144 'DESCENT OF MAN' — EXPRESSION. [1871. 



Selection. My special purpose has been to contribute to the 

 theory by placing it in its proper relations to philosophical 

 inquiries in general." * 



With regard to the proofs received from Mr. Wright, my 

 father wrote to Mr. Wallace :] 



Down, July 9 [1871]. 



My DEAR WALLACE,' — I send by this post a review by 

 Chauncey Wright, as I much want your opinion of it as soon 

 as you can send it. I consider you an incomparably better 

 critic than I am. The article, though not very clearly 

 written, and poor in parts from want of knowledge, seems 

 to me admirable. Mivart's book is producing a great effect 

 against Natural Selection, and more especially against me. 

 Therefore if you think the article even somewhat good I will 

 write and get permission to publish it as a shilling pamphlet, 

 together with the MS. additions (enclosed), for which there 

 was not room at the end of the review. . . . 



I am now at work at a new and cheap edition of the 

 ' Origin,' and shall answer several points in Mivart's book, 

 and introduce a new chapter for this purpose ; but I treat the 

 subject so much more concretely, and I dare say less philo- 

 sophically, than Wright, that we shall not interfere with each 

 other. You will think me a bigot when I say, after studying 

 Mivart, I was never before in my life so convinced of the 

 general {i.e. not in detail) truth of the views in the 'Origin.' 

 I grieve to see the omission of the words by Mivart, detected 

 by Wright. \ I complained to Mivart that in two cases he 

 quotes only the commencement of sentences by me, and thus 



* i 



Letters of Chauncey Wright,' on which he [Mr. Mivart] cites 



by J. B. Thayer. Privately printed, Mr. Darwin's authority." It should 



1878, p. 230. be mentioned that the passage 



f 'North American Review' from which words are omitted is 



vol. 113, pp. 83, 84. Chauncey not given within inverted commas 



Wright points out that the words by Mr. Mivart. 

 omitted are " essential to the point 



