Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookt myself; and I wondered how savage you would be. I trembled a
little. My only hope was that something could be made out of the bog
N. American forms, which you rank as a geographical race; and possibly
hereafter out of the Sicilian species. Guess, then, my satisfaction when
I found that you yourself made a loophole (143/1. This perhaps refers
to a passage ("N.H. Review," 1863, page 79) in which Falconer allows the
existence of intermediate forms along certain possible lines of descent.
Falconer's reference to the Sicilian elephants is in a note on page 78;
the bog-elephant is mentioned on page 79.), which I never, of course,
could have guessed at; and imagine my still greater satisfaction at
your expressing yourself as an unbeliever in the eternal immutability of
species. Your final remarks on my work are too generous, but have given
me not a little pleasure. As for criticisms, I have only small ones.
When you speak of "moderate range of variation" I cannot but think that
you ought to remind your readers (though I daresay previously done) what
the amount is, including the case of the American bog-mammoth. You speak
of these animals as having been exposed to a vast range of climatal
changes from before to after the Glacial period. I should have thought,
from analogy of sea-shells, that by migration (or local extinction when
migration not possible) these animals might and would have kept under
nearly the same climate.
A rather more important consideration, as it seems to me, is that the
whole proboscidean group may, I presume, be looked at as verging towards
extinction: anyhow, the extinction has been complete as far as Europe
and America are concerned. Numerous considerations and facts have led
me in the "Origin" to conclude that it is the flourishing or dominant
members of each order which generally give rise to new races,
sub-species, and species; and under this point of view I am not at all
surprised at the constancy of your species. This leads me to remark that
the sentence at the bottom of page [80] is not applicable to my
views (143/2. See Falconer at the bottom of page 80: it is the old
difficulty--how can variability co-exist with persistence of type? In
our copy of the letter the passage is given as occurring on page 60,
a slip of the pen for page 80.), though quite applicable to those who
attribute modification to the direct action of the conditions of life.
An elephant might be more individually variable than any known quadruped
(from the effects of the conditions of life or other innate unknown
causes), but if these variations did not aid the animal in better
resisting all hostile influences, and therefore making it increase in
numbers, there would be no tendency to the preservation and accumulation
of such variations--i.e. to the formation of a new race. As the
proboscidean group seems to be from utterly unknown causes a failing
group in many parts of the world, I should not have anticipated the
formation of new races.
You make important remarks versus Natural Selection, and you will
perhaps be surprised that I do to a large extent agree with you. I could
show you many passages, written as strongly as I could in the "Origin,"
declaring that Natural Selection can do nothing without previous
variability; and I have tried to put equally strongly that variability
is governed by many laws, mostly quite unknown. My title deceives
people, and I wish I had made it rather different. Your phyllotaxis
(143/3. Falconer, page 80: "The law of Phyllotaxis...is nearly as
constant in its manifestation as any of the physical laws connected with
the material world.") will serve as example, for I quite agree that the
spiral arrangement of a certain number of whorls of leaves (however that
may have primordially arisen, and whether quite as invariable as you
state), governs the limits of variability, and therefore governs what
Natural Selection can do. Let me explain how it arose that I laid so
much stress on Natural Selection, and I still think justly. I came to
think from geographical distribution, etc., etc., that species probably
change; but for years I was stopped dead by my utter incapability of
seeing how every part of each creature (a woodpecker or swallow, for
instance) had become adapted to its conditions of life. This seemed
to me, and does still seem, the problem to solve; and I think Natural
Selection solves it, as artificial selection solves the adaptation of
domestic races for man's use. But I suspect that you mean something
further,--that there is some unknown law of evolution by which species
necessarily change; and if this be so, I cannot agree. This, however,
is too large a question even for so unreasonably long a letter as
this. Nevertheless, just to explain by mere valueless conjectures how I
imagine the teeth of your elephants change, I should look at the change
as indirectly resulting from changes in the form of the jaws, or from
the development of tusks, or in the case of the primigenius even from
correlation with the woolly covering; in all cases Natural Selection
checking the variation. If, indeed, an elephant would succeed better by
feeding on some new kinds of food, then any variation of any kind in the
teeth which favoured their grinding power would be preserved. Now, I can
fancy you holding up your hands and crying out what bosh! To return
to your concluding sentence: far from being surprised, I look at it
as absolutely certain that very much in the "Origin" will be proved
rubbish; but I expect and hope that the framework will stand. (143/4.
Falconer, page 80: "He [Darwin] has laid the foundations of a great
edifice: but he need not be surprised if, in the progress of erection,
the superstructure is altered by his successors...")
I had hoped to have called on you on Monday evening, but was quite
knocked up. I saw Lyell yesterday morning. He was very curious about
your views, and as I had to write to him this morning I could not help
telling him a few words on your views. I suppose you are tired of the
"Origin," and will never read it again; otherwise I should like you to
have the third edition, and would gladly send it rather than you should
look at the first or second edition. With cordial thanks for your
generous kindness.
LETTER 144. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. Royal Gardens, Kew, November
7th, 1862.
I am greatly relieved by your letter this morning about my Arctic essay,
for I had been conjuring up some egregious blunder (like the granitic
plains of Patagonia).. Certes, after what you have told me of Dawson,
he will not like the letter I wrote to him days ago, in which I told
him that it was impossible to entertain a strong opinion against the
Darwinian hypothesis without its giving rise to a mental twist when
viewing matters in which that hypothesis was or might be involved. I
told him I felt that this was so with me when I opposed you, and that
all minds are subject to such obliquities!--the Lord help me, and this
to an LL.D. and Pri |