146 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [i860. 



but I have not yet seen it there. Yesterday I read over with 

 care the third article ; and it seems to me, as before, admi- 

 rable. But I grieve to say that I cannot honestly go as far 

 as you do about Design. I am conscious that I am in an 

 utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as 

 we see it, is the result of chance ; and yet I cannot look at 

 each separate thing as the result of Design. To take a cru- 

 cial example, you lead me to infer (p. 414) that you believe 

 " that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines." 

 I cannot believe this ; and I think you would have to believe, 

 that the tail of the Fantail was led to vary in the number 

 and direction of its feathers in order to gratify the caprice of 

 a few men. Yet if the Fantail had been a wild bird, and had 

 used its abnormal tail for some special end, as to sail before 

 the wind, unlike other birds, every one would have said, 

 "What a beautiful and designed adaptation." Again, I say 

 I am, and shall ever remain, in a hopeless muddle. 



Thank you much for Bovven's 4to. review.* The coolness 

 with which he makes all animals to be destitute of reason is 

 simply absurd. It is monstrous at p. 103, that he should 

 argue against the possibility of accumulative variation, and 

 actually leave out, entirely, selection ! The chance that an 

 improved Short-horn, or improved Pouter-pigeon, should 

 be produced by accumulative variation without man's selec- 

 tion is as almost infinity to nothing ; so with natural species 

 without natural selection. How capitally in the ' Atlantic ' you 

 show that Geology and Astronomy are, according to Bowen, 

 Metaphysics; but he leaves out this in the 4to Memoir. 



I have not much to tell you about my Book. I have just 

 heard that Du Bois-Reymond agrees with me. The sale of 

 my book goes on well, and the multitude of reviews has not 

 stopped the sale . . . ; so I must begin at once on a new 

 corrected edition. I will send you a copy for the chance of 

 your ever re-reading ; but, good Heavens, how sick you must 

 be of it ! 



* * Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,' vol. viii. 



