108 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES/ 1860. 



C. Darwin to C. LyelL 



Down, Friday night [June ist, 1860]. 



. . . Have you seen Hopkins * in the new ' Fraser ' ? the 

 public will, I should think, find it heavy. He will be dead 

 against me, as you prophesied ; but he is generously civil to 

 me personally.! On his standard of proof, natural science 

 would never progress, for without the making of theories I 

 am convinced there would be no observation. 



* William Hopkins died in 1866, " in his seventy-third year." He be- 

 gan life with a farm in Suffolk, but ultimately entered, comparatively late 

 in life, at Peterhouse, Cambridge ; he took his degree in 1827, and after- 

 ward became an Esquire Bedell of the University. He was chiefly known 

 as a mathematical " coach," and was eminently successful in the manufac- 

 ture of Senior Wranglers. Nevertheless Mr. Stephen says (' Life of Faw- 

 cett,' p. 26) that he " was conspicuous for inculcating " a " liberal view of 

 the studies of the place. He endeavored to stimulate a philosophical in- 

 terest in the mathematical sciences, instead of simply rousing an ardour 

 for competition." He contributed many papers on geological and mathe- 

 matical subjects to the scientific journals. He had a strong influence for 

 good over the younger men with whom he came in contact. The letter 

 which he wrote to Henry Fawcett on the occasion of his blindness illus- 

 trates this. Mr. Stephen says ('Life of Fawcett,' p. 48) that by " this 

 timely word of good cheer," Fawcett was roused from " his temporary 

 prostration," and enabled to take a " more cheerful and resolute tone." 



f ' Eraser's Magazine,' June 1860. My father, no doubt, refers to the 

 following passage, p. 752, where the Reviewer expresses his " full partici- 

 pation in the high respect in which the author is universally held, both as 

 a man and a naturalist ; and the more so, because in the remarks which 

 will follow in the second part of this Essay we shall be found to differ 

 widely from him as regards many of his conclusions and the reasonings on 

 which he has founded them, and shall claim the full right to express such 

 differences of opinion with all that freedom which the interests of scientific 

 truth demands, and which we are sure Mr. Darwin would be one of the 

 last to refuse to any one prepared to exercise it with candour and courtesy." 

 Speaking of this review, my father wrote to Dr. Asa Gray: " I have remon- 

 strated with him [Hopkins] for so coolly saying that I base my views on 

 what I reckon as great difficulties. Any one, by taking these difficulties 

 alone, can make a most strong case against me. I could myself write a 



