2 66 LONDON AND CAMBRIDGE. ^ETAT. 29. [1838 



much nonsense, but I did not even taste Minerva's small beer 

 to-day. Yours most sincerely, 



CHAS. DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to C. LyelL 



Friday night, September I3th [1838], 



MY DEAR LYELL, 



I was astonished and delighted at your gloriously long 

 letter, and I am sure I am very much obliged to Mrs. Lyell 

 for having taken the trouble to write so much.* I mean to 

 have a good hour's enjoyment and scribble away to you, who 

 have so much geological sympathy that I do not care how 

 egotistically I write. . . . 



I have got so much to say about all sorts of trifling things 

 that I hardly know what to , begin about. I need not say 

 how pleased I am to hear that Mr. Lyell \ likes my Journal. 

 To hear such tidings is a kind of resurrection, for I feel 

 towards my first-born child as if it had long since been dead, 

 buried, and forgotten ; but the past is nothing and the future 

 everything to us geologists, as you show in your capital motto 

 to the * Elements.' By the way, have you read the article, in 

 the ' Edinburgh Review,' on M. Comte, ' Cours de la Philoso- 

 phic ' (or some such title) ? It is capital ; there are some fine 

 sentences about the very essence of science being prediction, 

 which reminded me of " its law being progress." 



I will now begin and go through your letter seriatim. I 

 dare say your plan of putting the Elie de Beaumont's chapter 

 separately and early will be very good ; anyhow, it is showing 

 a bold front in the first edition which is to be translated into 

 French. It will be a curious point to geologists hereafter to 

 note how long a man's name will support a theory so com- 

 pletely exposed as that of De Beaumont's has been by you ; 

 you say you " begin to hope that the great principles there 

 insisted on will stand the test of time." Begin to hope : why, 



* Lyell dictated much of his correspondence. 

 f Father of the geologist, 



