204 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [1863. 



do justice to old Perthes and Schmerling I shall be 



very curious to see how he [Lyell] answers it to-morrow. (I 

 have been compelled to take in the Athenceum for a while.) I 

 am very sorry that Falconer should have written so spitefully, 

 even if there is some truth in his accusations ; I was rather 

 disappointed in Carpenter's letter, no one could have given a 

 better answer, but the chief object of his letter seems to me 

 to be to show that though he has touched pitch he is not de- 

 filed. No one would suppose he went so far as to believe all 

 birds came from one progenitor. I have written a letter to 

 the Athenaum * (the first and last time I shall take such a step) 

 to say, under the cloak of attacking Heterogeny, a word in 

 my own defence. My letter is to appear next week, so the 

 Editor says ; and I mean to quote Lyell's sentence f in his 

 second edition, on the principle if one puffs oneself, one had 

 better puff handsomely. . . . 



* Athenaum, 1863, p. 554: " The view given by me on the origin or 

 derivation of species, whatever its weaknesses may be, connects (as has 

 been candidly admitted by some of its opponents, such as Pictet, Bronn, 

 &c.), by an intelligible thread of reasoning, a multitude of facts : such as 

 the formation of domestic races by man's selection, the classification and 

 affinities of all organic beings, the innumerable gradations in structure 

 and instincts, the similarity of pattern in the hand, wing, or paddle of 

 animals of the same great class, the existence of organs become rudimen- 

 tary by disuse, the similarity of an embryonic reptile, bird, and mammal, 

 with the retention of traces of an apparatus fitted for aquatic respiration ; 

 the retention in the young calf of incisor teeth in the upper jaw, &c. the 

 distribution of animals and plants, and their mutual affinities within the 

 same region, their general geological succession, and the close relation- 

 ship of the fossils in closely consecutive formations and within the same 

 coiflntry ; extinct marsupials having preceded living marsupials in Aus- 

 tralia, and armadillo-like animals having preceded and generated armadil- 

 loes in South America, and many other phenomena, such as the gradual 

 extinction of old forms and their gradual replacement by new forms better 

 fitted for their new conditions in the struggle for life. When the advocate 

 of Heterogeny can thus connect large classes of facts, and not until then, 

 he will have respectful and patient listeners." 



f See the next letter. 



