3^6 EVOLUTION [Chap. V 



Letter 298 currents of the earth, you would leave the field of investiga- 

 tion quite open. I suppose that even those who still believe 

 that each species was separately created would admit that 

 certain animals possess some sense by which they perceive 

 direction, and which they use instinctively. On mentioning 

 the subject to my son George, who is a mathematician and 

 knows something about magnetism, he suggested making a 

 very thin needle into a magnet ; then breaking it into very 

 short pieces, which would still be magnetic, and fastening one 

 of these pieces with some cement on the thorax of the insect 

 to be experimented on. 



He believes that such a little magnet, from its close 

 proximity to the nervous system of the insect, would affect 

 it more than would the terrestrial currents. 



I have received your essay on Halictus} which I am sure 

 that I shall read with much interest. 



Letter 299 To T. H. Huxley. 



On April 9th, 1880, Mr. Huxley lectured at the Royal Institution on 

 "The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species." The lecture was 

 published in Nature and in Huxley's Collected Essays, Vol. II., p. 227. 

 Darwin's letter to Huxley on the subject is given in Life and Letters, 

 III., p. 240; in Huxley's reply of May 10th {Life and Letters of T. H. 

 Huxley, II., p. 12) he writes : " I hope you do not imagine because I had 

 nothing to say about ' Natural Selection' that I am at all weak of faith 

 on that article. . . . But the first thing seems to me to be to drive the 

 fact of evolution into people's heads ; when that is once safe, the rest will 

 come easy." 



Down, May nth, 1880. 



I had no intention to make you write to me, or expectation 

 of your doing so ; but your note has been so far "cheerier" 2 

 to me than mine could have been to you, that I must and 

 will write again. I saw your motive for not alluding to 

 Natural Selection, and quite agreed in my mind in its wisdom. 

 But at the same time it occurred to me that you might be 

 giving it up, and that anyhow you could not safely allude to 

 it without various " provisos " too long to give in a lecture. 



1 "Sur les Mceurs et la Partht^nogcse des Halictes" {Ann. Sc. Nat., 

 IX., 1879-80). 



2 "You are the cheeriest letter-writer I know": Huxley to Darwin. 

 See Huxley's Life, II., p. 12. 



