Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookscent or nothing. But I venture to repeat how much pleased I am that
you go some little way with me. I find a number of naturalists do
the same, and as their halting-places are various, and I must think
arbitrary, I believe they will all go further. As for changing at once
one's opinion, I would not value the opinion of a man who could do so;
it must be a slow process. (97/2. Darwin wrote to Woodward in regard to
the "Origin": "It may be a vain and silly thing to say, but I believe
my book must be read twice carefully to be fully understood. You will
perhaps think it by no means worth the labour.") Thank you for telling
me about the Lantana (97/3. An exotic species of Lantana (Verbenaceae)
grows vigorously in Ceylon, and is described as frequently making its
appearance after the firing of the low-country forests (see H.H.W.
Pearson, "The Botany of the Ceylon Patanas," "Journal Linn. Soc." Volume
XXXIV., page 317, 1899). No doubt Thwaites' letter to Darwin referred
to the spreading of the introduced Lantana, comparable to that of the
cardoon in La Plata and of other plants mentioned by Darwin in the
"Origin of Species" (Edition VI., page 51).), and I should at any time
be most grateful for any information which you think would be of use
to me. I hope that you will publish a list of all naturalised plants
in Ceylon, as far as known, carefully distinguishing those confined to
cultivated soils alone. I feel sure that this most important subject has
been greatly undervalued.
LETTER 98. TO T.H. HUXLEY.
(98/1. The reference here is to the review on the "Origin of Species"
generally believed to be by the late Sir R. Owen, and published in
the April number of the "Edinburgh Review," 1860. Owen's biographer
is silent on the subject, and prints, without comment, the following
passage in an undated letter from Sedgwick to Owen: "Do you know who was
the author of the article in the "Edinburgh" on the subject of Darwin's
theory? On the whole, I think it very good. I once suspected that you
must have had a hand in it, and I then abandoned that thought. I have
not read it with any care" (Owen's "Life," Volume II., page 96).
April 9th [1860].
I never saw such an amount of misrepresentation. At page 530 (98/2.
"Lasting and fruitful conclusions have, indeed, hitherto been based
only on the possession of knowledge; now we are called upon to accept an
hypothesis on the plea of want of knowledge. The geological record,
it is averred, is so imperfect!"--"Edinburgh Review," CXI., 1860, page
530.) he says we are called on to accept the hypothesis on the plea of
ignorance, whereas I think I could not have made it clearer that I admit
the imperfection of the Geological Record as a great difficulty.
The quotation (98/3. "We are appealed to, or at least 'the young and
rising naturalists with plastic minds,* [On the Nature of the Limbs,
page 482] are adjured." It will be seen that the inverted comma after
"naturalists" is omitted; the asterisk referring, in a footnote (here
placed in square brackets), to page 482 of the "Origin," seems to
have been incorrectly assumed by Mr. Darwin to show the close of the
quotation.--Ibid., page 512.) on page 512 of the "Review" about "young
and rising naturalists with plastic minds," attributed to "nature of
limbs," is a false quotation, as I do not use the words "plastic minds."
At page 501 (98/4. The passage ("Origin," Edition I., page 483) begins,
"But do they really believe...," and shows clearly that the author
considers such a belief all but impossible.) the quotation is garbled,
for I only ask whether naturalists believe about elemental atoms
flashing, etc., and he changes it into that I state that they do
believe.
At page 500 (98/5. "All who have brought the transmutation speculation
to the test of observed facts and ascertained powers in organic life,
and have published the results, usually adverse to such speculations,
are set down by Mr. Darwin as 'curiously illustrating the blindness of
preconceived opinion.'" The passage in the "Origin," page 482, begins
by expressing surprise at the point of view of some naturalists: "They
admit that a multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves
thought were special creations,...have been produced by variation, but
they refuse to extend the same view to other and very slightly
different forms...They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they
arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in
the two cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious
illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion.") it is very
false to say that I imply by "blindness of preconceived opinion" the
simple belief of creation. And so on in other cases. But I beg pardon
for troubling you. I am heartily sorry that in your unselfish endeavours
to spread what you believe to be truth, you should have incurred so
brutal an attack. (98/6. The "Edinburgh" Reviewer, referring to Huxley's
Royal Institution Lecture given February 10th, 1860, "On Species and
Races and their Origin," says (page 521), "We gazed with amazement at
the audacity of the dispenser of the hour's intellectual amusement,
who, availing himself of the technical ignorance of the majority of his
auditors, sought to blind them as to the frail foundations of 'natural
selection' by such illustrations as the subjoined": And then follows
a critique of the lecturer's comparison of the supposed descent of
the horse from the Palaeothere with that of various kinds of domestic
pigeons from the Rock-pigeon.) And now I will not think any more of this
false and malignant attack.
LETTER 99. TO MAXWELL MASTERS. Down, April 13th [1860].
I thank you very sincerely for your two kind notes. The next time you
write to your father I beg you to give him from me my best thanks, but I
am sorry that he should have had the trouble of writing when ill. I have
been much interested by the facts given by him. If you think he would
in the least care to hear the result of an artificial cross of two sweet
peas, you can send the enclosed; if it will only trouble him, tear it
up. There seems to be so much parallelism in the kind of variation from
my experiment, which was certainly a cross, and what Mr. Masters has
observed, that I cannot help suspecting that his peas were crossed by
bees, which I have seen well dusted with the pollen of the sweet pea;
but then I wish this, and how hard it is to prevent one's wish biassing
one's judgment!
I was struck with your remark about the Compositae, etc. I do not see
that it bears much against me, and whether it does or not is of
course of not the slightest importance. Although I fully agree that
no definition can be drawn between monstrosities and slight variations
(such as my theory requires), yet I suspect there is some distinction.
Some facts lead me to think that monstrosities supervene generally at
an early age; and after attending to the subject I have great doubts
whether species in a state of nature ever |