Чарльз Дарвин
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2
Do not forget to aid me, if in your power, with answers to ANY of my questions on expression, for the subject interests me greatly. With cordial thanks for your never-failing kindness, believe me,
Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, July 18 [1867].
My dear Lyell,
Many thanks for your long letter. I am sorry to hear that you are in despair about your book (The 2nd volume of the 10th Edition of the 'Principles.'); I well know that feeling, but am now getting out of the lower depths. I shall be very much pleased, if you can make the least use of my present book, and do not care at all whether it is published before yours. Mine will appear towards the end of November of this year; you speak of yours as not coming out till November, 1868, which I hope may be an error. There is nothing about Man in my book which can interfere with you, so I will order all the completed clean sheets to be sent (and others as soon as ready) to you, but please observe you will not care for the first volume, which is a mere record of the amount of variation; but I hope the second will be somewhat more interesting. Though I fear the whole must be dull.
I rejoice from my heart that you are going to speak out plainly about species. My book about Man, if published, will be short, and a large portion will be devoted to sexual selection, to which subject I alluded in the 'Origin' as bearing on Man...
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, August 22 [1867].
My dear Lyell,
I thank you cordially for your last two letters. The former one did me REAL good, for I had got so wearied with the subject that I could hardly bear to correct the proofs (The proofs of 'Animals and Plants,' which Lyell was then reading.), and you gave me fresh heart. I remember thinking that when you came to the Pigeon chapter you would pass it over as quite unreadable. Your last letter has interested me in very many ways, and I have been glad to hear about those horrid unbelieving Frenchmen. I have been particularly pleased that you have noticed Pangenesis. I do not know whether you ever had the feeling of having thought so much over a subject that you had lost all power of judging it. This is my case with Pangenesis (which is 26 or 27 years old), but I am inclined to think that if it be admitted as a probable hypothesis it will be a somewhat important step in Biology.
I cannot help still regretting that you have ever looked at the slips, for I hope to improve the whole a good deal. It is surprising to me, and delightful, that you should care in the least about the plants. Altogether you have given me one of the best cordials I ever had in my life, and I heartily thank you. I despatched this morning the French edition. (Of the 'Origin.' It appears that my father was sending a copy of the French edition to Sir Charles. The introduction was by Mdlle. Royer, who translated the book.) The introduction was a complete surprise to me, and I dare say has injured the book in France; nevertheless... it shows, I think, that the woman is uncommonly clever. Once again many thanks for the renewed courage with which I shall attack the horrid proof-sheets.
Yours affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN.
P.S. — A Russian who is translating my new book into Russian has been here, and says you are immensely read in Russia, and many editions — how many I forget. Six editions of Buckle and four editions of the 'Origin.'
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, October 16 [1867].
My dear Gray,
I send by this post clean sheets of Volume I. up to page 336, and there are only 411 pages in this volume. I am VERY glad to hear that you are going to review my book; but if the "Nation" (The book was reviewed by Dr. Gray in the "Nation", March 19, 1868.) is a newspaper I wish it were at the bottom of the sea, for I fear that you will thus be stopped reviewing me in a scientific journal. The first volume is all details, and you will not be able to read it; and you must remember that the chapters on plants are written for naturalists who are not botanists. The last chapter in Volume I. is, however, I think, a curious compilation of facts; it is on bu-variation. In Volume II. some of the chapters are more interesting; and I shall be very curious to hear your verdict on the chapter on close inte-breeding. The chapter on what I call Pangenesis will be called a mad dream, and I shall be pretty well satisfied if you think it a dream worth publishing; but at the bottom of my own mind I think it contains a great truth. I finish my book with a semi-theological paragraph, in which I quote and differ from you; what you will think of it, I know not...
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, November 17 [1867].
