1867.] 'REIGN OF LAW.' 65 



I sincerely wish that this note had not been as utterly- 

 valueless as it is. I would have sent full answers, though 

 I have little time or strength to spare, had it been in my 

 power. 



I have the honour to remain, dear Madam, 



Yours very faithfully, 



Charles Darwin. 



P.S. — I am grieved that my views should incidentally have 

 caused trouble to your mind, but I thank you for your judg- 

 ment, and honour you for it, that theology and science 

 should each run its own course, and that in the present case 

 I am not responsible if their meeting-point should still be 

 far off. 



[The next letter discusses the ' Reign of Law,' referred to 

 a few pages back :] 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell. 



Down, June 1 [1867]. 



... I am at present reading the Duke, and am very much 

 interested by him ; yet I cannot but think, clever as the whole 

 is, that parts are weak, as when he doubts whether each curva- 

 ture of the beak of humming-birds is of service to each species. 

 He admits, perhaps too fully, that I have shown the use of 

 each little ridge and shape of each petal in orchids, and 

 how strange he does not extend the view to humming-birds. 

 Still odder, it seems to me, all that he says on beauty, which 

 I should have thought a nonentity, except in the mind of 

 some sentient being. He might have as well said that love 

 existed during the secondary or Palaeozoic periods. I hope 

 you are getting on with your book better than I am with 

 mine, which kills me with the labour of correcting, and is 

 intolerably dull, though I did not think so when I was writing 

 it. A naturalist's life would be a happy one if he had only to 

 observe, and never to write. 



VOL. III. F 



