o 



o 



8 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [i860. 



fully adopted his theories and conclusions, notwithstanding 

 the severe pain and disappointment they at first occasioned 

 me. On the day that his celebrated paper was read at the 

 Linnean Society, July ist, 1858, a long paper of mine had 

 been set down for reading, in which, in commenting on the 

 British Flora, I had collected a number of observations and 

 facts illustrating what I then believed to be a fixity in species, 

 however difficult it might be to assign their limits, and show- 

 ing a tendency of abnormal forms produced by cultivation 

 or otherwise, to withdraw within those original limits when 

 left to themselves. Most fortunately my paper had to give 

 way to Mr. Darwin's and when once that was read, I felt 

 bound to defer mine for reconsideration ; I began to enter- 

 tain doubts on the subject, and on the appearance of the 

 'Origin of Species,' I was forced, however reluctantly, to 

 give up my long-cherished convictions, the results of much 

 labour and study, and I cancelled all that part of my paper 

 which urged original fixity, and published only portions of 

 the remainder in another form, chiefly in the ' Natural History 

 Review.' I have since acknowledged on various occasions 

 my full adoption of Mr. Darwin's views, and chiefly in my 

 Presidential Address of 1863, and in my thirteenth and last 

 address, issued in the form of a report to the British Associa- 

 tion at its meeting at Belfast in 1874. 



I prize so highly the letters that I have of Mr. Darwin's, 

 that I should feel obliged by your returning them to me when 

 you have done with them. Unfortunately I have not kept 

 the envelopes, and Mr. Darwin usually only dated them by 

 the month not by the year, so that they are not in any 



chronological order. 



Yours very sincerely, 

 George Bentham. 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell. 



* 



Down [MarclJ 12th [i860]. 



My dear Lyell, — Thinking over what we talked about, 

 the high state of intellectual development of the old Grecians 



