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the state of his heart. Indeed, I cannot help feeling that he had a
kind of presentiment that his end was approaching. When I left him, he
insisted on conducting me to the door, and there was that in his tone
and manner which seemed to convey to me the sad intelligence that it
was not merely a temporary farewell, though he himself was perfectly
cheerful and happy.
"It is impossible for me adequately to express the impression made upon
my mind by my various conversations with Mr. Darwin. His extreme
modesty led him to form the lowest estimate of his own labours, and
a correspondingly extravagant idea of the value of the work done by
others. His deference to the arguments and suggestions of men greatly
his juniors, and his unaffected sympathy in their pursuits, was most
marked and characteristic; indeed, he, the great master of science, used
to speak, and I am sure felt, as though he were appealing to superior
authority for information in all his conversations. It was only when a
question was fully discussed with him that one became conscious of the
fund of information he could bring to its elucidation, and the breadth
of thought with which he had grasped it. Of his gentle, loving nature,
of which I had so many proofs, I need not write; no one could be with
him, even for a few minutes, without being deeply impressed by his
grateful kindliness and goodness.")
LETTER 287. TO COUNT SAPORTA. Down, August 15th, 1878.
I thank you very sincerely for your kind and interesting letter. It
would be false in me to pretend that I care very much about my election
to the Institute, but the sympathy of some few of my friends has
gratified me deeply.
I am extremely glad to hear that you are going to publish a work on the
more ancient fossil plants; and I thank you beforehand for the volume
which you kindly say that you will send me. I earnestly hope that you
will give, at least incidentally, the results at which you have arrived
with respect to the more recent Tertiary plants; for the close gradation
of such forms seems to me a fact of paramount importance for the
principle of evolution. Your cases are like those on the gradation in
the genus Equus, recently discovered by Marsh in North America.
LETTER 288. TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.
(288/1. The following letter was published in "Nature," March 5th, 1891,
Volume XLIII., page 415, together with a note from the late Duke of
Argyll, in which he stated that the letter had been written to him by
Mr. Darwin in reply to the question, "why it was that he did assume the
unity of mankind as descended from a single pair." The Duke added that
in the reply Mr. Darwin "does not repudiate this interpretation of his
theory, but simply proceeds to explain and to defend the doctrine." On
a former occasion the Duke of Argyll had "alluded as a fact to the
circumstance that Charles Darwin assumed mankind to have arisen at
one place, and therefore in a single pair." The letter from Darwin was
published in answer to some scientific friends, who doubted the fact and
asked for the reference on which the statement was based.)
Down, September 23rd, 1878.
The problem which you state so clearly is a very interesting one, on
which I have often speculated. As far as I can judge, the improbability
is extreme that the same well-characterised species should be produced
in two distinct countries, or at two distinct times. It is certain that
the same variation may arise in two distinct places, as with albinism
or with the nectarine on peach-trees. But the evidence seems to me
overwhelming that a well-marked species is the product, not of a single
or of a few variations, but of a long series of modifications, each
modification resulting chiefly from adaptation to infinitely complex
conditions (including the inhabitants of the same country), with more
or less inheritance of all the preceding modifications. Moreover, as
variability depends more on the nature of the organism than on that of
the environment, the variations will tend to differ at each successive
stage of descent. Now it seems to me improbable in the highest degree
that a species should ever have been exposed in two places to infinitely
complex relations of exactly the same nature during a long series
of modifications. An illustration will perhaps make what I have said
clearer, though it applies only to the less important factors
of inheritance and variability, and not to adaptation--viz., the
improbability of two men being born in two countries identical in body
and mind. If, however, it be assumed that a species at each successive
stage of its modification was surrounded in two distinct countries or
times, by exactly the same assemblage of plants and animals, and by the
same physical conditions, then I can see no theoretical difficulty [in]
such a species giving birth to the new form in the two countries. If
you will look to the sixth edition of my "Origin," at page 100, you will
find a somewhat analogous discussion, perhaps more intelligible than
this letter.
LETTER 289. W.T. THISELTON-DYER TO THE EDITOR OF "NATURE."
(289/1. The following letter ("Nature," Volume XLIII., page 535)
criticises the interpretation given by the Duke to Mr. Darwin's letter.)
Royal Gardens, Kew, March 27th [1891].
In "Nature" of March 5th (page 415), the Duke of Argyll has printed
a very interesting letter of Mr. Darwin's, from which he drew the
inference that the writer "assumed mankind to have arisen...in a single
pair." I do not think myself that the letter bears this interpretation.
But the point in its most general aspect is a very important one, and
is often found to present some difficulty to students of Mr. Darwin's
writings.
Quite recently I have found by accident, amongst the papers of the late
Mr. Bentham at Kew, a letter of friendly criticism from Mr. Darwin upon
the presidential address which Mr. Bentham delivered to the Linnean
Society on May 24th, 1869. This letter, I think, has been overlooked and
not published previously. In it Mr. Darwin expresses himself with regard
to the multiple origin of races and some other points in very explicit
language. Prof. Meldola, to whom I mentioned in conversation the
existence of the letter, urged me strongly to print it. This, therefore,
I now do, with the addition of a few explanatory notes.
LETTER 290. TO G. BENTHAM. Down, November 25th, 1869.
(290/1. The notes to this letter are by Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer, and
appeared in "Nature," loc. cit.)
I was greatly interested by your address, which I have now read thrice,
and which I believe will have much influence on all who read it. But you
are mistaken in thinking that I ever said you were wrong on any point.
All that I meant was that on certain points, and these very doubtful
points, I was inclined to differ from you. And now, on further
considering the point on which some two or three months ago I felt most
inclined to differ--viz., on isolation--I find I differ very little.
What I have to say is really not wor |