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86 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [1862 



your article,* which I have just read with much interest. The 

 History, and a good deal besides, was quite new to me. It 

 seems to me capitally done, and so clearly written. You 

 really ought to write your larger work. You speak too 

 generously of my book ; but I must confess that you have 

 pleased me not a little ; for no one, as far as I know, has ever 

 remarked on what I say on classification, a part, which 

 when I wrote it, pleased me, With many thanks to you for 

 sending me your article, pray believe me, 



My dear Sir, yours sincerely, 



C. Darwin. 



[In the spring of this year (1862) my father read the 

 second volume of Buckle's 'History of Civilization.' The 

 following strongly expressed opinion about it may be worth 

 quoting : 



" Have you read Buckle's second volume ? it has interested 

 me greatly ; I do not care whether his views are right or 

 wrong, but I should think they contained much truth. There 

 is a noble love of advancement and truth throughout ; and to 

 my taste he is the very best writer of the English language 

 that ever lived, let the other be who he may."] 



C. Dar iv in to Asa Gray. 



Down, March 15 [1862]. 



My DEAR Gray, Thanks for the newspapers (though they 

 did contain digs at England), and for your note of Feb. 1 8th. 

 It is really almost a pleasure to receive stabs from so smooth, 

 polished and sharp a dagger as your pen. I heartily wish I 

 could sympathise more fully with you, instead of merely 

 hating the South. We cannot enter into your feelings ; if 

 Scotland were to rebel, I presume we should be very wrath, 

 but I do not think we should care a penny what other nations 



* A paper on "Vegetable Mor- 'British and Foreign Medico-Chi- 

 phology," by Dr. Masters, in the rurgical Review ' for 1862. 



