  is  really  impossible 
to  do  justice  to  the  subject,  except  by  giving  the  facts  on 
which  each  conclusion  is  grounded,  and  that  will,  of  course, 
be  absolutely  impossible.  Your  name  and  Hooker's  name 
appearing  as  in  any  way  the  least  interested  in  my  work 
will,  I  am  certain,  have  the  most  important  bearing  in  lead- 
ing people  to  consider  the  subject  without  prejudice.  I  look 
at  this  as  so  very  important,  that  I  am  almost  glad  of  Wal- 
lace's paper  for  having  led  to  this. 

My  dear  Lyell,  yours  most  gratefully, 

Ch.   Darwin. 

[The  following  letter  refers  to  the  proof-sheets  of  the 
Linnean  paper.  The  ^  introduction  '  means  the  prefatory  let- 
ter signed  by  Sir  C.  Lyell  and  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker.] 

C,  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker. 

King's  Head  Hotel,  Sandown,  Isle  of  Wight, 

July  2ist  [1858]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  received  only  yesterday  the  proof- 
sheets,  which  I  now  return.  I  think  your  introduction  can- 
not be  improved. 

I  am  disgusted  with  my  bad  writing.  I  could  not  improve 
it,  without  rewriting  all,  which  would  not  be  fair  or  worth 
while,  as  I  have  begun  on  a  better  abstract  for  the  Linnean 
Society.  My  excuse  is  that  it  never  was  intended  for  publica- 
tion. I  have  made  only  a  few  corrections  in  the  style  ;  but  I 
cannot  make  it  decent,  but  I  hope  moderately  intelligible.  I 
suppose  some  one  will  correct  the  revise.     (Shall  I  ?) 


i358.]  THE    'ABSTRACT.'  487 

Could  I  have  a  clean  proof  to  send  to  Wallace  ? 

I  have  not  yet  fully  considered  your  remarks  on  big  genera 
(but  your  general  concurrence  is  of  the  highest  possible  inter- 
est to  me)  ;  nor  shall  I  be  able  till  I  re-read  my  MS.  ;  but 
you  may  rely  on  it  that  you  never  make  a  remark  to  me  which 
is  lost  from  inattention.  I  am  particularly  glad  you  do  not 
object  to  my  stating  your  objections  in  a  modified  form,  for 
they  always  struck  me  as  very  important,  and  as  having  much 
inherent  value,  whether  or  no  they  were  fatal  to  my  notions. 
I  will  consider  and  reconsider  all  your  remarks.  .  .  . 

I  have  ordered  Bentham,  for,  as says,  it  will  be  very 

curious  to  see  a  Flora  written   by  a  man  who  knows  nothing 
of  British  plants  !  ! 

I  am  very  glad  at  what  you  say  about  my  Abstract,  but 
you  may  rely  on  it  that  I  will  condense  to  the  utmost.  I 
would  aid  in  money  if  it  is  too  long.*  In  how  many  ways 
you  have  aided  me  ! 

Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

[The  ^  Abstract '  mentioned  in  the  last  sentence  of  the  pre- 
ceding letter  was  in  fact  the  *  Origin  of  Species,'  on  which  he 
now  set  to  work.  In  his  *  Autobiography '  (p.  70)  he  speaks 
of  beginning  to  write  in  September,  but  in  his  Diary  he  wrote, 
*^  July  20  to  Aug.  12,  at  Sandown,  began  Abstract  of  Species 
book."  "Sep.  16,  Recommenced  Abstract."  The  book  was 
begun  with  the  idea  that  it  would  be  published  as  a  paper,  or 
series  of  papers,  by  the  Linnean  Society,  and  it  was  only  in 
the  late  autumn  that  it  became  clear  that  it  must  take  the 
form  of  an  independent  volume.] 

*  That  is  to  say,  he  would  help  to  pay  for  the  printing,  if  it  should 
prove  too  long  for  the  Linnean  Society. 


488    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  '  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

C.  Darwin  to  /.  D,  Hooker, 

Norfolk  House,  Shanklin,  Isle  of  Wight, 

Friday  [July]  30th  [1858]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — Will  you  give  the  enclosed  scrap  to 
Sir  William  to  thank  him  for  his  kindness  ;  and  this  gives  me 
an  excuse  to  amuse  myself  by  writing  to  you  a  note,  which 
requires  no  answer. 

This  is  a  very  charming  place,  and  we  have  got  a  very 
comfortable  house.  But,  alas,  I  cannot  say  that  the  sea  has 
done  H.  or  L.  much  good.  Nor  has  my  stomach  recovered 
from  all  our  troubles.  I  am  very  glad  we  left  home,  for  six 
children  have  now  died  of  scarlet  fever  in  Down.  We  return 
on  the  14th  of  August. 

I  have  got  Bentham,*  and  am  charmed  with  it,  and 
William  (who  has  just  started  for  a  tour  abroad)  has  been 
making  out  all  sorts  of  new  (to  me)  plants  capitally.  The 
little  scraps  of  information  are  so  capital  .  .  .  The  English 
names  in  the  analytical  keys  drive  us  mad  :  give  them  by  all 
means,  but  why  on  earth  [not]  make  them  subordinate  to  the 
Latin  ;  it  puts  me  in  a  passion.  W.  charged  into  the  Com- 
positae  and  Umbelliferae  like  a  hero,  and  demolished  ever  so 
many  in  grand  style. 

I  pass  my  time  by  doing  daily  a  couple  of  hours  of  my 
Abstract,  and  I  find  it  amusing  and  improving  work.  I  am 
now  most  heartily  obliged  to  you  and  Lyell  for  having  set  me 
on  this  ;  for  I  shall,  when  it  is  done,  be  able  to  finish  my  work 
with  greater  ease  and  leisure.  I  confess  I  hated  the  thought 
of  the  job  ;  and  now  I  find  it  very  unsatisfactory  in  not  being 
able  to  give  my  reasons  for  each  conclusion. 

I  will  be  longer  than  I  expected  ;  it  will  take  thirty-five  of 
my  MS.  folio  pages  to  give  an  abstract  on  variation  under 
domestication  alone ;  but  I  will  try  to  put  in  nothing  which 
does  not  seem  to  me  of  some  interest,  and  which  was  once 
new  to  me.     It  seems  a  queer  plan  to  give  an  abstact  of  an 

*  '  British  Flora.' 


1858.]  THE   'ABSTRACT/  489 

unpublished  work ;  nevertheless,   I    repeat,   I    am  extremely- 
glad  I  have  begun  in  earnest  on  it. 

I  hope  you  and  Mrs.  Hooker  will  have  a  very  very  pleas- 
ant tour.     Farewell,  my  dear  Hooker. 

Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  J.  £>.  Hooker. 

Norfolk  House,  Shanklin,  Isle  of  Wight, 

Thursday  [Aug.  5,  1858]. 

My  DEAR  Hooker, — I  should  think  the  note  apologetical 
about  the  style  of  the  abstract  was  best  as  a  note  ....  But 
I  write  now  to  ask  you  to  send  me  by  return  of  post  the 
MS.  on  big  genera,  that  I  may  make  an  abstract  of  a  couple 
of  pages  in  length.  I  presume  that  you  have  quite  done  with 
it,  otherwise  I  would  not  for  anything  have  it  back.  If  you 
tie  it  with  string,  and  mark  it  MS.  for  printing,  it  will  not  cost, 
I  should  think,  more  than  4^.  I  shall  wish  much  to  say  that 
you  have  read  this  MS.  and  concur  ;  but  you  shall,  before  I 
read  it  to  the  Society,  hear  the  sentence. 

What  you  tell  me  after  speaking  with  Busk  about  the 
length  of  the  Abstract  is  an  immense  relief  to  me  ;  it  will  make 
the  labour  far  less,  not  having  to  shorten  so  much  every  single 
subject ;  but  I  will  try  not  to  be  too  diffusive.  I  fear  it  will 
spoil  all  interest  in  my  book,*  whenever  published.  The 
Abstract  will  do  very  well  to  divide  into  several  parts  :  thus 
I  have  just  finished  "  Variation  under  Domestication,"  in 
forty-four  MS.  pages,  and  that  would  do  for  one  evening ;  but 
I  should  be  extremely  sorry  if  all  could  not  be  published 
together. 

What  else  you  say  about  my  Abstract  pleases  me  highly, 
but  frightens  me,  for  I  fear  I  shall  never  be  able  to  make  it 
good  enough.  But  how  I  do  run  on  about  my  own  affairs  to 
you  ! 

*  The  larger  book  begun  in  1856. 


490    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

I  was  astonished  to  see  Sir  W.  Hooker's  card  here  two  or 
three  days  ago  :  I  was  unfortunately  out  walking.  Henslow, 
also,  has  written  to  me,  proposing  to  come  to  Down  on  the 
9th,  but  alas,  I  do  not  return  till  the  13th,  and  my  wife  not 
till  a  week  later  ;  so  that  I  am  also  most  sorry  to  think  I  shall 
not  see  you,  for  I  should  not  like  to  leave  home  so  soon.  I 
had  thought  of  going  to  London  and  running  down  for  an 
hour  or  two  to  Kew.  .  .  . 


C.  Darwin  to  J.  D,  Hooker. 

Norfolk  House,  Shanklin,  Isle  of  Wight, 

[August]  L1858]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  write  merely  to  say  that  the  MS. 
came  safely  two  or  three  days  ago.  I  am  much  obliged  for 
the  correction  of  style  :  I  find  it  unutterably  difficult  to  write 
clearly.  When  we  meet  I  must  talk  over  a  few  points  on  the 
subject. 

You  speak  of  going  to  the  sea-side  somewhere  ;  we  think 
this  the  nicest  sea-side  place  which  we  have  ever  seen, 
and  we  like  Shanklin  better  than  other  spots  on  the  south 
coast  of  the  island,  though  many  are  charming  and  prettier, 
so  that  I  would  suggest  your  thinking  of  this  place.  We 
are  on  the  actual  coast ;  but  tastes  differ  so  much  about 
places. 

If  you  go  to  Broadstairs,  when  there  is  a  strong  wind 
from  the  coast  of  France  and  in  fine,  dry,  warm  weather, 
look  out,  and  you  will  probably  (!)  see  thistle-seeds  blown 
across  the  Channel.  The  other  day  I  saw  one  blown  right 
inland,  and  then  in  a  few  minutes  a  second  one  and  then  a 
third ;  and  I  said  to  myself,  God  bless  me,  how  many  thistles 
there  must  be  in  France  ;  and  I  wrote  a  letter  in  imagination 
to  you.  But  I  then  looked  at  the  low  clouds,  and  noticed 
that  they  were  not  coming  inland,  so  I  feared  a  screw  was 
loose.  I  then  walked  beyond  a  headland,  and  found  the  wind 
parallel  to  the  coast,  and  on  this  very  headland  a  noble  bed 
of  thistles,  which  by  every  wide  eddy  were  blown  far  out  to 


1858.]  CLIMATE   AND    MIGRATION.  4qI 

sea,  and  then  came  right  in  at  right  angles  to  the  shore  !  One 
day  such  a  number  of  insects  were  washed  up  by  the  tide, 
and  I  brought  to  life  thirteen  species  of  Coleoptera ;  not  that 
I  suppose  these  came  from  France.  But  do  you  watch  for 
thistle-seed  as  you  saunter  along  the  coast.  .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  Asa  Gray. 

Aug.  nth  [1858]. 

My  dear  Gray, — Your  note  of  July  27th  has  just  reached 
me  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  It  is  a  real  and  great  pleasure  to 
me  to  write  to  you  about  my  notions  ;  and  even  if  it  were 
not  so,  I  should  be  a  most  ungrateful  dog,  after  all  the  in- 
valuable assistance  you  have  rendered  me,  if  I  did  not  do 
anything  which  you  asked. 

I  have  discussed  in  my  long  MS.  the  later  changes  of 
climate  and  the  effect  on  migration,  and  I  will  here  give  you 
an  abstract  of  an  abstract  (which  latter  I  am  preparing  of  my 
whole  work  for  the  Linnean  Society).  I  cannot  give  you 
facts,  and  I  must  write  dogmatically,  though  I  do  not  feel  so 
on  any  point.  I  may  just  mention,  in  order  that  you  may 
believe  that  I  have  ^<?;;/^  foundation  for  my  views,  that  Hooker 
has  read  my  MS.,  and  though  he  at  first  demurred  to  my  main 
point,  he  has  since  told  me  that  further  reflection  and  new 
facts  have  made  him  a  convert. 

In  the  older,  or  perhaps  newer,  Pliocene  age  (a  little  be- 
fore the  Glacial  epoch)  the  temperature  was  higher  ;  of  this 
there  can  be  little  doubt  ;  the  land,  on  a  large  scale^  held 
much  its  present  disposition  :  the  species  were  mainly,  judg- 
ing from  shells,  what  they  are  now.  At  this  period  when 
all  animals  and  plants  ranged  10°  or  15°  nearer  the  poles,  I 
believe  the  northern  part  of  Siberia  and  of  North  America., 
being  almost  continuous^  were  peopled  (it  is  quite  possible, 
considering  the  shallow  water,  that  Behring  Straits  were 
united,  perhaps  a  little  southward)  by  a  nearly  uniform 
fauna  and  flora,  just  as  the  Arctic  regions  now  are.  The 
climate  then  became  gradually  colder  till  it  became  what  it 


492    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  '  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

now  is  ;  and  then  the  temperate  parts  of  Europe  and  America 
would  be  separated,  as  far  as  migration  is  concerned,  just 
as  they  now  are.  Then  came  on  the  Glacial  period,  driv- 
ing far  south  all  living  things  ;  middle  or  even  southern  Eu- 
rope being  peopled  with  Arctic  productions  ;  as  the  warmth 
returned,  the  Arctic  productions  slowly  crawled  up  the 
mountains  as  they  became  denuded  of  snow  ;  and  we  now 
see  on  their  summits  the  remnants  of  a  once  continuous  flora 
and  fauna.  This  is  E.  Forbes'  theory,  which,  however,  I  may  J 
add,  I  had  written  out  four  years  before  he  published. 

Some  facts  have  made  me  vaguely  suspect  that  between  the 
glacial  and  the  present  temperature  there  was  a  period  of 
slightly  greater  warmth.  According  to  my  modification-doc- 
trines, I  look  at  many  of  the  species  of  North  America  which 
closely  represent  those  of  Europe,  as  having  become  modified 
since  the  Pliocene  period,  when  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
world  there  was  nearly  free  communication  between  the  old 
and  new  worlds.  But  now  comes  a  more  important  con- 
sideration ;  there  is  a  considerable  body  of  geological  evi- 
dence that  during  the  Glacial  epoch  the  whole  world  was 
colder;  I  inferred  that,  many  years  ago,  from  erratic  boulder 
phenomena  carefully  observed  by  me  on  both  the  east  and 
west  coast  of  South  America.  Now  I  am  so  bold  as  to  be- 
lieve that  at  the  height  of  the  Glacial  epoch,  and  when  all 
Tropical  productions  must  have  been  considerably  distressed^ 
that  several  temperate  forms  slowly  travelled  into  the  heart 
of  the  Tropics,  and  even  reached  the  southern  hemisphere; 
and  some  few  southern  forms  penetrated  in  a  reverse  di- 
rection northward.  (Heights  of  Borneo  with  Australian 
forms,  Abyssinia  with  Cape  forms.)  Wherever  there  was 
nearly  continuous  high  land,  this  migration  would  have  been 
immensely  facilitated  ;  hence  the  European  character  of  the 
plants  of  Tierra  del  Fuego  and  summits  of  Cordilleras  ;  hence 
ditto  on  Himalaya.  As  the  temperature  rose,  all  the  temper- 
ate intruders  would  crawl  up  the  mountains.  Hence  the  Eu- 
ropean forms  on  Nilgherries,  Ceylon,  summit  of  Java,  Organ 
Mountains  of  Brazil.     But  these  intruders  being  surrounded 


185S.]  CLIMATE   AND   MIGRATION.  493 

with  new  forms  would  be  very  liable  to  be  improved  or  m^odi- 
fied  by  natural  selection,  to  adapt  them  to  the  new  forms 
with  which  they  had  to  compete ;  hence  most  of  the  forms 
on  the  mountains  of  the  Tropics  are  not  identical,  but  r^/- 
resentative  forms  of  North  temperate  plants. 

There  are  similar  classes  of  facts  in  marine  productions. 
All  this  will  appear  very  rash  to  you,  and  rash  it  may  be  ; 
but  I  am  sure  not  so  rash  as  it  will  at  first  appear  to  you  : 
Hooker  could  not  stomach  it  at  all  at  first,  but  has  become 
largely  a  convert.  From  mammalia  and  shallow  sea,  I  believe 
Japan  to  have  been  joined  to  main  land  of  China  within  no 
remote  period  ;  and  then  the  migration  north  and  south  be- 
fore, during,  and  after  the  Glacial  epoch  would  act  on  Japan, 
as  on  the  corresponding  latitude  of  China  and  the  United 
States. 

I  should  beyond  anything  like  to  know  whether  you  have 
any  Alpine  collections  from  Japan,  and  what  is  their  charac- 
ter. This  letter  is  miserably  expressed,  but  perhaps  it  will 
suffice  to  show  what  I  believe  have  been  the  later  main  mi- 
grations and  changes  of  temperature.  .  .  . 

C.  Darivin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

[Down]  Oct.  6th,  1858. 

...  If  you  have  or  can  make  leisure,  I  should  very  much 
like  to  hear  news  of  Mrs.  Hooker,  yourself,  and  the  children. 
Where  did  you  go,  and  what  did  you  do  and  are  doing? 
There  is  a  comprehensive  text. 

You  cannot  tell  how  I  enjoyed  your  little  visit  here.  It 
did  me  much  good.  If  Harvey  is  still  with  you,  pray  remem- 
ber me  very  kindly  to  him. 

...  I  am  working  most  steadily  at  my  Abstract,  but  it 
grows  to  an  inordinate  length  ;  yet  fully  to  make  my  view 
clear  (and  never  giving  briefly  more  than  a  fact  or  two,  and 
slurring  over  difficulties),  I  cannot  make  it  shorter.  It  will 
yet  take  me  three  or  four  months ;  so  slow  do  I  work,  though 
never  idle.     You  cannot  imagine  what  a  service  you  have 


494    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  '  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

done  me  in  making  me  make  this  Abstract;  for  though  I 
thought  I  had  got  all  clear,  it  has  clarified  my  brains  very 
much,  by  making  me  weigh  the  relative  importance  of  the 
several  elements, 

I  have  been  reading  with  much  interest  your  (as  I  believe 
it  to  be)  capital  memoir  of  R.  Brown  in  the  Gardeners' 
Chronicle.   .  .  . 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  Oct.  I2th,  1858, 
...  I  have  sent  eight  copies  *  by  post  to  Wallace,  and 
w^ill  keep  the  others  for  him,  for  I  could  not  think  of  any  one 
to  send  any  to. 

I  pray  you  not  to  pronounce  too  strongly  against  Natural 
Selection,  till  you  have  read  my  abstract,  for  though  I  dare 
say  you  will  strike  out  7nany  difficulties,  which  have  never 
occurred  to  me ;  yet  you  cannot  have  thought  so  fully  on  the 
subject  as  I  have. 

I  expect  my  Abstract  will  run  into  a  small  volume,  which 
will  have  to  be  published  separately.  .  .  . 

What  a  splendid  lot  of  work  you  have  in  hand. 

Ever  yours, 


C.  Darwin. 


C,  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 


Down,  Oct.  13th,  1858. 
...  I  have  been  a  little  vexed  at  myself  at  having  asked 
you  not  *^  to  pronounce  too  strongly  against  Natural  Selec- 
tion.'* I  am  sorry  to  have  bothered  you,  though  I  have  been 
much  interested  by  your  note  in  answer.  I  wrote  the  sen- 
tence without  reflection.  But  the  truth  is,  that  I  have  so 
accustomed  myself,  partly  from  being  quizzed  by  my  non- 
naturalist  relations,  to  expect  opposition  and  even  contempt, 
that  I  forgot  for  the  moment  that  you  are  the  one  living  soul 


*  Of  the  joint  paper  by  C.  Darwin  and  A.  R.  Wallace. 


1858.]  SIR   J.    D.    HOOKER.  4^5 

from  whom  I  have  constantly  received  sympathy.  Believe 
[me]  that  I  never  forget  for  even  a  minute  how  much  assist- 
ance I  have  received  from  you.  You  are  quite  correct  that  I 
never  even  suspected  that  my  speculations  were  a  "jam-pot  '* 
to  you  ;  indeed,  I  thought,  until  quite  lately,  that  my  MS. 
had  produced  no  effect  on  you,  and  this  has  often  staggered 
me.  Nor  did  I  know  that  you  had  spoken  in  general  terms 
about  my  work  to  our  friends,  excepting  to  dear  old  Falconer, 
who  some  few  years  ago  once  told  me  that  I  should  do  more 
mischief  than  any  ten  other  naturalists  would  do  good,  [and] 
that  I  had  half  spoiled  you  already  !  All  this  is  stupid  ego- 
tistical stuff,  and  I  write  it  only  because  you  may  think  me 
ungrateful  for  not  having  valued  and  understood  your  sym- 
pathy ;  which  God  knows  is  not  the  case.  It  is  an  accursed 
evil  to  a  man  to  become  so  absorbed  in  any  subject  as  I  am 
in  mine. 

I  was  in  London  yesterday  for  a  few  hours  with  Falconer, 
and  he  gave  me  a  magnificent  lecture  on  the  age  of  man.  We 
are  not  upstarts  ;  we  can  boast  of  a  pedigree  going  far  back 
in  time  coeval  with  extinct  species.  He  has  a  grand  fact  of 
some  large  molar  tooth  in  the  Trias. 

I  am  quite  knocked  up,  and  am  going  next  Monday  to 
revive  under  Water-cure  at  Moor  Park. 

My  dear  Hooker,  yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Nov.  1858. 

