CHAPTER XIII. 



THE ' ORIGIN OF SPECIES ' REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS 



ADHESIONS AND ATTACKS. 



" You are the greatest revolutionist in natural history of this century, if 

 not of all centuries." H. C. Watson to C. Darwin, Nov. 21, 1859. 



1860. 



The second edition, 3000 copies, of the Origin was 

 published on January 7th ; on the 10th, he wrote with re- 

 gard to it, to Lyell : 



C. D. to C. Lyell Down, January 10th [I860]. 



... It is perfectly true that I owe nearly all the cor- 

 rections to you, and several verbal ones to you and others ; 

 I am heartily glad you approve of them, as yet -only two 

 things have annoyed me ; those confounded millions * of 

 years (not that I think it is probably wrong), and my not 

 having (by inadvertence) mentioned Wallace towards the 

 close of the book in the summary, not that any one has 

 noticed this to me. I have now put in Wallace's name at 

 p. 484 in a conspicuous place. I shall be truly glad to 

 read carefully any MS. on man, and give my opinion. You 

 used to caution me to be cautious about man. 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 whole volume ; although 

 by the sentence (p. 489, new edition f) I show that I be- 

 lieve man is in the same predicament with other animals. 

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



* This refers to the passage in the Origin of Species (2nd edit. p. 285) in 

 which the lapse of time implied by the denudation of the Weald is discussed. 

 The discussion closes with the sentence : " So that it is not improbable that 

 a longer period than 300 million years has elapsed since the latter part of the 

 Secondary period. 1 ' This passage is omitted in the later editions of the Ori- 

 qi>i, against the advice of some of his friends, as appears from the pencil notes 

 in my father's copy of the 2nd edition. 



+ 'ln the first edition, the passages occur on p. 488. 



(236) 



