100 DARWINIAN INTERESTS 



Unger, 1 Wollaston, Lowe, (Wallace I suppose), and now Andrew 

 Murray. 2 I do not regard all these, I snap my fingers at all 

 but you ; in my inmost soul I conscientiously say I incline 

 to your theory — but I cannot accept it as an established 

 truth or unexceptionable hypothesis. 



And finally, on August 9 : 



If my letters did not gener you, it is impossible that you 

 should suppose that yours were of no use to me ! I would 

 throw up the whole thing were it not for correspondence with 

 you, which is the only bit of silver in the affair. I do feel 

 it disgusting to have to make a point of a speciality, in which 

 one cannot see one's way a bit further than I could before 

 I began. To be sure I have a veiy much clearer notion of 

 the pros and cons on both sides (though these were rather 

 forgotten facts than re-discoveries). I see the sides of the 

 well further down and more distinctly, but the bottom is as 

 obscure as ever. 



After all, the lecture proved a great success despite the cry : 

 ' I am worked and worried to death with this Lecture, and curse 

 myself as a soft headed and hearted imbecile to have accepted 

 it.' 'It cost me much midnight oil and more phosphorus of 

 the brain,' he tells Sir W. Macleay, ' and yet the deuce take 

 it these luminous principles cast very little light on the subject. 

 I delivered myself to about 2000 persons in the Theatre, and 

 gave them a pounding about Darwinism till they jumped 

 from their seats.' 



It was, as he promised, a judicial survey of the facts which 

 clamoured for explanation and the rival theories that would 

 explain them. Thus, though in Madeira, for example, the pre- 

 dominant Flora is European, specialising with a certain number 

 of varieties and distinct species, there exists in the heart of the 

 island a set of non-European plants — ' Atlantic types ' — recur- 



1 Franz Unger (1800-70), an Austrian botanist and palaeontologist ; 

 Professor of Botany at Vienna from 1850. He published in 1866 Die Insel 

 Cypern einst mid jetzt. He was noted for his researches in the anatomy and 

 physiology of plants and in fossil botany. 



2 Andrew Murray (1812-78), naturalist; abandoned law and took up 

 natural science. F.R.S. Edinburgh 1857 ; President of the Edinburgh Botanical 

 Society 1858; Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society 1860; F.L.S. 

 1861 ; its scientific Director 1877. Wrote on botany and entomology. 



