i863/] LETTER IN THE 'ATHEN^UM.' 20$ 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell. 



Down, April 18 [1863]. 



MY DEAR LYELL, I was really quite sorry that you had 

 sent me a second copy * of your valuable book. But after a 

 few hours my sorrow vanished for this reason : I have written 

 a letter to the Athenaum, in order, under the cloak of attack- 

 ing the monstrous article on Heterogeny, to say a word for 

 myself in answer to Carpenter, and now I have inserted a 

 few sentences in allusion to your analagous objection f about 

 bats on islands, and then with infinite slyness have quoted 

 your amended sentence, with your parenthesis (" as I fully 

 believe ") \ ; I do not think you can be annoyed at my doing 

 this, and you see, that I am determined as far as I can, that 

 the public shall see how far you go. This is the first time I 

 have ever said a word for myself in any journal, and it shall, 

 I think, be the last. My letter is short, and no great things. 

 I was extremely concerned to see Falconer's disrespectful 

 and virulent letter. I like extremely your answer just read ; 

 you take a lofty and dignified position, to which you are so 

 well entitled. 



* The second edit, of the 'Antiquity of Man' was published a few 

 months after the first had appeared. 



f Lyell objected that the mammalia (e.g. bats and seals) which alone 

 have been able to reach oceanic islands ought to have become modified 

 into various terrestrial forms fitted to fill various places in their new home. 

 My father pointed out in the Ath&enum that Sir Charles has in some measu 

 answered his own objection, and went on to quote the "amended sen- 

 tence" ('Antiquity of Man,' 2nd Edit. p. 469) as showing how far Lyell 

 agreed with the general doctrines of the ' Origin of Species ' : " Yet we 

 ought by no means to undervalue the importance of the step which will 

 have been made, should it hereafter become the generally received opin- 

 ion of men of science (as I fully expect it will) that the past changes of 

 the organic world have been brought about by the subordinate agency of 

 such causes as Variation and Natural Selection." In the first edition the 

 words " as I fully expect it will," do not occur. 



t My father here quotes Lyell incorrectly ; see the previous foot- 

 note. 



In a letter to Sir J. D. Hooker he wrote : " I much like Lyell's letter. 



