J04 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.* 1860 



C. Darwin to Asa Gray. 



Down, May 22nd [1860], 



MY DEAR GRAY, Again I have to thank you for one of 

 your very pleasant letters of May yth, enclosing a very plea- 

 sant remittance of 22. I am in simple truth astonished at 

 all the kind trouble you have taken for me. I return Apple- 

 ton's account. For the chance of your wishing for a formal 

 acknowledgment I send one. If you have any further com- 

 munication to the Appletons, pray express my acknowledg- 

 ment for [their] generosity ; for it is generosity in my opinion. 

 I am not at all surprised at the sale diminishing ; my extreme 

 surprise is at the greatness of the sale. No doubt the public 

 has been shamefully imposed on ! for they bought the book 

 thinking that it would be nice easy reading. I expect the sale 

 to stop soon in England, yet Lyell wrote to me the other day 

 that calling at Murray's he heard that fifty copies had gone in 

 the previous forty-eight hours. I am extremely glad that you 

 will notice in * Silliman ' the additions in the * Origin.' Judg- 

 ing from letters (and I have just seen one from Thwaites to 

 Hooker), and from remarks, the most serious omission in my 

 book was not explaining how it is, as I believe, that all forms 

 do not necessarily advance, how there can now be simple or- 

 ganisms still existing. ... I hear there is a very severe review 

 on me in the ' North British,' by a Rev. Mr. Dunns,* a Free 

 Kirk minister, and dabbler in Natural History. I should be 

 very glad to see any good American reviews, as they are all 

 more or less useful. You say that you shall touch on other 

 reviews. Huxley told me some time ago that after a time he 

 would write a review on all the reviews, whether he will I 

 know not. If you allude to the ' Edinburgh,' pray notice some 

 of the points which I will point out on a separate slip. In 

 the Saturday Review (one of our cleverest periodicals) of May 

 5th, p. 573, there is a nice article on [the 'Edinburgh'] re- 



* This statement as to authorship was made on the authority of Robert 

 Chambera 



