*

I have read Lyell's book. [The Antiquity of Man.] The whole certainly struck me as a compilation, but of the highest class, for when possible the facts have been verified on the spot, making it almost an original work. The Glacial chapters seem to me best, and in parts magnificent. I could hardly judge about Man, as all the gloss and novelty was completely worn off. But certainly the aggregation of the evidence produced a very striking effect on my mind. The chapter comparing language and changes of species, seems most ingenious and interesting. He has shown great skill in picking out salient points in the argument for change of species; but I am deeply disappointed (I do not mean personally) to find that his timidity prevents him giving any judgment. ... From all my communications with him, I must ever think that he has really entirely lost faith in the immutability of species; and yet one of his strongest sentences is nearly as follows; "If it should ever be rendered highly probable that species change by variation and natural selection," &c. &c. I had hoped he would have guided the public as far as his own belief went. . . . One thing does please me on this subject, that he seems to appreciate your work. No doubt the public or a part may be induced to think that, as he gives to us a larger space than to Lamarck, he must think that there is something in our views. When reading the brain chapter, it struck me forcibly that if he had said openly that he believed in change of species, and as a consequence that man was derived from some Quadrumanous animal, it would have been very proper to have discussed by compilation the differences in the most important organ, viz. the brain. As it is, the chapter seems to me to come in rather by the head and shoulders. I do not think (but then I am as prejudiced as Falconer and Huxley, or more so) that it is too severe; it struck me as given with judicial force. It might perhaps be said with truth that he had no business to judge on a subject on which he knows nothing; but compilers must do this to a certain extent. (You know I value and rank high compilers, being one myself!)

The Lyells are coming here on Sunday evening to stay till Wednesday. I dread it, but I must say how much disappointed I am that he has not spoken out on species, still less on man.

every one believed to be closed. Professor Huxley (Medical Times, Oct. 25th, 1862, quoted in Man's Place in Nature, p. 117) spoke of the "two years during which this preposterous controversy has dragged its weary length." And this no doubt expressed a very general feeling.

* This should obviously run, "that at one time he entirely had faith." The italics are not Lvell's.

And the best of the joke is that he thinks he has acted with the courage of a martyr of old. I hope I may have taken an exaggerated view of his timidity, and shall particularly be glad of your opinion on this head. When I got his book I turned over the pages, and saw he had discussed the subject of species, and said that I thought he would do more to convert the public than all of us, and now (which makes the case worse for me) I must, in common honesty, retract. I wish to Heaven be had said not a word on the subject.

C. D. to C. Lyell. Down, March 6 [1863].

I have been of course deeply interested by your book. * I have hardly any remarks worth sending, but will scribble a little on what most interested me. But I will first get out what I hate saying, viz. that I have been greatly disappointed that you have not given judgment and spoken fairly out what you think about the derivation of species. I should have been contented if you had boldly said that species have not been separately created, and had thrown as much doubt as you like on how far variation and natural selection suffices. I hope to Heaven I am wrong (and from what you say about Whewell it seems so), but I cannot see how your chapters can do more good than an extraordinary able review. I think the Parthenon is right, that you will leave the public in a fog. No doubt they may infer that as you give more space to myself, Wallace, and Hooker, than to Lamarck, you think more of us. But I had always thought that your judgment would have been an epoch in the subject. All that is over with me, and I will only think on the admirable skill with which you have selected the striking points, and explained them. No praise can be too strong, in my opinion, for the inimitable chapter on language in comparison with species. . . .

I know you will forgive me for writing with perfect freedom, for you must know how deeply I respect you as my old honoured guide and master. I heartily hope and expect that your book will have a gigantic circulation, and may do in many ways as much good as it ought to do. I am tired, so no more. I have written so briefly that you will have to guess my meaning. I fear my remarks are hardly worth sending. Farewell, with kindest remembrance to Lady Lyell,

The Antiquity of Man.

Ever yours.

A letter from Lyell to Hooker (Mar. 9, 1863), published in Lyell's Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 361, shows what was his feeling at the time :

"He [Darwin] seems much disappointed that I do not go farther with him, or do not speak out more. I can only say that I have spoken out to the full extent of my present convictions, and even beyond my state of feeling as to man's unbroken descent from the brutes, and I find I am half converting not a few who were in arms against Darwin, and are even now against Huxley." Lyell speaks, too, of having had to abandon "old and long cherished ideas, which constituted the charm to me of the theoretical part of the science in my earlier days, when I believed with Pascal in the theory, as Hallam terms it, of 'the archangel ruined.'"

