RELATIONS WITH DARWIN 317 



demanded from its adherents. It is best to obtain evidence on 

 such matters at first hand ; and this is what is suppHed by the 

 correspondence between Darwin and Hooker. 



How complete the understanding between the friends soon 

 became is shown by the provisions made by Darwin for the 

 pubHcation of his manuscripts in case of sudden death. He 

 wrote in August 1854 the definite direction " Hooker by far the 

 best man to edit my species volume": and this notwithstanding 

 that he writes to him as a " stern and awful judge and sceptic." 

 But again, in a letter a few months later, he says to him : " I 

 forgot at the moment that you are the one living soul from whom 

 I have constantly received sympathy." I have already said 

 that Hooker was not only Darwin's first confidant but also the 

 first to accept his theory of mutability of species. But even he 

 did not fully assent to it till after its first publication. The 

 latter point comes out clearly from the letters. In January 

 1859, six months after the reading of their joint communications 

 to the Linnean Society, Darwin writes to Wallace : " You 

 ask about Lyell's frame of mind. I think he is somewhat 

 staggered, but does not give in... I think he will end by being 

 perverted. Dr Hooker has become almost as heterodox as you 

 or I, and I look at Hooker as by far the most capable judge in 

 Europe." In September 1859 Darwin writes to W. D. Fox: 

 " Lyell has read about half of the volume in clean sheets... He is 

 wavering so much about the immutability of species that I expect 

 he will come round. Hooker has come round, and will publish 

 his belief soon." In the following month, writing to Hooker, 

 Darwin says : " I have spoken of you here as a convert made by 

 me : but I know well how much larger the share has been of 

 your own self-thought." A letter to Wallace of November 1859 

 bears this postscript : " I think that I told you before that 

 Hooker is a complete convert. If I can convert Huxley I shall 

 be content." And lastly, in a letter to W. B. Carpenter, of the 

 same month, Darwin says : " As yet I know only one believer, 

 but I look at him as of the greatest authority, viz. Hooker." 

 These quotations clearly show that, while Lyell wavered, and 

 Huxley had not yet come in, Hooker was a complete adherent 

 in 1859 to the doctrine of the mutability of species. Excepting 



