Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II Part 44

It was very good of you to write so long an account. Though the seance did tire you so much it was, I think, really worth the exertion, as the same sort of things are done at all the seances, even at --'s; and now to my mind an enormous weight of evidence would be requisite to make one believe in anything beyond mere trickery... I am pleased to think that I declared to all my family, the day before yesterday, that the more I thought of all that I had heard happened at Queen Anne St., the more convinced I was it was all imposture... my theory was that [the medium]

managed to get the two men on each side of him to hold each other's hands, instead of his, and that he was thus free to perform his antics.

I am very glad that I issued my ukase to you to attend.

Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN.

[In the spring of this year (1874) he read a book which gave him great pleasure and of which he often spoke with admiration:--'The Naturalist in Nicaragua,' by the late Thomas Belt. Mr. Belt, whose untimely death may well be deplored by naturalists, was by profession an Engineer, so that all his admirable observations in Natural History in Nicaragua and elsewhere were the fruit of his leisure. The book is direct and vivid in style and is full of description and suggestive discussions. With reference to it my father wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker:--

"Belt I have read, and I am delighted that you like it so much, it appears to me the best of all natural history journals which have ever been published."]

CHARLES DARWIN TO THE MARQUIS DE SAPORTA. Down, May 30, 1874.

Dear Sir,

I have been very neglectful in not having sooner thanked you for your kindness in having sent me your 'Etudes sur la Vegetation,' etc., and other memoirs. I have read several of them with very great interest, and nothing can be more important, in my opinion, than your evidence of the extremely slow and gradual manner in which specific forms change. I observe that M. A. De Candolle has lately quoted you on this head versus Heer. I hope that you may be able to throw light on the question whether such protean, or polymorphic forms, as those of Rubus, Hieracium, etc., at the present day, are those which generate new species; as for myself, I have always felt some doubt on this head. I trust that you may soon bring many of your countrymen to believe in Evolution, and my name will then perhaps cease to be scorned. With the most sincere respect, I remain, Dear Sir,

Yours faithfully, CH. DARWIN.

CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, June 5 [1874].

My dear Gray,

I have now read your article (The article, "Charles Darwin," in the series of "Scientific Worthies" ('Nature,' June 4, 1874). This admirable estimate of my father's work in science is given in the form of a comparison and contrast between Robert Brown and Charles Darwin.) in 'Nature,' and the last two paragraphs were not included in the slip sent before. I wrote yesterday and cannot remember exactly what I said, and now cannot be easy without again telling you how profoundly I have been gratified. Every one, I suppose, occasionally thinks that he has worked in vain, and when one of these fits overtakes me, I will think of your article, and if that does not dispel the evil spirit, I shall know that I am at the time a little bit insane, as we all are occasionally.

What you say about Teleology ("Let us recognise Darwin's great service to Natural Science in bringing back to it Teleology: so that instead of Morphology versus Teleology, we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology.") pleases me especially, and I do not think any one else has ever noticed the point. (See, however, Mr. Huxley's chapter on the 'Reception of the Origin of Species' in volume i.) I have always said you were the man to hit the nail on the head.

Yours gratefully and affectionately, CH. DARWIN.

[As a contribution to the history of the reception of the 'Origin of Species,' the meeting of the British a.s.sociation in 1874, at Belfast, should be mentioned. It is memorable for Professor Tyndall's brilliant presidential address, in which a sketch of the history of Evolution is given culminating in an eloquent a.n.a.lysis of the 'Origin of Species,'

and of the nature of its great success. With regard to Prof. Tyndall's address, Lyell wrote ('Life,' ii. page 455) congratulating my father on the meeting, "on which occasion you and your theory of Evolution may be fairly said to have had an ovation." In the same letter Sir Charles speaks of a paper (On the Ancient Volcanoes of the Highlands, 'Journal of Geological Soc.,' 1874.) of Professor Judd's, and it is to this that the following letter refers:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, September 23, 1874.

My dear Lyell,

I suppose that you have returned, or will soon return, to London (Sir Charles Lyell returned from Scotland towards the end of September.); and, I hope, reinvigorated by your outing. In your last letter you spoke of Mr. Judd's paper on the Volcanoes of the Hebrides. I have just finished it, and to ease my mind must express my extreme admiration.

