126 EVOLUTION [Chap. Ill 



Later 78 good and original. I know you will understand and not 

 object to my thus expressing my opinion (for one must form 

 one) so presumptuously. I have no criticisms, except perhaps 

 I should like you somewhere to '.say, when you refer to me, 

 that you refer only to the notice in the Linnean Journal ; not 

 that, on my deliberate word of honour, I expect that you will 

 think more favourably of the whole than of the suggestion 

 in the Journal. I am far more than satisfied at what you say 

 of my work ; yet it would be as well to avoid the appearance 

 of your remarks being a criticism on my fuller work. 



I am very sorry to hear you are so hard-worked. I also 

 get on very slowly, and have hardly as yet finished half my 

 volume. ... I returned on last Tuesday from a week's 

 hydropathy. 



Take warning by me, and do not work too hard. For 

 God's sake, think of this. 



It is dreadfully uphill work with me getting my confounded 

 volume finished. 



I wish you well through all your labours. Adios. 



Letter 79 To Asa Gra 7- 



Down, Nov. 29th [1859]. 



This shall be such an extraordinary note as you have 

 never received from me, for it shall not contain one single 

 question or request. I thank you for your impression on my 

 views. Every criticism from a good man is of value to me. 

 What you hint at generally is very, very true : that my work 

 will be grievously hypothetical, and large parts by no means 

 worthy of being called induction, my commonest error being 

 probably induction from too few facts. I had not thought of 

 your objection of my using the term " natural selection " as 

 an agent. I use it much as a geologist does the word denuda- 

 tion — for an agent, expressing the result of several combined 

 actions. I will take care to explain, not merely by inference, 

 what I mean by the term ; for I must use it, otherwise I 

 should incessantly have to expand it into some such (here 

 miserably expressed) formula as the following : " The tendency 

 to the preservation (owing to the severe struggle for life to 

 which all organic beings at some time or generation are 

 exposed) of any, the slightest, variation in any part, which is 

 of the slightest use or favourable to the life of the individual 



