Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II Part 51

He is manifestly a well-read physiologist and pathologist, and from his position a good anatomist. It is full of reasoning, and this in German is very difficult to me, so that I have only skimmed through each page; here and there reading with a little more care. As far as I can imperfectly judge, it is the most important book on Evolution, which has appeared for some time. I believe that G.H. Lewes hinted at the same fundamental idea, viz. that there is a struggle going on within every organism between the organic molecules, the cells and the organs.

I think that his basis is, that every cell which best performs its function is, in consequence, at the same time best nourished and best propagates its kind. The book does not touch on mental phenomena, but there is much discussion on rudimentary or atrophied parts, to which subject you formerly attended. Now if you would like to read this book, I would sent it... If you read it, and are struck with it (but I may be WHOLLY mistaken about its value), you would do a public service by a.n.a.lysing and criticising it in 'Nature.'

Dr. Roux makes, I think, a gigantic oversight in never considering plants; these would simplify the problem for him.

Fourthly, I do not know whether you will discuss in your book on the mind of animals any of the more complex and wonderful instincts. It is unsatisfactory work, as there can be no fossilised instincts, and the sole guide is their state in other members of the same order, and mere PROBABILITY.

But if you do discuss any (and it will perhaps be expected of you), I should think that you could not select a better case than that of the sand wasps, which paralyse their prey, as formerly described by Fabre, in his wonderful paper in the 'Annales des Sciences,' and since amplified in his admirable 'Souvenirs.'

Whilst reading this latter book, I speculated a little on the subject.

Astonis.h.i.+ng nonsense is often spoken of the sand wasp's knowledge of anatomy. Now will any one say that the Gauchos on the plains of La Plata have such knowledge, yet I have often seen them pith a struggling and la.s.soed cow on the ground with unerring skill, which no mere anatomist could imitate. The pointed knife was infallibly driven in between the vertebrae by a single slight thrust. I presume that the art was first discovered by chance, and that each young Gaucho sees exactly how the others do it, and then with a very little practice learns the art. Now I suppose that the sand wasps originally merely killed their prey by stinging them in many places (see page 129 of Fabre's 'Souvenirs,' and page 241) on the lower and softest side of the body--and that to sting a certain segment was found by far the most successful method; and was inherited like the tendency of a bulldog to pin the nose of a bull, or of a ferret to bite the cerebellum. It would not be a very great step in advance to p.r.i.c.k the ganglion of its prey only slightly, and thus to give its larvae fresh meat instead of old dried meat. Though Fabre insists so strongly on the unvarying character of instinct, yet it is shown that there is some variability, as at pages 176, 177.

I fear that I shall have utterly wearied you with my scribbling and bad handwriting.

My dear Romanes, yours, very sincerely, CH. DARWIN.

POSTSCRIPT OF A LETTER TO PROFESSOR A. AGa.s.sIZ, MAY 5TH, 1881:--

I read with much interest your address before the American a.s.sociation.

However true your remarks on the genealogies of the several groups may be, I hope and believe that you have over-estimated the difficulties to be encountered in the future:--A few days after reading your address, I interpreted to myself your remarks on one point (I hope in some degree correctly) in the following fas.h.i.+on:--

Any character of an ancient, generalised, or intermediate form may, and often does, re-appear in its descendants, after countless generations, and this explains the extraordinarily complicated affinities of existing groups. This idea seems to me to throw a flood of light on the lines, sometimes used to represent affinities, which radiate in all directions, often to very distant sub-groups,--a difficulty which has haunted me for half a century. A strong case could be made out in favour of believing in such reversion after immense intervals of time. I wish the idea had been put into my head in old days, for I shall never again write on difficult subjects, as I have seen too many cases of old men becoming feeble in their minds, without being in the least conscious of it. If I have interpreted your ideas at all correctly, I hope that you will re-urge, on any fitting occasion, your view. I have mentioned it to a few persons capable of judging, and it seemed quite new to them. I beg you to forgive the proverbial garrulity of old age.

C.D.

[The following letter refers to Sir J.D. Hooker's Geographical address at the York Meeting (1881) of the British a.s.sociation:]

CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, August 6, 1881.

My dear Hooker,

For Heaven's sake never speak of boring me, as it would be the greatest pleasure to aid you in the slightest degree and your letter has interested me exceedingly. I will go through your points seriatim, but I have never attended much to the history of any subject, and my memory has become atrociously bad. It will therefore be a mere chance whether any of my remarks are of any use.

Your idea, to show what travellers have done, seems to me a brilliant and just one, especially considering your audience.

1. I know nothing about Tournefort's works.

2. I believe that you are fully right in calling Humboldt the greatest scientific traveller who ever lived, I have lately read two or three volumes again. His Geology is funny stuff; but that merely means that he was not in advance of his age. I should say he was wonderful, more for his near approach to omniscience than for originality. Whether or not his position as a scientific man is as eminent as we think, you might truly call him the parent of a grand progeny of scientific travellers, who, taken together, have done much for science.

