1856.] THE UNFINISHED BOOK. 429 



bear the idea of begging some Editor and Council to publish, 

 and then perhaps to have to apologise humbly for having led 

 them into a scrape. In this one respect I am in the state 

 which, according to a very wise saying of my father's, is the 

 only fit state for asking advice, viz., with my mind firmly made 

 up, and then, as my father used to say, good advice was very 

 comfortable, and it was easy to reject bad advice. But 

 Heaven knows I am not in this state with respect to publish- 

 ing at all any preliminary essay. It yet strikes me as quite 

 unphilosophical to publish results without the full details 

 which have led to such results. 



It is a melancholy, and I hope not quite true view of yours 

 that facts will prove anything, and are therefore superfluous ! 

 But I have rather exaggerated, I see, your doctrine. I do 

 not fear being tied down to error, /. ^., I feel pretty sure I 

 should give up anything false published in the preliminary 

 essay, in my larger work ; but I may thus, it is very true, do 

 mischief by spreading error, which as I have often heard you 

 say is much easier spread than corrected. I confess I lean 

 more and more to at least making the attempt and drawing 

 up a sketch and trying to keep my judgment, whether to 

 publish, open. But I always return to my fixed idea that it 

 is dreadfully unphilosophical to publish without full details. 

 I certainly think my future work in full would profit by hear- 

 ing what my friends or critics (if reviewed) thought of the 

 outline. 



To any one but you I should apologise for such long dis- 

 cussion on so personal an affair ; but I believe, and indeed 

 you have proved it by the trouble you have taken, that this 

 would be superfluous. 



Yours truly obliged, 



Ch. Darwin. 



P. S. What you say (for I have just re-read your letter) 

 that the Essay might supersede and take away all novelty 

 and value from any future larger Book, is very true ; and that 

 would grieve me beyond everything. On the other hand 