My dear Hooker,
Congratulate me, for I have finished the last revise of the last sheet of my book. It has been an awful job: seven and a half months correcting the press: the book, from much small type, does not look big, but is really very big. I have had hard work to keep up to the mark, but during the last week only few revises came, so that I have rested and feel more myself. Hence, after our long mutual silence, I enjoy myself by writing a note to you, for the sake of exhaling, and hearing from you. On account of the index (The index was made by Mr. W.S. Dallas; I have often heard my father express his admiration of this excellent piece of work.), I do not suppose that you will receive your copy till the middle of next month. I shall be intensely anxious to hear what you think about Pangenesis; though I can see how fearfully imperfect, even in mere conjectural conclusions, it is; yet it has been an infinite satisfaction to me somehow to connect the various large groups of facts, which I have long considered, by an intelligible thread. I shall not be at all surprised if you attack it and me with unparalleled ferocity. It will be my endeavour to do as little as possible for some time, but [I] shall soon prepare a paper or two for the Linnean Society. In a short time we shall go to London for ten days, but the time is not yet fixed. Now I have told you a deal about myself, and do let me hear a good deal about your own past and future doings. Can you pay us a visit, early in December?.. I have seen no one for an age, and heard no news.
... About my book I will give you a bit of advice. Skip the WHOLE of Volume I., except the last chapter (and that need only be skimmed) and skip largely in the 2nd volume; and then you will say it is a very good book.
1868.
['The Variation of Animals and Plants' was, as already mentioned, published on January 30, 1868, and on that day he sent a copy to Fritz Muller, and wrote to him: —
"I send by this post, by French packet, my new book, the publication of which has been much delayed. The greater part, as you will see, is not meant to be read; but I should very much like to hear what you think of 'Pangenesis,' though I fear it will appear to EVERY ONE far too speculative."]
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. February 3 [1868].
... I am very much pleased at what you say about my Introduction; after it was in type I was as near as possible cancelling the whole. I have been for some time in despair about my book, and if I try to read a few pages I feel fairly nauseated, but do not let this make you praise it; for I have made up my mind that it is not worth a fifth part of the enormous labour it has cost me. I assure you that all that is worth your doing (if you have time for so much) is glancing at Chapter VI., and reading parts of the later chapters. The facts on self-impotent plants seem to me curious, and I have worked out to my own satisfaction the good from crossing and evil from interbreeding. I did read Pangenesis the other evening, but even this, my beloved child, as I had fancied, quite disgusted me. The devil take the whole book; and yet now I am at work again as hard as I am able. It is really a great evil that from habit I have pleasure in hardly anything except Natural History, for nothing else makes me forget my eve-recurrent uncomfortable sensations. But I must not howl any more, and the critics may say what they like; I did my best, and man can do no more. What a splendid pursuit Natural History would be if it was all observing and no writing!..
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 10 [1868].
My dear Hooker,
What is the good of having a friend, if one may not boast to him? I heard yesterday that Murray has sold in a week the whole edition of 1500 copies of my book, and the sale so pressing that he has agreed with Clowes to get another edition in fourteen days! This has done me a world of good, for I had got into a sort of dogged hatred of my book. And now there has appeared a review in the "Pall Mall" which has pleased me excessively, more perhaps than is reasonable. I am quite content, and do not care how much I may be pitched into. If by any chance you should hear who wrote the article in the "Pall Mall", do please tell me; it is some one who writes capitally, and who knows the subject. I went to luncheon on Sunday, to Lubbock's, partly in hopes of seeing you, and, be hanged to you, you were not there.
Your cock-a-hoop friend, C.D.
[Independently of the favourable tone of the able series of notices in the "Pall Mall Gazette" (February 10, 15, 17, 1868), my father may well have been gratified by the following passages: —
"We must call attention to the rare and noble calmness with which he expounds his own views, undisturbed by the heats of polemical agitation which those views have excited, and persistently refusing to retort on his antagonists by ridicule, by indignation, or by contempt. Considering the amount of vituperation and insinuation which has come from the other side, this forbearance is supremely dignified."
And again in the third notice, February 17: —
"Nowhere has the author a word that could wound the most sensitive sel-love of an antagonist; nowhere does he, in text or note, expose the fallacies and mistakes of brother investigators... but while abstaining from impertinent censure, he is lavish in acknowledging the smallest debts he may owe; and his book will make many men happy."
