18591863] NATURAL HISTORY REVIEW 157 



enormous importance the showing the world that a few first- Letter 107 

 rate men are not afraid of expressing their opinion. I see 

 daily more and more plainly that my unaided book would 

 have done absolutely nothing. Asa Gray is fighting admirably 

 in the United States. He is thorough master of the subject, 

 which cannot be said by any means of such men as even 

 Hopkins. 



I have been thinking over what you allude to about a 

 natural history review. 1 I suppose you mean really a review 

 and not journal for original communications in Natural 

 History. Of the latter there is now superabundance. With 

 respect to a good review, there can be no doubt of its value 

 and utility ; nevertheless, if not too late, I hope you will 

 consider deliberately before you decide. Remember what a 

 deal of work you have on your shoulders, and though you 

 can do much, yet there is a limit to even the hardest worker's 

 power of working. I should deeply regret to see you sacri- 

 ficing much time which could be given to original research. 

 I fear, to one who can review as well as you do, there would 

 be the same temptation to waste time, as there notoriously 

 is for those who can speak well. 



A review is only temporary ; your work should be 

 perennial. I know well that you may say that unless good 

 men will review there will be no good reviews. And this is 

 true. Would you not do more good by an occasional review 

 in some well-established review, than by giving up much 

 time to the editing, or largely aiding, if not editing, a review 

 which from being confined to one subject would not have a 

 very large circulation ? But I must return to the chief idea 

 which strikes me viz., that it would lessen the amount of 

 original and perennial work which you could do. Reflect how 



in the one-volume Life of Charles Darwin, 1892, p. 236. See also the 

 Life and Letters of T. H. Huxley, Vol. L, p. 179, and the amusing account 

 of the meeting in Mr. Tuckwell's Reminiscences of Oxford, London, 

 1900, p. 50. 



1 In the Life and Letters of T. H. Huxley, Vol. I., p. 209, some 

 account of the founding of the Natural History Review is given in a 

 letter to Sir J. D. Hooker of July I7th, 1860. On Aug. 2nd Mr. Huxley 

 added : " Darwin wrote me a very kind expostulation about it, telling 

 me I ought not to waste myself on other than original work. In reply, 

 however, I assured him that I must waste myself willy-nilly, and that 

 the Review was only a save-all." 



