270 THE SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [ch. xiv. 



natural selection suffices. I hope to Heaven I am wrong 

 (and from what you say about Whewell it seems so), but I 

 cannot see how your chapters can do more good than an 

 extraordinary able review. I think the Parthenon is right, 

 that you will leave the public in a fog. No doubt they 

 may infer that as you give more space to myself, Wallace, 

 and Hooker, than to Lamarck, you think more of us. But 

 I had always thought that your judgment would have been 

 an epoch in the subject. All that is over with me, and I 

 will only think on the admirable skill with which you have 

 selected the striking points, and explained them. No 

 praise can be too strong, in my opinion, for the inimitable 

 chapter on language in comparison with species. . . . 



I know you will forgive me for writing with perfect 

 freedom, for you must know how deeply I respect you as my 

 old honoured guide and master. I heartily hope and ex- 

 pect that your book will have a gigantic circulation, and 

 may do in many ways as much good as it ought to do. I 

 am tired, so no more. I have written so briefly that you 

 will have to guess my meaning. I fear my remarks are 

 hardly worth sending. Farewell, with kindest remembrance 

 to Lady Lyell, 



Ever yours. 



A letter from Lyell to Hooker (Mar. 9, 1863), published 

 in LyelPs Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 361, shows what was 

 his feeling at the time : 



" He [Darwin] seems much disappointed that I do not 

 go farther with him, or do not speak out more. I can only 

 say that I have spoken out to the full extent of my present 

 convictions, and even be}<ond my state of feeling as to man's 

 unbroken descent from the brutes, and I find I am half con- 

 verting not a few who were in arms against Darwin, and 

 are even now against Huxley." Lyell speaks, too, of having 

 had to abandon " old and long cherished ideas, which con- 

 stituted the charm to me of the theoretical part of the 

 science in my earlier days, when I believed with Pascal in 

 the theory, as Hallam terms it, of ' the archangel ruined.' " 



C. D. to C. Lyell Down, 12th [March, 1863]. 



My deae Lyell, I thank you for your very interest- 

 ing and kind, I may say, charming letter. I feared you 

 might be huffed for a little time with me. I know some 



