C. D. to J. D. Hooker. Saturday [May 11, 1863].

MY DEAR HOOKER,-You give good advice about not writing in newspapers; I have been gnashing my teeth at my own folly; and this not caused by --'s sneers, which were so good that have written once again to own to a what he says, and then if I am ever I have read the squib

I

I almost enjoyed them. certain extent of truth in such a fool again, have no mercy on me. in Public Opinion; it is capital; if there is more, and you have a copy, do lend it. It shows well that a scientific man had better be trampled in dirt than squabble.

In the following year (1864) he received the greatest honour which a scientific man can receive in this country, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. It is presented at the Anniversary Meeting on St. Andrew's Day (Nov. 30), the medallist being usually present to receive it, but this the state of my father's health prevented. He wrote to Mr. Fox :

"I was glad to see your hand-writing. The Copley, being open to all sciences and all the world, is reckoned a great honour; but excepting from several kind letters, such things make little difference to me. It shows, however, that Natural Selection is making some progress in this country, and that pleases me. The subject, however, is safe in foreign lands."

The presentation of the Copley Medal is of interest in connection with what has gone before, inasmuch as it led to Sir C. Lyell making, in his after-dinner speech, a "confession of faith as to the Origin." He wrote to my father (Life of Sir

Public Opinion, April 23, 1863. A lively account of a police case, in which the quarrels of scientific men are satirised. Mr. John Bull gives evidence that

"The whole neighbourhood was unsettled by their disputes; Huxley quarrelled with Owen, Owen with Darwin, Lyell with Owen, Falconer and Prestwich with Lyell, and Gray the menagerie man with everybody. He had pleasure, however, in stating that Darwin was the quietest of the set. They were always picking bones with each other and fighting over their gains. If either of the gravel sifters or stone breakers found anything, he was obliged to conceal it immediately, or one of the old bone collectors would be sure to appropriate it first and deny the theft afterwards, and the consequent wrangling and disputes were as endless as they were wearisome.

"Lord Mayor.-Probably the clergyman of the parish might exert some influence over them?

"The gentleman smiled, shook his head, and stated that he regretted to say that no class of men paid so little attention to the opinions of the clergy as that to which these unhappy men belonged."

C. Lyell, vol. ii. p. 384), "I said I had been forced to give up my old faith without thoroughly seeing my way to a new one. But I think you would have been satisfied with the length I went."

Lyell's acceptance of Evolution was made public in the tenth edition of the Principles, published in 1867 and 1868. It was a sign of improvement, "a great triumph," as my father called it, that an evolutionary article by Wallace, dealing with Lyell's book, should have appeared in the Quarterly Review (April, 1869). Mr. Wallace wrote:

"The history of science hardly presents so striking an instance of youthfulness of mind in advanced life as is shown by this abandonment of opinions so long held and so powerfully advocated; and if we bear in mind the extreme caution, combined with the ardent love of truth which characterise every work which our author has produced, we shall be convinced that so great a change was not decided on without long and anxious deliberation, and that the views now adopted must indeed be supported by arguments of overwhelming force. If for no other reason than that Sir Charles Lyell in his tenth edition has adopted it, the theory of Mr. Darwin deserves an attentive and respectful consideration from every earnest seeker after truth."

The incident of the Copley Medal is interesting as giving an index of the state of the scientific mind at the time.

My father wrote: "some of the old members of the Royal are quite shocked at my having the Copley." In the Reader, December 3, 1864, General Sabine's presidential address at the Anniversary Meeting is reported at some length. Special weight was laid on my father's work in Geology, Zoology, and Botany, but the Origin of Species was praised chiefly as containing a "mass of observations," &c. It is curious that as in the case of his election to the French Institute, so in this case, he was honoured not for the great work of his life, but for his less important work in special lines.

I believe I am right in saying that no little dissatisfaction at the President's manner of allusion to the Origin was felt by some Fellows of the Society.

My father spoke justly when he said that the subject was "safe in foreign lands." In telling Lyell of the progress of opinion, he wrote (March, 1863):

"A first-rate German naturalist * (I now forget the name!), who has lately published a grand folio, has spoken out to the *No doubt Haeckel, whose monograph on the Radiolaria was pub

lished in 1862.

*

utmost extent on the Origin. De Candolle, in a very good paper on Oaks,' goes, in Asa Gray's opinion, as far as he himself does; but De Candolle, in writing to me, says we, we think this and that;' so that I infer he really goes to the full extent with me, and tells me of a French good botanical palæontologist (name forgotten), who writes to De Candolle that he is sure that my views will ultimately prevail. But I did not intend to have written all this. It satisfies me with the final results, but this result, I begin to see, will take two or three life-times. The entomologists are enough to keep the subject back for half a century."

The official attitude of French science was not very hopeful. The Secrétaire Perpétuel of the Académie published an Examen du livre de M. Darwin, on which my father remarks:

"A great gun, Flourens, has written a little dull book † against me, which pleases me much, for it is plain that our good work is spreading in France."