It is years since I have read a purely geological paper which has interested me so greatly. I was all the more interested, as in the Cordillera I often speculated on the sources of the deluges of submarine porphyritic lavas, of which they are built; and, as I have stated, I saw to a certain extent the causes of the obliteration of the points of eruption. I was also not a little pleased to see my volcanic book quoted, for I thought it was completely dead and forgotten. What fine work will Mr. Judd a.s.suredly do!... Now I have eased my mind; and so farewell, with both E.D.'s and C.D.'s very kind remembrances to Miss Lyell.

Yours affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN.

[Sir Charles Lyell's reply to the above letter must have been one of the latest that my father received from his old friend, and it is with this letter that the volumes of his published correspondence closes.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO AUG. FOREL. Down, October 15, 1874.

My dear Sir,

I have now read the whole of your admirable work ('Les Fourmis de la Suisse,' 4to, 1874.) and seldom in my life have I been more interested by any book. There are so many interesting facts and discussions, that I hardly know which to specify; but I think, firstly, the newest points to me have been about the size of the brain in the three s.e.xes, together with your suggestion that increase of mind power may have led to the sterility of the workers. Secondly about the battles of the ants, and your curious account of the enraged ants being held by their comrades until they calmed down. Thirdly, the evidence of ants of the same community being the offspring of brothers and sisters. You admit, I think, that new communities will often be the product of a cross between not-related ants. Fritz Muller has made some interesting observations on this head with respect to Termites. The case of Anergates is most perplexing in many ways, but I have such faith in the law of occasional crossing that I believe an explanation will hereafter be found, such as the dimorphism of either s.e.x and the occasional production of winged males. I see that you are puzzled how ants of the same community recognize each other; I once placed two (F. rufa) in a pill-box smelling strongly of asafoetida and after a day returned them to their homes; they were threatened, but at last recognized. I made the trial thinking that they might know each other by their odour; but this cannot have been the case, and I have often fancied that they must have some common signal. Your last chapter is one great ma.s.s of wonderful facts and suggestions, and the whole profoundly interesting. I have seldom been more gratified than by [your] honourable mention of my work.

I should like to tell you one little observation which I made with care many years ago; I saw ants (Formica rufa) carrying coc.o.o.ns from a nest which was the largest I ever saw and which was well-known to all the country people near, and an old man, apparently about eighty years of age, told me that he had known it ever since he was a boy. The ants carrying the coc.o.o.ns did not appear to be emigrating; following the line, I saw many ascending a tall fir tree still carrying their coc.o.o.ns.

But when I looked closely I found that all the coc.o.o.ns were empty cases.

This astonished me, and next day I got a man to observe with me, and we again saw ants bringing empty coc.o.o.ns out of the nest; each of us fixed on one ant and slowly followed it, and repeated the observation on many others. We thus found that some ants soon dropped their empty coc.o.o.ns; others carried them for many yards, as much as thirty paces, and others carried them high up the fir tree out of sight. Now here I think we have one instinct in contest with another and mistaken one. The first instinct being to carry the empty coc.o.o.ns out of the nest, and it would have been sufficient to have laid them on the heap of rubbish, as the first breath of wind would have blown them away. And then came in the contest with the other very powerful instinct of preserving and carrying their coc.o.o.ns as long as possible; and this they could not help doing although the coc.o.o.ns were empty. According as the one or other instinct was the stronger in each individual ant, so did it carry the empty coc.o.o.n to a greater or less distance. If this little observation should ever prove of any use to you, you are quite at liberty to use it. Again thanking you cordially for the great pleasure which your work has given me, I remain with much respect,

Yours sincerely, CH. DARWIN.

P.S.--If you read English easily I should like to send you Mr. Belt's book, as I think you would like it as much as did Fritz Muller.

CHARLES DARWIN TO J. FISKE. Down, December 8, 1874.