....  I  had  vowed  not  to  mention  my  everlasting  Ab- 
stract to  you  again,  for  I  am  sure  I  have  bothered  you  far 
more  than  enough  about  it ;  but,  as  you  allude  to  its  previous 
publication,  I  may  say  that  I  have  the  chapters  on  Instinct 
and  Hybridism  to  abstract,  which  may  take  a  fortnight  each  ; 
and  my  materials  for  Palaeontology,  Geographical  Distribu- 
tion, and  Affinities,  being  less  worked  up,  I  dare  say  each  of 
these  will  take  me  three  weeks,  so  that  I  shall  not  have  done 


496    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1853. 

at  soonest  till  April,  and  then  my  Abstract  will  in  bulk  make 
a  small  volume.  I  never  give  more  than  one  or  two  instances, 
and  I  pass  over  briefly  all  difficulties,  and  yet  I  cannot  make 
my  Abstract  shorter,  to  be  satisfactory,  than  I  am  now  doing, 
and  yet  it  will  expand  to  a  small  volume 

[About  this  time  my  father  revived  his  old  knowledge  of 
beetles  in  helping  his  boys  in  their  collecting.  He  sent  a 
short  notice  to  the  *  Entomologist's  Weekly  Intelligencer,* 
June  25th,  1859,  recording  the  capture  of  Licinus  silphoides, 
Clytus  mysticus,  Panagceus  /^-pustulatus.  The  notice  begins 
with  the  words,  "  We  three  very  young  collectors  having  lately 
taken  in  the  parish  of  Down,"  &c.,  and  is  signed  by  three  of 
his  boys,  but  was  clearly  not  written  by  them.  I  have  a  vivid 
recollection  of  the  pleasure  of  turning  out  my  bottle  of  dead 
beetles  for  my  father  to  name,  and  the  excitement,  in  which 
he  fully  shared,  when  any  of  them  proved  to  be  uncommon 
ones.  The  following  letters  to  Mr.  Fox  (November  13,  1858), 
and  to  Sir  John  Lubbock,  illustrate  this  point  :] 

C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox, 

Down,  Nov.  13th  [1858]. 
....  W.,  my  son,  is  now  at  Christ's  College,  in  the  rooms 
above  yours.  My  old  Gyp,  Impey,  was  astounded  to  hear 
that  he  was  my  son,  and  very  simply  asked,  *'  Why,  has  he 
been  long  married  ? "  What  pleasant  hours  those  were  when 
I  used  to  come  and  drink  coffee  with  you  daily  !  I  am  re- 
minded of  old  days  by  my  third  boy  having  just  begun 
collecting  beetles,  and  he  caught  the  other  day  Brachinus 
crepitans^  of  immortal  Whittlesea  Mere  memory.  My  blood 
boiled  with  old  ardour  when  he  caught  a  Licinus— a  prize 
unknown  to  me.  .  .  . 

C,  Darwin  to  John  Lubbock, 

Thursday  [before  1857]. 
Dear  Lubbock, — I  do  not  know  whether  you  care  about 
beetles,  but  for  the  chance  I  send  this  in  a  bottle,  which  I 


1858.]  ENTOMOLOGY.  497 

never  remember  having  seen  ;  though  it  is  excessively  rash  to 
speak  from  a  twenty-five-year  old  remembrance.  Whenever 
we  meet  you  can  tell  me  whether  you  know  it.  .  .  . 

I  feel  like  an  old  war-horse  at  the  sound  of  the  trumpet, 
when  I  read  about  the  capturing  of  rare  beetles — is  not  this  a 
magnanimous  simile  for  a  decayed  entomologist  ? — It  really 
almost  makes  me  long  to  begin  collecting  again.     Adios. 

^'  Floreat  Entomologia  "  ! — to  which  toast  at  Cambridge  I 
have  drunk  many  a  glass  of  wine.  So  again,  ^'  Floreat  En- 
tomologia." N.  B.  I  have  nof  now  been  drinking  any  glasses 
full  of  wine.  Yours, 

C.  D. 
C  Darwin  to  Herbert  Spencer. 

Down,  Nov.  25th  [1858]. 
Dear  Sir, — I  beg  permission  to  thank  you  sincerely  for 
your  very  kind  present  of  your  Essays.*  1  have  already  read 
several  of  them  with  much  interest.  Your  remarks  on  the 
general  argument  of  the  so-called  development  theory  seems 
to  me  admirable.  I  am  at  present  preparing  an  Abstract  of  a 
larger  work  on  the  changes  of  species  ;  but  I  treat  the  subject 
simply  as  a  naturalist,  and  not  from  a  general  point  of  view, 
otherwise,  in  my  opinion,  your  argument  could  not  have  been 
improved  on,  and  might  have  been  quoted  by  me  with  great 
advantage.  Your  article  on  Music  has  also  interested  me 
much,  for  I  had  often  thought  on  the  subject,  and  had  come 
to  nearly  the  same  conclusion  with  you,  though  unable  to 
support  the  notion  in  any  detail.  Furthermore,  by  a  curious 
coincidence,  expression  has  been  for  years  a  persistent  subject 
with  me  for  loose  speculation,  and  I  must  entirely  agree  with 
you  that  all  expression  has  some  biological  meaning.  I  hope 
to  profit  by  your  criticism  on  style,  and  with  very  best  thanks, 
I  beg  leave  to  remain,  dear  Sir, 

Yours  truly  obliged, 

C.  Darwin. 

*  'Essays,  Scientific,  Political,  and  Speculative,'  by  Herbert  Spencer, 
1858-74. 


498    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  *  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1858. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  Dec.  24th  [1858]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — Your  news  about  your  unsolicited 
salary  and  house  is  jolly,  and  creditable  to  the  Government. 
My  room  (28  X  19),  with  divided  room  above,  with  all  fixtures 
(and  painted),  not  furniture,  and  plastered  outside,  cost  about 
;^5oo.     I  am  heartily  glad  of  this  news. 

Your  facts  about  distribution  are,  indeed,  very  striking. 
I  remember  well  that  none  of  your  many  wonderful  facts  in 
your  several  works,  perplexed  me,  for  years,  more  than  the 
migration  having  been  mainly  from  north  to  south,  and  not 
in  the  reverse  direction.  I  have  now  at  last  satisfied  myself 
(but  that  is  very  different  from  satisfying  others)  on  this 
head  ;  but  it  would  take  a  little  volume  to  fully  explain  my- 
self. I  did  not  for  long  see  the  bearing  of  a  conclusion,  at 
which  I  had  arrived,  with  respect  to  this  subject.  It  is,  that 
species  inhabiting  a  very  large  area,  and  therefore  existing  in 
large  numbers,  and  which  have  been  subjected  to  the  severest 
competition  with  many  other  forms,  will  have  arrived,  through 
natural  selection,  at  a  higher  stage  of  perfection  than  the  in- 
habitants of  a  small  area.  Thus  I  explain  the  fact  of  so  many 
anomalies,  or  what  may  be  called  *^  living  fossils,'*  inhabiting 
now  only  fresh  water,  having  been  beaten  out,  and  extermi- 
nated in  the  sea,  by  more  improved  forms  ;  thus  all  existing 
Ganoid  fishes  are  fresh  water,  as  [are]  Lepidosiren  and 
Ornithorhynchus,  &c.  The  plants  of  Europe  and  Asia,  as 
being  the  largest  territory,  I  look  at  as  the  most  '^  improved," 
and  therefore  as  being  able  to  withstand  the  less-perfected 
Australian  plants  ;  though  these  could  not  resist  the  Indian. 
See  how  all  the  productions  of  New  Zealand  yield  to  those  of 
Europe.  I  dare  say  you  will  think  all  this  utter  bosh,  but  I 
believe  it  to  be  solid  truth. 

You  will,  I  think,  admit  that  Australian  plants,  flourishing 
so  in  India,  is  no  argument  that  they  could  hold  their  own 
against  the  ten  thousand  natural  contingencies  of  other  plants, 
insects,  animals,  &c.,  &c.  With  respect  to  South  West  Australia 


A  111 


i859.]  PLANS   FOR   PUBLICATION.  499 

I 

and  the  Cape,  I  am  shut  up,  and  can   only  d — n  the  whole 

case. 

.  .  .  You  say  you  should  like  to  see  my  MS.,  but  you  did 
read  and  approve  of  my  long  Glacial  chapter,  and  I  have  not 
yet  written  my  Abstract  on  the  whole  of  the  Geographical 
Distribution,  nor  shall  I  begin  it  for  two  or  three  weeks. 
But  either  Abstract  or  the  old  MS.  I  should  be  delighted  to 
send  you,  especially  the  Abstract  chapter.  .  .  . 

I  have  now  written  330  folio  pages  of  my  abstract,  and  it 
will  require  150-200  ;  so  that  it  will  make  a  printed  volume 
of  400  pages,  and  must  be  printed  separately,  which  I  think 
will  be  better  in  many  respects.  The  subject  really  seems  to 
me  too  large  for  discussion  at  any  Society,  and  I  believe 
religion  would  be  brought  in  by  men  whom  I  know. 

I  am  thinking  of  a  i2mo  volume,  like  LyelFs  fourth  or 
fifth  edition  of  the  ^  Principles.*  .  .  . 

I  have  written  you   a  scandalously  long  note.     So  now 

good  bye,  my  dear  Hooker, 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  Jan.  20th,  1859. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  should  very  much  like  to  borrow 
Heer  at  some  future  time,  for  I  want  to  read  nothing  per- 
plexing at  present  till  my  Abstract  is  done.  Your  last  very 
instructive  letter  shall  make  me  very  cautious  on  the  hyper- 
speculative  points  we  have  been  discussing. 

When  you  say  you  cannot  master  the  train  of  thoughts, 
I  know  well  enough  that  they  are  too  doubtful  and  obscure 
to  be  mastered.  I  have  often  experienced  what  you  call  the 
humiliating  feeling  of  getting  more  and  more  involved  in 
doubt  the  more  one  thinks  of  the  facts  and  reasoning  on 
doubtful  points.  But  I  always  comfort  myself  with  thinking 
of  the  future,  and  in  the  full  belief  that  the  problems  which 
we  are  just  entering  on,  will  some  day  be  solved  ;  and  if  we 


500    THE   WRITING  OF  THE   'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

just  break  the  ground  we  shall  have  done  some  service,  even 
if  we  reap  no  harvest. 

I  quite  agree  that  we  only  differ  in  degree  about  the  means 
of  dispersal,  and  that  I  think  a  satisfactory  amount  of  accord- 
ance. You  put  in  a  very  striking  manner  the  mutation  of  our 
continents,  and  I  quite  agree  ;  I  doubt  only  about  our  oceans. 

I  also  agree  (I  am  in  a  very  agreeing  frame  of  mind)  with 
your  argumentum  ad  hominem,  about  the  highness  of  the 
Australian  Flora  from  the  number  of  species  and  genera  ;  but 
here  comes  in  a  superlative  bothering  element  of  -doubt,  viz., 
the  effect  of  isolation. 

The  only  point  in  which  1  presumptuously  rather  demur  is 
about  the  status  of  the  naturalised  plants  in  Australia.  I 
think  Muller  speaks  of  their  having  spread  largely  beyond 
cultivated  ground  ;  and  I  can  hardly  believe  that  our  Euro- 
pean plants  would  occupy  stations  so  barren  that  the  native 
plants  could  not  live  there.  I  should  require  much  evidence 
to  make  me  believe  this.  I  have  written  this  note  merely  to 
thank  you,  as  you  will  see  it  requires  no  answer. 

I  have  heard  to  my  amazement  this  morning  from  Phillips 

that  the  Geological  Council  have   given   me    the  Wollaston 

Medal!!! 

Ever  yours, 

C.  Darv/in. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D    Hooker, 

Down,  Jan.  23d,  1859. 

...  I  enclose  letters  to  you  and  me  from  Wallace.  I  ad- 
mire extremely  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  written.  I  never 
felt  very  sure  what  he  would  say.  He  must  be  an  amiable 
man.  Please  return  that  to  me,  and  Lyell  ought  to  be  told 
how  well  satisfied  he  is.  These  letters  have  vividly  brought 
before  me  how  much  I  owe  to  your  and  Lyell's  most  kind  and 
generous  conduct  in  all  this  affair. 

.  .  .  How  glad  I  shall  be  when  the  Abstract  is  finished, 
and  I  can  rest !  .  .  . 


i859.]  MR.   WALLACE.  501 

C.  Darwin  to  A,  R.   Wallace, 

Down,  Jan.  25th  [1859]. 

My  dear  Sir, — I  was  extremely  much  pleased  at  receiving 
three  days  ago  your  letter  to  me  and  that  to  Dr.  Hooker. 
Permit  me  to  say  how  heartily  I  admire  the  spirit  in  which 
they  are  written.  Though  I  had  absolutely  nothing  whatever 
to  do  in  leading  Lyell  and  Hooker  to  what  they  thought  a 
fair  course  of  action,  yet  I  naturally  could  not  but  feel  anxious 
to  hear  what  your  impression  would  be.  I  owe  indirectly 
much  to  you  and  them  ;  for  I  almost  think  that  Lyell  would 
have  proved  right,  and  I  should  never  have  completed  my 
larger  work,  for  I  have  found  my  Abstract  hard  enough  with 
my  poor  health,  but  now,  thank  God,  I  am  in  my  last  chapter 
but  one.  My  Abstract  will  make  a  small  volume  of  400  or 
500  pages.  Whenever  published,  I  will,  of  course,  send  you 
a  copy,  and  then  you  will  see  what  I  mean  about  the  part 
which  I  believe  selection  has  played  with  domestic  produc- 
tions. It  is  a  very  different  part,  as  you  suppose,  from  that 
played  by  "Natural  Selection."  I  sent  off,  by  the  same  ad- 
dress as  this  note,  a  copy  of  the  ^  Journal  of  the  Linnean  So- 
ciety,* and  subsequently  I  have  sent  some  half-dozen  copies 
of  the  paper.  I  have  many  other  copies  at  your  dis- 
posal. .  .  . 

I  am  glad  to  hear  that  you  have  been  attending  to  birds' 
nests.  I  have  done  so,  though  almost  exclusively  under  one 
point  of  view,  viz.,  to  show  that  instincts  vary,  so  that  selec- 
tion could  work  on  and  improve  them.  Few  other  instincts, 
so  to  speak,  can  be  preserved  in  a  Museum. 

Many  thanks  for  your  offer  to  look  after  horses'  stripes ; 
if  there  are  any  donkeys,  pray  add  them.     I  am  delighted  to 

hear  that  you  have  collected  bees'  combs This  is  an 

especial  hobby  of  mine,  and  I  think  I  can  throw  a  light  on 
the  subject.  If  you  can  collect  duplicates,  at  no  very  great 
expense,  I  should  be  glad  of  some  specimens  for  myself  with 
some  bees  of  each  kind.  Young,  growing,  and  irregular 
combs,  and  those  which  have  not  had  pupae,  are  most  valua- 


502    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

ble  for  measurements  and  examination.     Their  edges  should 
be  well  protected  against  abrasion. 

Every  one  whom  I  have  seen  has  thought  your  paper  very 
well  written  and  interesting.  It  puts  my  extracts  (written  in 
1839,  now  just  twenty  years  ago  !),  which  I  must  say  in  apol- 
ogy were  never  for  an  instant  intended  for  publication,  into 
the  shade. 

You  ask  about  Lyell's  frame  of  mind.  I  think  he  is  some- 
what staggered,  but  does  not  give  in,  and  speaks  with  horror, 
often  to  me,  of  what  a  thing  it  would  be,  and  what  a  job  it 
would  be  for  the  next  edition  of  ^  The  Principles,'  if  he  were 
^'perverted/*  But  he  is  most  candid  and  honest,  and  I  think  | 
will  end  by  being /^rverted.  Dr.  Hooker  has  become  almost  | 
as  heterodox  as  you  or  I,  and  I  look  at  Hooker  as  by  far  the 
most  capable  judge  in  Europe. 

Most  cordially  do  I  wish  you  health  and  entire  success  in  \ 
all  your  pursuits,  and,  God  knows,  if  admirable  zeal  and 
energy  deserve  success,  most  amply  do  you  deserve  it.  I  look 
at  my  own  career  as  nearly  run  out.  If  I  can  publish  my 
Abstract  and  perhaps  my  greater  work  on  the  same  subject, 
I  shall  look  at  my  course  as  done. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  sir,  yours  very  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  March  2nd  [1859]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — Here  is  an  odd,  though  very  little, 
fact.  I  think  it  would  be  hardly  possible  to  name  a  bird 
which  apparently  could  have  less  to  do  with  distribution  than 
a  Petrel.  Sir  W.  Milner,  at  St.  Kilda,  cut  open  some  young 
nestling  Petrels,  and  he  found  large,  curious  nuts  in  theirs 
crops ;  I  suspect  picked  up  by  parent  birds  from  the  Gulf 
stream.  He  seems  to  value  these  nuts  excessively.  I  have 
asked  him  (but  I  doubt  whether  he  will)  to  send  a  nut  to  Sir 
William  Hooker  (I  gave  this  address  for  grandeur  sake) 
to  see  if  any  of  you  can  name  it  and  its  native  country.    Will 


l859.]  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION.  503 

yow  please  mention  this  to  Sir  William  Hooker,  and  if  the  nut 
does  arrive,  will  you  oblige  me  by  returning  it  to  **  Sir  W. 
Milner,  Bart,  Nunappleton,  Tadcaster/'  in  a  registered  letter, 
and  I  will  repay  you  postage.  Enclose  slip  of  paper  with  the 
name  and  country  if  you  can,  and  let  me  hereafter  know. 
Forgive  me  asking  you  to  take  this  much  trouble  ;  for  it  is  a 
funny  little  fact  after  my  own  heart. 

Now  for  another  subject.  I  have  finished  my  Abstract  of 
the  chapter  on  Geographical  Distribution,  as  bearing  on  my 
subject.  I  should  like  you  much  to  read  it;  but  I  say  this, 
believing  that  you  will  not  do  so,  if,  as  I  believe  to  be  the 
case,  you  are  extra  busy.  On  my  honour,  I  shall  not  be  mor- 
tified, and  I  earnestly  beg  you  not  to  do  it,  if  it  will  bother 
you.  I  want  it,  because  I  here  feel  especially  unsafe,  and 
errors  may  have  crept  in.  Also,  I  should  much  like  to  know 
what  parts  you  will  most  vehemently  object  to.  I  know  we  do, 
and  must,  differ  widely  on  several  heads.  Lastly,  I  should 
like  particularly  to  know  whether  I  have  taken  anything  from 
you,  which  you  would  like  to  retain  for  first  publication ;  but 
I  think  I  have  chiefly  taken  from  your  published  works,  and, 
though  I  have  several  times,  in  this  chapter  and  elsewhere, 
acknowledged  your  assistance,  I  am  aware  that  it  is  not  pos- 
sible for  me  in  the  Abstract  to  do  it  sufficiently.*  But  again 
let  me  say  that  you  must  not  offer  to  read  it  if  very  irksome. 
lit  is  long — about  ninety  pages,  I  expect,  when  fully  copied 
lout. 

I  hope  you  are  all  well.     Moor  Park  has  done  me  some 
|good.  Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — Heaven  forgive  me,  here  is  another  question  :  How 
far  am  I  right  in  supposing  that  with  plants,  the  most  impor- 


*  << 


I  never  did  pick  any  one's  pocket,  but  whilst  writing  my  present 
:hapter  I  keep  on  feeling  (even  when  differing  most  from  you)  just  as  if  \ 
ivere  stealing  from  you,  so  much  do  I  owe  to  your  writings  and  conversa- 
ion,  so  much  more  than  mere  acknowledgments  show." — Letter  to  Sir 
f.  D.  Hooker,  1859. 


504    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  ^ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

tant  characters  for  main  divisions  are  Embryological  ?  The 
seed  itself  cannot  be  considered  as  such,  I  suppose,  nor  the 
albumens,  &c.  But  I  suppose  the  Cotyledons  and  their  posi- 
tion, and  the  position  of  the  plumule  and  the  radicle,  and  the 
position  and  form  of  the  whole  embryo  in  the  seed  are 
embryological,  and  how  far  are  these  very  important  ?  I  wish 
to  instance  plants  as  a  case  of  high  importance  of  embryo- 
logical characters  in  classification.  In  the  Animal  Kingdom 
there  is,  of  course,  no  doubt  of  this. 


C.  Darwin  to  /.  D,  Hooker, 

Down,  March  5th  [1859]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — Many  thanks  about  the  seed  .  .  . 
it  is  curious.  Petrels  at  St.  Kilda  apparently  being  fed  by 
seeds  raised  in  the  West  Indies.  It  should  be  noted  whether 
it  is  a  nut  ever  imported  into  England.  I  am  very  glad  you 
will  read  my  Geographical  MS. ;  it  is  now  copying,  and  it  will 
(I  presume)  take  ten  days  or  so  in  being  finished  ;  it  shall  be 
sent  as  soon  as  done.  .   .  . 

I  shall  be  very  glad  to  see  your  embryological  ideas  on 
plants  ;  by  the  sentence  which  I  sent  you,  you  will  see  that 
I  only  want  one  sentence;  if  facts  are  at  all,  as  I  suppose, 
and  I  shall  see  this  from  your  note,  for  sending  which  very 
many  thanks. 

I  have  been  so  poorly,  the  last  three  days,  that  I  sometimes 
doubt  whether  I  shall  ever  get  my  little  volume  done,  though 
so  nearly  completed.  ... 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D,  Hooker. 

Down,  March  15th  [1859]. 
My  dear  Hooker, — I  am  pleased  at  what  you  say  of  my 
chapter.  You  have  not  attacked  it  nearly  so  much  as  I 
feared  you  would.  You  do  not  seem  to  have  detected  many 
errors.  It  was  nearly  all  written  from  memory,  and  hence  I 
was  particularly  fearful ;    it  would  have   been  better  if  the 


I 


i859.]  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION.  505 

whole  had  first  been  carefully  written  out,  and  abstracted 
afterwards.  I  look  at  it  as  morally  certain  that  it  must  include 
much  error  in  some  of  its  general  views.  I  will  just  run  over 
a  few  points  in  your  note,  but  do  not  trouble  yourself  to  re- 
ply without  you  have  something  important  to  say.  .  .  . 

