112 CHARLES DARWIN. 



at the anniversary dinner, he concluded by telling 

 us that his long and intimate friendship with 

 Charles Darwin was the great event of his scientific 

 career. 



In sending a copy to Asa Gray, he wrote 

 (November 11th): — 



"I fully admit that there are very many difficulties not 

 satisfactorily explained by my theory of descent with modifica- 

 tion, but I cannot possibly believe that a false theory would 

 explain so many classes of facts as I think it certainly does 

 explain. On these grounds I drop my anchor, and believe 

 that the difficulties will slowly disappear." 



Asa Gray's reply was contained in a letter to 

 Hooker, written January 5th, 1860, four days after 

 reading the " Origin." He asks that Darwin may be 

 told of what he had written. He says that the book 

 " is done in a masterly manner. It might well have 

 taken twenty years to produce it." He expressed the 

 intention of reviewing the book, and seeing that 

 Darwin and Hooker had fair play in America. A 

 little later (January 23rd) he wrote to Darwin about 

 the American reprint, etc., and spoke • of the work 

 itself in somewhat greater detail : — 



"The best part, I think, is the whole, i.e. its plan and 

 treatment, the vast amount of facts and acute inferences 

 handled as if you had a perfect mastery of them. . . . Then 

 your candour is worth everything to your cause. It is refresh- 

 ing to find a person with a new theory who frankly confesses 

 that he finds difficulties. . . . The moment I understood your 

 premisses, I felt sure you had a real foundation to hold on. . . . 

 I am free to say that I never learnt so much from one book as 

 I have from jours." 