My dear Sir,

You must allow me to thank you for the very great interest with which I have at last slowly read the whole of your work. ('Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy,' 2 volumes, 8vo. 1874.) I have long wished to know something about the views of the many great men whose doctrines you give. With the exception of special points I did not even understand H. Spencer's general doctrine; for his style is too hard work for me. I never in my life read so lucid an expositor (and therefore thinker) as you are; and I think that I understand nearly the whole--perhaps less clearly about Cosmic Theism and Causation than other parts. It is hopeless to attempt out of so much to specify what has interested me most, and probably you would not care to hear. I wish some chemist would attempt to ascertain the result of the cooling of heated gases of the proper kinds, in relation to your hypothesis of the origin of living matter. It pleased me to find that here and there I had arrived from my own crude thoughts at some of the same conclusions with you; though I could seldom or never have given my reasons for such conclusions. I find that my mind is so fixed by the inducive method, that I cannot appreciate deductive reasoning: I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please. This may be very narrow-minded; but the result is that such parts of H. Spencer, as I have read with care impress my mind with the idea of his inexhaustible wealth of suggestion, but never convince me; and so I find it with some others. I believe the cause to lie in the frequency with which I have found first-formed theories [to be] erroneous. I thank you for the honourable mention which you make of my works. Parts of the 'Descent of Man' must have appeared laughably weak to you: nevertheless, I have sent you a new edition just published.

Thanking you for the profound interest and profit with which I have read your work. I remain,

My dear Sir, yours very faithfully, CH. DARWIN.

1875.

[The only work, not purely botanical, which occupied my father in the present year was the correction of the second edition of 'The Variation of Animals and Plants,' and on this he was engaged from the beginning of July till October 3rd. The rest of the year was taken up with his work on insectivorous plants, and on cross-fertilisation, as will be shown in a later chapter. The chief alterations in the second edition of 'Animals and Plants' are in the eleventh chapter on "Bud-variation and on certain anomalous modes of reproduction;" the chapter on Pangenesis "was also largely altered and remodelled." He mentions briefly some of the authors who have noticed the doctrine. Professor Delpino's 'Sulla Darwiniana Teoria della Pangenesi' (1869), an adverse but fair criticism, seems to have impressed him as valuable. Of another critique my father characteristically says ('Animals and Plants,' 2nd edition volume ii.

page 350.), "Dr. Lionel Beale ('Nature,' May 11, 1871, page 26) sneers at the whole doctrine with much acerbity and some justice." He also points out that, in Mantegazza's 'Elementi di Igiene,' the theory of Pangenesis was clearly foreseen.

In connection with this subject, a letter of my father's to 'Nature'

(April 27, 1871) should be mentioned. A paper by Mr. Galton had been read before the Royal Society (March 30, 1871) in which were described experiments, on intertransfusion of blood, designed to test the truth of the hypothesis of pangenesis. My father, while giving all due credit to Mr. Galton for his ingenious experiments, does not allow that pangenesis has "as yet received its death-blow, though from presenting so many vulnerable points its life is always in jeopardy."

He seems to have found the work of correcting very wearisome, for he wrote:--

"I have no news about myself, as I am merely slaving over the sickening work of preparing new editions. I wish I could get a touch of poor Lyell's feelings, that it was delightful to improve a sentence, like a painter improving a picture."

The feeling of effort or strain over this piece of work, is shown in a letter to Professor Haeckel:--

"What I shall do in future if I live, Heaven only knows; I ought perhaps to avoid general and large subjects, as too difficult for me with my advancing years, and I suppose enfeebled brain."

At the end of March, in this year, the portrait for which he was sitting to Mr. Ouless was finished. He felt the sittings a great fatigue, in spite of Mr. Ouless's considerate desire to spare him as far as was possible. In a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker he wrote, "I look a very venerable, acute, melancholy old dog; whether I really look so I do not know." The picture is in the possession of the family, and is known to many through M. Rajon's etching. Mr. Ouless's portrait is, in my opinion, the finest representation of my father that has been produced.

The following letter refers to the death of Sir Charles Lyell, which took place on February 22nd, 1875, in his seventy-eighth year.]

CHARLES DARWIN TO MISS BUCKLEY (NOW MRS. FISHER). (Mrs. Fisher acted as Secretary to Sir Charles Lyell.) Down, February 23, 1875.

My dear Miss Buckley,