i86o.] DESIGNED VARIATION. ^7 



to Wells. I was particularly glad to hear what you thought 

 about not noticing [the ' Edinburgh '] review. Hooker 

 and Huxley thought it a sort of duty to point out the altera- 

 tion of quoted citations, and there is truth in this remark ; 

 but I so hated the thought that I resolved not to do so. I 

 shall come up to London on Saturday the 14th, for Sir B. 

 Brodie's party, as I have an accumulation of things to do in 

 London, and will (if I do not hear to the contrary) call about 

 a quarter before ten on Sunday morning, and sit with you at 

 breakfast, but will not sit long, and so take up much of your 

 time. I must say one more word about our quasi-theological 

 controversy about natural selection, and let me have your 

 opinion when we meet in London. Do you consider that the 

 successive variations in the size of the crop of the Pouter 

 Pigeon, which man has accumulated to please his caprice, 

 have been due to " the creative and sustaining powers of 

 Brahma ? " In the sense that an omnipotent and omniscient 

 Deity must order and know everything, this must be admit- 

 ted ; yet, in honest truth, I can hardly admit it. It seems 

 preposterous that a maker of a universe should care about the 

 crop of a pigeon solely to please man's silly fancies. But if 

 you agree with me in thinking such an interposition of the 

 Deity uncalled for, I can see no reason whatever for believ- 

 ing in such interpositions in the case of natural beings, in 

 which strange and admirable peculiarities have been naturally 

 selected for the creature's own benefit. Imagine a Pouter 

 in a state of nature wading into the water and then, being 

 buoyed up by its inflated crop, sailing about in search of 

 food. What admiration this would have excited — adaptation 

 to the laws of hydrostatic pressure, &c. &c. For the life of 

 me I cannot see any difficulty in natural selection producing 

 the most exquisite structure, if such structure can be arrived at 

 by gradation^ and I know from experience how hard it is to 

 name any structure towards which at least some gradations 

 are not known. 



Ever yours, 



C. Darwin. 



29 



