248 ORIGIN OF SPECIES. [ch. xiij. 



ing. I look at their attacks as a proof that our work is worth 

 the doing. It makes me resolve to buckle on my armour. 

 I see plainly that it will be a long uphill fight. But think 

 of Lyell's progress with Geology. One thing I see most 

 plainly, that without Lyell's, yours, Huxley's and Carpenter's 

 aid, my book would have been a mere flash in the pan. But 

 if we all stick to it, we shall surely gain the day. And I 

 now see that the battle is worth fighting. I deeply hope 

 that you think so. 



C. D. to Asa Gray. Down, May 22nd [I860]. 



My dear Gray, Again I have to thank you for one of 

 your very pleasant letters of May 7th, enclosing a very pleas- 

 ant remittance of 22. I am in simple truth astonished at 

 all the kind trouble you have taken for me. I return Apple- 

 tons' account. For the chance of your wishing for a formal 

 acknowledgment I send one. If you have any further com- 

 munication to the Appletons, pray express my acknowledg- 

 ment for [their] generosity ; for it is generosity in my 

 opinion. 1 am not at all surprised at the sale diminishing ; 

 my extreme surprise is at the greatness of the sale. No 

 doubt the public has been shamefully imposed on ! for they 

 bought the book thinking it would be nice easy reading. I 

 expect the sale to stop soon in England, yet Lyell wrote to 

 me the other day that calling at Murray's he heard that 

 fifty, copies had gone in the previous forty-eight hours. I 

 am extremely glad that you will notice in Silliman the ad- 

 ditions in the Origin* Judging from letters (and I have 

 just seen one from Thwaites to Hooker), and from remarks, 

 the most serious omission in my book was not explaining 

 how it is, as I believe, that all forms do not necessarily ad- 

 vance, how there can now be simple organisms still existing. 

 ... I hear there is a very severe review on me in the North 

 British by a Rev. Mr. Dunns, \ a Free Kirk minister, and 

 dabbler in Natural History. In the Saturday Review (one 



Cambridge Philosophical Society. Henslow defended his old pupil, and 

 maintained that " the subject was a legitimate one for investigation." 



* " The battle rages furiously in the United States. Gray says he was 

 preparing a speech which would take H hours to deliver, and which he 

 4 fondly hoped would be a stunner.' He is lighting splendidly, and there 

 seem to have been many discussions with Agassiz and others, at the meetings. 

 Agassiz pities me much at being so deluded." From a letter to Hooker, May 

 30'th, 1860. 



t The statement as to authorship was made on the authority of Robert 

 Chambers. 



