Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II Part 50

I have at last read every word of your book, and it has excited in me greater interest than any other scientific book which I have read for a long time. You will perhaps be surprised how slow I have been, but my head prevents me reading except at intervals. If I were asked which parts have interested me most, I should be somewhat puzzled to answer.

I fancy that the general reader would prefer your account of j.a.pan.

For myself I hesitate between your discussions and description of the Southern ice, which seems to me admirable, and the last chapter which contained many facts and views new to me, though I had read your papers on the stony Hydroid Corals, yet your resume made me realise better than I had done before, what a most curious case it is.

You have also collected a surprising number of valuable facts bearing on the dispersal of plants, far more than in any other book known to me.

In fact your volume is a ma.s.s of interesting facts and discussions, with hardly a superfluous word; and I heartily congratulate you on its publication.

Your dedication makes me prouder than ever.

Believe me, yours sincerely, CH. DARWIN.

[In November, 1879, he answered for Mr. Galton a series of questions utilised in his 'Inquiries into Human Faculty,' 1883. He wrote to Mr.

Galton:--

"I have answered the questions as well as I could, but they are miserably answered, for I have never tried looking into my own mind.

Unless others answer very much better than I can do, you will get no good from your queries. Do you not think you ought to have the age of the answerer? I think so, because I can call up faces of many schoolboys, not seen for sixty years, with MUCH DISTINCTNESS, but nowadays I may talk with a man for an hour, and see him several times consecutively, and, after a month, I am utterly unable to recollect what he is at all like. The picture is quite washed out. The greater number of the answers are given in the annexed table."]

QUESTIONS ON THE FACULTY OF VISUALISING.

1. ILLUMINATION? Moderate, but my solitary breakfast was early, and the morning dark.

2. DEFINITION? Some objects quite defined, a slice of cold beef, some grapes and a pear, the state of my plate when I had finished, and a few other objects, are as distinct as if I had photo's before me.

3. COMPLETENESS? Very moderately so.

4. COLOURING? The objects above named perfectly coloured.

5. EXTENT OF FIELD OF VIEW? Rather small.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF IMAGERY.

6. PRINTED PAGES. I cannot remember a single sentence, but I remember the place of the sentence and the kind of type.

7. FURNITURE? I have never attended to it.

8. PERSONS? I remember the faces of persons formerly well-known vividly, and can make them do anything I like.

9. SCENERY? Remembrance vivid and distinct, and gives me pleasure.

10. GEOGRAPHY? No.

11. MILITARY MOVEMENTS? No.

12. MECHANISM? Never tried.

13. GEOMETRY? I do not think I have any power of the kind.

14. NUMERALS? When I think of any number, printed figures arise before my mind. I can't remember for an hour four consecutive figures.

15. CARD PLAYING? Have not played for many years, but I am sure should not remember.

16. CHESS? Never played.

[In 1880 he published a short paper in 'Nature' (volume xxi. page 207) on the "Fertility of Hybrids from the common and Chinese goose." He received the hybrids from the Rev. Dr. Goodacre, and was glad of the opportunity of testing the accuracy of the statement that these species are fertile inter se. This fact, which was given in the 'Origin' on the authority of Mr. Eyton, he considered the most remarkable as yet recorded with respect to the fertility of hybrids. The fact (as confirmed by himself and Dr. Goodacre) is of interest as giving another proof that sterility is no criterion of specific difference, since the two species of goose now shown to be fertile inter se are so distinct that they have been placed by some authorities in distinct genera or sub-genera.

The following letter refers to Mr. Huxley's lecture: "The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species" (This same "Coming of Age" was the subject of an address from the Council of the Otago Inst.i.tute. It is given in 'Nature,' February 24, 1881.), given at the Royal Inst.i.tution, April 9, 1880, published in 'Nature,' and in 'Science and Culture,' page 310:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. HUXLEY. Abinger Hall, Dorking, Sunday, April 11, 1880.

My dear Huxley,

I wished much to attend your Lecture, but I have had a bad cough, and we have come here to see whether a change would do me good, as it has done.

What a magnificent success your lecture seems to have been, as I judge from the reports in the "Standard" and "Daily News", and more especially from the accounts given me by three of my children. I suppose that you have not written out your lecture, so I fear there is no chance of its being printed in extenso. You appear to have piled, as on so many other occasions, honours high and thick on my old head. But I well know how great a part you have played in establis.h.i.+ng and spreading the belief in the descen-theory, ever since that grand review in the "Times" and the battle royal at Oxford up to the present day.