I am indebted to Messrs. Smith & Elder for the information that these articles were written by Mr. G.H. Lewes.]
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 23 [1868].
My dear Hooker,
I have had almost as many letters to write of late as you can have, viz. from 8 to 10 per diem, chiefly getting up facts on sexual selection, therefore I have felt no inclination to write to you, and now I mean to write solely about my book for my own satisfaction, and not at all for yours. The first edition was 1500 copies, and now the second is printed off; sharp work. Did you look at the review in the "Athenaeum" ("Athenaeum", February 15, 1868. My father quoted Pouchet's assertion that "variation under domestication throws no light on the natural modification of species." The reviewer quotes the end of a passage in which my father declares that he can see no force in Pouchet's arguments, or rather assertions, and then goes on: "We are sadly mistaken if there are not clear proofs in the pages of the book before us that, on the contrary, Mr. Darwin has perceived, felt, and yielded to the force of the arguments or assertions of his French antagonist." The following may serve as samples of the rest of the review: —
"Henceforth the rhetoricians will have a better illustration of anti-climax than the mountain which brought forth a mouse... in the discoverer of the origin of species, who tried to explain the variation of pigeons!
"A few summary words. On the 'Origin of Species' Mr. Darwin has nothing, and is never likely to have anything, to say; but on the vastly important subject of inheritance, the transmission of peculiarities once acquired through successive generations, this work is a valuable store-house of facts for curious students and practical breeders."), showing profound contempt of me?.. It is a shame that he should have said that I have taken much from Pouchet, without acknowledgment; for I took literally nothing, there being nothing to take. There is a capital review in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" which will sell the book if anything will. I don't quite see whether I or the writer is in a muddle about man CAUSING variability. If a man drops a bit of iron into sulphuric acid he does not cause the affinities to come into play, yet he may be said to make sulphate of iron. I do not know how to avoid ambiguity.
After what the "Pall Mall Gazette" and the "Chronicle" have said I do not care a d — .
I fear Pangenesis is stillborn; Bates says he has read it twice, and is not sure that he understands it. H. Spencer says the view is quite different from his (and this is a great relief to me, as I feared to be accused of plagiarism, but utterly failed to be sure what he meant, so thought it safest to give my view as almost the same as his), and he says he is not sure he understands it... Am I not a poor devil? yet I took such pains, I must think that I expressed myself clearly. Old Sir H. Holland says he has read it twice, and thinks it very tough; but believes that sooner or later "some view akin to it" will be accepted.
You will think me very self-sufficient, when I declare that I feel SURE if Pangenesis is now stillborn it will, thank God, at some future time reappear, begotten by some other father, and christened by some other name.
Have you ever met with any tangible and clear view of what takes place in generation, whether by seeds or buds, or how a long-lost character can possibly reappear; or how the male element can possibly affect the mother plant, or the mother animal, so that her future progeny are affected? Now all these points and many others are connected together, whether truly or falsely is another question, by Pangenesis. You see I die hard, and stick up for my poor child.
This letter is written for my own satisfaction, and not for yours. So bear it.
Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO A. NEWTON. (Prof. of Zoology at Cambridge.) Down, February 9 [1870].
Dear Newton,
I suppose it would be universally held extremely wrong for a defendant to write to a Judge to express his satisfaction at a judgment in his favour; and yet I am going thus to act. I have just read what you have said in the 'Record' ('Zoological Record.' The volume for 1868, published December 1869.) about my pigeon chapters, and it has gratified me beyond measure. I have sometimes felt a little disappointed that the labour of so many years seemed to be almost thrown away, for you are the first man capable of forming a judgment (excepting partly Quatrefages), who seems to have thought anything of this part of my work. The amount of labour, correspondence, and care, which the subject cost me, is more than you could well suppose. I thought the article in the "Athenaeum" was very unjust; but now I feel amply repaid, and I cordially thank you for your sympathy and too warm praise. What labour you have bestowed on your part of the 'Record'! I ought to be ashamed to speak of my amount of work. I thoroughly enjoyed the Sunday, which you and the others spent here, and
I remain, dear Newton, yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, February 27 [1868].
