,O2 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES/ [1860 



a good fellow. Perhaps I will enclose a letter from Thomson 

 of Calcutta ; not that it is much, but Hooker thinks so highly 

 of him. . . . 



Henslow informs me that Sedgwick* and then Professor 

 Clarke [j/V] f made a regular and savage onslaught on my 

 book lately at the Cambridge Philosophical Society, but 

 Henslow seems to have defended me well, and maintained 

 that the subject was a legitimate one for investigation. Since 

 then Phillips J has given lectures at Cambridge on the same 

 subject, but treated it very fairly. How splendidly Asa Gray 

 is fighting the battle. The effect on me of these multiplied 

 attacks is simply to show me that the subject is worth fight- 

 ing for, and assuredly I will do my best. ... I hope all the 

 attacks make you keep up your courage, and courage you 

 assuredly will require. . . . 



C. Darwin to A. R. Wallace. 



Down, May i8th, 1860. 



MY DEAR MR. WALLACE, I received this morning your 

 letter from Amboyna, dated February i6th, containing some 

 remarks and your too high approval of my book. Your letter 

 has pleased me very much, and I most completely agree with 

 you on the parts which are strongest and which are weakest. 

 The imperfection of the Geological Record is, as you say, the 

 weakest of all ; but yet I am pleased to find that there are 

 almost more geological converts than of pursuers of other 



* Sedgwick's address is given somewhat abbreviated in The Cambridge 

 Chronicle, May igth, 1860. 



f The late William Clark, Professor of Anatomy. My father seems 

 to have misunderstood his informant. I am assured by Mr. J. W. Clark 

 that his father (Prof. Clark) did not support Sedgwick in the attack. 



% John Phillips, M. A., F. R. S., born 1800, died 1874, from the effects 

 of a fall. Professor of Geology at King's College, London, and afterwards 

 at Oxford. He gave the ' Rede' lecture at Cambridge on May i$th, 1860, 

 on ' The Succession of Life on the earth.' The Rede Lecturer is appointed 

 annually by the Vice-Chancellor, and is paid by an endowment left in 1524 

 by Sir Robert Rede, Lord Chief Justice, in the reign of Henry VIII. 



