LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN. 39 1 



you do, there would be the same temptation to waste time, as there 

 notoriously is for those who can speak well. 



A review is only temporary; your work should be perennial. I 

 know well that you may say that unless good men will review there 

 will be no good reviews. And this is true. Would you not do more 

 good by an occasional review in some well-established review, than 

 by giving up much time to the editing, or largely aiding, if not editing, 

 a review which from being confined to one subject would not have a 

 very large circulation? But I must return to the chief idea which 

 strikes me viz., that it would lessen the amount of original and per- 

 ennial work which you could do. Keflect how few men there are in 

 England who can do original work in the several lines in which you 

 are excellently fitted. Lyell, I remember, on analogous grounds many 

 years ago resolved he would write no more reviews. I am an old slow- 

 coach, and your scheme makes me tremble. God knows in one sense 

 I am about the last man in England who ought to throw cold water 

 on any review in which you would be concerned, as I have so immensely 

 profited by your labours in this line. 



With respect to reviewing myself, I never tried: any work of that 

 kind stops me doing anything else, as I cannot possibly work at odds 

 and ends of time. I have, moreover, an insane hatred of stopping 

 my regular current of work. I have now materials for a little paper 

 or two, but I know I shall never work them up. So I will not promise 

 to help; though not to help, if I could, would make me feel very un- 

 grateful to you. You have no idea during how short a time daily I 

 am able to work. If I had any regular duties, like you and Hooker, 

 I should do absolutely nothing in science. 



I am heartily glad to hear that you are better; but how such labour 

 as volunteer-soldiering (all honour to you) does not kill you, I cannot 

 understand. 



For God's sake remember that your field of labour is original re- 

 search in the highest and most difficult branches of Natural History. 

 Not that I wish to underrate the importance of clever and solid reviews. 



To J. D. Hooker. 



Down, Feb. 14th [I860]. 

 I succeeded in persuading myself for twenty-four hours that Hux- 

 ley's lecture* was a success. Parts were eloquent and good, and all 

 very bold ; and I heard strangers say, ' What a good lecture ! ' I told 

 Huxley so; but I demurred much to the time wasted in introductory 

 remarks, especially to his making it appear that sterility was a clear 

 and manifest distinction of species, and to his not having even alluded 



* At the Royal Institution. 



