LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN. 399 



You speak of species not having any material base to rest on, but is 

 this any greater hardship than deciding what deserves to be called a 

 variety, and be designated by a Greek letter? When I was at syste- 

 matic work I know I longed to have no other difficulty (great enough) 

 than deciding whether the form was distinct enough to deserve a 

 name, and not to be haunted with undefined and unanswerable ques- 

 tions whether it was a true species. What a jump it is from a well- 

 marked variety, produced by natural cause, to a species produced by 

 the separate act of the hand of God ! But I am running on fool- 

 ishly. By the way, I met the other day Phillips, the palaeontologist, 

 and he asked me, 'How do you define a species?' I answered, 'I can 

 not.' Whereupon he said, 'At last I have found out the only true 

 definition any form which has ever had a specific name ! . . . ' 



To Asa Geat. 



Down, June 8th [I860]. 

 I have to thank you for two notes, one through Hooker, and one 

 with some letters to be posted, which was done. I anticipated your 

 request by making a few remarks on Owen's review. Hooker is so 

 weary of reviews that I do not think you will get any hints from him. 

 I have lately had many more ' kicks than halfpence. ' A review in the 

 last Dublin Nat. Hist. Review is the most unfair thing which has 

 appeared, one mass of misrepresentation. It is evidently by Haugh- 

 ton, the geologist, chemist and mathematician. It shows immeasur- 

 able conceit and contempt of all who are not mathematicians. He 

 discusses bees' cells, and puts a series which I have never alluded to, 

 and wholly ignores the intermediate comb of Melipona, which alone 

 led me to my notions. The article is a curiosity of unfairness and 

 arrogance; but, as he sneers at Malthus, I am content, for it is clear 

 he can not reason. He is a friend of Harvey, with whom I have had 

 some correspondence. Your article has clearly, as he admits, influ- 

 enced him. He admits to a certain extent Natural Selection, yet I 

 am sure does not understand me. It is strange that very few do, and 

 I am become quite convinced that I must be an extremely bad ex- 

 plainer. To recur for a moment to Owen: he grossly misrepresents 

 and is very unfair to Huxley. You say that you think the article must 

 be by a pupil of Owen ; but no one fact tells so strongly against Owen, 

 considering his former position at the College of Surgeons, as that he 

 has never reared one pupil or follower. In the number just out of 

 Fraser's Magazine there is an article or review on Lamarck and me 

 by W. Hopkins, the mathematician, who, like Haughton, despises the 

 reasoning power of all naturalists. Personally he is extremely kind 

 towards me; but he evidently in the following number means to blow 



