174 GROWTH OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. [Ch. X. 



almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion I started with) 

 that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. 

 Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a " tendency to 

 progression," " adaptations from the slow willing of animals," 

 &c. ! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different 

 from his ; though the means of change are wholly so. I think 

 I have found out (here's presumption !) the simple way by 

 which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends. 

 You wiU now groan, and think to yourself, " on what a man 

 have I been wasting my time and writing to." I should, five 

 years ago, have thought so. . . . 



And again (1844) : — 



" In my most sanguine moments, all I expect, is that I shall 

 be able to show even to sound Naturalists, that there are two 

 sides to the question of the immutability of species — that facts 

 can be viewed and grouped under the notion of allied species 

 having descended from common stocks. With respect to 

 books on this subject, I do not know of any systematical ones, 

 except Lamarck's which is veritable rubbish : but there are 

 plenty, as Lyell, Pritchard, &c, on the view of the immu- 

 tability. Agassiz lately has brought the strongest argument 

 in favour of immutability. Isidore G. St. Hilaire has written 

 some good Essays, tending towards the mutability-side, in the 

 Suites a Buffon, entitled Zoolog. Generale. Is it not strange 

 that the author of such a book as the Animaux sans Vertebres 

 should have written that insects, which never see their eggs, 

 should will (and plants, their seeds) to be of particular forms, 

 so as to become attached to particular objects. The other 

 common (specially Germanic) notion is hardly less absurd, 

 viz. that climate, food, &c, should make a Pediculus formed to 

 climb hair, or a wood-pecker to climb trees. I believe all these 

 absurd views arise from no one having, as far as I know, ap- 

 proached the subject on the side of variation under domestica- 

 tion, and having studied all that is known about domestication." 



" I hate arguments from results, but on my views of descent, 

 really Natural History becomes a sublimely grand result- 

 giving subject (now you may quiz me for so foolish an escape 

 of mouth). . . ." 



C. D. to L. Jenyns* Down Oct. 12th [1845]. 



My dear Jenyns — Thanks for your note. I am sorry to 

 say I have not even the tail-end of a fact in English Zoology 

 to communicate. I have found that even trifling observations 

 * Rev. L. Blomefleld. 



