i874.] 'COSMIC PHILOSOPHY.' 37 1 



C. Darwin to J. Fiske. 



Down, December 8, 1874. 



My dear Sir, — You must allow me to thank you for the 

 very great interest with which I have at last slowly read the 

 whole of your work.* I have long wished to know some- 

 thing about the views of the many great men whose doctrines 

 you give. With the exception of special points I did not 

 even understand H. Spencer's general doctrine ; for his style 

 is too hard work for me. I never in my life read so lucid an 

 expositor (and therefore thinker) as you are ; and I think 

 that I understand nearly the whole — perhaps less clearly 

 about Cosmic Theism and Causation than other parts. It is 

 hopeless to attempt out of so much to specify what has inter- 

 ested me most, and probably you would not care to hear. I 

 wish some chemist would attempt to ascertain the result of 

 the cooling of heated gases of the proper kinds, in relation 

 to your hypothesis of the origin of living matter. It pleased 

 me to find that here and there I had arrived from my own 

 crude thoughts at some of the same conclusions with you ; 

 though I could seldom or never have given my reasons for 

 such conclusions. I find that my mind is so fixed by the 

 inductive method, that I cannot appreciate deductive reason- 

 ing : I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a 

 principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then 

 as much deduction as you please. This may bs very narrow- 

 minded ; but the result is that such parts of H. Spencer, as I 

 have read with care impress my mind with the idea of his 

 inexhaustible wealth of suggestion, but never convince me ; 

 and so I find it with some others. I believe the cause to lie 

 in the frequency with which I have found first-formed theo- 

 ries [to be] erroneous. 1 thank you for the honourable men- 

 tion which you make of my works. Parts of the ' Descent of 

 Man ' must have appeared laughably weak to you : never- 

 theless, I have sent you a new edition just published. Thank- 



* ( 



Outlines of Cosmic Ihilosophy,' 2 vols. 8vo. 1874. 



