524 THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [1859. 



labour for nothing. But now I care not what the universal 

 world says ; I have always found you right, and certainly on 

 this occasion I am not going to doubt for the first time. 

 Whether you go far, or but a very short way with me and 

 others who believe as I do, I am contented, for my work 

 cannot be in vain. You would laugh if you knew how often 

 I have read your paragraph, and it has acted like a little 

 dram. . . . 



Farewell, 



C. DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to C. LyelL 



Down, Sept. 3Oth [1859]. 



MY DEAR LYELL, I sent off this morning the last sheets, 

 but without index, which is not in type. I look at you as my 

 Lord High Chancellor in Natural Science, and therefore I 

 request you, after you have finished, just to rerun over the 

 heads in the Recapitulation-part of last chapter. I shall be 

 deeply anxious to hear what you decide (if you are able to 

 decide) on the balance of the pros and contras given in my 

 volume, and of such other pros and contras as may occur to 

 you. I hope that you will think that I have given the diffi- 

 culties fairly. I feel an entire conviction that if you are now 

 staggered to any moderate extent, that you will come more 

 and more round, the longer you keep the subject at all before 

 your mind. I remember well how many long years it was 

 before I could look into the faces of some of the difficulties 

 and not feel quite abashed. I fairly struck my colours before 

 the case of neuter insects. 



I suppose that I am a very slow thinker, for you would be 

 surprised at the number of years it took me to see clearly 

 what some of the problems were which had to be solved, such 

 as the necessity of the principle of divergence of character, 

 the extinction of intermediate varieties, on a continuous area, 

 with graduated conditions ; the double problem of sterile first 

 crosses and sterile hybrids, &c., &c. 



Looking back, I think it was more difficult to see what 