My dear Wallace,
You cannot well imagine how much I have been pleased by what you say about 'Pangenesis.' None of my friends will speak out... Hooker, as far as I understand him, which I hardly do at present, seems to think that the hypothesis is little more than saying that organisms have such and such potentialities. What you say exactly and fully expresses my feeling, viz. that it is a relief to have some feasible explanation of the various facts, which can be given up as soon as any better hypothesis is found. It has certainly been an immense relief to my mind; for I have been stumbling over the subject for years, dimly seeing that some relation existed between the various classes of facts. I now hear from H. Spencer that his views quoted in my foot-note refer to something quite distinct, as you seem to have perceived.
I shall be very glad to hear at some future day your criticisms on the "causes of variability." Indeed I feel sure that I am right about sterility and natural selection... I do not quite understand your case, and we think that a word or two is misplaced. I wish sometime you would consider the case under the following point of view: — If sterility is caused or accumulated through natural selection, than as every degree exists up to absolute barrenness, natural selection must have the power of increasing it. Now take two species, A and B, and assume that they are (by any means) half-sterile, i.e. produce half the full number of offspring. Now try and make (by natural selection) A and B absolutely sterile when crossed, and you will find how difficult it is. I grant indeed, it is certain, that the degree of sterility of the individuals A and B will vary, but any such extra-sterile individuals of, we will say A, if they should hereafter breed with other individuals of A, will bequeath no advantage to their progeny, by which these families will tend to increase in number over other families of A, which are not more sterile when crossed with B. But I do not know that I have made this any clearer than in the chapter in my book. It is a most difficult bit of reasoning, which I have gone over and over again on paper with diagrams.
... Hearty thanks for your letter. You have indeed pleased me, for I had given up the great god Pan as a stillborn deity. I wish you could be induced to make it clear with your admirable powers of elucidation in one of the scientific journals...
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, February 28 [1868].
My dear Hooker,
I have been deeply interested by your letter, and we had a good laugh over Huxley's remark, which was so deuced clever that you could not recollect it. I cannot quite follow your train of thought, for in the last page you admit all that I wish, having apparently denied all, or thought all mere words in the previous pages of your note; but it may be my muddle. I see clearly that any satisfaction which Pan may give will depend on the constitution of each man's mind. If you have arrived already at any similar conclusion, the whole will of course appear stale to you. I heard yesterday from Wallace, who says (excuse horrid vanity), "I can hardly tell you how much I admire the chapter on 'Pangenesis.' It is a POSITIVE COMFORT to me to have any feasible explanation of a difficulty that has always been haunting me, and I shall never be able to give it up till a better one supplies its place, and that I think hardly possible, etc." Now his foregoing [italicised] words express my sentiments exactly and fully: though perhaps I feel the relief extra strongly from having during many years vainly attempted to form some hypothesis. When you or Huxley say that a single cell of a plant, or the stump of an amputated limb, have the "potentiality" of reproducing the whole — or "diffuse an influence," these words give me no positive idea; — but when it is said that the cells of a plant, or stump, include atoms derived from every other cell of the whole organism and capable of development, I gain a distinct idea. But this idea would not be worth a rush, if it applied to one case alone; but it seems to me to apply to all the forms of reproduction — inheritance — metamorphosis — to the abnormal transposition of organs — to the direct action of the male element on the mother plant, etc. Therefore I fully believe that each cell does ACTUALLY throw off an atom or gemmule of its contents; — but whether or not, this hypothesis serves as a useful connecting link for various grand classes of physiological facts, which at present stand absolutely isolated.
I have touched on the doubtful point (alluded to by Huxley) how far atoms derived from the same cell may become developed into different structure accordingly as they are differently nourished; I advanced as illustrations galls and polypoid excrescences...
