Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter Part 29

[178] Rev. Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian Professor of Geology in the University of Cambridge. Born 1785, died 1873.

[179] First edition, 1250 copies.

[180] The pa.s.sage was omitted in the second edition.

[181] John Crawford, orientalist, ethnologist, &c., b. 1783, d. 1868.

The review appeared in the _Examiner_, and, though hostile, is free from bigotry, as the following citation will show: "We cannot help saying that piety must be fastidious indeed that objects to a theory the tendency of which is to show that all organic beings, man included, are in a perpetual progress of amelioration and that is expounded in the reverential language which we have quoted."

[182] A letter of Dec. 14, gives a good example of the manner in which some naturalists received and understood it. "Old J. E. Gray of the British Museum attacked me in fine style: 'You have just reproduced Lamarck's doctrine, and nothing else, and here Lyell and others have been attacking him for twenty years, and because _you_ (with a sneer and laugh) say the very same thing, they are all coming round; it is the most ridiculous inconsistency, &c. &c.'"

[183] See, however, p. 211.

[184] Mr. Huxley has made a similar remark:--"Long occupation with the work has led the present writer to believe that the _Origin of Species_ is one of the hardest of books to master."--_Obituary Notice, Proc. R.

Soc._ No. 269, p. xvii.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES'--REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS--ADHESIONS AND ATTACKS.

"You are the greatest revolutionist in natural history of this century, if not of all centuries."--H. C. Watson to C. Darwin, Nov.

21, 1859.

1860.

The second edition, 3000 copies, of the _Origin_ was published on January 7th; on the 10th, he wrote with regard to it, to Lyell:--

_C. D. to C. Lyell._ Down, January 10th [1860].

... It is perfectly true that I owe nearly all the corrections to you, and several verbal ones to you and others; I am heartily glad you approve of them, as yet only two things have annoyed me; those confounded millions[185] of years (not that I think it is probably wrong), and my not having (by inadvertence) mentioned Wallace towards the close of the book in the summary, not that any one has noticed this to me. I have now put in Wallace's name at p. 484 in a conspicuous place. I shall be truly glad to read carefully any MS. on man, and give my opinion. You used to caution me to be cautious about man. I suspect I shall have to return the caution a hundred fold! Yours will, no doubt, be a grand discussion; but it will horrify the world at first more than my whole volume; although by the sentence (p. 489, new edition[186]) I show that I believe man is in the same predicament with other animals.

It is in fact impossible to doubt it. I have thought (only vaguely) on man. With respect to the races, one of my best chances of truth has broken down from the impossibility of getting facts. I have one good speculative line, but a man must have entire credence in Natural Selection before he will even listen to it. Psychologically, I have done scarcely anything. Unless, indeed, expression of countenance can be included, and on that subject I have collected a good many facts, and speculated, but I do not suppose I shall ever publish, but it is an uncommonly curious subject.

A few days later he wrote again to the same correspondent:

"What a grand immense benefit you conferred on me by getting Murray to publish my book. I never till to-day realised that it was getting widely distributed; for in a letter from a lady to-day to E., she says she heard a man enquiring for it at the _Railway Station!!!_ at Waterloo Bridge; and the bookseller said that he had none till the new edition was out. The bookseller said he had not read it, but had heard it was a very remarkable book!!!"

_C. D. to J. D. Hooker._ Down, 14th [January, 1860].

... I heard from Lyell this morning, and he tells me a piece of news.

You are a good-for-nothing man; here you are slaving yourself to death with hardly a minute to spare, and you must write a review on my book! I thought it[187] a very good one, and was so much struck with it, that I sent it to Lyell. But I a.s.sumed, as a matter of course, that it was Lindley's. Now that I know it is yours, I have re-read it, and my kind and good friend, it has warmed my heart with all the honourable and n.o.ble things you say of me and it. I was a good deal surprised at Lindley hitting on some of the remarks, but I never dreamed of you. I admired it chiefly as so well adapted to tell on the readers of the _Gardeners' Chronicle_; but now I admire it in another spirit. Farewell, with hearty thanks....

_Asa Gray to J. D. Hooker._ Cambridge, Ma.s.s., January 5th, 1860.

MY DEAR HOOKER,--Your last letter, which reached me just before Christmas, has got mislaid during the upturnings in my study which take place at that season, and has not yet been discovered. I should be very sorry to lose it, for there were in it some botanical mems. which I had not secured....

The princ.i.p.al part of your letter was high laudation of Darwin's book.

Well, the book has reached me, and I finished its careful perusal four days ago; and I freely say that your laudation is not out of place.

It is done in a _masterly manner_. It might well have taken twenty years to produce it. It is crammed full of most interesting matter--thoroughly digested--well expressed--close, cogent, and taken as a system it makes out a better case than I had supposed possible....

Aga.s.siz, when I saw him last, had read but a part of it. He says it is _poor--very poor_!! (entre nous). The fact [is] he is very much annoyed by it, ... and I do not wonder at it. To bring all _ideal_ systems within the domain of science, and give good physical or natural explanations of all his capital points, is as bad as to have Forbes take the glacier materials ... and give scientific explanation of all the phenomena.

