i860.] second edition. 265 



I suspect I shall have to return the caution a hundred fold ! 

 Yours will, no doubt, be a grand discussion ; but it will 

 horrify the world at first more than my w r hole volume ; 

 although by the sentence (p. 489, new edition *) I show that 

 I believe man is in the same predicament with other animals. 

 It is in fact impossible to doubt it. I have thought (only 

 vaguely) on man. With respect to the races, one of my best 

 chances of truth has broken down from the impossibility of 

 getting facts. I have one good speculative line, but a man 

 must have entire credence in Natural Selection before he will 

 even listen to it. Psychologically, I have done scarcely any- 

 thing. Unless, indeed, expression of countenance can be 

 included, and on that subject I have collected a good many 

 facts, and speculated, but I do not suppose I shall ever 

 publish, but it is an uncommonly curious subject. By the 

 w r ay I sent off a lot of questions the day before yesterday 

 to Tierra del Fuego on expression ! I suspect (for I have 

 never read it) that Spencer's ' Psychology ' has a bearing on 

 Psychology as we should look at it. By all means read the 

 Preface, in about 20 pages, of Hensleigh Wedgwood's new 

 Dictionary, on the first origin of Language ; Erasmus would 

 lend it. I agree about Carpenter, a very good article, but 

 with not much original. . . . Andrew Murray has criticised, 

 in an address to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, the 

 notice in the ' Linnean Journal,' and "has disposed of" the 

 whole theory by an ingenious difficulty, which I was very 

 stupid not to have thought of; for I express surprise at more 

 and analogous cases not being known. The difficulty is, that 

 amongst the blind insects of the caves in distant parts of the 

 world there are some of the same genus, and yet the genus is 

 not found out of the caves or living in the free world. I have 

 little doubt that, like the fish Amblyopsis, and like Proteus in 

 Europe, these insects are " wrecks of ancient life," or " living 

 fossils," saved from competition and extermination. But that 



* First edition, p. 488. 