...  I  should  like  to  know  whether  the  case  of  Endemic 
bats  in  islands  struck  you  ;  it  has  me  especially ;  perhaps  too 
strongly. 

With  hearty  thanks,  ever  yours, 

C.   Darwin. 

P.  S.  You  cannot  tell  what  a  relief  it  has  been  to  me  your 
looking  over  this  chapter,  as  I  felt  very  shaky  on  it. 

I  shall  to-morrow  finish  my  last  chapter  (except  a  recapitu- 
lation) on  Affinities,  Homologies,  Embryology,  &c.,  and  the 
facts  seem  to  me  to  come  out  ve7y  strong  for  mutability  of 
species. 

I  have  been  much  interested  in  working  out  the  chapter. 

I  shall  now,  thank  God,  begin  looking  over  old  first  chap- 
ters for  press. 

But  my  health  is  now  so  very  poor,  that  even  this  will  take 
me  long. 

C.  Darwin  to    fV.  D.  Fox, 

Down  [March]  24th  [1859]. 

My  dear  Fox, — It  was  very  good  of  you  to  write  to  me 
in  the  midst  of  all  your  troubles,  though  you  seem  to  have 
got  over  some  of  them,  in  the  recovery  of  your  wife's  and 
your  own  health.  I  had  not  heard  lately  of  your  mother's 
health,  and  am  sorry  to  hear  so  poor  an  account.  But  as 
she  does  not  suffer^much,  that  is  the  great  thing;  for  mere 
life  I  do  not  think  is  much  valued  by  the  old.  What  a  time 
you  must  have  had  of  it,  when  you  had  to  go  backwards  and 
forwards. 

We  are  all  pretty  well,  and  our  eldest  daughter  is  improv- 
ing. I  can  see  daylight  through  my  work,  and  am  now  finally 
23 


5o6    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

correcting  my  chapters  for  the  press  ;  and  I  hope  in  a  month 
or  six  weeks  to  have  proof-sheets.  I  am  weary  of  my  work. 
It  is  a  very  odd  thing  that  I  have  no  sensation  that  I  over- 
work my  brain  ;  but  facts  compel  me  to  conclude  that  my 
brain  was  never  formed  for  much  thinking.  We  are  resolved 
to  go  for  two  or  three  months,  when  I  have  finished,  to  Hkley, 
or  some  such  place,  to  see  if  I  can  anyhow  give  my  health 
a  good  start,  for  it  certainly  has  been  wretched  of  late,  and 
has  incapacitated  me  for  everything.  You  do  me  injustice 
when  you  think  that  I  work  for  fame  ;  I  value  it  to  a  certain 
extent ;  but,  if  I  know  myself,  I  work  from  a  sort  of  instinct 
to  try  to  make  out  truth.  How  glad  I  should  be  if  you  could 
sometime  come  to  Down  ;  especially  when  I  get  a  little  better, 
as  I  still  hope  to  be.  We  have  set  up  a  billiard  table,  and  I 
find  it  does  me  a  deal  of  good,  and  drives  the  horrid  species 
out  of  my  head.     Farewell,  my  dear  old  friend. 

Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.   Darwin    to  C.  Lycll. 

Down,  March  28lh  [1859]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — H  I  keep  decently  well,  I  hope  to  bej 
able  to  go  to  press  with  my  volume  early  in  May.  This  being* 
so,  I  want  much  to  beg  a  little  advice  from  you.  From  an 
expression  in  Lady  Lyeirs  note,  I  fancy  that  you  have  spoken 
to  Murray.  Is  it  so  ?  And  is  he  willing  to  publish  my  Ab- 
stract? If  you  will  tell  me  whether  anything,  and  what  has 
passed,  I  will  then  write  to  him.  Does  he  know  at  all  of  the 
subject  of  the  book?  Secondly,  can  you  advise  me,  whether 
I  had  better  state  what  terms  of  publication  I  should  prefer, 
or  first  ask  him  to  propose  terms  ?  And  what  do  you  think 
would  be  fair  terms  for  an  edition  ?     Shane  profits,  or  what  ? 

Lastly,  will  you  be  so  very  kind  as  to  look  at  the  enclosed 
title  and  give  me  your  opinion  and  any  criticisms ;  you  must 
remember  that,  if  I  have  health  and  it  appears  worth  doing,  I 
have  a  much  larger  and  full  book  on  the  same  subject  nearly 
ready. 


1859-]  PLANS   FOR    PUBLICATION.  507 

My  Abstract  will  be  about  five  hundred  pages  of  the  size 
of  your  first  edition  of  the  ^  Elements  of  Geology.' 

Pray  forgive  me  troubling  you  with  the  above  queries ; 
and  you  shall  have  no  more  trouble  on  the  subject.  I  hope 
the  world  goes  well  with  you,  and  that  you  are  getting  on 
with  your  various  works. 

I  am  working  very  hard  for  me,  and  long  to  finish  and  be 
free  and  try  to  recover  some  health. 

My  dear  Lyell,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

Very  sincere  thanks  to  you  for  standing  my  proxy  for  the 
Wollaston  Medal. 

P.  S.  Would  you  advise  me  to  tell  Murray  that  my  book 
is  not  more  ^/^-orthodox  than  the  subject  makes  inevitable. 
That  I  do  not  discuss  the  origin  of  man.  That  I  do  not  bring 
in  any  discussion  about  Genesis,  &c.,  &c.,and  only  give  facts, 
and  such  conclusions  from  them  as  seem  to  me  fair. 

Or  had  I  better  say  nothing  to  Murray,  and  assume  that 
he  cannot  object  to  this  much  unorthodoxy,  which  in  fact  is 
not  more  than  any  Geological  Treatise  which  runs  slap 
counter  to  Genesis. 

l7tclosure. 

AN   ABSTRACT    OF   AN    ESSAY 

ON   THE 

ORIGIN 

OF 

SPECIES    AND    VARIETIES 

THROUGH   NATURAL   SELECTION 

BY 

Charles  Darwin,  M.A. 

FELLOW  OF  THE   ROYAL  GEOLOGICAL  AND   LINNEAN  SOCIETIES 


LONDON  : 

&c.,  &c.,  (Sec,  &c. 

1859- 


5o8    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  *  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [iSsg. 

C  Darwin  to  C.  LyelL 

Down,  March  30th  [1859]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — You  have  been  uncommonly  kind  in 
all  you  have  done.  You  not  only  have  saved  me  much 
trouble  and  some  anxiety,  but  have  done  all  incomparably 
better  than  I  could  have  done  it.  I  am  much  pleased  at  all 
you  say  about  Murray.  I  will  write  either  to-day  or  to- 
morrow to  him,  and  will  send  shortly  a  large  bundle  of  MS., 
but  unfortunately  I  cannot  for  a  week,  as  the  first  three  chap- 
ters are  in  the  copyists'  hands. 

I  am  sorry  about  Murray  objecting  to  the  term  Abstract, 
as  I  look  at  it  as  the  only  possible  apology  for  not  giving 
references  and  facts  in  full,  but  I  will  defer  to  him  and  you. 
I  am  also  sorry  about  the  term  "natural  selection,'*  I  hope 
to  retain  it  with  explanation  somewhat  as  thus  — 

"  Through  natural  selection,  or  the  preservation  of  favoured  Races." 

Why  I  like  the  term  is  that  it  is  constantly  used  in  all 
works  on  breeding,  and  I  am  surprised  that  it  is  not  familiar 
to  Murray;  but  I  have  so  long  studied  such  works  that  I 
have  ceased  to  be  a  competent  judge. 

I  again  most  truly  and  cordially  thank  you  for  your  really 
valuable  assistance. 

Yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  J,  D,  Hooker. 

Down,  April  2nd  [1859]. 

....  I  wrote  to  him  [Mr.  Murray]  and  gave  him  the 
headings  of  the  chapters,  and  told  him  he  could  not  have  the 
MS.  for  ten  days  or  so  ;  and  this  morning  I  received  a  letter, 
offering  me  handsome  terms,  and  agreeing  to  publish  with- 
out seeing  the  MS. !  So  he  is  eager  enough  ;  I  think 
should  have  been  cautious,  anyhow,  but,  owing  to  your  letter, 
I  told  him  most  explicitly  that  I  accept  his  offer  solely  on  con- 


1859.]  PLANS   FOR   PUBLICATION.  509 

dition  that,  after  he  has  seen  part  or  all  the  MS.,  he  has  full 
power  of  retracting.  You  will  think  me  presumptuous,  but 
I  think  my  book  will  be  popular  to  a  certain  extent  (enough 
to  ensure  [against]  heavy  loss)  amongst  scientific  and  semi- 
scientific  men ;  why  I  think  so  is,  because  I  have  found  in 
conversation  so  great  and  surprising  an  interest  amongst  such 
men,  and  some  o-scientific  [non-scientific]  men  on  this  subject, 
and  all  my  chapters  are  not  nearly  so  dry  and  dull  as  that 
which  you  have  read  on  geographical  distribution.  Anyhow, 
Murray  ought  to  be  the  best  judge,  and  if  he  chooses  to  pub- 
lish it,  I  think  I  may  wash  my  hands  of  all  responsibility.  I 
am  sure  my  friends,  /.  <?.,  Lyell  and  you,  have  been  extraordi- 
narily kind  in  troubling  yourselves  on  the  matter. 

I  shall  be  delighted  to  see  you  the  day  before  Good 
Friday  ;  there  would  be  one  advantage  for  you  in  any  other 
day — as  I  believe  both  my  boys  come  home  on  that  day — 
and  it  would  be  almost  impossible  that  I  could  send  the 
carriage  for  you.  There  will,  I  believe,  be  some  relations  in 
the  house — but  I  hope  you  will  not  care  for  that,  as  we  shall 
easily  get  as  much  talking  as  my  imbecile  state  allows.  I  shall 
deeply  enjoy  seeing  you. 

....  I  am  tired,  so  no  more. 

My  dear  Hooker,  your  affectionate, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — Please  to  send,  well  tied  up  with  strong  string,  my 
Geographical  MS.,  towards  the  latter  half  of  next  week — i.e., 
7th  or  8th — that  I  may  send  it  with  more  to  Murray  ;  and 
God  help  him  if  he  tries  to  read  it. 

....  I  cannot  help  a  little  doubting  whether  Lyell  would 
take  much  pains  to  induce  Murray  to  publish  my  book  ;  this 
was  not  done  at  my  request,  and  it  rather  grates  against  my 
pride. 

I  know  that  Lyell  has  been  infinitely  kind  about  my  affair, 
but  your  dashed  [/.  e.,  underlined]  "  induce  "  gives  the  idea  that 
Lyell  had  unfairly  urged  Murray. 


5IO    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

C  Darwin  to  Asa  Gray, 

April  4lh  [1859]. 

....  You  ask  to  see  my  sheets  as  printed  off  ;  I  assure 
you  that  it  will  be  the  highest  satisfaction  to  me  to  do  so :  I 
look  at  the  request  as  a  high  compliment.  I  shall  not,  you 
may  depend,  forget  a  request  which  I  look  at  as  a  favour. 
But  (and  it  is  a  heavy  "  but ''  to  me)  it  will  be  long  before  I 
go  to  press ;  I  can  truly  say  I  am  never  idle ;  indeed,  I  work 
too  hard  for  my  much  weakened  health ;  yet  I  can  do  only 
three  hours  of  work  daily,  and  I  cannot  at  all  see  when  I  shall 
have  finished  :  I  have  done  eleven  long  chapters,  but  I  have 
got  some  other  very  difficult  ones :  as  palaeontology,  classifi- 
cations, and  embryology,  &c.,  and  I  have  to  correct  and  add 
largely  to  all  those  done.  I  find,  alas  !  each  chapter  takes  me 
on  an  average  three  months,  so  slow  I  am.  There  is  no  end 
to  the  necessary  digressions.  I  have  just  finished  a  chapter 
on  Instinct,  and  here  I  found  grappling  with  such  a  subject  as 
bees'  cells,  and  comparing  all  my  notes  made  during  twenty 
years,  took  up  a  despairing  length  of  time. 

But  I  am  running  on  about  myself  in  a  most  egotistical 
style.  Yet  I  must  just  say  how  useful  I  have  again  and  again 
found  your  letters,  which  I  have  lately  been  looking  over  and 
quoting  !  but  you  need  not  fear  that  I  shall  quote  anything 
you  would  dislike,  for  I  try  to  be  very  cautious  on  this 
head.  I  most  heartily  hope  you  may  succeed  in  getting  your 
"  incubus  *'  of  old  work  off  your  hands,  and  be  in  some  degree 
a  free  man.  .  .  . 

Again  let  me  say  that  I  do  indeed  feel  grateful  to  you  .  .  . 

C  Darwin  to  J,  Murray. 

Down,  April  5th  [18-9]. 

My  dear  Sir, — T  send  by  this  post,  the  Title  (with  some 
remarks  on  a  separate  page),  and  the  first  three  chapters. 
If  you  have  patience  to  read  all  Chapter  I.,  I  honestly  think 
you  will  have  a  fair  notion  of  the  interest  of  the  whole  book. 


I 


i859.]  LOST    MANUSCRIPT.  en 

It  may  be  conceit,  but  I  believe  the  subject  will  interest 
the  public,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  views  are  original.  If  you 
think  otherwise,  I  must  repeat  my  request  that  you  will  freely 
reject  my  work  ;  and  though  I  shall  be  a  little  disappointed,  I 
shall  be  in  no  way  injured.       * 

If  you  choose  to  read  Chapters  II.  and  III.,  you  will  have 
a  dull  and  rather  abstruse  chapter,  and  a  plain  and  interesting 
one,  in  my  opinion. 

As  soon  as  you  have  done  with  the  MS.,  please  to  send  it 
by  careful  messenger^  and  plainly  directed^  to  Miss  G.  Toilet t, 
14,  Queen  Anne  Street,  Cavendish  Square. 

This  lady,  being  an  excellent  judge  of  style,  is  going  to  look 
out  for  errors  for  me. 

You  must  take  your  own  time,  but  the  sooner  you  finish, 
the  sooner  she  will,  and  the  sooner  I  shall  get  to  press,  which 
I  so  earnestly  wish. 

I  presume  you  will  wish  to  see  Chapter  IV.,  the  key-stone 
of  my  arch,  and  Chapters  X.  and  XI.,  but  please  to  inform 
me  on  this  head. 

My  dear  Sir,  yours  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

C  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  April  nth  [1859]. 

...  I  write  one  line  to  say  that  I  heard  from  Murray 
yesterday,  and  he  says  he  has  read  the  first  three  chapters  of 
one  MS.  (and  this  includes  a  very  dull  one,  and  he  abides  by 
his  offer).  Hence  he  does  not  want  more  MS.,  and  you  can 
send  my  Geographical  chapter  when  it  pleases  you.  .  .  . 

[Part  of  the  MS.  seems  to  have  been  lost  on  its  way  back 
to  my  father;  he  wrote  (April  14)  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  :] 

*'  I  have  the  old  MS.,  otherwise,  the  loss  would  have  killed 
me  !  The  worst  is  now  that  it  will  cause  delay  in  getting  to 
press,  and  far  worst  of  all,  lose  all  advantage  of  your  having 


512    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

looked  over  my  chapter,  except  the  third  part  returned.  I 
am  very  sorry  Mrs.  Hooker  took  the  trouble  of  copying  the 
two  pages." 

C  Darwin  to*/.  D.  Hooker. 

[April  or  May,  1859] 
.  .  .  Please  do  not  say  to  any  one  that  I  thought  my  book 
on  Species  would  be  fairly  popular,  and  have  a  fairly  remu- 
nerative sale  (which  was  the  height  of  my  ambition),  for  if  it 
prove  a  dead  failure,  it  would  make  me  the  more  ridiculous. 
I  enclose  a  criticism,  a  taste  of  the  future — 

Rev.  S.  Hang h ton's  Address  to  the  Geological  Society^  Dublin."^ 
**  This  speculation  of  Messrs.  Darwin  and  Wallace  would 
not  be  worthy  of  notice  were  it  not  for  the  weight  of  authority 
of  the  names  (/.  e.  Lyell's  and  yours),  under  whose  auspices  it 
has  been  brought  forward.  If  it  means  what  it  says,  it  is  a 
truism  ;  if  it  means  anything  more,  it  is  contrary  to  fact." 

Q.  E.  D. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  May  nth  [1859], 
My  dear  Hooker, —  Thank  you  for  telling  me  about 
obscurity  of  style.  But  on  my  life  no  nigger  with  lash  over 
him  could  have  worked  harder  at  clearness  than  I  have  done. 
But  the  very  difficulty  to  me,  of  itself  leads  to  the  probability 
that  I  fail.  Yet  one  lady  who  has  read  all  my  MS.  has  found 
only  two  or  three  obscure  sentences,  but  Mrs.  Hooker  having 
So  found  it,  makes  me  tremble.  I  will  do  my  best  in  proofs. 
You  are  a  good  man  to  take  the  trouble  to  write  about  it. 
With  respect  to  our  mutual  muddle,  f  I  never  for  a  moment 

*  Feb.  9,  1859. 

\  "  When  I  go  over  the  chapter  I  will  see  what  I  can  do,  but  I  hardly 
know  how  I  am  obscure,  and  I  think  we  are  somehow  in  a  mutual  muddle 
with  respect  to  each  other,  from  starting  from  some  fundamentally  differ- 
ent notions." — Letter  of  May  6,  1859. 


i 


JM  li 


1859]  HEALTH    FAILING.  513 

thought  we  could  not  make  our  ideas  clear  to  each  other  by 
talk,  or  if  either  of  us  had  time  to  write  in  extenso. 

I  imagine  from  some  expressions  (but  if  you  ask  me  what, 
I  could  not  answer)  that  you  look  at  variability  as  some 
necessary  contingency  with  organisms,  and  further  that  there 
is  some  necessary  tendency  in  the  variability  to  go  on  diverg- 
ing in  character  or  degree.  If  you  do,  I  do  not  agree.  "  Re- 
version "  again  (a  form  of  inheritance),  I  look  at  as  in  no 
way  directly  connected  with  Variation,  though  of  course 
inheritance  is  of  fundamental  importance  to  us,  for  if  a  varia- 
tion be  not  inherited,  it  is  of  no  significance  to  us.  It  was 
on  such  points  as  these  I  fancied  that  we  perhaps  started 
differently. 

I  fear  that  my  book  will  not  deserve  at  all  the  pleasant 
things  you  say  about  it ;  and  Good  Lord,  how  I  do  long  to 
have  done  with  it ! 

Since  the  above  was  written,  I  have  received  and  have 
been  much  interested  by  A.  Gray.  I  am  delighted  at  his  note 
about  my  and  Wallace's  paper.  He  will  go  round,  for  it  is 
futile  to  give  up  very  many  species,  and  stop  at  an  arbitrary 
line  at  others.  It  is  what  my  grandfather  called  Unitarian- 
ism,  "a  feather  bed  to  catch  a  falling  Christian.'*  .  .  . 


C,  Darivifi  to  J,  D.  Hooke7\ 

Down,  May  iSth  [1859]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — My  health  has  quite  failed.  I  am 
off  to-morrow  for  a  week  of  Hydropathy.  I  am  very  very 
sorry  to  say  that  I  cannot  look  over  any  proofs  *  in  the  week, 
as  my  object  is  to  drive  the  subject  out  of  my  head.  I  shall 
return  to-morrov/  week.  If  it  be  worth  while,  which  probably 
it  is  not,  you  could  keep  back  any  proofs  till  my  return  home. 

In  haste,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 


Of  Sir  J.  Hooker*s  Introduction  to  the  *  Flora  of  Australia/ 


514    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [iSSQ. 

[Ten  days  later  he  wrote  to  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  : 

*'..•!  write  one  word  to  say  that   I   shall   return  on 

Saturday,  and  if  you  have  any  proof-sheets  to  send,  I  shall 

be  glad  to  do  my  best  in  any  criticisms. 

I  had  .  .  .  great  prostration  of  mind  and  body,  but  entire 

rest,  and  the  douche,  and  *  Adam  Bede,'  have  together  done 

me  a  world  of  good."] 

C.  Darwin  to  J,  Murray, 

Down,  June  14th  [1859]. 

My  dear  Sir, — The  diagram  will  do  very  well,  and  I  will 
send  it  shortly  to  Mr.  West  to  have  a  few  trifling  corrections 
made. 

I  get  on  very  slowly  with  proofs.  I  remember  writing  to 
you  that  I  thought  there  would  be  not  much  correction.  I 
honestly  wrote  what  I  thought,  but  was  most  grievously  mis- 
taken. I  find  the  style  incredibly  bad,  and  most  difficult  to 
make  clear  and  smooth.  I  am  extremely  sorry  to  say,  on 
account  of  expense,  and  loss  of  time  for  me,  that  the  correc- 
tions are  very  heavy,  as  heavy  as  possible.  But  from  casual 
glances,  I  still  hope  that  later  chapters  are  not  so  badly  writ- 
ten. How  I  could  have  written  so  badly  is  quite  inconceiva- 
ble, but  I  suppose  it  was  owing  to  my  whole  attention  being 
fixed  on  the  general  line  of  argument,  and  not  on  details. 
All  I  can  say  is,  that  I  am  very  sorry. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S.  I  have  been  looking  at  the  corrections,  and  consid- 
ering them.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  shall  put  you  to  a  quite 
unfair  expense.  If  you  please  I  should  like  to  enter  into 
some  such  arrangement  as  the  following :  When  work  com- 
pleted, you  to  allow  in  the  account  a  fairly  moderately  heavy 
charge  for  corrections,  and  all  excess  over  that  to  be  deducted 
from  my  profits,  or  paid  by  me  individually. 


I 


iS59.]  PROOF-SHEETS.  515 

C.  Damnn  to  C,  Lyell. 

Down,  June  21st  [1859]. 
I  am  working  very  hard,  but  get  on  slowly,  for  I  find  that 
my  corrections  are  terrifically  heavy,  and  the  work  most 
difficult  to  me.  I  have  corrected  130  pages,  and  the  volume 
will  be  about  500.  I  have  tried  my  best  to  make  it  clear  and 
striking,  but  very  much  fear  that  I  have  failed — so  many  dis- 
cussions are  and  must  be  very  perplexing.  I  have  done  my 
best.  If  you  had  all  my  materials,  I  am  sure  you  would  have 
made  a  splendid  book.     I  long  to  finish,  for  I  am  nearly  worn 

out. 

