I showed the case to Elizabeth Wedgwood, and her remark was, "Now you
have upset your own book, for you won't persuade me that this could be
effected by Natural Selection."
LETTER 107. TO T.H. HUXLEY. July 20th [1860].
Many thanks for your pleasant letter. I agree to every word you say
about "Fraser" and the "Quarterly." (107/1. Bishop Wilberforce's review
of the "Origin" in the "Quarterly Review," July, 1860, was republished
in his "Collected Essays," 1874. See "Life and Letters, II., page 182,
and II., page 324, where some quotations from the review are given.
For Hopkins' review in "Fraser's Magazine," June, 1860, see "Life and
Letters," II., 314.) I have had some really admirable letters
from Hopkins. I do not suppose he has ever troubled his head about
geographical distribution, classification, morphologies, etc., and it
is only those who have that will feel any relief in having some sort of
rational explanation of such facts. Is it not grand the way in which the
Bishop asserts that all such facts are explained by ideas in God's mind?
The "Quarterly" is uncommonly clever; and I chuckled much at the way
my grandfather and self are quizzed. I could here and there see Owen's
hand. By the way, how comes it that you were not attacked? Does Owen
begin to find it more prudent to leave you alone? I would give five
shillings to know what tremendous blunder the Bishop made; for I see
that a page has been cancelled and a new page gummed in.
I am indeed most thoroughly contented with the progress of opinion.
From all that I hear from several quarters, it seems that Oxford did
the subject great good. (107/2. An account of the meeting of the British
Association at Oxford in 1860 is given in the "Life and Letters,"
II., page 320, and a fuller account in the one-volume "Life of Charles
Darwin," 1892, page 236. See also the "Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley,"
Volume I., page 179, and the amusing account of the meeting in Mr.
Tuckwell's "Reminiscences of Oxford," London, 1900, page 50.) It is of
enormous importance the showing the world that a few first-rate men
are not afraid of expressing their opinion. I see daily more and more
plainly that my unaided book would have done absolutely nothing. Asa
Gray is fighting admirably in the United States. He is thorough master
of the subject, which cannot be said by any means of such men as even
Hopkins.
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