Ever my dear Huxley, Yours sincerely and gratefully, CHARLES DARWIN.

P.S.--It was absurdly stupid in me, but I had read the announcement of your Lecture, and thought that you meant the maturity of the subject, until my wife one day remarked, "it is almost twenty-one years since the 'Origin' appeared," and then for the first time the meaning of your words flashed on me!

[In the above-mentioned lecture Mr. Huxley made a strong point of the acc.u.mulation of palaeontological evidence which the years between 1859 and 1880 have given us in favour of Evolution. On this subject my father wrote (August 31, 1880):]

My dear Professor Marsh,

I received some time ago your very kind note of July 28th, and yesterday the magnificent volume. (Odontornithes. A Monograph on the extinct Toothed Birds of North America. 1880. By O.C. Marsh.) I have looked with renewed admiration at the plates, and will soon read the text. Your work on these old birds, and on the many fossil animals of North America has afforded the best support to the theory of Evolution, which has appeared within the last twenty years. (Mr. Huxley has well pointed out ('Science and Culture,' page 317) that: "In 1875, the discovery of the toothed birds of the cretaceous formation in North America, by Prof. Marsh, completed the series of transitional forms between birds and reptiles, and removed Mr. Darwin's proposition that, 'many animal forms of life have been utterly lost, through which the early progenitors of birds were formerly connected with the early progenitors of the other vertebrate cla.s.ses,' from the region of hypothesis to that of demonstrable fact.") The general appearance of the copy which you have sent me is worthy of its contents, and I can say nothing stronger than this.

With cordial thanks, believe me, Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.

[In November, 1880, he received an account of a flood in Brazil, from which his friend Fritz Muller had barely escaped with his life. My father immediately wrote to Hermann Muller anxiously enquiring whether his brother had lost books, instruments, etc., by this accident, and begging in that case "for the sake of science, so that science should not suffer," to be allowed to help in making good the loss. Fortunately, however, the injury to Fritz Muller's possessions was not so great as was expected, and the incident remains only as a memento, which I trust cannot be otherwise than pleasing to the survivor, of the friends.h.i.+p of the two naturalists.

In 'Nature' (November 11, 1880) appeared a letter from my father, which is, I believe, the only instance in which he wrote publicly with anything like severity. The late Sir Wyville Thomson wrote, in the Introduction to the 'Voyage of the "Challenger"': "The character of the abyssal fauna refuses to give the least support to the theory which refers the evolution of species to extreme variation guided only by natural selection." My father, after characterising these remarks as a "standard of criticism, not uncommonly reached by theologians and metaphysicians," goes on to take exception to the term "extreme variation," and challenges Sir Wyville to name any one who has "said that the evolution of species depends only on natural selection." The letter closes with an imaginary scene between Sir Wyville and a breeder, in which Sir Wyville criticises artificial selection in a somewhat similar manner. The breeder is silent, but on the departure of his critic he is supposed to make use of "emphatic but irreverent language about naturalists." The letter, as originally written, ended with a quotation from Sedgwick on the invulnerability of those who write on what they do not understand, but this was omitted on the advice of a friend, and curiously enough a friend whose combativeness in the good cause my father had occasionally curbed.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO G.J. ROMANES. Down, April 16, 1881.

My dear Romanes,

My MS. on 'Worms' has been sent to the printers, so I am going to amuse myself by scribbling to you on a few points; but you must not waste your time in answering at any length this scribble.

Firstly, your letter on intelligence was very useful to me and I tor up and re-wrote what I sent to you. I have not attempted to define intelligence; but have quoted your remarks on experience, and have shown how far they apply to worms. It seems to me that they must be said to work with some intelligence, anyhow they are not guided by a blind instinct.

Secondly, I was greatly interested by the abstract in 'Nature' of your work on Echinoderms ("On the locomotor system of Echinoderms," by G.J.

Romanes and J. Cossar Ewart. 'Philosophical Transactions,' 1881, page 829.), the complexity with simplicity, and with such curious co-ordination of the nervous system is marvellous; and you showed me before what splendid gymnastic feats they can perform.

Thirdly, Dr. Roux has sent me a book just published by him: 'Der Kampf der Theile,' etc., 1881 (240 pages in length).