400 GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN.' [1853 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, September 25th [1853]. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, I have read your paper with great 

 interest ; it seems all very clear, and will form an admirable 

 introduction to the New Zealand Flora, or to any Flora in the 

 world. How few generalizers there are among systematists ; 

 I really suspect there is something absolutely opposed to each 

 other and hostile in the two frames of mind required for 

 systematising and reasoning on large collections of facts. 

 Many of your arguments appear to me very well put, and, 

 as far as my experience goes, the candid way in which you 

 discuss the subject is unique. The whole will be very use- 

 ful to me whenever I undertake my volume, though parts take 

 the wind very completely out of my sails ; it will be all nuts 

 to me ... for I have for some time determined to give the 

 arguments on both sides (as far as I could), instead of arguing 

 on the mutability side alone. 



In my own Cirripedial work (by the way, thank you for 

 the dose of soft solder ; it does one or at least me a great 

 deal of good) in my own work I have not felt conscious 

 that disbelieving in the mere permanence of species has made 

 much difference one way or the other ; in some few cases (if 

 publishing avowedly on doctrine of non-permanence), I 

 should not have affixed names, and in some few cases 

 should have affixed names to remarkable varieties. Cer- 

 tainly I have felt it humiliating, discussing and doubting, 

 and examining over and over again, when in my own mind 

 the only doubt has been whether the form varied to-day or 

 yesterday (not to put too fine a point on it, as Snagsby * would 

 say). After describing a set of forms as distinct species, 

 tearing up my MS., and making them one species, tearing that 

 up and making them separate, and then making them one 

 again (which has happened to me), I have gnashed my teeth, 

 cursed species, and asked what sin I had committed to be 



* In ' Bleak House.' 