It is a real pleasure to me to write to you on this subject, and I should be delighted if we can understand each other; but you must not let your good nature lead you on. Remember, we always fight tooth and nail. We go to London on Tuesday, first for a week to Queen Anne Street, and afterwards to Miss Wedgwood's, in Regent's Park, and stay the whole month, which, as my gardener truly says, is a "terrible thing" for my experiments.
CHARLES DARWIN TO W. OGLE. (Dr. William Ogle, now the Superintendent of Statistics to the Registrar-General.) Down, March 6 [1868].
Dear Sir,
I thank you most sincerely for your letter, which is very interesting to me. I wish I had known of these views of Hippocrates before I had published, for they seem almost identical with mine — merely a change of terms — and an application of them to classes of facts necessarily unknown to the old philosopher. The whole case is a good illustration of how rarely anything is new.
Hippocrates has taken the wind out of my sails, but I care very little about being forestalled. I advance the views merely as a provisional hypothesis, but with the secret expectation that sooner or later some such view will have to be admitted.
... I do not expect the reviewers will be so learned as you: otherwise, no doubt, I shall be accused of wilfully stealing Pangenesis from Hippocrates, — for this is the spirit some reviewers delight to show.
CHARLES DARWIN TO VICTOR CARUS. Down, March 21 [1868].
... I am very much obliged to you for sending me so frankly your opinion on Pangenesis, and I am sorry it is unfavourable, but I cannot quite understand your remark on pangenesis, selection, and the struggle for life not being more methodical. I am not at all surprised at your unfavourable verdict; I know many, probably most, will come to the same conclusion. One English Review says it is much too complicated... Some of my friends are enthusiastic on the hypothesis... Sir C. Lyell says to every one, "you may not believe in 'Pangenesis,' but if you once understand it, you will never get it out of your mind." And with this criticism I am perfectly content. All cases of inheritance and reversion and development now appear to me under a new light...
[An extract from a letter to Fritz Muller, though of later date (June), may be given here: —
"Your letter of April 22 has much interested me. I am delighted that you approve of my book, for I value your opinion more than that of almost any one. I have yet hopes that you will think well of Pangenesis. I feel sure that our minds are somewhat alike, and I find it a great relief to have some definite, though hypothetical view, when I reflect on the wonderful transformations of animals, — the re-growth of parts, — and especially the direct action of pollen on the mother-form, etc. It often appears to me almost certain that the characters of the parents are "photographed" on the child, only by means of material atoms derived from each cell in both parents, and developed in the child."]
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, May 8 [1868].
My dear Gray,
I have been a most ungrateful and ungracious man not to have written to you an immense time ago to thank you heartily for the "Nation", and for all your most kind aid in regard to the American edition [of 'Animals and Plants']. But I have been of late overwhelmed with letters, which I was forced to answer, and so put off writing to you. This morning I received the American edition (which looks capital), with your nice preface, for which hearty thanks. I hope to heaven that the book will succeed well enough to prevent you repenting of your aid. This arrival has put the finishing stroke to my conscience, which will endure its wrongs no longer.
... Your article in the "Nation" [March 19] seems to me very good, and you give an excellent idea of Pangenesis — an infant cherished by few as yet, except his tender parent, but which will live a long life. There is parental presumption for you! You give a good slap at my concluding metaphor (A short abstract of the precipice metaphor is given in Volume I. Dr. Gray's criticism on this point is as follows: "But in Mr. Darwin's parallel, to meet the case of nature according to his own view of it, not only the fragments of rock (answering to variation) should fall, but the edifice (answering to natural selection) should rise, irrespective of will or choice!" But my father's parallel demands that natural selection shall be the architect, not the edifice — the question of design only comes in with regard to the form of the building materials.): undoubtedly I ought to have brought in and contrasted natural and artificial selection; but it seems so obvious to me that natural selection depended on contingencies even more complex than those which must have determined the shape of each fragment at the base of my precipice. What I wanted to show was that in reference to pre-ordainment whatever holds good in the formation of a pouter pigeon holds good in the formation of a natural species of pigeon. I cannot see that this is false. If the right variations occurred, and no others, natural selection would be superfluous. A reviewer in an Edinburgh paper, who treats me with profound contempt, says on this subject that Professor Asa Gray could with the greatest ease smash me into little pieces. (The "Daily Review", April 27, 1868. My father has given rather a highly coloured version of the reviewer's remarks: "We doubt not that Professor Asa Gray... could show that natural selection... is simply an instrument in the hands of an omnipotent and omniscient creator." The reviewer goes on to say that the passage in question is a "very melancholy one," and that the theory is the "apotheosis of materialism.")
