1 66 THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [1859. 



I hope to God, you do not think me a brute about your 

 proof-sheets. 



Farewell, yours affectionately, 



C. Darwin. 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell, 



Down, Sept. 20th [1859]. 



My dear Lyell. You once gave me intense pleasure, or 

 rather delight, by the way you were interested, in a manner 

 I never expected, in my Coral Reef notions, and now 

 you have again given me similar pleasure by the manner 

 you have noticed my species work.* Nothing could be more 

 satisfactory to me, and I thank . you for myself, and even 

 more for the subject's sake, as I know well that the sentence 

 will make many fairly consider the subject, instead of ridiculing 

 it. Although your previously felt doubts on the immutability 

 of species, may have more influence in converting you (if you 

 be converted) than my book ; yet as I regard your verdict 

 as far more important in my own eyes, and I believe in the 

 eyes of the world than of any other dozen men, I am 

 naturally very anxious about it. Therefore let me beg you 

 to keep your mind open till you receive (in perhaps a 

 fortnight's time) my latter chapters, which are the most 



* Sir Charles was President of 

 the Geological section at the meet- 

 ing of the British Association at 

 Aberdeen in 1859. The following 

 passage occurs in the address : 

 " On this difficult and mysterious 

 subject a work will very shortly 

 appear by Mr. Charles Darwin, the 

 result of twenty years of observa- 

 tions and experiments in Zoology, 

 Botany, and Geology, by which he 

 has been led to the conclusion that 

 those powers of nature which give 

 rise to races and permanent varieties 



in animals and plants, are the same 

 as those which in much longer 

 periods produce species, and in a 

 still longer series of ages give rise 

 to differences of generic rank. He 

 appears to me to have succeeded 

 by his investigations and reasonings 

 in throwing a flood of light on 

 many classes of phenomena con- 

 nected with the affinities, geographi- 

 cal distribution, and geological suc- 

 cession of organic beings, for which 

 no other hypothesis has been able, 

 or has even attempted to account." 



