If you come across Dr. Freke on 'Origin of Species by means of Organic Affinity,' read a page here and there...He tells the reader to observe [that his result] has been arrived at by "induction," whereas all my results are arrived at only by "analogy." I see a Mr. Neale has read a paper before the Zoological Society on 'Typical Selection;' what it means Iknow not. I have not read H. Spencer, for I find that I must more and more husband the very little strength which I have. I sometimes suspect I shall soon entirely fail...As soon as this dreadful weather gets a little milder, I must try a little water cure. Have you read the 'Woman in White'? the plot is wonderfully interesting. I can recommend a book which has interested me greatly, viz. Olmsted's 'Journey in the Back Country.' It is an admirably lively picture of man and slavery in the Southern States...
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL.
February 2, 1861.
My dear Lyell, I have thought you would like to read the enclosed passage in a letter from A. Gray (who is printing his reviews as a pamphlet ("Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology," from the 'Atlantic Monthly' for July, August, and October, 1860; published by Trubner.), and will send copies to England), as I think his account is really favourable in high degree to us:--"I wish I had time to write you an account of the lengths to which Bowen and Agassiz, each in their own way, are going. The first denying all heredity (all transmission except specific) whatever. The second coming near to deny that we are genetically descended from our great-great-grandfathers; and insisting that evidently affiliated languages, e.g.
Latin, Greek, Sanscrit, owe none of their similarities to a community of origin, are all autochthonal; Agassiz admits that the derivation of languages, and that of species or forms, stand on the same foundation, and that he must allow the latter if he allows the former, which I tell him is perfectly logical."Is not this marvellous?
Ever yours, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, February 4 [1861].
My dear Hooker, I was delighted to get your long chatty letter, and to hear that you are thawing towards science. I almost wish you had remained frozen rather longer; but do not thaw too quickly and strongly. No one can work long as you used to do. Be idle; but I am a pretty man to preach, for I cannot be idle, much as I wish it, and am never comfortable except when at work. The word holiday is written in a dead language for me, and much I grieve at it.
We thank you sincerely for your kind sympathy about poor H. [his daughter]...She has now come up to her old point, and can sometimes get up for an hour or two twice a day...Never to look to the future or as little as possible is becoming our rule of life. What a different thing life was in youth with no dread in the future; all golden, if baseless, hopes.
...With respect to the 'Natural History Review' I can hardly think that ladies would be so very sensitive about "lizards' guts;" but the publication is at present certainly a sort of hybrid, and original illustrated papers ought hardly to appear in a review. I doubt its ever paying; but I shall much regret if it dies. All that you say seems very sensible, but could a review in the strict sense of the word be filled with readable matter?
I have been doing little, except finishing the new edition of the 'Origin,' and crawling on most slowly with my volume of 'Variation under Domestication'...
[The following letter refers to Mr. Bates's paper, "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley," in the 'Transactions of the Entomological Society,' vol.5, N.S. (The paper was read November 24, 1860.)Mr. Bates points out that with the return, after the glacial period, of a warmer climate in the equatorial regions, the "species then living near the equator would retreat north and south to their former homes, leaving some of their congeners, slowly modified subsequently...to re-people the zone they had forsaken." In this case the species now living at the equator ought to show clear relationship to the species inhabiting the regions about the 25th parallel, whose distant relatives they would of course be.
But this is not the case, and this is the difficulty my father refers to.
Mr. Belt has offered an explanation in his 'Naturalist in Nicaragua' (1874), page 266. "I believe the answer is that there was much extermination during the glacial period, that many species (and some genera, etc., as, for instance, the American horse), did not survive it...but that a refuge was found for many species on lands now below the ocean, that were uncovered by the lowering of the sea, caused by the immense quantity of water that was locked up in frozen masses on the land."]
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, 27th [March 1861].
My dear Hooker, I had intended to have sent you Bates's article this very day. I am so glad you like it. I have been extremely much struck with it. How well he argues, and with what crushing force against the glacial doctrine. Icannot wriggle out of it: I am dumbfounded; yet I do believe that some explanation some day will appear, and I cannot give up equatorial cooling.
It explains so much and harmonises with so much. When you write (and much interested I shall be in your letter) please say how far floras are generally uniform in generic character from 0 to 25 degrees N. and S.
Before reading Bates, I had become thoroughly dissatisfied with what Iwrote to you. I hope you may get Bates to write in the 'Linnean.'
