64 'VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION.' [1867. 



myself. I cannot feel sure that they are mistaken, unless 

 you will tell me so. And I think — I cannot know for certain 

 — but I think — that if I were an author, I would rather that 

 the humblest student of my works should apply to me 

 directly in a difficulty, than that she should puzzle too long 

 over adverse and probably mistaken or thoughtless criticisms. 

 At the same time I feel that you have a perfect right to 

 refuse to answer such questions as I have asked you. Science 

 must take her path, and Theology hers, and they will meet 

 when and where and how God pleases, and you are in no 

 sense responsible for it if the meeting-point should still be 

 very far off. If I receive no answer to this letter I shall infer 

 nothing from your silence, except that you felt I had no right 

 to make such inquiries of a stranger. 



[My father replied as follows :] 



Down, December 14, 1866. 

 Dear Madam, — It would have gratified me much if I 

 could have sent satisfactory answers to your questions, or, 

 indeed, answers of any kind. But I cannot see how the 

 belief that all organic beings, including man, have been genet- 

 ically derived from some simple being, instead of having been 

 separately created, bears on your difficulties. These, as it 

 seems to me, can be answered only by widely different evi- 

 dence from science, or by the so-called " inner consciousness." 

 My opinion is not worth more than that of any other man 

 who has thought on such subjects, and it would be folly in 

 me to give it. I may, however, remark that it has always ap- 

 peared to me more satisfactory to look at the immense amount 

 of pain and suffering in this world as the inevitable result of the 

 natural sequence of events, i.e. general laws, rather than from 

 the direct intervention of God, though I am aware this is not 

 logical with reference to an omniscient Deity. Your last 

 question seems to resolve itself into the problem of free will 

 and necessity, which has been found by most persons insoluble. 



