164 'DESCENT OF MAN' EXPRESSION. [1872. 



C. Darwin to Chauncey Wright. 



Down, June 3, 1872. 



MY DEAR SIR, Many thanks for your article * in the 

 ' North American Review,' which I have read with great 

 interest Nothing can be clearer than the way in which you 

 discuss the permanence or fixity of species. It never occurred 

 to me to suppose that any one looked at the case as it seems 

 Mr. Mivart does. Had I read his answer to you, perhaps I 

 should have perceived this ; but I have resolved to waste no 

 more time in reading reviews of my works or on Evolution, 

 excepting when I hear that they are good and contain new 

 matter. ... It is pretty clear that Mr. Mivart has come to 

 the end of his tether on this subject. 



As your mind is so clear, and as you consider so carefully 

 the meaning of words, I wish you would take some incidental 

 occasion to consider when a thing may properly be said to be 

 effected by the will of man. I have been led to the wish by 

 reading an article by your Professor Whitney versus Schleicher. 

 He argues, because each step of change in language is made 

 by the will of man, the whole language so changes ; but I do 

 not think that this is so, as man has no intention or wish to 

 change the language. It is a parallel case with what I have 

 called " unconscious selection," which depends on men con- 

 sciously preserving the best individuals, and thus uncon- 

 sciously altering the breed. 



My dear Sir, yours sincerely, 



CHARLES DARWIN. 



[Not long afterwards (September) Mr. Chauncey Wright paid 



* The proof-sheets of an article it (' Letters,' p. 238) : -" It is not 



which appeared in the July number properly a rejoinder but a new 



of the * North American Review.' article, repeating and expounding 



It was a rejoinder to Mr. Mivart's some of the points of my pamphlet, 



reply (' N. Am. Review,' April 1872) and answering some of Mr. Mivart's 



to Mr. Chauncey Wright's pam- replies incidentally." 

 phlet. Chauncey Wright says of 