My  dear  Lyell,  ever  yours  most  truly, 

C.  Darwin. 
C  Darwm  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  22nd  [June,  1S59]. 
My  dear  Hooker, — I  did  not  answer  your  pleasant  note, 
with  a  good  deal  of  news  to  me,  of  May  30th,  as  I  have  been 
expecting  proofs  from  you.  But  now,  having  nothing  par- 
ticular to  do,  I  will  fly  a  note,  though  I  have  nothing  particu- 
lar to  say  or  ask.  Indeed,  how  can  a  man  have  anything  to 
say,  who  spends  every  day  in  correcting  accursed  proofs  ; 
and  such  proofs  !  I  have  fairly  to  blacken  them,  and  fasten 
slips  of  paper  on,  so  miserable  have  I  found  the  style.  You 
say  that  you  dreamt  that  my  book  was  entertaining ;  that 
dream  is  pretty  well  over  with  me,  and  I  begin  to  fear  that 
the  public  will  find  it  intolerably  dry  and  perplexing.  But  I 
will  never  give  up  that  a  better  man  could  have  made  a 
splendid  book  out  of  the  materials.  I  was  glad  to  hear  about 
Presiwich's  paper.*  My  doubt  has  been  (and  I  see  Wright 
has  inserted  the  same  in  the  *  Athenaeum  ')  whether  the  pieces 
of  flint  are  really  tools  ;  their  numbers  make  me  doubt,  and 
when  I  formerly  looked  at  Boucher  de  Perthe's  drawings,  I 

*  ^Ir.  Prestwich  wrote  on  the  occurrence  of  flint  instruments  associated 
with  the  remains  of  extinct  animals  in  France. — (Proc.  R.  Soc,  1859.) 


5i6    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

came  to   the  conclusion  that   they  were   angular  fragments 
broken  by  ice  action. 

Did  crossing  the  Acacia  do  any  good  ?  I  am  so  hard 
worked,  that  I  can  make  no  experiments.  I  have  got  only 
to  150  pages  in  first  proof. 

Adios,  my  dear  Hooker,  ever  yours, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  Murray, 

Down,  July  25th  [1859]. 
My  dear  Sir, — I  write  to  say  that  five  sheets  are  returned 
to  the  printers  ready  to  strike  off,  and  two  more  sheets  require 
only  a  revise  ;  so  that  I  presume  you  will  soon  have  to  decide 
what  number  of  copies  to  print  off. 

I  am  quite  incapable  of  forming  an  opinion.     I  think  I 
have  got  the  stylt  fairly  good  and  clear,  with  infinite  trouble. 
But  whether  the  book  will  be  successful  to  a  degree  to  satisfy 
you,  I  really  cannot  conjecture.     I  heartily  hope  it  may. 
My  dear  Sir,  yours  very  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

C,  Darwin  to  A.  R.  Wallace, 

Down,  Aug.  9th,  1859. 
My  dear  Mr.  Wallace, — I  received  your  letter  and 
memoir*  on  the  7th,  and  will  forward  it  to-morrow  to  the 
Linnean  Society.  But  you  will  be  aware  that  there  is  no 
meeting  till  the  beginning  of  November.  Your  paper  seems 
to  me  admirable  in  matter,  style,  and  reasoning ;  and  I  thank 
you  for  allowing  me  to  read  it.  Had  I  read  it  some  months 
ago,  I  should  have  profited  by  it  for  my  forthcoming  volume. 
But  my  two  chapters  on  this  subject  are  in  type,  and,  though 
not  yet  corrected,  I  am  so  wearied  out  and  weak  in  health, 
that  I  am  fully  resolved  not  to  add  one  word,  and  merely 
improve  the  style.     So  you  will  see  that  my  views  are  nearly 

*  This   seems   to   refer  to  Mr.  Wallace's   paper,  "  On   the   Zoological 
Geography  of  the  Malay  Archipelago,"  *  Linn.  Soc.  Journ,*  i860. 


1859-]  ISLANDS.  517 

the  same  with  yours,  and  you  may  rely  on  it  that  not  one 
word  shall  be.  altered  owing  to  my  having  read  your  ideas. 
Are  you  aware  that  Mr.  W.  Earl*  published  several  years 
ago  the  view  of  distribution  of  animals  in  the  Malay  Archi- 
pelago, in  relation  to  the  depth  of  the  sea  between  the  islands  ? 
I  was  much  struck  with  this,  and  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
noting  all  facts  in  distribution  in  that  archipelago,  and  else- 
where, in  this  relation.  I  have  been  led  to  conclude  that 
there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  naturalisation  in  the  different 
Malay  islands,  and  which  I  have  thought,  to  a  certain  extent, 
would  account  for  anomalies.  Timor  has  been  my  greatest 
puzzle.  AVhat  do  you  say  to  the  peculiar  Felis  there  ?  I 
wish  that  you  had  visited  Timor ;  it  has  been  asserted  that  a 
fossil  mastodon's  or  elephant's  tooth  (I  forget  which)  has  been 
found  there,  which  would  be  a  grand  fact.  I  was  aware  that 
Celebes  was  very  peculiar ;  but  the  relation  to  Africa  is  quite 
new  to  me,  and  marvellous,  and  almost  passes  belief.  It  is  as 
anomalous  as  the  relation  of  plants  in  S.  W.  Australia  to  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope.  I  differ  wholly  from  you  on  the  coloni- 
sation of  oceanic  islands,  but  you  will  have  every  07ie  else 
on  your  side.  I  quite  agree  with  respect  to  all  islands  not 
situated  far  in  the  ocean.  I  quite  agree  on  the  little  occa- 
sional intermigration  between  lands  [islands.^]  when  once 
pretty  well  stocked  with  inhabitants,  but  think  this  does  not 
apply  to  rising  and  ill-stocked  islands.  Are  you  aware  that 
annually  birds  are  blown  to  Madeira,  the  Azores  (and  to 
Bermuda  from  America).  I  wish  I  had  given  a  fuller  abstract 
of  my  reasons  for  not  believing  in  Forbes'  great  continental 
extensions  ;  but  it  is  too  late,  for  I  will  alter  nothing — I  am 
worn  out,  and  must  have  rest.  Owen,  I  do  not  doubt,  will 
bitterly  oppose  us.  .  ,  .  Hooker  is  publishing  a  grand  intro- 
duction to  the  Flora  of  Australia,  and  goes  the  whole  length. 
I  have  seen  proofs  of  about  half.  With  every  good  wish. 
Believe  me,  yours  very  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

*  Probably  Mr.  W.  Earle*s  paper,  Geographical  Soc.  Journal,  1845. 


5i8    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.      [1859. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Down,  Sept.  ist  [1859J. 

...  I  am  not  surprised  at  your  finding  your  Introduction 
very  difficult.  But  do  not  grudge  the  labour,  and  do  not  say 
you  '^have  burnt  your  fingers,"  and  are  ^Meep  in  the  mud"; 
for  I  feel  sure  that  the  result  will  be  well  worth  the  labour. 
Unless  I  am  a  fool,  I  must  be  a  judge  to  some  extent  of  the 
value  of  such  general  essays,  and  I  am  fully  convinced  that 
yours  are  the  most  valuable  ever  published. 

I  have  corrected  all  but  the  last  two  chapters  of  my  book, 
and  hope  to  have  done  revises  and  all  in  about  three  weeks 
and  then  I  (or  we  all)  shall  start  for  some  months*  hydropa- 
thy; my  health  has  been  very  bad,  and  I  am  becoming  as 
weak  as  a  child,  and  incapable  of  doing  anything  whatever, 
except  my  three  hours  daily  work  at  proof-sheets.  God  knows 
whether  I  shall  ever  be  good  at  anything  again,  perhaps  a 
long  rest  and  hydropathy  may  do  something. 

I  have  not  had  A.  Gray's  Essay,  and  should  not  feel  up  to 
criticise  it,  even  if  I  had  the  impertinence  and  courage.  You 
will  believe  me  that  I  speak  strictly  the  truth  when  I  say 
that  your  Australian  Essay  is  extremely  interesting  to  me> 
rather  too  much  so.  I  enjoy  reading  it  over,  and  if  you  think 
my  criticisms  are  worth  anything  to  you,  I  beg  you  to  send 
the  sheets  (if  you  can  give  me  time  for  good  days);  but 
unless  I  can  render  you  any  little,  however  little  assistance, 
I  would  rather  read  the  essay  when  published.  Pray  under- 
stand that  I  should  be  truly  vexed  not  to  read  them,  if  you 
wish  it  for  your  own  sake. 

I  had  a  terribly  long  fit  of  sickness  yesterday,  which  makes 
the  world  rather  extra  gloomy  to-day,  and  I  have  an  insanely 
strong  wish  to  finish  my  accursed  book,  such  corrections  every 
page  has  required  as  I  never  saw  before.  It  is  so  weariful, 
killing  the  whole  afternoon,  after  12  o'clock  doing  nothing 
whatever.  But  I  will  grumble  no  more.  So  farewell,  we  shall 
meet  in  the  winter  I  trust. 

Farewell,  my  dear  Hooker,  your  affectionate  friend, 

C.  Darwin. 


1359.]  HEAVY    CORRECTIONS.  519 

C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

Down,  Sept.  2nd  [1859]. 

...  I  am  very  glad  you  wish  to  see  my  clean  sheets  :  I 
should  have  offered  them,  but  did  not  know  whether  it  would 
bore  you  ;  I  wrote  by  this  morning's  post  to  Murray  to  send 
them.  Unfortunately  I  have  not  got  to  the  part  which  will 
interest  you,  I  think  most,  and  which  tells  most  in  favour  of 
the  view,  viz.,  Geological  Succession,  Geographical  Distri- 
bution, and  especially  Morphology,  Embryology  and  Rudi- 
mentary Organs.  I  will  see  that  the  remaining  sheets,  when 
printed  off,  are  sent  to  you.  But  would  you  like  for  me  to 
send  the  last  and  perfect  revises  of  the  sheets  as  I  correct 
them  ?  if  so,  send  me  your  address  in  a  blank  envelope.  I 
hope  that  you  will  read  all,  whether  dull  (especially  latter 
part  of  Chapter  II.)  or  not,  for  I  am  convinced  there  is  not 
a  sentence  which  has  not  a  bearing  on  the  whole  argument. 
You  will  find  Chapter  IV.  perplexing  and  unintelligible,  with- 
out the  aid  of  the  enclosed  queer  diagram,^"^  of  which  I  send 
an  old  and  useless  proof.  I  have,  as  Murray  says,  corrected 
so  heavily,  as  almost  to  have  re-written  it ;  but  yet  I  fear  it  is 
poorly  written.  Parts  are  intricate ;  and  I  do  not  think  that 
even  you  could  make  them  quite  clear.  Do  not,  I  beg,  be  in 
a  hurry  in  committing  yourself  (like  so  many  naturalists)  to 
go  a  certain  length  and  no  further ;  for  I  am  deeply  con- 
vinced that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  go  the  whole  vast 
length,  or  stick  to  the  creation  of  each  separate  species  ;  I 
argue  this  point  briefly  in  the  last  chapter.  Remember  that 
your  verdict  will  probably  have  more  influence  than  my  book 
in  deciding  whether  such  views  as  I  hold  will  be  admitted  or 
rejected  at  present ;  in  the  future  I  cannot  doubt  about  their 
admittance,  and  our  posterity  will  marvel  as  much  about  the 
current  belief  as  we  do  about  fossil  shells  having  been  thought 
to  have  been  created  as  we  now  see  them.  But  forgive  me 
for  running  on  about  my  hobby-horse.  .  .  . 

*  The  diagram  illustrates  descent  with  divergence. 


520    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.*     [1859. 

C  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker, 

Down,  [Sept.]  nth  [1859]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  corrected  the  last  proof  yesterday, 
and  I  have  now  my  revises,  index,  &c.,  which  will  take  me 
near  to  the  end  of  the  month.  So  that  the  neck  of  my  work, 
thank  God,  is  broken. 

I  write  now  to  say  that  I  am  uneasy  in  my  conscience 
about  hesitating  to  look  over  your  proofs,  but  I  was  feeling 
miserably  unwell  and  shattered  when  I  wrote.  I  do  not 
suppose  I  could  be  of  hardly  any  use,  but  if  I  could,  pray 
send  me  any  proofs.  I  should  be  (and  fear  I  was)  the  most 
ungrateful  man  to  hesitate  to  do  anything  for  you  after  some 
fifteen  or  more  years'  help  from  you. 

As  soon  as  ever  I  have  fairly  finished  I  shall  be  off  to 
Dkley,  or  some  other  Hydropathic  establishment.  But  I 
shall  be  some  time  yet,  as  my  proofs  have  been  so  utterly 
obscured  with  corrections,  that  I  have  to  correct  heavily  on 
revises. 

Murray  proposes  to  publish  the  first  week  in  November. 
Oh,  good  heavens,  the  relief  to  my  head  and  body  to  banish 
the  whole  subject  from  my  mind  ! 

I  hope  to  God,  you  do  not  think  me  a  brute  about  your 

proof-sheets. 

Farewell,  yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  C,  LyelL 

Down,  Sept.  20th  [1859]. 
My  dear  Lyell, — You  once  gave  me  intense  pleasure, 
or  rather  delight,  by  the  way  you  were  interested,  in  a  manner 
I  never  expected,  in  my  Coral  Reef  notions,  and  now  you 
have  again  given  me  similar  pleasure  by  the  manner  you  have 
noticed  my  species  work.*     Nothing  could  be  more  satisfac- 

*  Sir  Charles  was  President  of  the  Geological  section  at  the  meeting 
of  the  British  Association  at  Aberdeen  in  1859.     The  following  passage 


1859.]  ENCOURAGEMENT.  521 

tory  to  me,  and  I  thank  you  for  myself,  and  even  more  for 
the  subject*s  sake,  as  I  know  well  that  the  sentence  will  make 
many  fairly  consider  the  subject,  instead  of  ridiculing  it. 
Although  your  previously  felt  doubts  on  the  immutability  of 
species,  may  have  more  influence  in  converting  you  (if  you 
be  converted)  than  my  book  ;  yet  as  I  regard  your  verdict 
as  far  more  important  in  my  own  eyes,  and  I  believe  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world  than  of  any  other  dozen  men,  I  am  naturally 
very  anxious  about  it.  Therefore  let  me  beg  you  to  keep 
your  mind  open  till  you  receive  (in  perhaps  a  fortnight's  time) 
my  latter  chapters,  which  are  the  most  important  of  all  on 
the  favourable  side.  The  last  chapter,  which  sums  up  and 
balances  in  a  mass  all  the  arguments  contra  and  pro,  will,  I 
think,  be  useful  to  you.  I  cannot  too  strongly  express  my 
conviction  of  the  general  truth  of  my  doctrines,  and  God 
knows  I  have  never  shirked  a  difficulty.  I  am  foolishly  anxious 
for  your  verdict,  not  that  I  shall  be  disappointed  if  you  are 
not  converted  ;  for  I  remember  the  long  years  it  took  me  to 
come  round ;  but  I  shall  be  most  deeply  delighted  if  you  do 
come  round,  especially  if  I  have  a  fair  share  in  the  conver- 
sion, I  shall  then  feel  that  my  career  is  run,  and  care  little 
whether  I  ever  am  good  for  anything  again  in  this  life. 

Thank  you  much  for  allowing  me  to  put  in  the  sentence 
about  your  grave  doubt.*  So  much  and  too  much  about 
myself. 

occurs  in  the  address  :  "  On  this  difficult  and  mysterious  subject  a  work 
will  very  shortly  appear  by  Mr.  Charles  Darwin,  the  result  of  twenty  years 
of  observations  and  experiments  in  Zoology,  Botany,  and  Geology,  by 
which  he  had  been  led  to  the  conclusion  that  those  powers  of  nature  which 
give  rise  to  races  and  permanent  varieties  in  animals  and  plants,  are  the 
same  as  those  which  in  much  longer  periods  produce  species,  and  in  a  still 
longer  series  of  ages  give  rise  to  differences  of  generic  rank.  He  appears 
to  me  to  have  succeeded  by  his  investigations  and  reasonings  in  throwing 
a  flood  of  light  on  many  classes  of  phenomena  connected  with  the  affini- 
ties, geographical  distribution,  and  geological  succession  of  organic  beings, 
for  which  no  other  hypothesis  has  been  able,  or  has  even  attempted  to 
account." 

*  As  to  the  immutability  of  species,  *  Origin,'  Ed.  i.,  p.  310. 


522    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859, 

I  have  read  with  extreme  interest  in  the  Aberdeen  paper 
about  the  flint  tools;  you  have  made  the  whole  case  far 
clearer  to  me  ;  I  suppose  that  you  did  not  think  the  evidence 
sufficient  about  the  Glacial  period. 

With  cordial  thanks  for  your  splendid  notice  of  my  book. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  Lyell,  your  affectionate  disciple, 

Charles  Darwin. 


C.  Darwin  to  W.  D.  Fox. 

Down,  Sept.  23rd  [1859]. 
My  dear  Fox, — I  was  very  glad  to  get  your  letter  a  few 
days  ago.  I  was  wishing  to  hear  about  you,  but  have  been 
in  such  an  absorbed,  slavish,  overworked  state,  that  I  had  not 
heart  without  compulsion  to  write  to  any  one  or  do  anything 
beyond  my  daily  work.  Though  your  account  of  yourself  is 
better,  I  cannot  think  it  at  all  satisfactory,  and  I  wish  you 
would  soon  go  to  Malvern  again.  My  father  used  to  believe 
largely  in  an  old  saying  that,  if  a  man  grew  thinner  between 
fifty  and  sixty  years  of  age,  his  chance  of  long  life  was  poor, 
and  that  on  the  contrary  it  was  a  very  good  sign  if  he  grew 
fatter  ;  so  that  your  stoutness,  I  look  at  as  a  very  good  omen. 
My  health  has  been  as  bad  as  it  well  could  be  all  this  sum- 
mer ;  and  I  have  kept  on  my  legs,  only  by  going  at  short 
intervals  to  Moor  Park ;  but  I  have  been  better  lately,  and, 
thank  Heaven,  I  have  at  last  as  good  as  done  my  book, 
having  only  the  index  and  two  or  three  revises  to  do.  It 
will  be  published  in  the  first  week  in  November,  and  a  copy 
shall  be  sent  you.  Remember  it  is  only  an  Abstract  (but  has 
cost  me  above  thirteen  months  to  write  !  !),  and  facts  and 
authorities  are  far  from  given  in  full.  I  shall  be  curious  to 
hear  what  you  think  of  it,  but  I  am  not  so  silly  as  to  expect 
to  convert  you.  Lyell  has  read  about  half  of  the  volume  in 
clean  sheets,  and  gives  me  very  great  kudos.  He  is  wavering 
so  much  about  the  immutability  of  species,  that  I  expect  he 
will  come  round.  Hooker  has  come  round,  and  will  publish 
his  belief  soon.     So  much  for  my  abominable  volume,  which 


i859]  ENCOURAGEMENT.  523 

has  cost  me  so  much  labour  that  I  almost  hate  it.  On  Octo- 
ber 3rd  I  start  for  Ilkley,  but  shall  take  three  days  for  the 
journey  !  It  is  so  late  that  we  shall  not  take  a  house  ;  but  I 
go  there  alone  for  three  or  four  weeks,  then  return  home  for 
a  week  and  go  to  Moor  Park  for  three  or  four  weeks,  and 
then  I  shall  get  a  moderate  spell  of  hydropathy  :  and  I  in- 
tend, if  I  can  keep  to  my  resolution,  of  being  idle  this  winter. 
But  I  fear  ennui  will  be  as  bad  as  a  bad  stomach.  .  .  . 


C.  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

Down,  Sept.  25th  [1859]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — I  send  by  this  post  four  corrected 
sheets.  I  have  altered  the  sentence  about  the  Eocene  fauna 
being  beaten  by  recent,  thanks  to  your  remark.  But  I 
imagined  that  it  w^ould  have  been  clear  that  I  supposed  the 
climate  to  be  nearly  similar ;  you  do  not  doubt,  I  imagine, 
that  the  climate  of  the  eocene  and  recent  periods  in  different 
parts  of  the  world  could  be  matched.  Not  that  I  think  cli- 
mate nearly  so  important  as  most  naturalists  seem  to  think. 
In  my  opinion  no  error  is  more  mischievous  than  this. 

I  was  very  glad  to  find  that  Hooker,  who  read  over,  in 
MS.,  my  Geographical  chapters,  quite  agreed  in  the  view  of 
the  greater  importance  of  organic  relations.  I  should  like 
you  to  consider  p.  77  and  reflect  on  the  case  of  any  organism 
in  the  midst  of  its  range. 

I  shall  be  curious  hereafter  to  hear  what  you  think  of  dis- 
tribution during  the  glacial  and  preceding  warmer  periods. 
I  am  so  glad  you  do  not  think  the  Chapter  on  the  Imperfec- 
tion of  j:he  Geological  Record  exaggerated  ;  I  was  more  fear- 
ful about  this  chapter  than  about  any  part. 

Embryology  in  Chapter  VIII.  is  one  of  my  strongest  points 
I  think.  But  I  must  not  bore  you  by  running  on.  My  mind 
is  so  wearisomely  full  of  the  subject. 

I  do  thank  you  for  your  eulogy  at  Aberdeen.  I  have 
been  so  wearied  and  exhausted  of  late  that  I  have  for  months 
•doubted  whether  I  have  not  been  throwing  away  time  and 


524    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

labour  for  nothing.  But  now  I  care  not  what  the  universal 
world  says  ;  I  have  always  found  you  right,  and  certainly  on 
this  occasion  I  am  not  going  to  doubt  for  the  first  time. 
Whether  you  go  far,  or  but  a  very  short  way  with  me  and 
others  who  believe  as  I  do,  I  am  contented,  for  my  work 
cannot  be  in  vain.  You  would  laugh  if  you  knew  how  often 
I  have  read  your  paragraph,  and  it  has  acted  like  a  little 
dram.  .  .  . 

