Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookfor the great interest which your discussion has given me. LETTER 245. TO J.D. HOOKER. (245/1. The following letter refers to Mivart's "Genesis of Species.") Down, September 16th [1871]. I am preparing a new and cheap edition of the "Origin," and shall introduce a new chapter on gradation, and on the uses of initial commencements of useful structures; for this, I observe, has produced the greatest effect on most persons. Every one of his [Mivart's] cases, as it seems to me, can be answered in a fairly satisfactory manner. He is very unfair, and never says what he must have known could be said on my side. He ignores the effect of use, and what I have said in all my later books and editions on the direct effects of the conditions of life and so-called spontaneous variation. I send you by this post a very clever, but ill-written review from N. America by a friend of Asa Gray, which I have republished. (245/2. Chauncey Wright in the "North American Review," Volume CXIII., reprinted by Darwin and published as a pamphlet (see "Life and Letters," III., page 145).) I am glad to hear about Huxley. You never read such strong letters Mivart wrote to me about respect towards me, begging that I would call on him, etc., etc.; yet in the "Q. Review" (245/3. See "Quarterly Review," July 1871; also "Life and Letters," III., page 147.) he shows the greatest scorn and animosity towards me, and with uncommon cleverness says all that is most disagreeable. He makes me the most arrogant, odious beast that ever lived. I cannot understand him; I suppose that accursed religious bigotry is at the root of it. Of course he is quite at liberty to scorn and hate me, but why take such trouble to express something more than friendship? It has mortified me a good deal. LETTER 246. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, October 4th [1871]. I am quite delighted that you think so highly of Huxley's article. (246/1. A review of Wallace's "Natural Selection," of Mivart's "Genesis of Species," and of the "Quarterly Review" article on the "Descent of Man" (July, 1871), published in the "Contemporary Review" (1871), and in Huxley's "Collected Essays," II., page 120.) I was afraid of saying all I thought about it, as nothing is so likely as to make anything appear flat. I thought of, and quite agreed with, your former saying that Huxley makes one feel quite infantile in intellect. He always thus acts on me. I exactly agree with what you say on the several points in the article, and I piled climax on climax of admiration in my letter to him. I am not so good a Christian as you think me, for I did enjoy my revenge on Mivart. He (i.e. Mivart) has just written to me as cool as a cucumber, hoping my health is better, etc. My head, by the way, plagues me terribly, and I have it light and rocking half the day. Farewell, dear old friend--my best of friends. LETTER 247. TO JOHN FISKE. (247/1. Mr. Fiske, who is perhaps best known in England as the author of "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," had sent to Mr. Darwin some reports of the lectures given at Harvard University. The point referred to in the postscript in Mr. Darwin's letter is explained by the following extract from Mr. Fiske's work: "I have endeavoured to show that the transition from animality (or bestiality, stripping the word of its bad connotations) to humanity must have been mainly determined by the prolongation of infancy or immaturity which is consequent upon a high development of intelligence, and which must have necessitated the gradual grouping together of pithecoid men into more or less definite families." (See "Descent," I., page 13, on the prolonged infancy of the anthropoid apes.)) Down, November 9th, 1871. I am greatly obliged to you for having sent me, through my son, your lectures, and for the very honourable manner in which you allude to my works. The lectures seem to me to be written with much force, clearness, and originality. You show also a truly extraordinary amount of knowledge of all that has been published on the subject. The type in many parts is so small that, except to young eyes, it is very difficult to read. Therefore I wish that you would reflect on their separate publication, though so much has been published on the subject that the public may possibly have had enough. I hope that this may be your intention, for I do not think I have ever seen the general argument more forcibly put so as to convert unbelievers. It has surprised and pleased me to see that you and others have detected the falseness of much of Mr. Mivart's reasoning. I wish I had read your lectures a month or two ago, as I have been preparing a new edition of the "Origin," in which I answer some special points, and I believe I should have found your lectures useful; but my MS. is now in the printer's hands, and I have not strength or time to make any more additions. P.S.--By an odd coincidence, since the above was written I have received your very obliging letter of October 23rd. I did notice the point to which you refer, and will hereafter reflect more over it. I was indeed on the point of putting in a sentence to somewhat of the same effect in the new edition of the "Origin," in relation to the query--Why have not apes advanced in intellect as much as man? but I omitted it on account of the asserted prolonged infancy of the orang. I am also a little doubtful about the distinction between gregariousness and sociability. ...When you come to England I shall have much pleasure in making your acquaintance; but my health is habitually so weak that I have very small power of conversing with my friends as much as I wish. Let me again thank you for your letter. To believe that I have at all influenced the minds of able men is the greatest satisfaction I am capable of receiving. LETTER 248. TO E. HACKEL. Down, December 27th, 1871. I thank you for your very interesting letter, which it has given me much pleasure to receive. I never heard of anything so odd as the Prior in the Holy Catholic Church believing in our ape-like progenitors. I much hope that the Jesuits will not dislodge him. What a wonderfully active man you are! and I rejoice that you have been so successful in your work on sponges. (248/1. "Die Kalkschwamme: eine Monographie; 3 volumes: Berlin, 1872. H.J. Clark published a paper "On the Spongiae Ciliatae as Infusoria flagellata" in the "Mem. Boston Nat. Hist. Soc." Volume I., Part iii., 1866. See Hackel, op. cit., Volume I., page 24.) Your book with sixty plates will be magnificent. I shall be glad to learn what you think of Clark's view of sponges being flagellate infusorians; some observers in this country believe in him. I am glad you are going fully to consider inheritance, which is an all-important subject for us. I do not know whether you have ever read my chapter on pangenesis. My ideas have been almost universally despised, and I suppose that I was foolish to publish them; yet I must still think that there is some truth in them. Anyhow, they have aided m |