Mr. Huxley, who reviewed the book,t quotes the following passage from Flourens :—

"M. Darwin continue: Aucune distinction absolue n'a été et ne peut être établie entre les espèces et les variétés ! Je vous ai déjà dit que vous vous trompiez; une distinction absolue sépare les variétés d'avec les espèces." Mr. Huxley remarks on this, "Being devoid of the blessings of an Academy in England, we are unaccustomed to see our ablest men treated in this way even by a Perpetual Secretary." After demonstrating M. Flourens' misapprehension of Natural Selection, Mr. Huxley says, "How one knows it all by heart, and with what relief one reads at p. 65, 'Je laisse M. Darwin.'

The deterrent effect of the Académie on the spread of Evolution in France has been most striking. Even at the present day a member of the Institute does not feel quite happy in owning to a belief in Darwinism. We may indeed be thankful that we are "devoid of such a blessing."

Among the Germans, he was fast gaining supporters. In 1865 he began a correspondence with the distinguished Naturalist, Fritz Müller, then, as now, resident in Brazil. They never met, but the correspondence with Müller, which continued to the close of my father's life, was a source of very great pleasure to him. My impression is that of all his unseen friends Fritz Müller was the one for whom he had

The Marquis de Saporta.

+ Examen du livre de M. Darwin sur l'origine des espèces. Par P. Flourens. 8vo. Paris, 1864.

Lay Sermons, p. 328.

the strongest regard. Fritz Müller is the brother of another distinguished man, the late Hermann Müller, the author of Die Befruchtung der Blumen (The Fertilisation of Flowers), and of much other valuable work.

The occasion of writing to Fritz Müller was the latter's book, Für Darwin, which was afterwards translated by Mr. Dallas at my father's suggestion, under the title Facts and Arguments for Darwin.

Shortly afterwards, in 1866, began his connection with Professor Victor Carus, of Leipzig, who undertook the translation of the 4th edition of the Origin. From this time forward Professor Carus continued to translate my father's books into German. The conscientious care with which this work was done was of material service, and I well remember the admiration (mingled with a tinge of vexation at his own shortcomings) with which my father used to receive the lists of oversights, &c., which Professor Carus discovered in the course of translation. The connection was not a mere business one, but was cemented by warm feelings of regard on both sides.

About this time, too, he came in contact with Professor Ernst Haeckel, whose influence on German science has been so powerful.

The earliest letter which I have seen from my father to Professor Haeckel, was written in 1865, and from that time forward they corresponded (though not, I think, with any regularity) up to the end of my father's life. His friendship with Haeckel was not merely the growth of correspondence, as was the case with some others, for instance, Fritz Müller. Haeckel paid more than one visit to Down, and these were thoroughly enjoyed by my father. The following letter will serve to show the strong feeling of regard which he entertained for his correspondent a feeling which I have often heard him emphatically express, and which was warmly returned. The book referred to is Haeckel's Generelle Morphologie, published in 1866, a copy of which my father received from the author in January, 1867.

Dr. E. Krause has given a good account of Professor Haeckel's services in the cause of Evolution. After speaking of the lukewarm reception which the Origin met with in Germany on its first publication, he goes on to describe the first adherents of the new faith as more or less popular writers, not especially likely to advance its acceptance with the professorial or purely scientific world. And he claims for Haeckel that it was his advocacy of Evolution in his Radio

* Charles Darwin und sein Verhältniss zu Deutschland, 1885.

laria (1862), and at the "Versammlung" of Naturalists at Stettin in 1863, that placed the Darwinian question for the first time publicly before the forum of German science, and his enthusiastic propagandism that chiefly contributed to its

success.

Mr. Huxley, writing in 1869, paid a high tribute to Professor Haeckel as the Coryphæus of the Darwinian movement in Germany. Of his Generelle Morphologie, "an attempt to work out the practical applications" of the doctrine of Evolution to their final results, he says that it has the "force and suggestiveness, and... systematising power of Oken without his extravagance." Mr. Huxley also testifies to the value of Haeckel's Schöpfungs-Geschichte as an exposition of the Generelle Morphologie "for an educated public."

Again, in his Evolution in Biology, Mr. Huxley wrote: "Whatever hesitation may not unfrequently be felt by less daring minds, in following Haeckel in many of his speculations, his attempt to systematise the doctrine of Evolution and to exhibit its influence as the central thought of modern biology, cannot fail to have a far-reaching influence on the progress of science."

66

In the following letter my father alludes to the somewhat fierce manner in which Professor Haeckel fought the battle of 'Darwinismus,' and on this subject Dr. Krause has some good remarks (p. 162). He asks whether much that happened in the heat of the conflict might not well have been otherwise, and adds that Haeckel himself is the last man to deny this. Nevertheless he thinks that even these things may have worked well for the cause of Evolution, inasmuch as Haeckel concentrated on himself by his Ursprung des Menschen-Geschlechts, his Generelle Morphologie, and Schöpfungs-Geschichte, all the hatred and bitterness which Evolution excited in certain quarters," so that, " in a surprisingly short time it became the fashion in Germany that Haeckel alone should be abused, while Darwin was held up as the ideal of forethought and moderation."

C. D. to E. Haeckel. Down, May 21, 1867.

DEAR HAECKEL,-Your letter of the 18th has given me great pleasure, for you have received what I said in the most kind and

An article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edit. reprinted in Science and Culture, 1881, p. 298.