3. It seems to me quite just to give Lyell (and secondarily E. Forbes) a very prominent place.

4. Dana was, I believe, the first man who maintained the permanence of continents and the great oceans... When I read the 'Challenger's'

conclusion that sediment from the land is not deposited at greater distances than 200 or 300 miles from the land, I was much strengthened in my old belief. Wallace seems to me to have argued the case excellently. Nevertheless, I would speak, if I were in your place, rather cautiously; for T. Mellard Reade has argued lately with some force against the view; but I cannot call to mind his arguments. If forced to express a judgment, I should abide by the view of approximate permanence since Cambrian days.

5. The extreme importance of the Arctic fossil-plants, is self-evident.

Take the opportunity of groaning over [our] ignorance of the Lignite Plants of Kerguelen Land, or any Antarctic land. It might do good.

6. I cannot avoid feeling sceptical about the travelling of plants from the North EXCEPT DURING THE TERTIARY PERIOD. It may of course have been so and probably was so from one of the two poles at the earliest period, during Pre-Cambrian ages; but such speculations seem to me hardly scientific seeing how little we know of the old Floras.

I will now jot down without any order a few miscellaneous remarks.

I think you ought to allude to Alph. De Candolle's great book, for though it (like almost everything else) is washed out of my mind, yet I remember most distinctly thinking it a very valuable work. Anyhow, you might allude to his excellent account of the history of all cultivated plants.

How shall you manage to allude to your New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego work? if you do not allude to them you will be scandalously unjust.

The many Angiosperm plants in the Cretacean beds of the United States (and as far as I can judge the age of these beds has been fairly well made out) seems to me a fact of very great importance, so is their relation to the existing flora of the United States under an Evolutionary point of view. Have not some Australian extinct forms been lately found in Australia? or have I dreamed it?

Again, the recent discovery of plants rather low down in our Silurian beds is very important.

Nothing is more extraordinary in the history of the Vegetable Kingdom, as it seems to me, than the APPARENTLY very sudden or abrupt development of the higher plants. I have sometimes speculated whether there did not exist somewhere during long ages an extremely isolated continent, perhaps near the South Pole.

Hence I was greatly interested by a view which Saporta propounded to me, a few years ago, at great length in MS. and which I fancy he has since published, as I urged him to do--viz., that as soon as flower-frequenting insects were developed, during the latter part of the secondary period, an enormous impulse was given to the development of the higher plants by cross-fertilization being thus suddenly formed.

A few years ago I was much struck with Axel Blytt's Essay showing from observation, on the peat beds in Scandinavia, that there had apparently been long periods with more rain and other with less rain (perhaps connected with Croll's recurrent astronomical periods), and that these periods had largely determined the present distribution of the plants of Norway and Sweden. This seemed to me, a very important essay.

I have just read over my remarks and I fear that they will not be of the slightest use to you.

I cannot but think that you have got through the hardest, or at least the most difficult, part of your work in having made so good and striking a sketch of what you intend to say; but I can quite understand how you must groan over the great necessary labour.

I most heartily sympathise with you on the successes of B. and R.: as years advance what happens to oneself becomes of very little consequence, in comparison with the careers of our children.

Keep your spirits up, for I am convinced that you will make an excellent address.

Ever yours, affectionately, CHARLES DARWIN.

[In September he wrote:--

"I have this minute finished reading your splendid but too short address. I cannot doubt that it will have been fully appreciated by the Geographers of York; if not, they are a.s.ses and fools."]

CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. Sunday evening [1881].

My dear L.,

Your address (Presidential Address at the York meeting of the British a.s.sociation.) has made me think over what have been the great steps in Geology during the last fifty years, and there can be no harm in telling you my impression. But it is very odd that I cannot remember what you have said on Geology. I suppose that the cla.s.sification of the Silurian and Cambrian formations must be considered the greatest or most important step; for I well remember when all these older rocks were called grau-wacke, and n.o.body dreamed of cla.s.sing them; and now we have three azoic formations pretty well made out beneath the Cambrian! But the most striking step has been the discovery of the Glacial period: you are too young to remember the prodigious effect this produced about the year 1840 (?) on all our minds. Elie de Beaumont never believed in it to the day of his death! the study of the glacial deposits led to the study of the superficial drift, which was formerly NEVER STUDIED and called Diluvium, as I well remember. The study under the microscope of rock-sections is another not inconsiderable step. So again the making out of cleavage and the foliation of the metamorphic rocks. But I will not run on, having now eased my mind. Pray do not waste even one minute in acknowledging my horrid scrawls.

Ever yours, CH. DARWIN.

[The following extracts referring to the late Francis Maitland Balfour (Professor of Animal Morphology at Cambridge. He was born in 1851, and was killed, with his guide, on the Aiguille Blanche, near Courmayeur, in July, 1882.), show my father's estimate of his work and intellectual qualities, but they give merely an indication of his strong appreciation of Balfour's most lovable personal character:--

From a letter to Fritz Muller, January 5, 1882:--

"Your appreciation of Balfour's book ['Comparative Embryology'] has pleased me excessively, for though I could not properly judge of it, yet it seemed to me one of the most remarkable books which have been published for some considerable time. He is quite a young man, and if he keeps his health, will do splendid work... He has a fair fortune of his own, so that he can give up his whole time to Biology. He is very modest, and very pleasant, and often visits here and we like him very much."