Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookoduced, without the aid of
reversion or selection, perfect thorns. That Natural Selection would
tend to produce the most formidable thorns will be admitted by every
one who has observed the distribution in South America and Africa (vide
Livingstone) of thorn-bearing plants, for they always appear where the
bushes grow isolated and are exposed to the attacks of mammals. Even
in England it has been noticed that all spine-bearing and sting-bearing
plants are palatable to quadrupeds, when the thorns are crushed. With
respect to the Malayan climbing Palm, what I meant to express is that
the admirable hooks were perhaps not first developed for climbing; but
having been developed for protection were subsequently used, and perhaps
further modified for climbing.
LETTER 224. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, September 8th [1868].
About the "Pall Mall." (224/1. "Pall Mall Gazette," August 22nd, 1868.
In an article headed "Dr. Hooker on Religion and Science," and referring
to the British Association address, the writer objects to any supposed
opposition between religion and science. "Religion," he says, "is your
opinion upon one set of subjects, science your opinion upon another set
of subjects." But he forgets that on one side we have opinions assumed
to be revealed truths; and this is a condition which either results in
the further opinion that those who bring forward irreconcilable facts
are more or less wicked, or in a change of front on the religious side,
by which theological opinion "shifts its ground to meet the requirements
of every new fact that science establishes, and every old error
that science exposes" (Dr. Hooker as quoted by the "Pall Mall"). If
theologians had been in the habit of recognising that, in the words of
the "Pall Mall" writer, "Science is a general name for human knowledge
in its most definite and general shape, whatever may be the object of
that knowledge," probably Sir Joseph Hooker's remarks would never have
been made.) I do not agree that the article was at all right; it struck
me as monstrous (and answered on the spot by the "Morning Advertiser")
that religion did not attack science. When, however, I say not at all
right, I am not sure whether it would not be wisest for scientific men
quite to ignore the whole subject of religion. Goldwin Smith, who has
been lunching here, coming with the Nortons (son of Professor Norton and
friend of Asa Gray), who have taken for four months Keston Rectory,
was strongly of opinion it was a mistake. Several persons have spoken
strongly to me as very much admiring your address. For chance of you
caring to see yourself in a French dress, I send a journal; also with a
weak article by Agassiz on Geographical Distribution. Berkeley has sent
me his address (224/2. The Rev. M.J. Berkeley was President of Section D
at Norwich in 1868.), so I have had a fair excuse for writing to him. I
differ from you: I could hardly bear to shake hands with the "Sugar of
Lead" (224/3. "You know Mrs. Carlyle said that Owen's sweetness reminded
her of sugar of lead." (Huxley to Tyndall, May 13th, 1887: Huxley's
"Life," II., page 167.), which I never heard before: it is capital. I
am so very glad you will come here with Asa Gray, as if I am bad he will
not be dull. We shall ask the Nortons to come to dinner. On Saturday,
Wallace (and probably Mrs. W.), J. Jenner Weir (a very good man), and
Blyth, and I fear not Bates, are coming to stay the Sunday. The thought
makes me rather nervous; but I shall enjoy it immensely if it does not
kill me. How I wish it was possible for you to be here!
LETTER 225. TO M.J. BERKELEY. Down, September 7th, 1868.
I am very much obliged to you for having sent me your address (225/1.
Address to Section D of the British Association. ("Brit. Assoc. Report,"
Norwich meeting, 1868, page 83.))...for I thus gain a fair excuse
for troubling you with this note to thank you for your most kind and
extremely honourable notice of my works.
When I tell you that ever since I was an undergraduate at Cambridge
I have felt towards you the most unfeigned respect, from all that
I continually heard from poor dear Henslow and others of your great
knowledge and original researches, you will believe me when I say that I
have rarely in my life been more gratified than by reading your address;
though I feel that you speak much too strongly of what I have done. Your
notice of pangenesis (225/3. "It would be unpardonable to finish
these somewhat desultory remarks without adverting to one of the
most interesting subjects of the day,--the Darwinian doctrine of
pangenesis...Like everything which comes from the pen of a writer whom I
have no hesitation, so far as my judgment goes, in considering as by
far the greatest observer of our age, whatever may be thought of his
theories when carried out to their extreme results, the subject demands
a careful and impartial consideration." (Berkeley, page 86.)) has
particularly pleased me, for it has been generally neglected or
disliked by my friends; yet I fully expect that it will some day be more
successful. I believe I quite agree with you in the manner in which the
cast-off atoms or so-called gemmules probably act (225/4. "Assuming
the general truth of the theory that molecules endowed with certain
attributes are cast off by the component cells of such infinitesimal
minuteness as to be capable of circulating with the fluids, and in the
end to be present in the unimpregnated embryo-cell and spermatozoid...it
seems to me far more probable that they should be capable under
favourable circumstances of exercising an influence analogous to that
which is exercised by the contents of the pollen-tube or spermatozoid on
the embryo-sac or ovum, than that these particles should be themselves
developed into cells" (Berkeley, page 87).): I have never supposed that
they were developed into free cells, but that they penetrated other
nascent cells and modified their subsequent development. This process
I have actually compared with ordinary fertilisation. The cells thus
modified, I suppose cast off in their turn modified gemmules, which
again combine with other nascent cells, and so on. But I must not
trouble you any further.
LETTER 226. TO AUGUST WEISMANN. Down, October 22nd, 1868.
I am very much obliged for your kind letter, and I have waited for a
week before answering it in hopes of receiving the "kleine Schrift"
(226/1. The "kleine Schrift" is "Ueber die Berechtigung der Darwin'schen
Theorie," Leipzig, 1868. The "Anhang" is "Ueber den Einfluss der
Wanderung und raumlichen Isolirung auf die Artbilding.") to which you
allude; but I fear it is lost, which I am much surprised at, as I have
seldom failed to receive anything sent by the post.
As I do not know the title, and cannot order a copy, I should be very
much obliged if you can spare another.
I am delighted that you, with whose name I am familiar, should approve
of my work. I entirely agree with what you say about each species
varying according to its own peculiar |