ATTITUDE TOWARDS EVOLUTION 221 



The latter years of his Hfe fell within that stimulating period 

 which followed the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. 

 But in the battle of giants which ensued he took no part. His 

 attitude, indeed, was rather that of an amused spectator ; and 

 in the letters which are available, his references to the great 

 controversy of the day, and allied topics, are mostly in a playful 

 vein. " I do not know how cats purr," he writes to his friend 

 Mrs Gatty, "and am glad you asked... Have you never felt a 

 something stop your own windpipe when pleased or grieved, 

 when suddenly affected either way } 'Tis the first gurgle of a 

 purr ; you were a cat once, away in the ages, and this is a part 

 of the remains." Almost his only contribution to the literature 

 of natural selection was a " serio-comic squib," which was read 

 before the Dublin University Zoological and Botanical Associa- 

 tion on 17 February, i860 and subsequently printed for private 

 circulation, entitled " A Guess as to the Probable Origin of the 

 Human Animal considered by the light of Mr Darwin's Theory 

 of Natural Selection, and in opposition to Lamarck's notion of a 

 Monkey Parentage." Darwin thought this production a little 

 unworthy of the author. " I am not sorry for a natural oppor- 

 tunity of writing to Harvey," he says, "just to show that 

 I was not piqued at his turning me and my book into ridicule, 

 not that I think it was a proceeding that I deserved, or worthy 

 of himV 



Similarly, Harvey rejoices over Charles Kingsley's Water 

 Babies, and especially over the sly fun which is poked at 

 Darwinism, and also at certain types of men of science. 



Only once did he enter the lists with a serious criticism, 

 when, in the Gardeners' Chronicle'^, \i^ cites the case of a monstrous 

 Begonia in objection to Darwin's views. Harvey, indeed, did 

 not like the new theory. " I am fully disposed to admit natural 

 selection as a vera causa of much change," he writes, " but not 

 as the vera causa of species." Further than this he could not 

 go, though much impressed with the arguments drawn from 

 geographical distribution. " I heartily wish we were nearer in 

 accord," writes Darwin at the end of a long letter to Harvey, 



^ Darwin's Life and Letters, Vol. II. p. 314. 

 2 For i860, pp. 145-146. 



