i872.] CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. 343 



interest. Nothing can be clearer than the way in which you 

 discuss the permanence or fixity of species. It never oc- 

 curred to me to suppose that any one looked at the case as 

 it seems Mr. Mivart does. Had I read his answer to you, 

 perhaps I should have perceived this ; but I have resolved 

 to waste no more time in reading reviews of my works or on 

 Evolution, excepting when I hear that they are good and 

 contain new matter. ... It is pretty clear that Mr. Mivart 

 has come to the end of his tether on this subject. 



As your mind is so clear, and as you consider so carefully 

 the meaning of words, I wish you would take some incidental 

 occasion to consider when a thing may properly be said to be 

 effected by the will of man. I have been led to the wish by 

 reading an article by your Professor Whitney versus Schleicher. 

 He argues, because each step of change in language is made 

 by the will of man, the whole language so changes ; but I do 

 not think that this is so, as man has no intention or wish to 

 change the language. It is a parallel case with what I have 

 called '^ unconscious selection," which depends on men con- 

 sciously preserving the best individuals, and thus uncon- 

 sciously altering the breed. 



My dear Sir, yours sincerely, 



Charles Darwin. 



[Not long afterwards (September) Mr. Chauncey Wright 

 paid a visit to Down,* which he described in a letter f to Miss 



* Mr. and Mrs. C. L. Brace, who had given much of their lives to 

 philanthropic work in New York, also paid a visit at Down in this sum- 

 mer. Some of their work is recorded in Mr. Brace's ' The Dangerous 

 Classes of New York,' and of this hook my father wrote to the author : — 



" Since you were here my wife has read aloud to me more than half of 

 your work, and it has interested us both in the highest degree, and we 

 shall read every word of the remainder. The facts seem to me very well 

 told, and the inferences very striking. But after all this is but a weak 

 part of the impression left on our minds by what we have read ; for we are 

 both filled with earnest admiration at the heroic labours of yourself and 

 others." 



f ' Letters,' p. 246-248. 



