322 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK 



CH. 



West End Hotel, Naples, 

 January 3rd, 1892. 



My dear Lubbock — You will get in a day or two a 

 few hasty notes which I had intended to be subjects of 

 an article. I shall not, however, be able to do anything 

 with it in the absence of materials, and I therefore send 

 them to you, in case you should be able to make any use 

 of them. Use them freely and destroy them ; I have 

 another copy. I have just finished your book, and feel 

 what a vista it opens for future observation ; it is clear 

 that the thing now to do is to try to find out, as you 

 have done, what animals really do see, hear and feel, 

 rather than what their organs ought to enable them to 

 do. What a world of possibilities the subject opens 

 to us. 



Another thing which strikes me much is that those 

 very elaborate organisations, such as the eye, which 

 seemed at first inconsistent with evolution, become, — 

 with further knowledge and observation, — the strongest 

 confirmations of it. Do you know Goethe's little poem 

 beginning, — 



Immer so vor vielen Jahren. 



I always wanted Darwin to make it a motto for one of 

 his books. — Sincerely yours, T. H. Farrer. 



It has been sometimes stated that the astro- 

 nomical explanation of the cold of the Glacial 

 period, which he adopted in Prehistoric Times, has 

 since been disproved. 



The following letter from Professor Bonney 

 shows that one high authority at any rate shared 

 his views. The Duke of Argyll's letter of a year 

 later, acknowledging a copy of Sir John's Beauties 

 of Nature, gives an indication of the Duke's views 

 on one aspect of the question. 



23 Denning Road, Hampstead, N.W., 

 Jan. 9, 1892. 



Dear Sir John Lubbock — I do not remember to 

 have seen — perhaps owing to my absence from London 

 and general occupation with pressing matters for some 

 time past — Bodmer's paper on River Terraces. 



