Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2Darwin, Charles
Science
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2
Darwin, Charles
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Correspondence
On October 2d he started for a water-cure establishment at Ilkley, near
Leeds, where he remained with his family until December, and on the 9th
of that month he was again at Down. The only other entry in the Diary
for this year is as follows: "During end of November and beginning of
December, employed in correcting for second edition of 3000 copies;
multitude of letters."
The first and a few of the subsequent letters refer to proof sheets, and
to early copies of the 'Origin' which were sent to friends before the
book was published.]
C. LYELL TO CHARLES DARWIN. (Part of this letter is given in the 'Life
of Sir Charles Lyell,' volume ii. page 325.) October 3d, 1859.
My dear Darwin,
I have just finished your volume and right glad I am that I did my best
with Hooker to persuade you to publish it without waiting for a time
which probably could never have arrived, though you lived till the age
of a hundred, when you had prepared all your facts on which you ground
so many grand generalizations.
It is a splendid case of close reasoning, and long substantial argument
throughout so many pages; the condensation immense, too great perhaps
for the uninitiated, but an effective and important preliminary
statement, which will admit, even before your detailed proofs appear,
of some occasional useful exemplification, such as your pigeons and
cirripedes, of which you make such excellent use.
I mean that, when, as I fully expect, a new edition is soon called for,
you may here and there insert an actual case to relieve the vast
number of abstract propositions. So far as I am concerned, I am so well
prepared to take your statements of facts for granted, that I do
not think the "pieces justificatives" when published will make much
difference, and I have long seen most clearly that if any concession
is made, all that you claim in your concluding pages will follow. It is
this which has made me so long hesitate, always feeling that the case of
Man and his races, and of other animals, and that of plants is one and
the same, and that if a "vera causa" be admitted for one, instead of a
purely unknown and imaginary one, such as the word "Creation," all the
consequences must follow.
I fear I have not time to-day, as I am just leaving this place, to
indulge in a variety of comments, and to say how much I was delighted
with Oceanic Islands--Rudimentary Organs--Embryology--the genealogical
key to the Natural System, Geographical Distribution, and if I went on I
should be copying the heads of all your chapters. But I will say a word
of the Recapitulation, in case some slight alteration, or at least,
omission of a word or two be still possible in that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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