TO THE UNFINISHED BOOK. [1856- 



liminary Essay" {i.e. if anything whatever is published; for 

 Lyell seemed rather to doubt on this head)* ; but I cannot bear 

 the idea of begging some Editor and Council to publish, and 

 then perhaps to have to apologise humbly for having led them 

 into a scrape. In this one respect I am in the state which, 

 according to a very wise saying of my father's, is the only 

 fit state for asking advice, viz. with my mind firmly made up, 

 and then, as my father used to say, good advice was very 

 comfortable, and it was easy to reject bad advice. But 

 Heaven knows I am not in this state with respect to publish- 

 ing at all any preliminary essay. It yet strikes me as quite 

 unphilosophical to publish results without the full details 

 which have led to such results. 



It is a melancholy, and I hope not quite true view of yours 

 that facts will prove anything, and are therefore superfluous ! 

 But I have rather exaggerated, I see, your doctrine. I do 

 not fear being tied down to error, i.e. I feel pretty sure I 

 should give up anything false published in the preliminary 

 essay, in my larger work ; but I may thus, it is very true, do 

 mischief by spreading error, which as I have often heard you 

 say is much easier spread than corrected. I confess I lean 

 more and more to at least making the attempt and drawing 

 up a sketch and trying to keep my judgment, whether to 

 publish, open. But I always return to my fixed idea that it 

 is dreadfully unphilosophical to publish without full details. 

 I certainly think my future work in full would profit by 

 hearing what my friends or critics (if reviewed) thought of 

 the outline. 



To any one but you I should apologise for such long discus- 

 sion on so personal an affair ; but I believe, and indeed you 

 have proved it by the trouble you have taken, that this would 



be superfluous. 



Yours truly obliged, 



Ch. Darwin. 



* The meaning of the sentence in parentheses is obscure. 



