i860.] attacks. Ill 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell. 



Down, June 6th [i860]. 



... It consoles me that sneers at Malthus, for that 



clearly shows, mathematician though he may be, he cannot 

 understand common reasoning. By the way what a dis- 

 couraging example Malthus is, to show during what long 

 years the plainest case may be misrepresented and misunder- 

 stood. I have read the ' Future ' ; how curious it is that 

 several of my reviewers should advance such wild arguments, 

 as that varieties of dogs and cats do not mingle ; and should 

 bring up the old exploded doctrine of definite analogies . . . 

 I am beginning to despair of ever making the majority under- 

 stand my notions. Even Hopkins does not thoroughly. By 

 the way, I have been so much pleased by the way he person- 

 ally alludes to me. I must be a very bad explainer. I hope 

 to Heaven that you will succeed better. Several reviews and 

 several letters have shown me too clearly how little I am un- 

 derstood. I suppose "natural selection" was a bad term; 

 but to change it now, I think, would make confusion worse 

 confounded, nor can I think of a better ; " Natural Preserva- 

 tion " would not imply a preservation of particular varieties, 

 and would seem a truism, and would not bring man's and 

 nature's selection under one point of view. I can only hope 

 by reiterated explanations finally to make the matter clearer. 

 If my MS. spreads out, I think I shall publish one volume 

 exclusively on variation of animals and plants under domes- 

 tication. I want to show that I have not been quite so rash 

 as many suppose. 



Though weary of reviews, I should like to see Lowell's * 

 some time. ... I suppose Lowell's difi'iculty about instinct 

 is the same as Bowen's ; but it seems to me wholly to rest on 

 the assumption that instincts cannot graduate as finely as 



* The late J. A. Lowell in the ' Christian Examiner ' (Boston, U. S^ 

 May, i860. 



