Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters

167

The Reviewer speaks of the author's "evident self-satisfaction," and of his disposing of all difficulties "more or less confidently."

168

A review of the fourth volume of Watson's Cybele Britannica, Gard. Chron., 1859, p. 911.

169

See the Origin, first edition, p. 3, where Sir J. D. Hooker's help is conspicuously acknowledged.

170

This refers to the review in the Athenæum, Nov. 19th, 1859, where the reviewer, after touching on the theological aspects of the book, leaves the author to "the mercies of the Divinity Hall, the College, the Lecture Room, and the Museum."

171

It appears from Sir Charles Lyell's published letters that he intended to admit the doctrine of evolution in a new edition of the Manual, but this was not published till 1865. He was, however, at work on the Antiquity of Man in 1860, and had already determined to discuss the Origin at the end of the book.

172

In a letter written in October, my father had said, "I am intensely curious to hear Huxley's opinion of my book. I fear my long discussion on classification will disgust him, for it is much opposed to what he once said to me." He may have remembered the following incident told by Mr. Huxley in his chapter of the Life and Letters, ii. p. 196: – "I remember, in the course of my first interview with Mr. Darwin, expressing my belief in the sharpness of the lines of demarcation between natural groups and in the absence of transitional forms, with all the confidence of youth and imperfect knowledge. I was not aware, at that time, that he had then been many years brooding over the species question; and the humorous smile which accompanied his gentle answer, that such was not altogether his view, long haunted and puzzled me."

173

Karl Ernst von Baer, b. 1792, d. at Dorpat 1876 – one of the most distinguished biologists of the century. He practically founded the modern science of embryology.

174

In the first edition of the Origin, Chap. IX. is on the 'Imperfection of the Geological Record;' Chap. X., on the 'Geological Succession of Organic Beings;' Chaps. XI. and XII., on 'Geographical Distribution;' Chap. XIII., on 'Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings; Morphology; Embryology; Rudimentary Organs.'

175

His brother.

176

Dr., afterwards Sir Henry, Holland.

177

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

178

First edition, 1250 copies.

179

The passage was omitted in the second edition.

180

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."

181

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.'"

182

See, however, p. 211.

183

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.

184

This refers to the passage in the Origin of Species (2nd edit. p. 285) in which the lapse of time implied by the denudation of the Weald is discussed. The discussion closes with the sentence: "So that it is not improbable that a longer period than 300 million years has elapsed since the latter part of the Secondary period." This passage is omitted in the later editions of the Origin, against the advice of some of his friends, as appears from the pencil notes in my father's copy of the 2nd edition.

185

In the first edition, the passages occur on p. 488.

186

Gardeners' Chronicle, 1860. Sir J. D. Hooker took the line of complete impartiality, so as not to commit the editor, Lindley.

187

On Jan. 23 Gray wrote to Darwin: "It naturally happens that my review of your book does not exhibit anything like the full force of the impression the book has made upon me. Under the circumstances I suppose I do your theory more good here, by bespeaking for it a fair and favourable consideration, and by standing non-committed as to its full conclusions, than I should if I announced myself a convert; nor could I say the latter, with truth…

"What seems to me the weakest point in the book is the attempt to account for the formation of organs, the making of eyes, &c., by natural selection. Some of this reads quite Lamarckian."

188

In a letter to Mr. Murray, 1860, my father wrote: – "I am amused by Asa Gray's account of the excitement my book has made amongst naturalists in the U. States. Agassiz has denounced it in a newspaper, but yet in such terms that it is in fact a fine advertisement!" This seems to refer to a lecture given before the Mercantile Library Association.

189

Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist. third series, vol. v. p. 132. My father has obviously taken the expression "pestilent" from the following passage (p. 138): "But who is this Nature, we have a right to ask, who has such tremendous power, and to whose efficiency such marvellous performances are ascribed? What are her image and attributes, when dragged from her wordy lurking-place? Is she ought but a pestilent abstraction, like dust cast in our eyes to obscure the workings of an Intelligent First Cause of all?" The reviewer pays a tribute to my father's candour "so manly and outspoken as almost to 'cover a multitude of sins.'" The parentheses (to which allusion is made above) are so frequent as to give a characteristic appearance to Mr. Wollaston's pages.

190

Another version of the words is given by Lyell, to whom they were spoken, viz. "the most illogical book ever written." —Life and Letters of Sir C. Lyell, vol. ii. p. 358.

191