Believe me, my dear Gray, Your ungrateful but sincere friend, CHARLES DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO G. BENTHAM. Down, June 23, 1868.
My dear Mr. Bentham,
As your address (Presidential Address to the Linnean Society.) is somewhat of the nature of a verdict from a judge, I do not know whether it is proper for me to do so, but I must and will thank you for the pleasure which you have given me. I am delighted at what you say about my book. I got so tired of it, that for months together I thought myself a perfect fool for having given up so much time in collecting and observing little facts, but now I do not care if a score of common critics speak as contemptuously of the book as did the "Athenaeum". I feel justified in this, for I have so complete a reliance on your judgment that I feel certain that I should have bowed to your judgment had it been as unfavourable as it is the contrary. What you say about Pangenesis quite satisfies me, and is as much perhaps as any one is justified in saying. I have read your whole Address with the greatest interest. It must have cost you a vast amount of trouble. With cordial thanks, pray believe me,
Yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN.
P.S. — I fear that it is not likely that you have a superfluous copy of your Address; if you have, I should much like to send one to Fritz Muller in the interior of Brazil. By the way let me add that I discussed bud-variation chiefly from a belief which is common to several persons, that all variability is related to sexual generation; I wished to show clearly that this was an error.
[The above series of letters may serve to show to some extent the reception which the new book received. Before passing on (in the next chapter) to the 'Descent of Man,' I give a letter referring to the translation of Fritz Muller's book, 'Fur Darwin,' it was originally published in 1864, but the English translation, by Mr. Dallas, which bore the title suggested by Sir C. Lyell, of 'Facts and Arguments for Darwin,' did not appear until 1869:]
CHARLES DARWIN TO F. MULLER. Down, March 16 [1868].
My dear Sir,
Your brother, as you will have heard from him, felt so convinced that you would not object to a translation of 'Fur Darwin' (In a letter to Fritz Muller, my father wrote: — "I am vexed to see that on the title my name is more conspicuous than yours, which I especially objected to, and I cautioned the printers after seeing one proof."), that I have ventured to arrange for a translation. Engelmann has very liberally offered me cliches of the woodcuts for 22 thalers; Mr. Murray has agreed to bring out a translation (and he is our best publisher) on commission, for he would not undertake the work on his own risk; and I have agreed with Mr. W.S. Dallas (who has translated Von Siebold on Parthenogenesis, and many German works, and who writes very good English) to translate the book. He thinks (and he is a good judge) that it is important to have some few corrections or additions, in order to account for a translation appearing so lately [i.e. at such a long interval of time] after the original; so that I hope you will be able to send some...
[Two letters may be placed here as bearing on the spread of Evolutionary ideas in France and Germany:]
CHARLES DARWIN TO A. GAUDRY. Down, January 21 [1868].
Dear Sir,
I thank you for your interesting essay on the influence of the Geological features of the country on the mind and habits of the Ancient Athenians (This appears to refer to M. Gaudry's paper translated in the 'Geol. Mag.,' 1868, page 372.), and for your very obliging letter. I am delighted to hear that you intend to consider the relations of fossil animals in connection with their genealogy; it will afford you a fine field for the exercise of your extensive knowledge and powers of reasoning. Your belief will I suppose, at present, lower you in the estimation of your countrymen; but judging from the rapid spread in all parts of Europe, excepting France, of the belief in the common descent of allied species, I must think that this belief will before long become universal. How strange it is that the country which gave birth to Buffon, the elder Geoffroy, and especially to Lamarck, should now cling so pertinaciously to the belief that species are immutable creations.
