228 PUBLICATION OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, [ch. xii. 



the relation of islands to continents is the most convincing 

 of the proofs, and the relation of the oldest forms to the ex- 

 isting species. I dare say I don't feel enough the absence 

 of varieties, but then I don't in the least know if everything 

 now living were fossilized whether the palaeontologists could 

 distinguish them. In fact the a priori reasoning is so en- 

 tirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so 

 much the worse for the facts is my feeling. My ague has 

 left me in such a state of torpidity that I wish I had gone 

 through the process of natural selection. 



Yours affectionately. 



A. Sedgwick* to C. Darwin. [November?], 1859. 



My dear Darwin, I write to thank you for your 

 work on the Origin of Species. It came, I think, in the 

 latter part of last week ; but it may have come a few days 

 sooner, and been overlooked among my book-parcels, which 

 often remain unopened when I am lazy or busy with any 

 work before me. So soon as I opened it I began to read it, 

 and I finished it, after many interruptions, on Tuesday. 

 Yesterday I was employed 1st, in preparing for my lecture ; 

 2ndly, in attending a meeting of my brother Fellows to dis- 

 cuss the final propositions of the Parliamentary Commission- 

 ers ; 3rdly, in lecturing ; 4thly, in hearing the conclusion of 

 the discussion and the College reply, whereby, in conformity 

 with my own wishes, we accepted the scheme of the Com- 

 missioners; 5thly, in dining with an old friend at Clare 

 College ; 6thly, in adjourning to the weekly meeting of the 

 Eay Club, from which I returned at 10 p.m., dog-tired, and 

 hardly able to climb my staircase. Lastly, in looking 

 through the Times to see what was going on in the busy 

 world. 



I do not state this to fill space (though I believe that 

 Nature does abhor a vacuum), but to prove that my reply 

 and my thanks are sent to you by the earliest leisure I have, 

 though that is but a very contracted opportunity. If I did 

 not think you a good-tempered and truth-loving man, I 

 should not tell you that (spite of the great knowledge, store 

 of facts, capital views of the correlation of the various parts 

 of organic nature, admirable hints about the diffusion, 



* Rev. Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian Professor of Geology in the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge. Born 1785, died 1873. 