Tell Darwin all this. I will write to him when I get a chance. As I have promised, he and you shall have fair-play here.... I must myself write a review[188] of Darwin's book for _Silliman's Journal_ (the more so that I suspect Aga.s.siz means to come out upon it) for the next (March) number, and I am now setting about it (when I ought to be every moment working the Expl[oring] Expedition Compositae, which I know far more about). And really it is no easy job as you may well imagine.

I doubt if I shall please you altogether. I know I shall not please Aga.s.siz at all. I hear another reprint is in the Press, and the book will excite much attention here, and some controversy....

_C. D. to Asa Gray._ Down, January 28th [1860].

MY DEAR GRAY,--Hooker has forwarded to me your letter to him; and I cannot express how deeply it has gratified me. To receive the approval of a man whom one has long sincerely respected, and whose judgment and knowledge are most universally admitted, is the highest reward an author can possibly wish for; and I thank you heartily for your most kind expressions.

I have been absent from home for a few days, and so could not earlier answer your letter to me of the 10th of January. You have been extremely kind to take so much trouble and interest about the edition. It has been a mistake of my publisher not thinking of sending over the sheets. I had entirely and utterly forgotten your offer of receiving the sheets as printed off. But I must not blame my publisher, for had I remembered your most kind offer I feel pretty sure I should not have taken advantage of it; for I never dreamed of my book being so successful with general readers: I believe I should have laughed at the idea of sending the sheets to America.[189]

After much consideration, and on the strong advice of Lyell and others, I have resolved to leave the present book as it is (excepting correcting errors, or here and there inserting short sentences), and to use all my strength, _which is but little_, to bring out the first part (forming a separate volume, with index, &c.) of the three volumes which will make my bigger work; so that I am very unwilling to take up time in making corrections for an American edition. I enclose a list of a few corrections in the second reprint, which you will have received by this time complete, and I could send four or five corrections or additions of equally small importance, or rather of equal brevity. I also intend to write a _short_ preface with a brief history of the subject. These I will set about, as they must some day be done, and I will send them to you in a short time--the few corrections first, and the preface afterwards, unless I hear that you have given up all idea of a separate edition. You will then be able to judge whether it is worth having the new edition with _your review prefixed_. Whatever be the nature of your review, I a.s.sure you I should feel it a _great_ honour to have my book thus preceded....

_C. D. to C. Lyell._ Down [February 15th, 1860].

... I am perfectly convinced (having read it this morning) that the review in the _Annals_[190] is by Wollaston; no one else in the world would have used so many parentheses. I have written to him, and told him that the "pestilent" fellow thanks him for his kind manner of speaking about him. I have also told him that he would be pleased to hear that the Bishop of Oxford says it is the most unphilosophical[191] work he ever read. The review seems to me clever, and only misinterprets me in a few places. Like all hostile men, he pa.s.ses over the explanation given of Cla.s.sification, Morphology, Embryology, and Rudimentary Organs, &c. I read Wallace's paper in MS.,[192] and thought it admirably good; he does not know that he has been antic.i.p.ated about the depth of intervening sea determining distribution.... The most curious point in the paper seems to me that about the African character of the Celebes productions, but I should require further confirmation....

Henslow is staying here; I have had some talk with him; he is in much the same state as Bunbury,[193] and will go a very little way with us, but brings up no real argument against going further. He also shudders at the eye! It is really curious (and perhaps is an argument in our favour) how differently different opposers view the subject. Henslow used to rest his opposition on the imperfection of the Geological Record, but he now thinks nothing of this, and says I have got well out of it; I wish I could quite agree with him. Baden Powell says he never read anything so conclusive as my statement about the eye!! A stranger writes to me about s.e.xual selection, and regrets that I boggle about such a trifle as the brush of hair on the male turkey, and so on. As L.

Jenyns has a really philosophical mind, and as you say you like to see everything, I send an old letter of his. In a later letter to Henslow, which I have seen, he is more candid than any opposer I have heard of, for he says, though he cannot go so far as I do, yet he can give no good reason why he should not. It is funny how each man draws his own imaginary line at which to halt. It reminds me so vividly [of] what I was told[194] about you when I first commenced geology--to believe a _little_, but on no account to believe all.

Ever yours affectionately.

With regard to the att.i.tude of the more liberal representatives of the Church, the following letter from Charles Kingsley is of interest:

_C. Kingsley to C. Darwin._ Eversley Rectory, Winchfield, November 18th, 1859.

DEAR SIR,--I have to thank you for the unexpected honour of your book.

That the Naturalist whom, of all naturalists living, I most wish to know and to learn from, should have sent a scientist like me his book, encourages me at least to observe more carefully, and think more slowly.

I am so poorly (in brain), that I fear I cannot read your book just now as I ought. All I have seen of it _awes_ me; both with the heap of facts and the prestige of your name, and also with the clear intuition, that if you be right, I must give up much that I have believed and written.

In that I care little. Let G.o.d be true, and every man a liar! Let us know what is, and, as old Socrates has it, [Greek: hepesthai to logo]--follow up the villainous s.h.i.+fty fox of an argument, into whatsoever unexpected bogs and brakes he may lead us, if we do but run into him at last.

From two common superst.i.tious, at least, I shall be free while judging of your book:--

(1.) I have long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species.