Dr. Peabody was very glad of the relief you gave him on Sunday week, and like myself was greatly pleased with your thoughtful discourse. August 14, 1875. ... The important thing to do, is to develop aright evolutionary teleology, and to present the argument for design from these exquisite adaptations in such a way as to make it tell on both sides; with Christian men, that they may be satisfied with, and perchance may learn to admire, Divine works effected step by step, if need be, in a system of nature; and the antitheistic people, to show that without the implication of a superintending wisdom nothing is made out, and nothing credible. Now for a month or two, I am pressed by daily technical work to the extreme, and get no chance to turn these matters over in my mind. I don’t want to handle this argument in such a way that it can be gainsaid, nor without touching the very point. May I ask you to help me? You see how the question stands. How shall we best handle it?... September 14, 1875. ... I have been crowded and much absorbed with my part of the California botany; get put back, by new collections, and have had the printer on my heels, which is not pleasant. I have to drive with all my might, and am not yet clear, though I trust the worst is past. I get so fagged that when I sit down to Darwin’s “Insectivorous Plants,” by way of relaxation, of an evening, I fall asleep over it. And so have not finished that book yet, as it cannot be read with the eyes shut. I put off thought of all but my daily work till my task is done. I thought I might have got up to see you, but I cannot now. I see in the last “Nation” an article, which was evidently to have been continued, by Chauncey Wright, in which he points out clearly the essential difference between Darwinism, which is scientific, and Spencerism, which is “philosophical.” Save the mark! Poor Wright,--your namesake--died suddenly of apoplexy, Sunday morning. He was a stanch Millite, and very acute and clear-headed. September 15. ... A minister out in Illinois has written me, taking me seriously to task for altering my opinion after the age of forty-five, and for abetting disorder, by supporting theories that disturb the harmony of opinion that ought to prevail among scientific men. He is one of those people who think that if you shut your eyes hard, it will answer every purpose; indeed, from the ease with which he confutes Darwinism, I suppose he finds no call even to shut his eyes. November 10. ... Species, as I have said (in “Silliman’s Journal” articles) are not facts or things, but judgments, and, of course, fallible judgments; how fallible the working naturalist knows and feels more than any one else.