ch. xh.] OCTOBER 1859, TO DECEMBER 1859. 225 



rejoice profoundly that you intend admitting the doctrine 

 of modification in your new edition ; * nothing, I am con- 

 vinced, could be more important for its success. I honour 

 you most sincerely. To have maintained in the position of 

 a master, one side of a question for thirty years, and then 

 deliberately give it up, is a fact to which I much doubt 

 whether the records of science offer a parallel. For myself, 

 also I rejoice profoundly ; for, thinking of so many cases of 

 men pursuing an illusion for years, often and often a cold 

 shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether 

 I may not have devoted my life to a phantasy. Now I look 

 at it as morally impossible that investigators of truth, 

 like you and Hooker, can be wholly wrong, and therefore I 

 rest in peace." 



T. H. HuxUy\ to 0. Darwin. Jermyn Street, W. Novem- 

 ber 23rd, 1859. 



My deak Darwix, I finished your book yesterday, a 

 luckv examination having furnished me with a few hours 

 of continuous leisure. 



Since I read Von Bar's \ essays, nine years ago, no work 

 on Natural History Science I have met with has made so 

 great an impression upon me, and I do most heartily thank 

 you for the great store of new views you have given me. 

 Nothing, I think, can be better than the tone of the book, 

 it impresses those who know nothing about the subject. As 

 for your doctrine, I am prepared to go to the stake, if requi- 

 site, in support of Chapter IX.,J and most parts of Chap- 



* It appears from Sir Charles Lyell's published letters that he intended 

 to admit the doctrine of evolution in a new edition of the Manual, but this 

 was not published till 1865. He was, however, at work on the Antiquity of 

 Man in 1860, and had already determined to discuss the Origin at the end of 

 the book. 



t In a letter written in October, my father had said, " I am intensely curi- 

 ous to hear Huxley's opinion of my book. I fear my Ions' discussion on clas- 

 sification will disgust him, for it is much opposed to what he once said to me." 

 He may have remembered the following incident told by Mr. Huxley in his 

 chapter of the Life and Letters, ii. p. 196 : " I remember,' in the course of my 

 first interview with Mr. Darwin, expressing my belief in the sharpness of the 

 lines of demarcation between natural groups and in the absence of transi- 

 tional forms, with all the confidence of youth and imperfect knowledge. I 

 was not aware, at that time, that he had then been many years brooding over 

 the species question ; and the humorous smile which accompanied his gentle 

 answer, that such was not altogether his view, loner haunted and puzzled me. 1 ' 



X Karl Ernst von Baer, b. 1792, d. at Dorpat 1876 one of the most distin- 

 guished biologists of the century. He practically founded the modem science 

 of embryology. 



* In the first edition of the Origin, Chap. IX. is on the ' Imperfection of 