Farewell, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  C.  LyelL 

Down,  Sept.  30th  [1859]. 

My  dear  Lyell, — I  sent  off  this  morning  the  last  sheets, 
but  without  index,  which  is  not  in  type.  I  look  at  you  as  my 
Lord  High  Chancellor  in  Natural  Science,  and  therefore  I 
request  you,  after  you  have  finished,  just  to  rerun  over  the 
heads  in  the  Recapitulation-part  of  last  chapter.  I  shall  be 
deeply  anxious  to  hear  what  you  decide  (if  you  are  able  to 
decide)  on  the  balance  of  the  pros  and  contras  given  in  my 
volume,  and  of  such  other  pros  and  contras  as  may  occur  to 
you.  I  hope  that  you  will  think  that  I  have  given  the  diffi- 
culties fairly.  I  feel  an  entire  conviction  that  if  you  are  now 
staggered  to  any  moderate  extent,  that  you  will  come  more 
and  more  round,  the  longer  you  keep  the  subject  at  all  before 
your  mind.  I  remember  well  how  many  long  years  it  was 
before  I  could  look  into  the  faces  of  some  of  the  difficulties 
and  not  feel  quite  abashed.  I  fairly  struck  my  colours  before 
the  case  of  neuter  insects. 

I  suppose  that  I  am  a  very  slow  thinker,  for  you  would  be 
surprised  at  the  number  of  years  it  took  me  to  see  clearly 
what  some  of  the  problems  were  which  had  to  be  solved,  such 
as  the  necessity  of  the  principle  of  divergence  of  character, 
the  extinction  of  intermediate  varieties,  on  a  continuous  area, 
with  graduated  conditions;  the  double  problem  of  sterile  first 
crosses  and  sterile  hybrids,  &c.,  &c. 

Looking  back,  I  think  it  was  more  difficult  to  see  what 


1859]  FINISHED.  525 

the  problems  were  than  to  solve  them,  so  far  as  I  have  suc- 
ceeded in  doing,  and  this  seems  to  me  rather  curious.  Well, 
good  or  bad,  my  work,  thank  God,  is  over;  and  hard  work,  I 
can  assure  you,  I  have  had,  and  much  work  which  has  never 
borne  fruit.  You  can  see,  by  the  way  I  am  scribbling,  that 
I  have  an  idle  and  rainy  afternoon.  I  was  not  able  to  start 
for  Ilkley  yesterday  as  I  was  too  unwell  ;  but  I  hope  to  get 
there  on  Tuesday  or  Wednesday.  Do,  I  beg  you,  when  you 
have  finished  my  book  and  thought  a  little  over  it,  let  me 
hear  from  you.  Never  mind  and  pitch  into  me,  if  you  think 
it  requisite  ;  some  future  day,  in  London  possibly,  you  may 
give  me  a  few  criticisms  in  detail,  that  is,  if  you  have  scrib- 
bled any  remarks  on  the  margin,  for  the  chance  of  a  second 
edition. 

Murray  has  printed  1250  copies,  which  seems  to  me  rather 
too  large  an  edition,  but  I  hope  he  will  not  lose. 

I  make  as  much  fuss  about  my  book  as  if  it  were  my  first. 
Forgive  me,  and  believe  me,  my  dear  Lyell, 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

C.  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D.  Hooker. 

Ilkley,  Yorkshire,  Oct.  15th  [1859]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — Be  a  good  man  and  screw  out  time 
enough  to  write  me  a  note  and  tell  me  a  little  about  yourself, 
your  doings,  and  belongings. 

Is  your  Introduction  fairly  finished  .^  I  know  you  will 
abuse  it,  and  I  know  well  how  much  I  shall  like  it.  I  have 
been  here  nearly  a  fortnight,  and  it  has  done  me  very  much 
good,  though  I  sprained  my  ankle  last  Sunday,  which  has 
quite  stopped  walking.  All  my  family  come  here  on  Monday 
to  stop  three  or  four  weeks,  and  then  I  shall  go  back  to  the 
great  establishment,  and  stay  a  fortnight;  so  that  if  I  can 
keep  my  spirits,  I  shall  stay  eight  weeks  here,  and  thus  give 
hydropathy  a  fair  chance.  Before  starting  here  I  was  in  an 
awful  state  of  stomach,  strength,  temper,  and  spirits.      My 


526    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

book  has  been  completely  finished  some  little  time  ;  as  soon 
as  copies  are  ready,  of  course  one  will  be  sent  you.  I  hope 
you  will  mark  your  copy  with  scores,  so  that  I  may  profit  by 
any  criticisms.  I  should  like  to  hear  your  general  impression. 
From  Lyell's  letters,  he  thinks  favourably  of  it,  but  seems 
staggered  by  the  lengths  to  which  I  go.  But  if  you  go  any 
considerable  length  in  the  admission  of  modification,  I  can 
see  no  possible  means  of  drawing  the  line,  and  saying  here 
you  must  stop.  Lyell  is  going  to  reread  my  book,  and  I  yet 
entertain  hopes  that  he  will  be  converted,  or  perverted,  as  he 
calls  it.  Lyell  has  been  extre^nely  kind  in  writing  me  three 
volume-like  letters  ;  but  he  says  nothing  about  dispersal  dur- 
ing the  glacial  period.  I  should  like  to  know  what  he  thinks 
on  this  head.  I  have  one  question  to  ask  :  Would  it  be  any 
good  to  send  a  copy  of  my  book  to  Decaisne  ?  and  do  you 
know  any  philosophical  botanists  on  the  Continent,  who  read 
English  and  care  for  such  subjects  ?  if  so,  give  their  addresses. 
How  about  Andersson  in  Sweden  ?  You  cannot  think  how 
refreshing  it  is  to  idle  away  the  whole  day,  and  hardly  ever 
think  in  the  least  about  my  confounded  book  which  half- 
killed  me.  I  much  wish  I  could  hear  of  your  taking  a  real 
rest.  I  know  how  very  strong  you  are,  mentally,  but  I  never 
will  believe  you  can  go  on  working  as  you  have  worked  of 
late  with  impunity.  You  will  some  day  stretch  the  string  too 
tight.     Farewell,  my  good,  and  kind,  and  dear  friend, 

Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 


C.  Dartvin  to  T.  H.  Huxley. 

Ilkley,  Otley,  Yorkshire.  Oct.  15th  [1859]. 
My  dear  Huxley, — I  am  here  hydropathising  and  com 
ing  to  life  again,  after  having  finished  my  accursed  book^ 
which  would  have  been  easy  work  to  any  one  else,  but  half- 
killed  me.  I  have  thought  you  would  give  me  one  bit  of 
information,  and  I  know  not  to  whom  else  to  apply ;  viz.,  the 
addresses  of  Barrande,  Von  Siebold,  Keyserling  (I  dare  say 
Sir  Roderick  would  know  the  latter). 


I 


1859]  RESTING   AT    ILKLEY.  527 

Can  you  tell  me  of  any  good  and  speculative  foreigners  to 
whom  it  would  be  worth  while  to  send  copies  of  my  book,  on 
the  *  Origin  of  Species  '  ?  I  doubt  whether  it  is  worth  sending 
to  Siebold.  I  should  like  to  send  a  few  copies  about,  but 
how  many  I  can  afford  I  know  not  yet  till  I  hear  what  price 
Murray  affixes. 

I  need  not  say  that  I  will  send,  of  course,  one  to  you,  in 
the  first  week  of  November.  I  hope  to  send  copies  abroad 
immediately.  I  shall  be  intensely  curious  to  hear  what  effect 
the  book  produces  on  you.  I  know  that  there  will  be  much 
in  it  which  you  will  object  to,  and  I  do  not  doubt  many  errors. 
I  am  very  far  from  expecting  to  convert  you  to  many  of  my 
heresies ;  but  if,  on  the  whole,  you  and  two  or  three  others 
think  I  am  on  the  right  road,  I  shall  not  care  what  the  mob 
of  naturalists  think.  The  penultimate  chapter,*  though  I 
believe  it  includes  the  truth,  will,  I  much  fear,  make  you 
savage.  Do  not  act  and  say,  like  Macleay  versus  Fleming, 
"I  write  with  aqua  fortis  to  bite  into  brass.'* 

Ever  yours, 

C,  Darwin. 

C.  Darwin  to  C,  Lyell. 

Ilkley,  Yorkshire, 

Oct.  2otli  [1859]. 

My  dear  Lyelt., — I  have  been  reading  over  all  your  let- 
ters consecutively,  and  I  do  not  feel  that  I  have  thanked  you 
half  enough  for  the  extreme  pleasure  which  they  have  given 
me,  and  for  their  utility.  I  see  in  them  evidence  of  fluctua- 
tion in  the  degree  of  credence  you  give  to  the  theory ;  nor 
am  I  at  all  surprised  at  this,  for  many  and  many  fluctuations 
I  have  undergone. 

There  is  one  point  in  your  letter  which  I  did  not  notice, 
about  the  animals  (and  many  plants)  naturalised  in  Australia, 
which  you  think  could  not  endure  without  man's  aid.  I  can- 
not see  how  man  does  aid  the  feral  cattle.     But,  letting  that 

*  Chapter  XIII.  is  on  Classification,   Morphology,  Embryology,   and 
Rudimentary  Organs. 


528    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

pass,  you  seem  to  think,  that  because  they  suffer  prodigious 
destruction  during  droughts,  that  they  would  all  be  destroyed. 
In  the  ''  gran  secos  "  of  La  Plata,  the  indigenous  animals,  such 
as  the  American  deer,  die  by  thousands,  and  suffer  apparently 
as  much  as  the  cattle.  In  parts  of  India,  after  a  drought,  it 
takes  ten  or  more  years  before  the  indigenous  mammals  get 
up  to  their  full  number  again.  Your  argument  would,  I  think, 
apply  to  the  aborigines  as  well  as  to  the  feral. 

An  animal  or  plant  which  becomes  feral  in  one  small  ter- 
ritory might  be  destroyed  by  climate,  but  I  can  hardly  believe 
so,  when  once  feral  over  several  large  territories.  Again,  I 
feel  inclined  to  swear  at  climate  :  do  not  think  me  impudent 
for  attacking  you  about  climate.  You  say  you  doubt  whether 
man  could  have  existed  under  the  Eocene  climate,  but  man 
can  now  withstand  the  climate  of  Esquimaux-land  and  West 
Equatorial  Africa ;  and  surely  you  do  not  think  the  Eocene 
climate  differed  from  the  present  throughout  all  Europe,  as 
much  as  the  Arctic  regions  differ  from  Equatorial  Africa  ? 

With  respect  to  organisms  being  created  on  the  American 
type  in  America,  it  might,  I  think,  be  said  that  they  were 
so  created  to  prevent  them  being  too  well  created,  so  as  to 
beat  the  aboiigines  ;  but  this  seems  to  me,  somehow,  a  mon- 
strous doctrine. 

I  have  reflected  a  good  deal  on  what  you  say  on  the  neces- 
sity of  continued  intervention  of  creative  power.  I  cannot 
see  this  necessity ;  and  its  admission,  I  think,  would  make 
the  theory  of  Natural  Selection  valueless.  Grant  a  simple 
Archetypal  creature,  like  the  Mud-fish  or  Lepidonsiren,  with 
the  five  senses  and  some  vestige  of  mind,  and  I  believe  natural 
selection  will  account  for  the  production  of  every  vertebrate 
animal. 

Farewell  ;  forgive  me  for  indulging  in  this  prose,  and 
believe  me,  with  cordial  thanks. 

Your  ever  attached  disciple, 

C.  Darwin. 

P.  S. — When,  and  if,  you  reread,  I  supplicate  you  to  write 
on  the  margin  the  word  "  expand,*'  when  too  condensed,  or 


1859.]  RESTING  AT   ILKLEY.  529 

'^  not  clear,"  or  '^  ?/*  Such  marks  would  cost  you  little  trouble, 
and  I  could  copy  them  and  reflect  on  them,  and  their  value 
would  be  infinite  to  me. 

My  larger  book  will  have  to  be  wholly  re-written,  and  not 
merely  the  present  volume  expanded ;  so  that  I  want  to  waste 
as  little  time  over  this  volume  as  possible,  if  another  edition 
be  called  for;  but  I  fear  the  subject  will  be  too  perplexing, 
as  I  have  treated  it,  for  general  public. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  D,  Hooker, 

Ilkley,  Yorkshire, 

Sunday  [Oct.  23rd,  1859]. 

My  dear  Hooker, — I  congratulate  you  on  your/  Intro- 
duction '  *  being  in  fact  finished.  I  am  sure  from  what  I  read 
of  it  (and  deeply  I  shall  be  interested  in  reading  it  straight 
through),  that  it  must  have  cost  you  a  prodigious  amount  of 
labour  and  thought.  I  shall  like  very  much  to  see  the  sheet, 
which  you  wish  me  to  look  at.  Now  I  am  so  completely  a 
gentleman,  that  I  have  sometimes  a  little  difficulty  to  pass  the 
day  ;  but  it  is  astonishing  how  idle  a  three  weeks  I  have 
passed.  If  it  is  any  comfort  to  you,  pray  delude  yourself  by 
saying  that  you  intend  ^^  sticking  to  humdrum  science."  But 
I  believe  it  just  as  much  as  if  a  plant  were  to  say  that,  '^  I 
have  been  growing  all  my  life,  and,  by  Jove,  I  will  stop  grow- 
ing.*' You  cannot  help  yourself;  you  are  not  clever  enough 
for  that.  You  could  not  even  remain  idle,  as  I  have  done, 
for  three  weeks !  What  you  say  about  Lyell  pleases  me  ex- 
ceedingly ;  I  had  not  at  all  inferred  from  his  letters  that  he 
had  come  so  much  round.  I  remember  thinking,  above  a 
year  ago,  that  if  ever  I  lived  to  see  Lyell,  yourself,  and  Hux- 
ley come  round,  partly  by  my  book,  and  partly  by  their  own 
reflections,  I  should  feel  that  the  subject  is  safe,  and  all  the 
world  might  rail,  but  that  ultimately  the  theory  of  Natural 
Selection  (though,  no  doubt,  imperfect  in  its  present  condi- 


*  Australian  Flora. 
24 


530    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

tion,  and  embracing  many  errors)  would  prevail.  Nothing 
will  ever  convince  me  that  three  such  men,  with  so  much 
diversified  knowledge,  and  so  well  accustomed  to  search  for 
truth,  could  err  greatly.  I  have  spoken  of  you  here  as  a  con- 
vert made  by  me  ;  but  I  know  well  how  much  larger  the  share 
has  been  of  your  own  self-thought.  I  am  intensely  curious  to 
hear  Huxley's  opinion  of  my  book.  I  fear  my  long  discussion 
on  Classification  will  disgust  him  ;  for  it  is  much  opposed  to 
what  he  once  said  to  me. 

But,  how  I  am  running  on.  You  see  how  idle  I  am  ;  but 
I  have  so  enjoyed  your  letter  that  you  must  forgive  me. 
With  respect  to  migration  during  the  glacial  period  :  I  think 
Lyell  quite  comprehends,  for  he  has  given  me  a  supporting 
fact.  But,  perhaps,  he  unconsciously  hates  (do  not  say  so 
to  him)  the  view  as  slightly  staggering  him  on  his  favourite 
theory  of  all  changes  of  climate  being  due  to  changes  in  the 
relative  position  of  land  and  water. 

I  will  send  copies  of  my  book  to  all  the  men  specified  by 
you  ;  .  .  .  would  you  be  so  kind  as  to  add  title,  as  Doctor, 
or  Professor,  or  Monsieur,  or  Von,  and  initials  (when  wanted), 
and  addresses  to  the  names  on  the  enclosed  list,  and  let  me 
have  it  pretty  soon,  as  towards  the  close  of  this  week  Murray 
says  the  copies  to  go  abroad  will  be  ready.  I  am  anxious  to 
get  my  view  generally  known,  and  not,  I  hope  and  think,  for 
mere  personal  conceit 

C  Darwin  to  C.  Lyell. 

Ilkley,  Yorkshire,  Oct.  25th  [1859]. 

Our  difference  on  "  principle  of  improvement " 

and  *'  power  of  adaptation  ''  is  too  profound  for  discussion  by 
letter.  If  I  am  wrong,  I  am  quite  blind  to  my  error.  If  I  am 
right,  our  difference  will  be  got  over  only  by  your  re-reading 
carefully  and  reflecting  on  my  first  four  chapters.  I  suppli- 
cate you  to  read  these  again  carefully.  The  so-called  im- 
provement of  our  Shorthorn  cattle,  pigeons,  &c.,  does  not 
presuppose  or  require  any  aboriginal  ^^  power  of  adaptation," 


X 


1859-]  NATURAL   SELECTION.  53 1 

or  *'  principle  of  improvement ;  "  it  requires  only  diversified 
variability,  and  man  to  select  or  take  advantage  of  those 
modifications  which  are  useful  to  him ;  so  under  nature  any 
slight  modification  which  chances  to  arise,  and  is  useful  to  any 
creature,  is  selected  or  preserved  in  the  struggle  for  life  ;  any 
modification  which  is  injurious  is  destroyed  or  rejected  ;  any 
which  is  neither  useful  nor  injurious  will  be  left  a  fluctuating 
element.  When  you  contrast  natural  selection  and  **  improve- 
ment," you  seem  always  to  overlook  (for  I  do  not  see  how 
you  can  deny)  that  every  step  in  the  natural  selection  of  each 
species  implies  improvement  in  that  species  in  relation  to  its 
conditions  of  life.  No  modification  can  be  selected  without 
it  be  an  improvement  or  advantage.  Improvement  implies,  I 
suppose,  each  form  obtaining  many  parts  or  organs,  all  excel- 
lently adapted  for  their  functions.  As  each  species  is  im- 
proved, and  as  the  number  of  forms  will  have  increased,  if 
we  look  to  the  whole  course  of  time,  the  organic  condition  of 
life  for  other  forms  will  become  more  complex,  and  there  will 
be  a  necessity  for  other  forms  to  become  improved,  or  they 
will  be  exterminated ;  and  I  can  see  no  limit  to  this  process 
of  improvement,  without  the  intervention  of  any  other  and 
direct  principle  of  improvement.  AH  this  seems  to  me  quite 
compatible  with  certain  forms  fitted  for  simple  conditions, 
remaining  unaltered,  or  being  degraded. 

If  I  have  a  second  edition,  I  will  reiterate  **  Natural  Selec- 
tion,'* and,  as  a  general  consequence,  "Natural  Improve- 
ment." 

As  you  go,  as  far  as  you  do,  I  begin  strongly  to  think, 
judging  from  myself,  that  you  will  go  much  further.  How 
slowly  the  older  geologists  admitted  your  grand  views  on 
existing  geological  causes  of  change  ! 

If  at  any  time  you  think  I  can  answer  any  question,  it  is 
a  real  pleasure  to  me  to  write. 

Yours  affectionately, 

C.  Darwin. 


532    THE  WRITING  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.'     [1859. 

C.  Darwin  to  J.  Murray. 

Ilkley,  Yorkshire  [1859]. 

My  dear  Sir, — I  have  received  your  kind  note  and  the 
copy  ;  I  am  infinitely  pleased  and  proud  at  the  appearance  of 
my  child. 

I  quite  agree  to  all  you  propose  about  price.  But  you  are 
really  too  generous  about  the,  to  me,  scandalously  heavy 
corrections.  Are  you  not  acting  unfairly  towards  yourself  ? 
Would  it  not  be  better  at  least  to  share  the  j[^']2  8^.  ?  I  shall 
be  fully  satisfied,  for  I  had  no  business  to  send,  though  quite 
unintentionally  and  unexpectedly,  such  badly  composed  MS. 
to  the  printers. 

Thank  you  for  your  kind  offer  to  distribute  the  copies  to 
my  friends  and  assistors  as  soon  as  possible.  Do  not  trouble 
yourself  much  about  the  foreigners,  as  Messrs.  Williams  and 
Norgate  have  most  kindly  offered  to  do  their  best,  and  they 
are  accustomed  to  send  to  all  parts  of  the  world. 

I  will  pay  for  my  copies  whenever  you  like.  I  am  so  glad 
that  you  were  so  good  as  to  undertake  the  publication  of  my 
book. 

My  dear  Sir,  yours  very  sincerely, 

Charles  Darwin. 

P.  S. — Please  do  not  forget  to  let  me  hear  about  two  days 
before  the  copies  are  distributed. 

I  do  not  know  when  I  shall  leave  this  place,  certainly  not 
for  several  weeks.  Whenever  I  am  in  London  I  will  call  on 
you. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

BY    PROFESSOR    HUXLEY. 


ON    THE    RECEPTION    OF    THE    ^ORIGIN    OF    SPECIES.' 

To  the  present  generation,  that  is  to  say,  the  people  a  few 
years  on  the  hither  and  thither  side  of  thirty,  the  name  of 
Charles  Darwin  stands  alongside  of  those  of  Isaac  Newton 
and  Michael  Faraday  ;  and,  like  them,  calls  up  the  grand 
ideal  of  a  searcher  after  truth  and  interpreter  of  Nature. 
They  think  of  him  who  bore  it  as  a  rare  combination  of 
genius,  industry,  and  unswerving  veracity,  who  earned  his 
place  among  the  most  famous  men  of  the  age  by  sheer  native 
power,  in  the  teeth  of  a  gale  of  popular  prejudice,  and  un- 
cheered  by  a  sign  of  favour  or  appreciation  from  the  official 
fountains  of  honour  ;  as  one  who  in  spite  of  an  acute  sensi- 
tiveness to  praise  and  blame,  and  notwithstanding  provoca- 
tions which  might  have  excused  any  outbreak,  kept  himself 
clear  of  all  envy,  hatred,  and  malice,  nor  dealt  otherwise  than 
fairly  and  justly  with  the  unfairness  and  injustice  which  was 
showered  upon  him  ;  while,  to  the  end  of  his  days,  he  was 
ready  to  listen  with  patience  and  respect  to  the  most  insig- 
nificant of  reasonable  objectors. 

