MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE THEORY. 145 



therefore some readers of the journal in question 

 may have been misled by it, I have collected much 

 evidence, which proves that the principle of natural 

 selection was only absorbed with the very greatest 

 difficulty, and that the words used in describing it for 

 a long time entirely failed to inform even eminent 

 scientific men of the essential characteristics of the 

 theory itself, and certainly failed most signally to 

 convince them. Conviction came very gradually as 

 the theory was slowly understood and was seen to 

 offer an intelligible explanation of an immense and 

 ever-increasing number of facts. 



I will now bring together quotations from Darwin's 

 letters in 1859 and 1860, showing how soon he came 

 to realise the difficulty with which natural selection 

 was understood, and to feel that he might have been 

 more successful with some other title. 



In 1859 he wrote to Dr. W. B. Carpenter— " I 

 have found the most extraordinary difficulty in 

 making even able men understand at what I was 

 driving." The remaining quotations are all taken 

 from letters written in 1860. By the middle of this 

 year, when he was feeling oppressed by hostile reviews 

 and unfair and ignorant criticisms (" I am getting 

 wearied at the storm of hostile reviews, and hardly 

 any useful "), he often alludes to the failure of oppo- 

 nents to understand his theory. Thus, in a letter to 

 Hooker (June 5th), he says : — 



"This review, however, and Harvey's letter have convinced 

 me that I must be a very bad explainer. Neither really 

 J 



