Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookng the Malpighiaceae. "This case," adds
Darwin, "well illustrates the spirit of our classification."), with
flowers of two kinds (in the "Origin"), led me also to speculate on the
same subject; but I could find only one doubtfully analogous case of
species having flowers like the degraded or monstrous flowers. Harvey
does not see that if only a few (as he supposes) of the seedlings
inherited being monstrosities, Natural Selection would be necessary
to select and preserve them. You had better return the "Gardeners'
Chronicle," etc., to my brother's. The case of Begonia (95/6. Harvey's
criticism was answered by Sir J.D. Hooker in the following number of the
"Gardeners' Chronicle" (February 25th, 1860, page 170).) in itself is
very curious; I am tempted to answer the notice, but I will refrain, for
there would be no end to answers.
With respect to your objection of a multitude of still living simple
forms, I have not discussed it anywhere in the "Origin," though I have
often thought it over. What you say about progress being only occasional
and retrogression not uncommon, I agree to; only that in the animal
kingdom I greatly doubt about retrogression being common. I have always
put it to myself--What advantage can we see in an infusory animal, or an
intestinal worm, or coral polypus, or earthworm being highly developed?
If no advantage, they would not become highly developed: not but what
all these animals have very complex structures (except infusoria), and
they may well be higher than the animals which occupied similar places
in the economy of nature before the Silurian epoch. There is a blind
snake with the appearances and, in some respects, habits of earthworms;
but this blind snake does not tend, as far as we can see, to replace and
drive out worms. I think I must in a future edition discuss a few more
such points, and will introduce this and H.C. Watson's objection about
the infinite number of species and the general rise in organisation. But
there is a directly opposite objection to yours which is very difficult
to answer--viz. how at the first start of life, when there were only
the simplest organisms, how did any complication of organisation profit
them? I can only answer that we have not facts enough to guide any
speculation on the subject.
With respect to Lepidosiren, Ganoid fishes, perhaps Ornithorhynchus, I
suspect, as stated in the "Origin," (95/7. "Origin of Species" (Edition
VI.), page 83.), that they have been preserved, from inhabiting
fresh-water and isolated parts of the world, in which there has been
less competition and less rapid progress in Natural Selection, owing
to the fewness of individuals which can inhabit small areas; and where
there are few individuals variation at most must be slower. There are
several allusions to this notion in the "Origin," as under Amblyopsis,
the blind cave-fish (95/8. "Origin," page 112.), and under Heer (95/9.
"Origin," page 83.) about Madeira plants resembling the fossil and
extinct plants of Europe.
LETTER 96. TO JAMES LAMONT. Down, March 5th [1860?].
I am much obliged for your long and interesting letter. You have indeed
good right to speak confidently about the habits of wild birds and
animals; for I should think no one beside yourself has ever sported in
Spitzbergen and Southern Africa. It is very curious and interesting
that you should have arrived at the conclusion that so-called "Natural
Selection" had been efficient in giving their peculiar colours to our
grouse. I shall probably use your authority on the similar habits of our
grouse and the Norwegian species.
I am particularly obliged for your very curious fact of the effect
produced by the introduction of the lowland grouse on the wildness of
the grouse in your neighbourhood. It is a very striking instance of what
crossing will do in affecting the character of a breed. Have you ever
seen it stated in any sporting work that game has become wilder in this
country? I wish I could get any sort of proof of the fact, for your
explanation seems to me equally ingenious and probable. I have myself
witnessed in South America a nearly parallel [case] with that which
you mention in regard to the reindeer in Spitzbergen, with the Cervus
campestris of La Plata. It feared neither man nor the sound of shot of
a rifle, but was terrified at the sight of a man on horseback; every one
in that country always riding. As you are so great a sportsman, perhaps
you will kindly look to one very trifling point for me, as my neighbours
here think it too absurd to notice--namely, whether the feet of birds
are dirty, whether a few grains of dirt do not adhere occasionally to
their feet. I especially want to know how this is in the case of birds
like herons and waders, which stalk in the mud. You will guess that this
relates to dispersal of seeds, which is one of my greatest difficulties.
My health is very indifferent, and I am seldom able to attend the
scientific meetings, but I sincerely hope that I may some time have the
pleasure of meeting you.
Pray accept my cordial thanks for your very kind letter.
LETTER 97. TO G.H.K. THWAITES. Down, March 21st [1860].
I thank you very sincerely for your letter, and am much pleased that you
go a little way with me. You will think it presumptuous, but I am well
convinced from my own mental experience that if you keep the subject at
all before your mind you will ultimately go further. The present volume
is a mere abstract, and there are great omissions. One main one, which
I have rectified in the foreign editions, is an explanation (which has
satisfied Lyell, who made the same objection with you) why many forms do
not progress or advance (and I quite agree about some retrograding). I
have also a MS. discussion on beauty; but do you really suppose that for
instance Diatomaceae were created beautiful that man, after millions of
generations, should admire them through the microscope? (97/1. Thwaites
(1811-82) published several papers on the Diatomaceae ("On Conjugation
in the Diatomaceae," "Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XX., 1847, pages
9-11, 343-4; "Further Observations on the Diatomaceae," loc. cit., 1848,
page 161). See "Life and Letters" II., page 292.) I should attribute
most of such structures to quite unknown laws of growth; and mere
repetition of parts is to our eyes one main element of beauty. When any
structure is of use (and I can show what curiously minute particulars
are often of highest use), I can see with my prejudiced eyes no limit to
the perfection of the coadaptations which could be effected by Natural
Selection. I rather doubt whether you see how far, as it seems to me,
the argument for homology and embryology may be carried. I do not look
at this as mere analogy. I would as soon believe that fossil shells were
mere mockeries of real shells as that the same bones in the foot of a
dog and wing of a bat, or the similar embryo of mammal and bird, had
not a direct signification, and that the signification can be unity of
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