And  with  respect  to  that  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  forms 
of  life  peopling  our  globe,  with  which  Darwin's  name  is  bound 
up  as  closely  as  that  of  Newton  with  the  theory  of  gravitation, 
nothing  seems  to  be  further  from  the  mind  of  the  present 
generation  than  any  attempt  to  smother  it  with  ridicule  or 
to  crush  it  by  vehemence  of  denunciation.  **  The  struggle 
for  existence,'*  and  ^'  Natural  selection,"  have  become  house- 
hold words  and  every-day  conceptions.     The  reality  and  the 


534 


ON   THE   RECEPTION   OF 


importance  of  the  natural  processes  on  which  Darwin  founds 
his  deductions  are  no  more  doubted  than  those  of  growth 
and  multiplication  ;  and,  whether  the  full  potency  attributed 
to  them  is  admitted  or  not,  no  one  doubts  their  vast  and  far- 
reaching  significance.  Wherever  the  biological  sciences  are 
studied,  the  '  Origin  of  Species  '  lights  the  paths  of  the  in- 
vestigator ;  wherever  they  are  taught  it  permeates  the  course 
of  instruction.  Nor  has  the  influence  of  Darwinian  ideas 
been  less  profound,  beyond  the  realms  of  Biology.  The 
oldest  of  all  philosophies,  that  of  Evolution,  was  bound  hand 
and  foot  and  cast  into  utter  darkness  during  the  millennium 
of  theological  scholasticism.  But  Darwin  poured  new  life- 
blood  into  the  ancient  frame ;  the  bonds  burst,  and  the  re- 
vivified thought  of  ancient  Greece  has  proved  itself  to  be  a 
more  adequate  expression  of  the  universal  order  of  things 
than  any  of  the  schemes  which  have  been  accepted  by  the 
credulity  and  welcomed  by  the  superstition  of  seventy  later 
generations  of  men. 

To  any  one  who  studies  the  signs  of  the  times,  the  emer- 
gence of  the  philosophy  of  Evolution,  in  the  attitude  of 
claimant  to  the  throne  of  the  world  of  thought,  from  the 
limbo  of  hated  and,  as  many  hoped,  forgotten  things,  is  the 
most  portentous  event  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  the 
most  effective  weapons  of  the  modern  champions  of  Evolu- 
tion were  fabricated  by  Darwin;  and  the  *  Origin  of  Species* 
has  enlisted  a  formidable  body  of  combatants,  trained  in  the 
severe  school  of  Physical  Science,  whose  ears  might  have  long 
remained  deaf  to  the  speculations  of  h  priori  philosophers. 

I  do  not  think  any  candid  or  instructed  person  will  deny 
the  truth  of  that  which  has  just  been  asserted.  He  may  hate 
the  very  name  of  Evolution,  and  may  deny  its  pretensions 
as  vehemently  as  a  Jacobite  denied  those  of  George  the 
Second.  But  there  it  is — not  only  as  solidly  seated  as  the 
Hanoverian  dynasty,  but  happily  independent  of  Parlia- 
mentary sanction — and  the  dullest  antagonists  have  come  to 
see  that  they  have  to  deal  with  an  adversary  whose  bones  are 
to  be  broken  by  no  amount  of  bad  words. 


THE  *  ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES'  535 

Even  the  theologians  have  almost  ceased  to  pit  the  plain 
meaning  of  Genesis  against  the  no  less  plain  meaning  of 
Nature.  Their  more  candid,  or  more  cautious,  representatives 
have  given  up  dealing  with  Evolution  as  if  it  were  a  damnable 
heresy,  and  have  taken  refuge  in  one  of  two  courses.  Either 
they  deny  that  Genesis  was  meant  to  teach  scientific  truth, 
and  thus  save  the  veracity  of  the  record  at  the  expense  of  its 
authority  ;  or  they  expend  theii^  energies  in  devising  the  cruel 
ingenuities  of  the  reconciler,  and  torture  texts  in  the  vain 
hope  of  making  them  confess  the  creed  of  Science.  But  when 
the  peine  for  te  et  dure  is  over,  the  antique  sincerity  of  the  ven- 
erable sufferer  always  reasserts  itself.  Genesis  is  honest  to 
the  core,  and  professes  to  be  no  more  than  it  is,  a  repository 
of  venerable  traditions  of  unknown  origin,  claiming  no  scien- 
tific authority  and  possessing  none. 

As  my  pen  finishes  these  passages,  I  can  but  be  amused 
to  think  what  a  terrible  hubbub  would  have  been  made  (in 
truth  was  made)  about  any  similar  expressions  of  opinion  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago.  In  fact,  the  contrast  between  the 
present  condition  of  public  opinion  upon  the  Darwinian  ques- 
tion ;  between  the  estimation  in  which  Darwin's  views  are 
now  held  in  the  scientific  world  ;  between  the  acquiescence, 
or  at  least  quiescence,  of  the  theologians  of  the  self-respecting 
'order  at  the  present  day  and  the  outburst  of  antagonism  on 
all  sides  in  1858-9,  when  the  new  theory  respecting  the  origin 
of  species  first  became  known  to  the  older  generation  to  which 
I  belong,  is  so  startling  that,  except  for  documentary  evidence, 
I  should  be  sometimes  inclined  to  think  my  memories  dreams. 
I  have  a  great  respect  for  the  younger  generation  myself 
(they  can  write  our  lives,  and  ravel  out  all  our  follies,  if  they 
choose  to  take  the  trouble,  by  and  by),  and  I  should  be  glad 
to  be  assured  that  the  feeling  is  reciprocal ;  but  I  am  afraid 
that  the  story  of  our  dealings  with  Darwin  may  prove  a  great 
hindrance  to  that  veneration  for  our  wisdom  which  I  should 
like  them  to  display.  We  have  not  even  the  excuse  that, 
thirty  years  ago,  Mr.  Darwin  was  an  obscure  novice,  who  had 
no  claims  on  our  attention.     On  the  contrary,  his  remarkable 


536  ON    THE    RECEPTION   OF 

zoological  and  geological  investigations  had  long  given  him 
an  assured  position  among  the  most  eminent  and  original 
investigators  of  the  day  ;  while  his  charming  *  Voyage  of  a 
Naturalist '  had  justly  earned  him  a  wide-spread  reputation 
among  the  general  public.  I  doubt  if  there  was  any  man 
then  living  who  had  a  better  right  to  expect  that  anything 
he  might  choose  to  say  on  such  a  question  as  the  Origin  of 
Species  would  be  listened  to  with  profound  attention,  and 
discussed  with  respect ;  and  there  was  certainly  no  man  whose 
personal  character  should  have  afforded  a  better  safeguard 
against  attacks,  instinct  with  malignity  and  spiced  with  shame- 
less impertinences. 

Yet  such  was  the  portion  of  one  of  the  kindest  and  truest 
men  that  it  was  ever  my  good  fortune  to  know ;  and  years 
had  to  pass  away  before  misrepresentation,  ridicule,  and  de- 
nunciation, ceased  to  be  the  most  notable  constituents  of  the 
majority  of  the  multitudinous  criticisms  of  his  work  which 
poured  from  the  press.  I  am  loth  to  rake  any  of  these  an- 
cient scandals  from  their  well-deserved  oblivion  ;  but  I  must 
make  good  a  statement  which  may  seem  overcharged  to  the 
present  generation,  and  there  is  no  piece  justificative  more  apt 
for  the  purpose,  or  more  worthy  of  such  dishonour,  than  the 
article  in  the  ^Quarterly  Review*  for  July,  i860.*  Since 
Lord  Brougham  assailed  Dr.  Young,  the  world  has  seen  no* 
such  specimen  of  the  insolence  of  a  shallow  pretender  to  a 
Master  in  Science  as  this  remarkable,  production,  in  which 
one  of  the  most  exact  of  observers,  most  cautious  of  reason- 
ers,  and  most  candid  of  expositors,  of  this  or  any  other  age, 
is  held  up  to  scorn  as  a  "  flighty  "  person,  who  endeavours 
^*  to  prop  up  his  utterly  rotten  fabric  of  guess  and  speculation,'* 

*  I  was  not  aware  when  I  wrote  these  passages  that  the  authorship  of 
the  article  had  been  publicly  acknowledged.  Confession  unaccompanied 
by  penitence,  however,  affords  no  ground  for  mitigation  of  judgment ;  and 
the  kindliness  with  which  Mr.  Darwin  speaks  of  his  assailant,  Bishop  Wil- 
berforce  (vol.  ii.  p.  125),  is  so  striking  an  exemplification  of  his  singular 
gentleness  and  modesty,  that  it  rather  increases  one's  indignation  against 
the  presumption  of  his  critic. 


THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES/ 


537 


and  whose  '^mode  of  dealing  with  nature**  is  reprobated  as 
"utterly  dishonourable  to  Natural  Science."  And  all  this 
high  and  mighty  talk,  which  would  have  been  indecent  in  one 
of  Mr.  Darwin's  equals,  proceeds  from  a  writer  whose  want 
of  intelligence,  or  of  conscience,  or  of  both,  is  so  great,  t"  at, 
by  way  of  an  objection  to  Mr.  Darwin's  views,  he  can  ask, 
*^  Is  it  credible  that  all  favourable  varieties  of  turnips  are 
tending  to  become  men ;  '*  who  is  so  ignorant  of  paleontology, 
that  he  can  talk  of  the  *^  flowers  and  fruits  "  of  the  plants  of 
the  carboniferous  epoch  ;  of  comparative  anatomy,  that  he 
can  gravely  affirm  the  poison  apparatus  of  the  venomous 
snakes  to  be  "  entirely  separate  from  the  ordinary  laws  of 
animal  life,  and  peculiar  to  themselves;  '*  of  the  rudiments 
of  physiology,  that  he  can  ask,  '*  what  advantage  of  life  could 
alter  the  shape  of  the  corpuscles  into  which  the  blood  can 
be  evaporated  ?  '*  Nor  does  the  reviewer  fail  to  flavour  this 
outpouring  of  preposterous  incapacity  with  a  little  stimu- 
lation of  the  odium  theologicum.  Some  inkling  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  conflicts  between  Astronomy,  Geology,  and 
Theology,  leads  him  to  keep  a  retreat  open  by  the  proviso 
that  he  cannot  '^  consent  to  test  the  truth  of  Natural  Sci- 
ence by  the  word  of  Revelation ;  "  but,  for  all  that,  he 
devotes  pages  to  the  exposition  of  his  conviction  that  Mr. 
Darwin's  theory  "contradicts  the  revealed  relation  of  the 
creation  to  its  Creator,"  and  is  "  inconsistent  with  the  fulness 
of  his  glory." 

If  I  confine  my  retrospect  of  the  reception  of  the  '  Origin 
of  Species '  to  a  twelvemonth,  or  thereabouts,  from  the  time 
of  its  publication,  I  do  not  recollect  anything  quite  so  foolish 
and  unmannerly  as  the  *  Quarterly  Review'  article,  unless, 
perhaps,  the  address  of  a  Reverend  Professor  to  the  Dublin 
Geological  Society  might  enter  into  competition  with  it.  But 
a  large  proportion  of  Mr.  Darwin's  critics  had  a  lamentable 
resemblance  to  the  *  Quarterly '  reviewer,  in  so  far  as  they 
lacked  either  the  will,  or  the  wit,  to  make  themselves  masters 
of  his  doctrine  ;  hardly  any  possessed  the  knowledge  required 
to  follow  him  through  the  immense  range  of  biological  and 


538 


ON   THE    RECEPTION    OF 


geological  science  which  the  '  Origin '  covered  ;  while,  too 
commonly,  they  had  prejudiced  the  case  on  theological 
grounds,  and,  as  seems  to  be  inevitable  when  this  happens, 
eked  out  lack  of  reason  by  superfluity  of  railing. 

But  it  will  be  more  pleasant  and  more  profitable  to  con- 
sider 'those  criticisms,  which  were  acknowledged  by  writers 
of  scientific  authority,  or  which  bore  internal  evidence  of  the 
greater  or  less  competency  and,  often,  of  the  good  faith,  of 
their  authors.  Restricting  my  survey  to  a  twelvemonth,  or 
thereabouts,  after  the  publication  of  the  *  Origin,'  I  find 
among  such  critics  Louis  Agassiz  ;  *  Murray,  an  excellent 
entomologist ;  Harvey,  a  botanist  of  considerable  repute  ; 
and  the  author  of  an  article  in  the  *  Edinburgh  Review,'  all 
strongly  adverse  to  Darwin.  Pictet,  the  distinguished  and 
widely  learned  paleontogist  of  Geneva,  treats  Mr.  Darwin 
with  a  respect  which  forms  a  grateful  contrast  to  the  tone  of 
some  of  the  preceding  writers,  but  consents  to  go  with  him 
only  a  very  little  way.f  On  the  other  hand,  Lyell,  up  to 
that  time  a  pillar  of  the  anti-transmutationists  (who  regarded 


*  "  The  arguments  presented  by  Dai-win  in  favor  of  a  universal  deriva- 
tion from  one  primary  form  of  all  the  peculiarities  existing  now  among  liv- 
ing beings  have  not  made  the  slightest  impression  on  my  mind." 

"  Until  the  facts  of  Nature  are  shown  to  have  been  mistaken  by  those 
who  have  collected  them,  and  that  they  have  a  different  meaning  from  that 
now  generally  assigned  to  them,  I  shall  therefore  consider  the  transmuta- 
tion theory  as  a  scientific  mistake,  untrue  in  its  facts,  unscientific  in  its 
method,  and  mischievous  in  its  tendency." — Silliman's  'Journal,'  July, 
i860,  pp.  143,  154.  Extract  from  the  3rd  vol.  of  *  Contributions  to  the 
Natural  History  of  the  United  States.' 

f  "  I  see  no  serious  objections  to  the  formation  of  varieties  by  natural 
selection  in  the  existing  world,  and  that,  so  far  as  earlier  epochs  are  con- 
cerned, this  law  may  be  assumed  to  explain  the  origin  of  closely  allied  spe- 
cies, supposing  for  this  purpose  a  very  long  period  of  time." 

"  With  regard  to  simple  varieties  and  closely  allied  species,  I  believe 
that  Mr.  Darwin's  theory  may  explain  many  things,  and  throw  a  great  light 
upon  numerous  questions." — *  Sur  I'Origine  de  TEspece.  Par  Charles  Dar- 
win.' *  Archives  des  Sc.de  la  Bibliotheque  Universelle  de  Geneve,' pp. 
242,  243,  Mars  i860. 


THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.' 


539 


him,  ever  afterwards,  as  Pallas  Athene  may  have  looked  at 
Dian,  after  the  Endymion  affair),  declared  himself  a  Dar- 
winian, though  not  without  putting  in  a  serious  caveat.  Never- 
theless, he  was  a  tower  of  strength,  and  his  courageous  stand 
for  truth  as  against  consistency,  did  him  infinite  honour.  As 
evolutionists,  sans  phrase^  I  do  not  call  to  mind  among  the 
biologists  more  than  Asa  Gray,  who  fought  the  battle  splen- 
didly in  the  United  States ;  Hooker,  who  was  no  less  vigorous 
hLTc;  the  present  Sir  John  Lubbock  and  myself.  Wallace 
was  far  away  in  the  Malay  Archipelago ;  but,  apart  from  his 
direct  share  in  the  promulgation  of  the  theory  of  natural 
selection,  no  enumeration  of  the  influences  at  work,  at  the 
time  I  am  speaking  of,  would  be  complete  without  the  men- 
tion of  his  powerful  essay  *0n  the  Law  which  has  regulated 
the  Introduction  of  New  Species,'  which  was  published  in 
1855.  On  reading  it  afresh,  I  have  been  astonished  to  recol- 
lect how  small  was  the  impression  it  made. 

In  France,  the  influence  of  Elie  de  Beaumont  and  of 
Flourens — the  former  of  whom  is  said  to  have  **  damned  him- 
self to  everlasting  fame  '*  by  inventing  the  nickname  of  *^  la 
science  moussante  "  for  Evolutionism,* — to  say  nothing  of  the 
ill-will  of  other  powerful  members  of  the  Institut,  produced 
for  a  long  time  the  effect  of  a  conspiracy  of  silence;  and 
many  years  passed  before  the  Academy  redeemed  itself  from 
the  reproach  that  the  name  of  Darwin  was  not  to  be  found 
on  the  list  of  its  members.  However,  an  accomplished 
writer,  out  of  the  range  of  academical  influences,  M.  Laugel, 
gave  an  excellent  and  appreciative  notice  of  the  '  Origin  '  in 
the  *  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes.'  Germany  took  time  to  con- 
sider ;  Bronn  produced  a  slightly  J^owdlerized  translation  of 
the  *  Origin  * ;  and  *  Kladderadatsch  *  cut  his  jokes  upon  the 
ape  origin  of  man ;  but  I  do  not  call  to  mind  that  any  scien- 


*  One  is  reminded  of  the  effect  of  another  small  academic  epigram. 
The  so-called  vertebral  theory  of  the  skull  is  said  to  have  been  nipped  in 
the  bud  in  France  by  the  whisper  of  an  academician  to  his  neighbor,  that» 
in  that  case,  one's  head  was  a  "  ve^^^re  pensante* 


540 


ON   THE   RECEPTION   OF 


tific  notability  declared  himself  publicly  in  i860.*  None  of 
us  dreamed  that,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  the  strength 
(and  perhaps  I  may  add  the  weakness)  of  *'  Darwinismus  " 
would  have  its  most  extensive  and  most  brilliant  illustrations 
in  the  land  of  learning.  If  a  foreigner  may  presume  to 
speculate  on  the  cause  of  this  curious  interval  of  silence,  I 
fancy  it  was  that  one  moiety  of  the  German  biologists  were 
orthodox  at  any  price,  and  the  other  moiety  as  distinctly 
heterodox.  The  latter  were  evolutionists,  a  priori^  already, 
and  they  must  have  felt  the  disgust  natural  to  deductive 
philosophers  at  being  offered  an  inductive  and  experimental 
foundation  for  a  conviction  which  they  had  reached  by  a 
shorter  cut.  It  is  undoubtedly  trying  to  learn  that,  though 
your  conclusions  may  be  all  right,  your  reasons  for  them  are 
all  wrong,  or,  at  any  rate,  insufficient. 

On  the  whole,  then,  the  supporters  of  Mr.  Darwin's 
views  in  i860  were  numerically  extremely  insignificant. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that,  if  a  general  council  of 
the  Church  scientific  had  been  held  at  that  time,  we  should 
have  been  condemned  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  And 
there  is  as  little  doubt  that,  if  such  a  council  gathered  now, 
the  decree  would  be  of  an  exactly  contrary  nature.  It  would 
indicate  a  lack  of  sense,  as  well  as  of  modesty,  to  ascribe  to 
the  men  of  that  generation  less  capacity  or  less  honesty  than 
their  successors  possess.  What,  then,  are  the  causes  which 
led  instructed  and  fair-judging  men  of  that  day  to  arrive  at 
a  judgment  so  different  from  that  which  seems  just  and  fair 
to  those  who  follow  them  ?  That  is  really  one  of  the  most 
interesting  of  all  questions  connected  with  the  history  of  sci- 
ence, and  I  shall  try  to  answer  it.  I  am  afraid  that  in  order 
to  do  so  I  must  run  the  risk  of  appearing  egotistical.     How- 


*  However,  the  man  who  stands  next  to  Darwin  in  his  influence  on 
modern  biologists,  K.  E.  von  Bar,  wrote  to  me,  in  August  i860,  expressing 
his  general  assent  to  evolutionist  views.  His  phrase,  **J'ai  enonce  les 
memes  idees  .  .  .  que  M.  Darwin  "  (vol.  ii.  p.  122),  is  shown  by  his  subse- 
quent writings  to  mean  no  more  than  this. 


THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES;  54I 

ever,  if  I  tell  my  own  story  it  is  only  because  I  know  it  bet- 
ter than  that  of  other  people. 

I  think  I  must  have  read  the  *  Vestiges  *  before  I  left 
England  in  1846  ;  but,  if  I  did,  the  book  made  very  little 
impression  upon  me,  and  I  was  not  brought  into  serious  con- 
tact with  the  ^Species'  question  until  after  1850.  At  that 
time,  I  had  long  done  with  the  Pentateuchal  cosmogony, 
which  had  been  impressed  upon  my  childish  understanding 
as  Divine  truth,  with  all  the  authority  of  parents  and  in- 
structors, and  from  which  it  had  cost  me  many  a  struggle  to 
get  free.  But  my  mind  was  unbiassed  in  respect  of  any  doc- 
trine which  presented  itself,  if  it  professed  to  be  based  on 
purely  philosophical  and  scientific  reasoning.  It  seemed  to 
me  then  (as  it  does  now)  that  **  creation,'*  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  word,  is  perfectly  conceivable.  I  find  no  difii- 
culty  in  imagining  that,  at  some  former  period,  this  universe 
was  not  in  existence  ;  and  that  it  made  its  appearance  in  six 
days  (or  instantaneously,  if  that  is  preferred),  in  consequence 
of  the  volition  of  some  pre-existent  Being.  Then,  as  now, 
the  so-called  ^ /r/^r/ arguments  against  Theism  ;  and,  given 
a  Deity,  against  the  possibility  of  creative  acts,  appeared  to 
me  to  be  devoid  of  reasonable  foundation.  I  had  not  then, 
and  I  have  not  now,  the  smallest  d  priori  oh] Qction  to  raise 
to  the  account  of  the  creation  of  animals  and  plants  given  in 
*  Paradise  Lost,'  in  which  Milton  so  vividly  embodies  the 
natural  sense  of  Genesis.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  say  that  it  is 
untrue  because  it  is  impossible.  I  confine  myself  to  what 
must  be  regarded  as  a  mxodest  and  reasonable  request  for  some 
particle  of  evidence  that  the  existing  species  of  animals  and 
plants  did  originate  in  that  way,  as  a  condition  of  my  belief 
in  a  statement  which  appears  to  me  to  be  highly  improbable. 

