The Life and Letters-2 [72]
[April] 23? [1861].
...I quite agree with what you say on Lieutenant Hutton's Review (In the 'Geologist,' 1861, page 132, by Lieutenant Frederick Wollaston Hutton, now Professor of Biology and Geology at Canterbury College, New Zealand.) (who he is I know not); it struck me as very original. He is one of the very few who see that the change of species cannot be directly proved, and that the doctrine must sink or swim according as it groups and explains phenomena. It is really curious how few judge it in this way, which is clearly the right way. I have been much interested by Bentham's paper ("On the Species and Genera of Plants, etc.," 'Natural History Review,' 1861, page 133.) in the N.H.R., but it would not, of course, from familiarity strike you as it did me. I liked the whole; all the facts on the nature of close and varying species. Good Heavens! to think of the British botanists turning up their noses, and saying that he knows nothing of British plants! I was also pleased at his remarks on classification, because it showed me that I wrote truly on this subject in the 'Origin.' I saw Bentham at the Linnean Society, and had some talk with him and Lubbock, and Edgeworth, Wallich, and several others. I asked Bentham to give us his ideas of species; whether partially with us or dead against us, he would write EXCELLENT matter. He made no answer, but his manner made me think he might do so if urged; so do you attack him. Every one was speaking with affection and anxiety of Henslow. (Prof. Henslow was in his last illness.) I dined with Bell at the Linnean Club, and liked my dinner...Dining out is such a novelty to me that I enjoyed it. Bell has a real good heart. I liked Rolleston's paper, but I never read anything so obscure and not self- evident as his 'Canons.' (George Rolleston, M.D., F.R.S., 1829-1881. Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Oxford. A man of much learning, who left but few published works, among which may be mentioned his handbook 'Forms of Animal Life.' For the 'Canons,' see 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1861, page 206.)...I called on R. Chambers, at his very nice house in St. John's Wood, and had a very pleasant half-hour's talk; he is really a capital fellow. He made one good remark and chuckled over it, that the laymen universally had treated the controversy on the 'Essays and Reviews' as a merely professional subject, and had not joined in it, but had left it to the clergy. I shall be anxious for your next letter about Henslow. (Sir Joseph Hooker was Prof. Henslow's son-in-law.) Farewell, with sincere sympathy, my old friend,
C. DARWIN.
P.S.--We are very much obliged for the 'London Review.' We like reading much of it, and the science is incomparably better than in the "Athenaeum". You shall not go on very long sending it, as you will be ruined by pennies and trouble, but I am under a horrid spell to the "Athenaeum" and the "Gardener's Chronicle", but I have taken them in for so many years, that I CANNOT give them up.
[The next letter refers to Lyell's visit to the Biddenham gravel-pits near Bedford in April 1861. The visit was made at the invitation of Mr. James Wyatt, who had recently discovered two stone implements "at the depth of thirteen feet from the surface of the soil," resting "immediately on solid beds of oolitic-limestone." ('Antiquity of Man,' fourth edition, page 214.) Here, says Sir C. Lyell, "I...for the first time, saw evidence which satisfied me of the chronological relations of those three phenomena--the antique tools, the extinct mammalia, and the glacial formation."]
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, April 12 [1861].
My dear Lyell,
I have been most deeply interested by your letter. You seem to have done the grandest work, and made the greatest step, of any one with respect to man.
It is an especial relief to hear that you think the French superficial deposits are deltoid and semi-marine; but two days ago I was saying to a friend, that the unknown manner of the accumulation of these deposits, seemed the great blot in all the
...I quite agree with what you say on Lieutenant Hutton's Review (In the 'Geologist,' 1861, page 132, by Lieutenant Frederick Wollaston Hutton, now Professor of Biology and Geology at Canterbury College, New Zealand.) (who he is I know not); it struck me as very original. He is one of the very few who see that the change of species cannot be directly proved, and that the doctrine must sink or swim according as it groups and explains phenomena. It is really curious how few judge it in this way, which is clearly the right way. I have been much interested by Bentham's paper ("On the Species and Genera of Plants, etc.," 'Natural History Review,' 1861, page 133.) in the N.H.R., but it would not, of course, from familiarity strike you as it did me. I liked the whole; all the facts on the nature of close and varying species. Good Heavens! to think of the British botanists turning up their noses, and saying that he knows nothing of British plants! I was also pleased at his remarks on classification, because it showed me that I wrote truly on this subject in the 'Origin.' I saw Bentham at the Linnean Society, and had some talk with him and Lubbock, and Edgeworth, Wallich, and several others. I asked Bentham to give us his ideas of species; whether partially with us or dead against us, he would write EXCELLENT matter. He made no answer, but his manner made me think he might do so if urged; so do you attack him. Every one was speaking with affection and anxiety of Henslow. (Prof. Henslow was in his last illness.) I dined with Bell at the Linnean Club, and liked my dinner...Dining out is such a novelty to me that I enjoyed it. Bell has a real good heart. I liked Rolleston's paper, but I never read anything so obscure and not self- evident as his 'Canons.' (George Rolleston, M.D., F.R.S., 1829-1881. Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Oxford. A man of much learning, who left but few published works, among which may be mentioned his handbook 'Forms of Animal Life.' For the 'Canons,' see 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1861, page 206.)...I called on R. Chambers, at his very nice house in St. John's Wood, and had a very pleasant half-hour's talk; he is really a capital fellow. He made one good remark and chuckled over it, that the laymen universally had treated the controversy on the 'Essays and Reviews' as a merely professional subject, and had not joined in it, but had left it to the clergy. I shall be anxious for your next letter about Henslow. (Sir Joseph Hooker was Prof. Henslow's son-in-law.) Farewell, with sincere sympathy, my old friend,
C. DARWIN.
P.S.--We are very much obliged for the 'London Review.' We like reading much of it, and the science is incomparably better than in the "Athenaeum". You shall not go on very long sending it, as you will be ruined by pennies and trouble, but I am under a horrid spell to the "Athenaeum" and the "Gardener's Chronicle", but I have taken them in for so many years, that I CANNOT give them up.
[The next letter refers to Lyell's visit to the Biddenham gravel-pits near Bedford in April 1861. The visit was made at the invitation of Mr. James Wyatt, who had recently discovered two stone implements "at the depth of thirteen feet from the surface of the soil," resting "immediately on solid beds of oolitic-limestone." ('Antiquity of Man,' fourth edition, page 214.) Here, says Sir C. Lyell, "I...for the first time, saw evidence which satisfied me of the chronological relations of those three phenomena--the antique tools, the extinct mammalia, and the glacial formation."]
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, April 12 [1861].
My dear Lyell,
I have been most deeply interested by your letter. You seem to have done the grandest work, and made the greatest step, of any one with respect to man.
It is an especial relief to hear that you think the French superficial deposits are deltoid and semi-marine; but two days ago I was saying to a friend, that the unknown manner of the accumulation of these deposits, seemed the great blot in all the