210 EVOLUTION [CHAP. Ill 



Letter 144 oceanic. Your letter hence was a relief, for I felt I was 

 hardly strong enough to have launched out as I did to a 

 professed geologist. 



[On the subject of the above letter, see one of earlier date by Sir 

 J. D. Hooker (Nov. 2nd, 1862) given in the present work (Letter 354) with 

 Darwin's reply (Letter 355).] 



Letter 145 To Hugh Falconer. 



Down, Nov. I4th [1862]. 



I have read your paper 1 with extreme interest, and I 

 thank you for sending it, though I should certainly have 

 carefully read it, or anything with your name, in the Journal. 

 It seems to me a masterpiece of close reasoning : although, of 

 course, not a judge of such subjects, I cannot feel any doubt 

 that it is conclusive. Will Owen answer you ? I expect that 

 from his arrogant view of his own position he will not answer. 

 Your paper is dreadfully severe on him, but perfectly courteous, 

 and polished as the finest dagger. How kind you are towards 

 me : your first sentence 2 has pleased me more than perhaps it 

 ought to do, if I had any modesty in my composition. By 

 the way, after reading the first whole paragraph, I re-read it, 

 not for matter, but for style ; and then it suddenly occurred to 

 me th ;t a certain man once said to me, when I urged him to 

 publish some of his miscellaneous wealth of knowledge, " Oh, 

 he could not write, he hated it," etc. You false man, never 

 say that to me again. Your incidental remark on the 

 remarkable specialisation of Plagiaulax? (which has stuck in 

 my gizzard ever since I read your first paper) as bearing on 

 the number of preceding forms, is quite new to me, and, of 

 course, is in accordance to my notions a most impressive 

 argument. I was also glad to be reminded of teeth of camel 



1 " On the disputed Affinity of the Mammalian Genus Plagiaulax^ 

 from the Purbeck beds." Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.^ Vol. XVIII., 

 p. 348, 1862. 



3 " One of the most accurate observers and original thinkers of our 

 time has discoursed with emphatic eloquence on the Imperfection of the 

 Geological Record." 



3 "If Plagiaulax be regarded through the medium of the view advo- 

 cated with such power by Darwin, through what a number of intermediate 

 forms must not the genus have passed before it attained the specialised 

 condition in which the fossils come before us ! " 