And,  by  way  of  being  perfectly  fair,  I  had  exactly  the 
same  answer  to  give  to  the  evolutionists  of  1851-8.  Within 
the  ranks  of  the  biologists,  at  that  time,  I  met  with  nobody, 
except  Dr.  Grant,  of  University  College,  who  had  a  word  to 
say  for  Evolution — and  his  advocacy  was  not  calculated  to 
advance  the  cause.      Outside  these  ranks,  the  only  person 


542 


ON   THE    RECEPTION   OF 


known  to  me  whose  knowledge  and  capacity  compelled  re- 
spect, and  who  was,  at  the  same  time,  a  thorough-going  evo- 
lutionist, was  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  whose  acquaintance  I 
made,  I  think,  in  1852,  and  then  entered  into  the  bonds  of  a 
friendship  which,  I  am  happy  to  think,  has  known  no  inter- 
ruption. Many  and  prolonged  were  the  battles  we  fought  on 
this  topic.  But  even  my  friend's  rare  dialectic  skill  and  co- 
piousness of  apt  illustration  could  not  drive  me  from  my  ag- 
nostic position.  I  took  my  stand  upon  two  grounds  :  firstly, 
that  up  to  that  time,  the  evidence  in  favor  of  transmutation 
was  wholly  insufficient ;  and,  secondly,  that  no  suggestion  re- 
specting the  causes  of  the  transmutation  assumed,  which  had 
been  made,  was  in  any  way  adequate  to  explain  the  phenom- 
ena. Looking  back  at  the  state  of  knowledge  at  that  time,  I 
really  do  not  see  that  any  other  conclusion  was  justifiable. 

In  those  days  I  had  never  even  heard  of  Treviranus* 
*  Biologic.'  However,  I  had  studied  Lamarck  attentively 
and  I  had  read  the  '  Vestiges  *  with  due  care ;  but  neither  of 
them  afforded  me  any  good  ground  for  changing  my  nega- 
tive and  critical  attitude.  As  for  the  *  Vestiges,'  1  confess 
that  the  book  simply  irritated  me  by  the  prodigious  ignorance 
and  thoroughly  unscientific  habit  of  mind  manifested  by  the 
writer.  If  it  had  any  influence  on  me  at  all,  it  set  me  against 
Evolution  ;  and  the  only  review  I  ever  have  qualms  of  con- 
science about,  on  the  ground  of  needless  savagery,  is  one  I 
wrote  on  the  '  Vestiges '  while  under  that  influence. 

With  respect  to  the  '  Philosophic  Zoologique,'  it  is  no  re- 
proach to  Lamarck  to  say  that  the  discussion  of  the  Species 
question  in  that  work,  whatever  might  be  said  for  it  in  1809, 
was  miserably  below  the  level  of  the  knowledge  of  half  a 
century  later.  In  that  interval  of  time  the  elucidation  of  the 
structure  of  the  lower  animals  and  plants  had  given  rise  to 
wholly  new  conceptions  of  their  relations  ;  histology  and 
embryology,  in  the  modern  sense,  had  been  created;  physi- 
ology had  been  reconstituted  ;  the  facts  of  distribution,  geo- 
logical and  geographical,  had  been  prodigiously  multiplied 
and  reduced  to  order.     To  any  biologist  whose  studies  hadi 


THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES/ 


543 


carried  him  beyond  mere  species-mongering  in  1850,  one- 
half  of  Lamarck's  arguments  were  obsolete  and  the  other 
half  erroneous,  or  defective,  in  virtue  of  omitting  to  deal 
with  the  various  classes  of  evidence  which  had  been  brought 
to  light  since  his  time.  Moreover  his  one  suggestion  as  to 
the  cause  of  the  gradual  modification  of  species — effort  ex- 
cited by  change  of  conditions — was,  on  the  face  of  it,  inap- 
plicable to  the  whole  vegetable  world.  I  do  not  think  that 
any  impartial  judge  who  reads  the  *  Philosophic  Zoologique  ' 
now,  and  who  afterwards  takes  up  Lyell's  trenchant  and 
effectual  criticism  (published  as  far  back  as  1830),  will  be 
disposed  to  allot  to  Lamarck  a  much  higher  place  in  the 
establishment  of  biological  evolution  than  that  which  Bacon 
assigns  to  himself  in  relation  to  physical  science  generally, — 
buccinator  tantum.^ 

But,  by  a  curious  irony  of  fate,  the  same  influence  which 
led  me  to  put  as  little  faith  in  modern  speculations  on  this 
subject,  as  in  the  venerable  traditions  recorded  in  the  first 
two  chapters  of  Genesis,  was  perhaps  more  potent  than  any 
other  in  keeping  alive  a  sort  of  pious  conviction  that  Evolu- 
tion, after  all,  would  turn  out  true.  I  have  recently  read 
afresh  the  first  edition  of  the  ^  Principles  of  Geology  '  ;  and 
when  I  consider  that  this  remarkable  book  had  been  nearly 
thirty  years  in  everybody's  hands,  and  that  it  brings  home  to 
any  reader  of  ordinary  intelligence  a  great  principle  and  a 
great  fact — the  principle,  that  the  past  must  be  explained  by 
the  present,  unless  good  cause  be  shown  to  the  contrary  ; 
and  the  fact,  that,  so  far  as  our  knowledge  of  the  past  history 
of  life  on  our  globe  goes,  no  such  cause  can  be  shown  f — I 
cannot  but  believe  that  Lyell,  for  others,  as  for  myself,  was 

*  Erasmus  Darwin  first  promulgated  Lamarck's  fundamental  concep- 
tions, and,  with  greater  logical  consistency,  he  had  applied  them  to 
plants.  But  the  advocates  of  his  claims  have  failed  to  show  that  he,  in 
any  respect,  anticipated  the  central  idea  of  the  *  Origin  of  Species.* 

f  The  same  principle  and  the  same  fact  guide  and  result  from  all 
sound  historical  investigation.  Grote's  *  History  of  Greece  *  is  a  product  of 
the  same  intellectual  mDvement  as  *  Lyell's  *  Principles.* 


544 


ON   THE    RECEPTION   OF 


the  chief  agent  for  smoothing  the  road  for  Darwin.  For  con- 
sistent uniformitarianism  postulates  evolution  as  much  in  the 
organic  as  in  the  inorganic  world.  The  origin  of  a  new  spe- 
cies by  other  than  ordinary  agencies  would  be  a  vastly 
greater  ^^  catastrophe  *'  than  any  of  those  which  Lyell  suc- 
cessfully eliminated  from  sober  geological  speculation. 

In  fact,  no  one  was  better  aware  of  this  than  Lyell  him- 
self.* If  one  reads  any  of  the  earlier  editions  of  the  *  Prin- 
ciples '  carefully  (especially  by  the  light  of  the  interesting 
series  of  letters  recently  published  by  Sir  Charles  LyelFs 
biographer),  it  is  easy  to  see  that,  with  all  his  energetic  oppo- 
sition to  Lamarck,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  ideal  quasi- 
progressionism  of  Agassiz,  on  the  other,  Lyell,  in  his  own 
mind,  was  strongly  disposed  to  account  for  the  origination  of 
all  past  and  present  species  of  living  things  by  natural  causes. 
But  he  would  have  liked,  at  the  same  time,  to  keep  the  name 
of  creation  for  a  natural  process  which  he  imagined  to  be  in- 
comprehensible. 

In  a  letter  addressed  to  Mantell  (dated  March  2,  1827), 
Lyell  speaks  of  having  just  read  Lamarck ;  he  expresses  his 
delight  at  Lamarck's  theories,  and  his  personal  freedom  from 
any  objection  based  on  theological  grounds.  And  though  he 
is  evidently  alarmed  at  the  pithecoid  origin  of  man  involved 
in  Lamarck's  doctrine,  he  observes  : — ^ 

*  Lyell,  with  perfect  right,  claims  this  position  for  himself.  He 
speaks  of  having  ''advocated  a  law  of  continuity  even  in  the  organic 
world,  so  far  as  possible  without  adopting  Lamarck's  theory  of  transmuta- 
tion." ... 

'*  But  while  I  taught  that  as  often  as  certain  forms  of  animals  and 
plants  disappeared,  for  reasons  quite  intelligible  to  us,  others  took  their 
place  by  virtue  of  a  causation  which  was  beyond  our  comprehension  ;  it 
remained  for  Darwin  to  accumulate  proof  that  there  is  no  break  between 
the  incoming  and  the  outgoing  species,  that  they  are  the  work  of  evolu- 
tion, and  not  of  special  creation.  .  .  . 

**  I  had  certainly  prepared  the  way  in  this  country,  in  six  editions  of 
my  work  before  the  *  Vestiges  of  Creation  *  appeared  in  1842  [1844],  for 
the  reception  of  Darwin's  gradual  and  insensible  evolution  of  species."—* 
*  Life  and  Letters,*  Letter  to  Haeckel,  vol.  ii.  p.  436.     Nov.  23,  i$6S. 


THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES. 


54: 


''  But,  after  all,  what  changes  species  may  really  undergo  ! 
How  impossible  will  it  be  to  distinguish  and  lay  down  a  line, 
beyond  which  some  of  the  so-called  extinct  species  have 
never  passed  into  recent  ones/' 

Again,  the  following  remarkable  passage  occurs  in  the 
postscript  of  a  letter  addressed   to   Sir    John    Herschel   in 

1836  :— 

'^  In  regard  to  the  origination  of  new  species,  I  am  very 
glad  to  find  that  you  think  it  probable  that  it  may  be  carried 
on  through  the  intervention  of  intermediate  causes.  I  left 
this  rather  to  be  inferred,  not  thinking  it  worth  while  to 
offend  a  certain  class  of  persons  by  embodying  in  words 
what  would  only  be  a  speculation."  *  He  goes  on  to  refer 
to  the  criticisms  which  have  been  directed  against  him  on 
the  ground  that,  by  leaving  species  to  be  originated  by 
miracle,  he  is  inconsistent  with  his  own  doctrine  of  uniformi- 
tarianism ;  and  he  leaves  it  to  be  understood  that  he  had  not 
replied,  on  the  ground  of  his  general  objection  to  controversy. 

Lyell's  contemporaries  were  not  without  some  inkling  of 
his  esoteric  doctrine.  WhewelFs  '  History  of  the  Inductive 
Sciences,'  whatever  its  philosophical  value,  is  always  worth 
reading  and  always  interesting,  if  under  no  other  aspect  than 
that  of  an  evidence  of  the  speculative  limits  within  which  a 
highly-placed  divine  might,  at  that  time,  safely  range  at  will. 
In  the  course  of  his  discussion  of  uniformitarianism,  the  en- 
cyclopaedic Master  of  Trinity  observes  : — 

"Mr.  Lyell,   indeed,   has   spoken  of  an   hypothesis   that 

*  In  the  same  sense,  see  the  letter  to  Whewell,  March  7,  1837,  vol.  ii., 
p.  5  :— 

*'  In  regard  to  this  last  subject  [the  changes  from  one  set  of  animal 
and  vegetable  species  to  another]  .  .  .  you  remember  what  Herschel  said 
in  his  letter  to  me.  If  I  had  stated  as  plainly  as  he  has  done  the  possibil- 
ity of  the  introduction  or  origination  of  fresh  species  being  a  natural,  in 
contradistinction  to  a  miraculous  process,  I  should  have  raised  a  host  of 
prejudices  against  me,  which  are  unfortunately  opposed  at  every  step  to 
any  philosopher  who  attempts  to  address  the  public  on  these  mysterious 
subjects."     See  also  letter  to  Sedgwick,  Jan.  20,  1838,  ii.  p.  35. 


546 


ON   THE    RECEPTION    OF 


*  the  successive  creation  of  species  may  constitute  a  regular 
part  of  the  economy  of  nature,'  but  he  has  nowhere,  I  think, 
so  described  this  process  as  to  make  it  appear  in  what  de- 
partment of  science  we  are  to  place  the  hypothesis.  Are 
these  new  species  created  by  the  production,  at  long  intervals, 
of  an  offspring  different  in  species  from  the  parents  ?  Or  are 
the  species  so  created  produced  without  parents  ?  Are  they 
gradually  evolved  from  some  embryo  substance  ?  Or  do 
they  suddenly  start  from  the  ground,  as  in  the  creation  of 
the  poet  ?  .  .  . 

^^  Some  selection  of  one  of  these  forms  of  the  hypothesis, 
rather  than  the  others,  with  evidence  for  the  selection,  is 
requisite  to  entitle  us  to  place  it  among  the  known  causes  of 
change,  which  in  this  chapter  we  are  considering.  The  bare 
conviction  that  a  creation  of  species  has  taken  place,  whether 
once  or  many  times,  so  long  as  it  is  unconnected  with  our  or- 
ganical  sciences,  is  a  tenet  of  Natural  Theology  rather  than 
of  Physical  Philosophy."  * 

The  earlier  part  of  this  criticism  appears  perfectly  just 
and  appropriate;  but,  from  the  concluding  paragraph,  Whew- 
ell  evidently  imagines  that  by  "creation''  Lyell  means  a 
preternatural  intervention  of  the  Deity  ;  whereas  the  letter 
to  Herschel  shows  that,  in  his  own  mind,  Lyell  meant  natural 
causation  ;  and  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  f  that,  if  Sir  Charles 


*  Whewell's  '  History,'  vol.  iii.  p.  639-640  (Ed.  2,  1847). 

f  The  following  passages  in  Lyell's  letters  appear  to  me  decisive  on 
this  point  : — 

To  Darwin,  Oct.  3,  1859  (ii,  325),  on  first  reading  the  *  Origin.' 

"  I  have  long  seen  most  clearly  that  if  any  concession  is  made,  all  that 
you  claim  in  your  concluding  pages  will  follow. 

"  It  is  this  which  has  made  me  so  long  hesitate,  always  feeling  that  the 
case  of  Man  and  his  Races,  and  of  other  animals,  and  that  of  plants,  is 
one  and  the  same,  and  that  if  a  vera  causa  be  admitted  for  one  instant, 
[instead]  of  a  purely  unknown  and  imaginary  one,  such  as  the  word  *  crea- 
tion,' all  the  consequences  must  follow." 

To  Darwin,  March  15,  1863  (vol.  ii.  p   365). 

"  I  remember  that  it  was  the  conclusion  he  [Lamarck]  came  to  about 
man  that  fortified  me  thirty  years  ago  against  the  great  impression  which 


THE   'ORIGIN   OF    SPECIES.' 


547 


could  have  avoided  the  inevitable  corollary  of  the  pithecoid 
origin  of  man — for  which,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  he  enter- 
tained a  profound  antipathy — he  would  have  advocated  the 
efficiency  of  causes  now  in  operation  to  bring  about  the  con- 
dition of  the  organic  world,  as  stoutly  as  he  championed  that 
doctrine  in  reference  to  inorganic  nature. 

The  fact  is,  that  a  discerning  eye  might  have  seen  that 
some  form  or  other  of  the  doctrine  of  transmutation  was  inevi- 
table, from  the  time  when  the  truth  enunciated  by  William 
Smith  that  successive  strata  are  characterised  by  different 
kinds  of  fossil  remains,  became  a  firmly  established  law  of 
nature.  No  one  has  set  forth  the  speculative  consequences 
of  this  generalisation  better  than  the  historian  of  the  *  Induc- 
tive Sciences  *  : — 

**  But  the  study  of  geology  opens  to  us  the  spectacle  of 
many  groups  of  species  which  have,  in  the  course  of  the  earth's 
history,  succeeded  each  other  at  vast  intervals  of  time  ;  one 
set  of  animals  and  plants  disappearing,  as  it  would  seem, 
from  the  face  of  our  planet,  and  others,  which  did  not  before 

his  arguments  at  first  made  on  my  mind,  all  the  greater  because  Constant 
Prevost,  a  pupil  of  Cuvier's  forty  years  ago,  told  me  his  conviction  *  that 
Cuvier  thought  species  not  real,  but  that  science  could  not  advance  with- 
out assuming  that  they  were  so.'  " 

To  Hooker,  March  9,  1863  (vol.  ii.  p.  361,),  in  reference  to  Darwin's 
feeling  about  the  *  Antiquity  of  Man.' 

**  He  [Darwin]  seems  much  disappointed  that  I  do  not  go  farther  with 
him,  or  do  not  speak  out  more.  I  can  only  say  that  I  have  spoken  out  to 
the  full  extent  of  my  present  convictions,  and  even  beyond  my  state  of 
feeling  as  to  man's  unbroken  descent  from  the  brutes,  and  I  find  I  am 
half  converting  not  a  few  who  were  in  arms  against  Darwin,  and  are  even 
now  against  Huxley."  He  speaks  of  having  had  to  abandon  **  old  and 
long  cherished  ideas,  which  constituted  the  charm  to  me  of  the  theoretical 
part  of  the  science  in  my  earlier  day,  when  I  believed  with  Pascal  in  the 
theory,  as  Hallam  terms  it,  of  *  the  arch-angel  ruined.'  " 

See  the  same  sentiment  in  the  letter  to  Darwin,  March  11,  1863, 
p.  363  :— 

**  I  think  the  old  *  creation  '  is  almost  as  much  required  as  ever,  but  of 
course  it  takes  a  new  form  if  Lamarck's  views  improved  by  yours  are 
adopted." 


548 


ON    THE    RECEPTION   OF 


exist,  becoming  the  only  occupants  of  the  globe.  And  the 
dilemma  then  presents  itself  to  us  anew  : —  either  we  must 
accept  the  doctrine  of  the  transmutation  of  species,  and  must 
suppose  that  the  organized  species  of  one  geological  epoch 
were  transmuted  into  those  of  another  by  some  long-con- 
tinued agency  of  natural  causes ;  or  else,  we  must  believe  in 
many  successive  acts  of  creation  and  extinction  of  species, 
out  of  the  common  course  of  nature  ;  acts  which,  therefore, 
we  may  properly  call  miraculous/'  * 

Dr.  Whewell  decides  in  favour  of  the  latter  conclusion. 
And  if  any  one  had  plied  him  with  the  four  questions  which 
he  puts  to  Lyell  in  the  passage  already  cited,  all  that  can  be 
said  now  is  that  he  would  certainly  have  rejected  the  first. 
But  would  he  really  have  had  the  courage  to  say  that  a 
Rhinoceros  tichorhinus^  for  instance,  "  was  produced  without 
parents  ;  "  or  was  ^*  evolved  from  some  embryo  substance  ;  " 
or  that  it  suddenly  started  from  the  ground  like  Milton's  lion 
"pawing  to  get  free  his  hinder  parts."  I  permit  myself  to 
doubt  whether  even  the  Master  of  Trinity's  well-tried  courage 
— physical,  intellectual,  and  moral — would  have  been  equal  to 
this  feat.  No  doubt  the  sudden  concurrence  of  half-a-ton  of 
inorganic  molecules  into  a  live  rhinoceros  is  conceivable,  and 
therefore  may  be  possible.  But  does  such  an  event  lie  suffi- 
ciently within  the  bounds  of  probability  to  justify  the  belief 
in  its  occurrence  on  the  strength  of  any  attainable,  or,  indeed, 
imaginable,  evidence  ? 

In  view  of  the  assertion  (often  repeated  in  the  early  days 
of  the  opposition  to  Darwin)  that  he  had  added  nothing  to 
Lamarck,  it  is  very  interesting  to  observe  that  the  possibility 
of  a  fifth  alternative,  in  addition  to  the  four  he  has  stated,  has 
not  dawned  upon  Dr.  Whewell's  mind.  The  suggestion  that 
new  species  may  result  from  the  selective  action  of  external 
conditions  upon  the  variations  from  their  specific  type  which 
individuals  present — and  which  we  call  "  spontaneous,"  be- 

*  Whewell's  *  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences.*    Ed.  ii.,  1847,  vol.  iii. 
pp.  624^625.     See  for  the  author's  verdict,  pp.  638-39. 


THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.^ 


H^ 


eaust  we  are  ignorant  of  their  causation — is  as  wholly  un- 
known to  the  historian  of  scientific  ideas  as  it  was  to  biologi- 
cal specialists  before  185S.  But  that  suggestion  is  the  central 
idea  of  the  *  Origin  of  Spedes^'  and  contains  the  quintessence 
of  Darwinism. 

Thus^  looking  back  into  the  past,  it  seems  to  me  that  my 
own  position  of  critical  expectancy  was  just  and  reasonable, 
and  must  have  been  taken  up,  on  the  same  grounds,  by  many 
other  persons.  If  Agassii  told  me  that  the  forms  of  life 
which  had  successively  tenanted  the  globe  were  the  incarna- 
tions of  successive  thoughts  of  the  Deity ;  and  that  he  had 
wiped  out  one  set  of  these  embodiments  by  an  appalling 
geological  catastrophe  as  soon  as  His  ideas  took  a  more 
advanced  shape,  I  found  myself  not  only  unable  to  admit  the 
accuracy  of  the  deductions  from  the  facts  of  paleontology, 
upon  which  this  astounding  hypothesis  was  founded,  but  I 
had  to  confess  my  want  of  any  means  of  testing  the  correct- 
ness of  his  explanation  of  them.  And  besides  that,  I  could 
by  no  means  see  what  the  explanation  explained.  Neither 
did  it  help  me  to  be  told  by  an  eminent  anatomist  that  species 
had  succeeded  one  another  in  time,  in  virtue  of  **  a  continu- 
ously operative  creational  law/*  That  seemed  to  me  to  be 
no  more  than  saying  that  species  had  succeeded  one  another, 
in  the  form  of  a  vote-catching  resolution,  with  **  law ''  to  please 
the  man  of  science,  and  **  creational  **  to  draw  the  orthodox. 
So  I  took  refuge  in  that  ""MdM^  SJi^^*'  which  Goethe  has 
so  well  defined ;  and,  reversing  the  apostolic  precept  to  be 
all  things  to  all  men,  I  usually  defended  the  tenability  of  the 
received  doctrines,  when  I  had  to  do  with  the  transmutation- 
ists ;  and  stood  up  for  the  possibility  of  transmutation  among 
the  orthodox  —  thereby,  no  doubt,  increasing  an  already 
current,  but  quite  undeserved,  reputation  for  needless  com- 
bativeness. 

