I8/I.] 



EXPRESSION. 



143 



C. Darwin to Dr. Ogle. 



Down, April 29 [187 1]. 



My dear Dr. Ogle, — I am truly obliged for all the 

 great trouble which you have so kindly taken. I am sure 

 you have no cause to say that you are sorry you can give me 

 no definite information, for you have given me far more than 

 I ever expected to get. The action of the platysma is not 

 very important for me, but I believe that you will fully 

 understand (for I have always fancied that our minds were 

 very similar) the intolerable desire I had not to be utterly 

 baffled. Now I know that it sometimes contracts from fear 

 and from shuddering, but not apparently from a prolonged 

 state of fear such as the insane suffer. . . . 



[Mr. Mivart's 'Genesis of Species,' — a contribution to the 

 literature of Evolution, which excited much attention, — was 

 published in 1871, before the appearance of the 'Descent of 

 Man.' To this book the following letter (June 21, 1871) 

 from the late Chauncey Wright * to my father, refers : — 



" I send . . . revised proofs of an article which will be 

 published in the July number of the ' North American 

 Review,' sending it in the hope that it will interest or even be 

 of greater value to you. Mr. Mivart's book [' Genesis of 

 Species ' ] of which this article is substantially a review, seems 

 to me a very good background from which to present the 

 considerations which I have endeavoured to set forth in the 

 article, in defence and illustration of the theory of Natural 



* Chauncey Wright was born at 

 Northampton, Massachusetts, Sept. 

 20, 1830, and came of a family- 

 settled in that town since 1654. 

 He became in 1852 a computer in 

 the Nautical Almanac office at Cam- 

 bridge, Mass., and lived a quiet un- 

 eventful life, supported by the small 

 stipend of his office, and by what 

 he earned from his occasional 



articles, as well by a little teaching. 

 He thought and read much on 

 metaphysical subjects, but on the 

 whole with an outcome (as far as 

 the world was concerned) not com- 

 mensurate to the power of his mind. 

 He seems to have been a man of 

 strong individuality, and to have 

 made a lasting impression on his 

 friends. He died in Sept. 1875. 



