1863.] 



FALCONER ON LYELL. 



tour. I never in my life saw anything like the spring flowers 

 this year. What a lot of interesting things have been lately 

 published. I liked extremely your review of De Candolle. 

 What an awfully severe article that by Falconer on Lyell ; * 

 I am very sorry for it ; I think Falconer on his side does not 



do justice to old Perthes and Schmerling I shall be 



very curious to see how he [Lyell] answers it to-morrow. (I 

 have been compelled to take in the A thenceum for a while.) I 

 am very sorry that Falconer should have written so spitefully, 

 even if there is some truth in his accusations"; I was rather 

 disappointed in Carpenter's letter, no one could have given a 

 better answer, but the chief object of his letter seems to me 

 to be to show that though he has touched pitch he is not 

 defiled. No one would suppose he went so far as to believe all 

 birds came from one progenitor. I have written a letter to the 

 Athen<zum\ (the first and last time I shall take such a step) 



* AthencEum, April 4, 1863, 

 p. 459. The writer asserts that 

 justice has not been done either to 

 himself or Mr. Prestwich that 

 Lyell has not made it clear that it 

 -was their original work which sup- 

 plied certain material for the ' An- 

 tiquity of Man.' Falconer attempts 

 to draw an unjust distinction be- 

 tween a " philosopher " (here used 

 as a polite word for compiler) like 

 Sir Charles Lyell, and original 

 observers, presumably such as him- 

 self and Mr. Prestwich. LyelPs 

 reply was published in \h.tAthen<z- 

 2t?n, April 1 8, 1863. It ought to 

 be mentioned that a letter from 

 Mr. Prestwich (Athenaeum, p. 

 555), which formed part of the con- 

 troversy, though of the nature of 

 a reclamation, was written in a very 

 different spirit and tone from Dr. 

 Falconer's. 



t Athenceum, 1863, p. 554 : 

 " The view given by me on the 



origin or derivation of species, 

 whatever its weaknesses may be, 

 connects (as has been candidly ad- 

 mitted by some of its opponents, 

 such as Pictet, Bronn, &c.), by an 

 intelligible thread of reasoning, a 

 multitude of facts : such as the 

 formation of domestic races by 

 man's selection, the classification 

 and affinities of all organic beings, 

 the innumerable gradations in 

 structure and instincts, the simi- 

 larity of pattern in the hand, wing, 

 or paddle of animals of the same 

 great class, the existence of organs 

 become rudimentary by disuse, 

 the similarity of an embryonic 

 reptile, bird and mammal, with the 

 retention of traces of an apparatus 

 fitted for aquatic respiration ; the 

 retention in the young calf of in- 

 cisor teeth in the upper jaw, &c. 

 the distribution of animals and 

 plants, and their mutual affinities 

 within the same region, their 

 C 2 