I  remember,  in  the  course  of  my  first  interview  with  Mr 
Darwin,  expressing  my  belief  in  the  sharpness  of  the  lines  of 
demarcation  between  natural  groups  and  in  the  absence  of 
transitional  forms,  with  all  the  confidence  of  youth  and  im- 


5SO 


ON   THE    RECEPTION    OF 


perfect  knowledge.  I  was  not  aware,  at  that  time,  that  he 
had  then  been  many  years  brooding  over  the  species-question  ; 
and  the  humorous  smile  which  accompanied  his  gentle  answer, 
that  such  was  not  altogether  his  view,  long  haunted  and 
puzzled  me.  But  it  would  seem  that  four  or  five  years'  hard 
work  had  enabled  me  to  understand  what  it  meant  ;  for 
Lyell,*  writing  to  Sir  Charles  Bunbury  (under  date  of  April 
30,  1856),  says  :— 

"  When  Huxley,  Hooker,  and  Wollaston  were  at  Darwin's 
last  week  they  (all  four  of  them)  ran  a  tilt  against  species-— 
further,  I  believe,  than  they  are  prepared  to  go." 

I  recollect  nothing  of  this  beyond  the  fact  of  meeting  Mr. 
Wollaston  ;  and  except  for  Sir  Charles*  distinct  assurance 
as  to  *^all  four,"  I  should  have  thought  my  outrecuidance  was 
probably  a  counterblast  to  Wollaston's  conservatism.  With 
regard  to  Hooker,  he  was  already,  like  Voltaire's  Habbakuk^ 
^^ capable  de  tout''  in  the  way  of  advocating  Evolution. 

As  I  have  already  said,  I  imagine  that  most  of  those  of 
my  contemporaries  who  thought  seriously  about  the  matter, 
were  very  much  in  my  own  state  of  mind — inclined  to  say  to 
both  Mosaists  and  Evolutionists,  "  a  plague  on  both  your 
houses !  "  and  disposed  to  turn  aside  from  an  interminable 
and  apparently  fruitless  discussion,  to  labour  in  the  fertile 
fields  of  ascertainable  fact.  And  I  may,  therefore,  further 
suppose  that  the  publication  of  the  Darwin  and  Wallace 
papers  in  1858,  and  still  more  that  of  the  *  Origin  '  in  1859, 
had  the  effect  upon  them  of  the  flash  of  light,  which  to  a  man 
who  has  lost  himself  in  a  dark  night,  suddenly  reveals  a  road 
which,  whether  it  takes  him  straight  home  or  not,  certainly 
goes  his  way.  That  which  we  were  looking  for,  and  could 
not  find,  was  a  hypothesis  respecting  the  origin  of  known 
organic  forms,  which  assumed  the  operation  of  no  causes  but 
such  as  could  be  proved  to  be  actually  at  work.  We  wanted, 
not  to  pin  our  faith  to  that  or  any  other  speculation,  but  to 
get  hold  of  clear  and  definite  conceptions  which  could  be 


Life  and  Letters/  vol.  ii.  p.  212. 


THE  'ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES/  55 1 

brought  face  to  face  with  facts  and  have  their  validity  tested. 
The  *  Origin  '  provided  us  with  the  working  hypothesis  we 
sought.  Moreover,  it  did  the  immense  service  of  freeing  us 
for  ever  from  the  dilemma — refuse  to  accept  the  creation 
hypothesis,  and  what  have  you  to  propose  that  can  be  accepted 
by  any  cautious  reasoner?  In  1857,  I  had  no  answer  ready, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  else  had.  A  year  later,  we 
reproached  ourselves  with  dulness  for  being  perplexed  by 
such  an  inquiry.  My  reflection,  when  I  first  made  myself 
master  of  the  central  idea  of  the  *  Origin,'  was,  "  How  ex- 
tremely stupid  not  to  have  thought  of  that ! ''  I  suppose  that 
Columbus'  companions  said  much  the  same  when  he  made 
the  egg  stand  on  end.  The  facts  of  variability,  of  the  struggle 
for  existence,  of  adaptation  to  conditions,  were  notorious 
enough  ;  but  none  of  us  had  suspected  that  the  road  to  the 
heart  of  the  species  problem  lay  through  them,  until  Darwin 
and  Wallace  dispelled  the  darkness,  and  the  beacon-fire  of 
the  '  Origin  '  guided  the  benighted. 

Whether  the  particular  shape  which  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion, as  applied  to  the  organic  world,  took  in  Darwin's  hands, 
would  prove  to  be  final  or  not,  was,  to  me,  a  matter  of  in- 
difference. In  my  earliest  criticisms  of  the  '  Origin  '  I  ven- 
tured to  point  out  that  its  logical  foundation  was  insecure  so 
long  as  experiments  in  selective  breeding  had  not  produced 
varieties  which  were  more  or  less  infertile  ;  and  that  inse- 
curity remains  up  to  the  present  time.  But,  with  any  and 
every  critical  doubt  which  my  sceptical  ingenuity  could  sug- 
gest, the  Darwinian  hypothesis  remained  incomparably  more 
probable  than  the  creation  hypothesis.  And  if  we  had  none 
of  us  been  able  to  discern  the  paramount  significance  of  some 
of  the  most  patent  and  notorious  of  natural  facts,  until  they 
were,  so  to  speak,  thrust  under  our  noses,  what  force  remained 
in  the  dilemma — creation  or  nothing  ?  It  was  obvious  that, 
hereafter,  the  probability  would  be  immensely  greater,  that  the 
links  of  natural  causation  were  hidden  from  our  purblind 
eyes,  than  that  natural  causation  should  be  incompetent  to 
produce  all  the  phenomena  of  nature.      The  only  rational 


552  ON   THE   RECEPTION   OF 

course  for  those  who  had  no  other  object  than  the  attainment 
of  truth,  was  to  accept  '^  Darwinism  ''  as  a  working  hypothesis, 
and  see  what  could  be  made  of  it.  Either  it  would  prove  its 
capacity  to  elucidate  the  facts  of  organic  life,  or  it  would 
break  down  under  the  strain.  This  was  surely  the  dictate  of 
common  sense  ;  and,  for  once,  common  sense  carried  the  day. 
The  result  has  been  that  complete  volte-face  of  the  whole 
scientific  world,  which  must  seem  so  surprising  to  the  present 
generation.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  all  the  leaders  of 
biological  science  have  avowed  themselves  Darwinians ;  but 
I  do  not  think  that  there  is  a  single  zoologist,  or  botanist,  or 
palaeontologist,  among  the  multitude  of  active  workers  of  this 
generation,  who  is  other  than  an  evolutionist,  profoundly  in- 
fluenced by  Darwin's  views.  Whatever  may  be  the  ultimate 
fate  of  the  particular  theory  put  forth  by  Darwin,  I  venture 
to  affirm  that,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  all  the  ingenuity 
and  all  the  learning  of  hostile  critics  has  not  enabled  them  to 
adduce  a  solitary  fact,  of  which  it  can  be  said,  this  is  irrecon- 
cilable with  the  Darwinian  theory.  In  the  prodigious  variety 
and  complexity  of  organic  nature,  there  are  multitudes  of 
phenomena  which  are  not  deducible  from  any  generalisations 
we  have  yet  reached.  But  the  same  may  be  said  of  every 
other  class  of  natural  objects.  I  believe  that  astronomers 
cannot  yet  get  the  moon's  motions  into  perfect  accordance 
with  the  theory  of  gravitation. 

It  would  be  inappropriate,  even  if  it  were  possible,  to  dis- 
cuss the  difficulties  and  unresolved  problems  which  have 
hitherto  met  the  evolutionist,  and  which  will  probably  con- 
tinue to  puzzle  him  for  generations  to  come,  in  the  course  of 
this  brief  history  of  the  reception  of  Mr.  Darwin's  great  work. 
But  there  are  two  or  three  objections  of  a  more  general  char- 
acter, based,  or  supposed  to  be  based,  upon  philosophical 
and  theological  foundations,  which  were  loudly  expressed  in 
the  early  days  of  the  Darwinian  controversy,  and  which, 
though  they  L.  ,ve  been  answered  over  and  over  again,  crop 
up  now  and  then  to  the  present  day. 


_ 


THE  'ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES.' 


553 


The  most  singular  of  these,  perhaps  immortal,  fallacies, 
which  live  on,  Tithonus-like,  when  sense  and  force  have  long 
deserted  them,  is  that  which  charges  Mr.  Darwin  with  having 
attempted  to  reinstate  the  old  pagan  goddess.  Chance.  It  is 
said  that  he  supposes  variations  to  come  about  ^^by  chance," 
and  that  the  fittest  survive  the  "chances'*  of  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  thus  "  chance ''  is  substituted  for  providential 
design. 

It  is  not  a  little  wonderful  that  such  an  accusation  as  this 
should  be  brought  against  a  writer  who  has,  over  and  over 
again,  warned  his  readers  that  when  he  uses  the  word  "  spon- 
taneous,'* he  merely  means  that  he  is  ignorant  of  the  cause  of 
that  which  is  so  termed  ;  and  whose  whole  theory  crumbles 
to  pieces  if  the  uniformity  and  regularity  of  natural  causation 
for  illimitable  past  ages  is  denied.  But  probably  the  best 
answer  to  those  who  talk  of  Darwinism  meaning  the  reign  of 
*^  chance,**  is  to  ask  them  what  they  themselves  understand 
by  "  chance  **  ?  Do  they  believe  that  anything  in  this  universe 
happens  without  reason  or  without  a  cause  ?  Do  they  really 
conceive  that  any  event  has  no  cause,  and  could  not  have 
been  predicted  by  any  one  who  had  a  sufficient  insight  into 
the  order  of  Nature  ?  If  they  do,  it  is  they  who  are  the 
inheritors  of  antique  superstition  and  ignorance,  and  whose 
minds  have  never  been  illumined  by  a  ray  of  scientific 
thought.  The  one  act  of  faith  in  the  convert  to  science,  is 
the  confession  of  the  universality  of  order  and  of  the  absolute 
validity  in  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances,  of  the  law 
of  causation.  This  confession  is  an  act  of  faith,  because, 
by  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  truth  of  such  propositions  is 
not  susceptible  of  proof.  But  such  faith  is  not  blind,  but 
reasonable  ;  because  it  is  invariably  confirmed  by  experience, 
and  constitutes  the  sole  trustworthy  foundation  for  all  action. 

If  one  of  these  people,  in  whom  the  chance-worship  of 
our  remoter  ancestors  thus  strangely  survives,  should  be 
within  reach  of  the  sea  when  a  heavy  gale  is  blowing,  let  him 
betake  himself  to  the  shore  and  watch  the  scene.     Let  him 

note  the  infinite  variety  of  form  and  size  of  the  tossing  wav 

24* 


554 


ON   THE   RECEPTION   OF 


out  at  sea  ;  or  of  the  curves  of  their  foam-crested  breakers, 
as  they  dash  against  the  rocks  ;  let  him  Hsten  to  the  roar  and 
scream  of  the  shingle  as  it  is  cast  up  and  torn  down  the 
beach ;  or  look  at  the  flakes  of  foam  as  they  drive  hither  and 
thither  before  the  wind  ;  or  note  the  play  of  colours,  which 
answers  a  gleam  of  sunshine  as  it  falls  upon  the  myriad  bub- 
bles. Surely  here,  if  anywhere,  he  will  say  that  chance  is 
suprem.e,  and  bend  the  knee  as  one  who  has  entered  the  very 
penetralia  of  his  divinity.  But  the  man  of  science  knows  that 
here,  as  everywhere,  perfect  order  is  manifested  ;  that  there 
is  not  a  curve  of  the  waves,  not  a  note  in  the  howling  chorus, 
not  a  rainbow- glint  on  a  bubble,  which  is  other  than  a  neces- 
sary consequence  of  the  ascertained  laws  of  nature  ;  and  that 
with  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  conditions,  competent 
physico-mathematical  skill  could  account  for,  and  indeed 
predict,  every  one  of  these  '^  chance  **  events. 

A  second  very  common  objection  to  Mr.  Darwin's  views 
was  (and  is),  that  they  abolish  Teleology,  and  eviscerate  the 
argument  from  design.  It  is  nearly  twenty  years  since  I 
ventured  to  offer  some  remarks  on  this  subject,  and  as  my 
arguments  have  as  yet  received  no  refutation,  I  hope  I  may 
be  excused  for  reproducing  them.  I  observed,  '^that  the 
doctrine  of  Evolution  is  the  most  formidable  opponent  of  all 
the  commoner  and  coarser  forms  of  Teleology.  But  perhaps 
the  most  remarkable  service  to  the  Philosophy  of  Biology 
rendered  by  Mr.  Darwin  is  the  reconciliation  of  Teleology 
and  Morphology,  and  the  explanation  of  the  facts  of  both, 
which  his  views  offer.  The  teleology  which  supposes  that 
the  eye,  such  as  we  see  it  in  man,  or  one  of  the  higher  verte- 
brata,  was  made  with  the  precise  structure  it  exhibits,  for  the 
purpose  of  enabling  the  animal  which  possesses  it  to  see,  has 
undoubtedly  received  its  death-blow.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
necessary  to  remember  that  there  is  a  wider  teleology  which 
is  not  touched  by  the  doctrine  of  Evolution,  but  is  actually 
based  upon  the  fundamental  proposition  of  Evolution.  This 
proposition  is  that  the  whole  world,  living  and  not  living,  is 
ur^  result  of  the  mutual   interaction,   according  to  definite 


THE  *  ORIGIN   OF   SPECIES.' 


555 


laws,  of  the  forces  *  possessed  by  the  molecules  of  which  the 
primitive  nebulosity  of  the  universe  was  composed.  If  this 
be  true,  it  is  no  less  certain  that  the  existing  world  lay  poten- 
tially in  the  cosmic  vapour,  and  that  a  sufficient  intelligence 
could,  from  a  knowledge  of  the  properties  of  the  molecules  of 
that  vapour,  have  predicted,  say  the  state  of  the  fauna  of 
Britain  in  i8  9,  with  as  much  certainty  as  one  can  say  what 
will  happen  to  the  vapour  of  the  breath  on  a  cold  winter's 
day 

....  The  teleological  and  the  mechanical  views  of  na- 
ture are  not,  necessarily,  mutually  exclusive.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  more  purely  a  mechanist  the  speculator  is,  the  more 
firmly  does  he  assume  a  primordial  molecular  arrangement  of 
which  all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe  are  the  conse- 
quences, and  the  more  completely  is  he  thereby  at  the  mercy 
of  the  teleologist,  who  can  always  defy  him  to  disprove  that 
this  primordial  molecular  arrangement  was  not  intended  to 
evolve  the  phenomena  of  the  universe.''  f 

The  acute  champion  of  Teleology,  Paley,  saw  no  difficulty 
in  admitting  that  the  "  production  of  things  "  may  be  the 
result  of  trains  of  mechanical  dispositions  fixed  beforehand 
by  intelligent  appointment  and  kept  in  action  by  a  power  at 
the  centre,  J  that  is  to  say,  he  proleptically  accepted  the  mod- 
ern doctrine  of  Evolution  ;  and  his  successors  might  do  well 
to  follow  their  leader,  or  at  any  rate  to  attend  to  his  weighty 
reasonings,  before  rushing  into  an  antagonism  which  has  no 
reasonable  foundation. 

Having  got  rid  of  the  belief  in  chance  and  the  disbelief 
in  design,  as  in  no  sense  appurtenances  of  Evolution,  the 
third  libel  upon  that  doctrine,  that  it  is  anti-theistic,  might 
perhaps  be  left  to  shift  for  itself.  But  the  persistence  with 
which  many  people  refuse  to  draw  the  plainest  consequences 

*  I  should  now  like  to  substitute  the  word  powers  for  **  forces." 
f  The  **  Genealogy  of  Animals  "  (*  The  Academy,'  1869),  reprinted  in 
*  Critiques  and  Addresses." 

i  *  Natural  Theology/  chap,  xxiii. 


556 


ON   THE    RECEPTION    OF 


from  the  propositions  they  profess  to  accept,  renders  it  ad- 
visable to  remark  that  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  is  neither 
Anti-theistic  nor  Theistic.  It  simply  has  no  more  to  do  with 
Theism  than  the  first  book  of  Euclid  has.  It  is  quite  cer- 
tain that  a  normal  fresh-laid  egg  contains  neither  cock  nor 
hen  ;  and  it  is  also  as  certain  as  any  proposition  in  physics  or 
morals,  that  if  such  an  egg  is  kept  under  proper  conditions 
for  three  weeks,  a  cock  or  hen  chicken  will  be  found  in  it. 
It  is  also  quite  certain  that  if  the  shell  were  transparent  we 
should  be  able  to  watch  the  formation  of  the  young  fowd, 
day  by  day,  by  a  process  of  evolution,  from  a  microscopic 
cellular  germ  to  its  full  size  and  complication  of  structure. 
Therefore  Evolution,  in  the  strictest  sense,  is  actually  going 
on  in  this  and  analogous  millions  and  millions  of  instances, 
wherever  living  creatures  exist.  Therefore,  to  borrow  an 
argument  from  Butler,  as  that  which  now  happens  must  be 
consistent  with  the  attributes  of  the  Deity,  if  such  a  Being 
exists.  Evolution  must  be  consistent  with  those  attributes. 
And,  if  so,  the  evolution  of  the  universe,  which  is  neither 
more  nor  less  explicable  than  that  of  a  chicken,  must  also  be 
consistent  with  them.  The  doctrine  of  Evolution,  therefore, 
does  not  even  come  into  contact  with  Theism,  considered  as 
a  philosophical  doctrine.  That  with  which  it  does  collide, 
and  with  which  it  is  absolutely  inconsistent,  is  the  conception 
of  creation,  which  theological  speculators  have  based  upon 
the  history  narrated  in  the  opening  of  the  book  of  Genesis. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  talk  and  not  a  little  lamentation 
about  the  so-called  religious  difficulties  which  physical  sci- 
ence has  created.  In  theological  science,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  has  created  none.  Not  a  solitary  problem  presents  itself 
to  the  philosophical  Theist,  at  the  present  day,  which  has 
not  existed  from  the  time  that  philosophers  began  to  think 
out  the  logical  grounds  and  the  logical  consequences  of  The- 
ism. All  the  real  or  imaginary  perplexities  which  flow  from 
the  conception  of  the  universe  as  a  determinate  mechanism,, 
are  equally  involved  in  the  assumption  of  an  Eternal,  Om- 
u^otent  and  Omniscient  Deity.     The  theological  equivalent 


THE  'ORIGIN    OF    SPECIES. 


557 


of  the  scientific  conception  of  order  is  Providence  ;  and  the 
doctrine  of  determinism  follows  as  surely  from  the  attributes  of 
foreknowledge  assumed  by  the  theologian,  as  from  the  uni- 
versality of  natural  causation  assumed  by  the  man  of  science. 
The  angels  in  ^  Paradise  Lost '  would  have  found  the  task  of 
enlightening  Adam  upon  the  mysteries  of  '^  Fate,  Foreknowl- 
edge, and  Free-will,"  not  a  whit  more  difficult,  if  their  pupil 
had  been  educated  in  a  ''  Real-schule  "  and  trained  in  every 
laboratory  of  a  modern  university.  In  respect  of  the  great 
problems  of  Philosophy,  the  post-Darwinian  generation  is, 
in  one  sense,  exactly  where  the  prse-Darwinian  generations 
were.  They  remain  insoluble.  But  the  present  generation 
has  the  advantage  of  being  better  provided  with  the  means  of 
freeing  itself  from  the  tyranny  of  certain  sham  solutions. 

The  known  is  finite,  the  unknown  infinite  ;  intellectually 
we  stand  on  an  islet  in  the  midst  of  an  illimitable  ocean  of 
inexplicability.  Our  business  in  every  generation  is  to  reclaim 
a  little  more  land,  to  add  something  to  the  extent  and  the  so- 
lidity of  our  possessions.  And  even  a  cursory  glance  at  the 
history  of  the  biological  sciences  during  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century  is  sufficient  to  justify  the  assertion,  that  the  most 
potent  instrument  for  the  extension  of  the  realm  of  natural 
knowledge  which  has  come  into  men's  hands,  since  the  pub- 
lication of  Newton's  '  Principia,'  is  Darwin's  *  Origin  of  Spe- 
cies.' 

It  was  badly  received  by  the  generation  to  which  it  was 
first  addressed,  and  the  outpouring  of  angry  nonsense  to  which 
it  gave  rise  is  sad  to  think  upon.  But  the  present  generation 
will  probably  behave  just  as  badly  if  another  Darwin  should 
arise,  and  inflict  upon  them  that  which  the  generality  of  man- 
kind most  hate — the  necessity  of  revising  their  convictions. 
Let  them,  then,  be  charitable  to  us  ancients  ;  and  if  they 
behave  no  better  than  the  men  of  my  day  to  some  new  bene- 
factor, let  them  recollect  that,  after  all,  our  wrath  did  not 
come  to  much,  and  vented  itself  chiefly  in  the  bad  language 
of  sanctimonious  scolds.  Let  them  as  speedily  perform  ^ 
strategic  right-about-face,  and  follow  the  truth  wherev 


558  ON  THE  RECEPTION  OF  THE  'ORIGIN  OF  SPECIES.' 

leads.  The  opponents  of  the  new  truth  will  discover,  as 
those  of  Darwin  are  doing,  that,  after  all,  theories  do  not 
alter  facts,  and  that  the  universe  remains  unaffected  even 
though  texts  crumble.  Or,  it  may  be,  that,  as  history  repeats 
itself,  their  happy  ingenuity  will  also  discover  that  the  new 
wine  is  exactly  of  the  same  vintage  as  the  old,  and  that 
(rightly  viewed)  the  old  bottles  prove  to  have  been  expressly 
made  for  holding  it. 


END   OF  VOLUME  ONE. 


S 


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