234 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. ("1866. 



C. Darwin to C. Ndgeli* 



Down, June 12 [1866]. 



DEAR SIR, I hope you will excuse the liberty which I 

 take in writing to you. I have just read, though imperfectly, 

 your ' Entstehung und Begriff,' and have been so greatly 

 interested by it, that I have sent it to be translated, as I am 

 a poor German scholar. I have just finished a new [4th] 

 edition of my * Origin/ which will be translated into German, 

 and my object in writing to you is to say that if you should 

 see this edition you would think that I had borrowed from 

 you, without acknowledgment, two discussions on the beauty 

 of flowers and fruit ; but I assure you every word was printed 

 off before I had opened your pamphlet. Should you like to 

 possess a copy of either the German or English new edition, 

 I should be proud to send one. I may add, with respect to the 

 beauty of flowers, that I have already hinted the same views 

 as you hold in my paper on Lythrum. 



Many of your criticisms on my views are the best which I 

 have met with, but I could answer some, at least to my own 

 satisfaction ; and I regret extremely that I had not read your 

 pamphlet before printing my new edition. On one or two 

 points, I think, you have a little misunderstood me, though I 

 dare say I have not been cautious in expressing myself. The 

 remark which has struck me most, is that on the position of 

 the leaves not having been acquired through natural selec- 

 tion, from not being of any special importance to the plant. 

 I well remember being formerly troubled by an analogous 

 difficulty, namely, the position of the ovules, their anatropous 

 condition, &c. It was owing to forgetfulness that I did not 

 notice this difficulty in the ' Origin.' f Although I can offer 

 no explanation of such facts, and only hope to see that they 

 may be explained, yet I hardly see how they support the 

 doctrine of some law of necessary development, for it is not 



* Professor of Botany at Munich. 



\ Nageli's Essay is noticed in the 5th edition. 



