THE INFLUENCE OF DARWIN UPON ENTOMOLOGY. 73 



A few years later Darwin had done with his systematic monograph, 

 and soon became entirely absorbed in the work which was to cul- 

 minate in 1859 in the On'j/in of Species. These enquiries led him to 

 believe that too exclusive attention to systematic work injures the 

 reasoning faculties and the powers of generalising. Thus, he wrote 

 to Sir Joseph Hooker, on September 25th, 1853, shortly before the 

 appearance of the last (Jirrijiede volumes : " How few generalisers 

 there are among systematists ; I really suspect there is something 

 absolutely opposed to each other and hostile in the two frames of mind 

 required for systematising and reasoning on large collections of facts " 

 {loc. ait., ii., 39, 40). Again, he Avrote to A. R. Wallace, on 

 December 22nd, 1857 : " I am a firm believer that without speculation 

 there is no good and original observation. . . . So few naturalists 

 care for anything beyond the mere description of species " [loc. cit., 

 ii., 108). In a letter to Sir Joseph Hooker on November 21st, 1859, 

 he emphasises the value of generalisation : " It is an old and firm 

 conviction of mine that the naturalists who accumulate facts and 

 make partial generalisations are the real benefactors of science. Those 

 who merely accumulate facts I cannot very much respect " {loc. cit., 

 ii., 225). The same ideas are conveyed in a letter to H. W. Bates on 

 December 3rd, 1861, referring to his paper on "Mimicry" in the 

 Trans. Linn. Soc. : "I can understand that your reception at the 

 British Museum would damp you ; they are a very good set of men, 

 but not the sort to appreciate your work. In fact, I have long thought 

 that too much systematic work [and] description somehow blunts the 

 faculties. The general public appreciates a good dose of reasoning, or 

 generalisation, with new and curious remarks on habits, final causes, 

 &c., far more than do the regular naturalists " {loc. cit., ii,, 379). 

 He wrote again on November 20th, 1862, after reading the paper on 

 " Mimicry " : " Your paper is too good to be largely appreciated by 

 the mob of naturalists without souls, but rely on it that it will have 

 lastiui/ value, and I cordially congratulate you on your first great 

 work " (loc. cit., ii., 393). Although the earlier reflections on systematic 

 work came out of his study of the Cirripedes, the later were at any rate 

 partially due to his experience of the students of insects. He seems, 

 indeed, to have a somewhat poor opinion of entomological work, 

 perhaps due to his experience with his own collections made on the 

 " Beagle." At any rate, he wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker on September 

 2nd, 1860: ". . . . If you get to the top of Lebanon .... 

 you ought to collect any beetles under stones there ; but the ento- 

 mologists are such slow coaches. I dare say no result could be made 

 out of them. [They] have never worked the alpines of Britain " [loc. cit., 

 ii.,337). ["They"] in the last sentence is substituted for words of mock 

 abuse, with no doubt a basis of truth intended to be expressed beneath 

 the jest. Darwin evidently considered that the entomologists, as a 

 whole, would be among the most uncompromising opponents of his 

 views on evolution and natural selection. Thus he wrote to Sir 

 Charles Lyell on March 17th, 1863, arguing that evolution would 

 ultimately prevail : " But this result, I begin to see, will take two or 

 three lifetimes. The entomologists are enough to keep the subject 

 back for half a century " {loc. cit., iii., 17). Such remarks in letters are, 

 of course, not intended to be criticised as deliberate expressions of 

 mature opinion, and there can be little doubt that in this case much 