C. D. to C. Lyell. Down, 12th [March, 1863].

MY DEAR LYELL,-I thank you for your very interesting and kind, I may say, charming letter. I feared you might be huffed for a little time with me. I know some men would have

been so....As you say that you have gone as far as you believe on the species question, I have not a word to say; but I must feel convinced that at times, judging from conversation, expressions, letters, &c., you have as completely given up belief in immutability of specific forms as I have done. I must still think a clear expression from you, if you could have given it, would have been potent with the public, and all the more so, as you formerly held opposite opinions. The more I work, the more satisfied I become with variation and natural selection, but that part of the case I look at as less important, though more interesting to me personally. As you ask for criticisms on this head (and believe me that I should not have made them unasked), I may specify (pp. 412, 413) that such words as “Mr. D. labours to show," " is believed by the author to throw light," would lead a common reader to think that you yourself do not at all agree, but merely think it fair to give my opinion. Lastly, you refer repeatedly to my view as a modification of Lamarck's doctrine of development and progression. If this is your deliberate opinion there is nothing to be said, but it does not seem so to me. Plato, Buffon, my grandfather before Lamarck, and others, propounded the obvious view that if species were not created separately they must have descended from other species, and I can see nothing else in common between the Origin and Lamarck. I believe this way of putting the case is very injurious to its acceptance, as it implies necessary pro

gression, and closely connects Wallace's and my views with what I consider, after two deliberate readings, as a wretched book, and one from which (I well remember my surprise) I gained nothing. But I know you rank it higher, which is curious, as it did not in the least shake your belief. But enough, and more than enough. Please remember you have brought it all down on yourself!!

I am very sorry to hear about Falconer's "reclamation.” * I hate the very word, and have a sincere affection for him.

Did you ever read anything so wretched as the Athenæum reviews of you, and of Huxley † especially. Your object to make man old, and Huxley's object to degrade him. The wretched writer has not a glimpse of what the discovery of scientific truth means. How splendid some pages are in Huxley, but I fear the book will not be popular. ..

In the Athenæum, Mar. 28, 1862, p. 417, appeared a notice of Dr. Carpenter's book on 'Foraminifera,' which led to more skirmishing in the same journal. The article was remarkable for upholding spontaneous generation.

My father wrote, Mar. 29, 1863 :

"Many thanks for Athenæum, received this morning, and to be returned to-morrow morning. Who would have ever thought of the old stupid Athenæum taking to Oken-like transcendental philosophy written in Owenian style!

"It will be some time before we see slime, protoplasm, &c.' generating a new animal. But I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant appeared' by some wholly unknown process. It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter."

The Athenæum continued to be a scientific battle-ground. On April 4, 1863, Falconer wrote a severe article on Lyell. And

"Falconer, whom I [Lyell] referred to oftener than to any other author, says I have not done justice to the part he took in resuscitating the cave question, and says he shall come out with a separate paper to prove it. I offered to alter anything in the new edition, but this he declined."C. Lyell to C. Darwin, March 11, 1863; Lyell's Life, vol ii. p. 364. † Man's Place in Nature, 1863.

This refers to a passage in which the reviewer of Dr. Carpenter's book speaks of " an operation of force," or "a concurrence of forces which have now no place in nature," as being, "a creative force, in fact, which Darwin could only express in Pentateuchal terms as the primordial form 'into which life was first breathed.'" The conception of expressing a creative force as a primordial form is the reviewer's.

my father wrote (Athenæum, 1863, p. 554), under the cloak of attacking spontaneous generation, to defend Evolution. In reply, an article appeared in the same Journal (May 2nd, 1863, p. 586), accusing my father of claiming for his views the exclusive merit of "connecting by an intelligible thread of reasoning " a number of facts in morphology, &c. The writer remarks that, "The different generalisations cited by Mr. Darwin as being connected by an intelligible thread of reasoning exclusively through his attempt to explain specific transmutation are in f et related to it in this wise, that they have prepared the minds of naturalists for a better reception of such attempts to explain the way of the origin of species from species."

To this my father replied as follows in the Athenæum of May 9th, 1863

Down, May 5 [1863].

I hope that you will grant me space to own that your reviewer is quite correct when he states that any theory of descent will connect, "by an intelligible thread of reasoning," the several generalizations before specified. I ought to have made this admission expressly; with the reservation, however, that, as far as I can judge, no theory so well explains or connects these several generalizations (more especially the formation of domestic races in comparison with natural species, the principles of classification, embryonic resemblance, &c.) as the theory, or hypothesis, or guess, if the reviewer so likes to call it, of Natural Selection. Nor has any other satisfactory explanation been ever offered of the almost perfect adaptation of all organic beings to each other, and to their physical conditions of life. Whether the naturalist believes in the views given by Lamarck, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire, by the author of the Vestiges, by Mr. Wallace and myself, or in any other such view, signifies extremely little in comparison with the admission that species have descended from other species, and have not been creat d immutable; for he who admits this as a great truth has a wide field opened to him for further inquiry. I believe, however, from what I see of the progress of opinion on the Continent, and in this country, that the theory of Natural Selection will ultimately be adopted, with, no doubt, many subordinate modifications and improvements.

CHARLES DARWIN.

In the following, he refers to the above letter to the Athenæum :