136 EVOLUTION [CHAP. Ill 



Letter 89 me that my prophecies are come true : he is in Florence 

 quite done up, can read nothing and write nothing, and 

 cannot talk for half an hour. I noticed the " naughty 

 sentence " 1 about Owen, though my wife saw its bearing 

 first. Farewell you best and worst of men ! 



That sentence about the bird and the fish dinners 

 charmed us. Lyell wrote to me style like yours. 



Have you seen the slashing article of December 26th in 

 the Daily News, against my stealing from my " master," the 

 author of the Vestiges ? 



Letter 90 To J. L. A. de Quatrefages. 2 



[Undated] 



How I should like to know whether Milne Edwards has 

 read the copy which I sent him, and whether he thinks I 

 have made a pretty good case on our side of the question. 

 There is no naturalist in the world for whose opinion I have 

 so profound a respect. Of course I am not so silly as to 

 expect to change his opinion. 



Letter 91 To C. Lyell. 



The date of this letter is doubtful ; but as it evidently refers to the 

 2nd edition of the Origin, which appeared on January 7th, 1860, we 

 believe that December 9th, 1859, is right. The letter of Sedgwick's is 

 doubtless that given in the Life and Letters, II., p. 247 ; it is there dated 

 December 24th, 1859, but from other evidence it was probably written 



on November 24th. 



[Dec. ?] 9 th [1859]. 



I send Sedgwick's letter ; it is terribly muddled, and 

 really the first page seems almost childish. 



I am sadly over-worked, so will not write to you. I have 

 worked in a number of your invaluable corrections indeed, 

 all as far as time permits. I infer from a letter from Huxley 



1 Mr. Huxley, after speaking of the rudimental teeth of the whale, 

 of rudimental jaws in insects which never bite, and rudimental eyes in 

 blind animals, goes on : " And we would remind those who, ignorant of 

 the facts, must be moved by authority, that no one has asserted the 

 incompetence of the doctrine of final causes, in its application to 

 physiology and anatomy, more strongly than our own eminent anatomist, 

 Professor Owen, who, speaking of such cases, says (On the Nature of 

 Limbs, pp. 39, 40), ' I think it will be obvious that the principle of final 

 adaptations fails to satisfy all the conditions of the problem." -The 

 Times, Dec. 26th, 1859. 



2 For a biographical note see Letter 126. 



