quadrumanous animal, it would have been very proper to have discussed by compilation the differences in the most important organ, viz., the brain. As it is, the chapter seems to me to come in rather by the head and shoulders. I do not think (but then I am as prejudiced as Falconer and Huxley, or more so) that it is too severe. It struck me as given with judicial force. It might perhaps be said with truth that he had no business to judge on a subject on which he knows nothing; but compilers must do this to a certain extent. (You know I value and rank high compilers, being one myself.) I have taken you at your word, and scribbled at great length. If I get the Athenaeum to-morrow, I will add my impression of Owen's letter.... The Lyells are coming here on Sunday evening to stay till Wednesday. I dread it, but I must say how much disappointed I am that he has not spoken out on species, still less on man. And the best of the joke is that he thinks he has acted with the courage of a martyr of old. I hope I may have taken an exaggerated view of his timidity, and shall _particularly_ be glad of your opinion on this head. When I got his book I turned over the pages, and saw he had discussed the subject of species, and said that I thought he would do more to convert the public than all of us; and now (which makes the case worse for me) I must, in common honesty, retract. I wish to Heaven he had said not a word on the subject. WEDNESDAY MORNING.--I have read the Athenaeum. I do not think Lyell will be nearly so much annoyed as you expect. The concluding sentence is no doubt very stinging. No one but a good anatomist could unravel Owen's letter; at least it is quite beyond me.... Lyell's memory plays him false when he says all anatomists were astonished at Owen's paper: it was often quoted with approbation. I _well_ remember Lyell's admiration at this new classification! (Do not repeat this.) I remember it because, though I knew nothing whatever about the brain, I felt a conviction that a classification thus founded on a single character would break down, and it seemed to me a great error not to separate more completely the Marsupialia.... What an accursed evil it is that there should be all this quarreling, within what ought to be the peaceful realms of science. I will go to my own present subject of inheritance and forget it all for a time. Farewell, my dear old friend. C. DARWIN. C. DARWIN TO T. H. HUXLEY OCTOBER 3d, 1864. _My Dear Huxley:_