i860.] DESIGNED VARIATION. 30J 



Lyell in his letter remarked that you seemed to him as if 

 you were overworked. Do, pray, be cautious, and remembcr 

 how many and many a man has done this who thought it 

 absurd till too late. I have often thought the same. You 

 know that you were bad enough before your Indian journey. 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell. 



Down, April [i860]. 



My DEAR LYELL, I was very glad to get your nice long- 

 letter from Torquay. A press of letters prevented me writing 

 to Wells. I was particularly glad to hear what you thought 

 about not noticing [the ' Edinburgh ' review. Hooker and 

 Huxley thought it a sort of duty to point out the alteration of 

 quoted citations, and there is truth in this remark ; but I so 

 hated the thought that I resolved not to do so. I shall come 

 up to London on Saturday the 14th, for Sir B. Brodie's party, 

 as I have an accumulation of things to do in London, and will' 

 (if I do not hear to the contrary) call about a quarter before 

 ten on Sunday morning, and sit with you at breakfast, but 

 will not sit long, and so take up much of your time. I must say 

 one more word about our quasi-theological controversy about 

 natural selection, and let me have your opinion when we meet 

 in London. Do you consider that the successive variations in 

 the size of the crop of the Pouter Pigeon, which man has accu- 

 mulated to please his caprice, have been due to "the creative and 

 sustaining powers of Brahma ? " In the sense that an omni- 

 potent and omniscient Deity must order and know everything,, 

 this must be admitted ; yet, in honest truth, I can hardly 

 admit it. It seems preposterous that a maker of a universe 

 should care about the crop of a pigeon solely to please man's 

 silly fancies. But if you agree with me in thinking such an 

 interposition of the Deity uncalled for, I can see no reason 

 whatever for believing in such interpositions in the case of 

 natural beings, in which strange and admirable peculiarities 



