Ch. XIL] OOTOBEB 1859, TO DECEMBER 1859. 215 



a joke it would be if I pat you on the back when you attack 

 some immovable creationists ! You have most cleverly hit on 

 one point, which has greatly troubled me ; if, as I must think, 

 external conditions produce little direct offect, what the devil 

 determines each particular variation ? What makes a tuft of 

 feathers come on a cock's head, or moss on a moss-rose ? I 

 shall much like to talk over this with you. . . . 

 My dear Huxley, I thank you cordially for your letter. 



Yours very sincerely. 



Erasmus Darwin * to C. Darwin. November 23rd [1859]. 



Dear Charles, — I am so much weaker in the head, that I 

 hardly know if I can write, but at all events I will jot down a 

 few things that the Dr.f has said. He has not read much 

 above half, so, as he says, he can give no definite conclusion, and 

 keeps stating that he is not tied down to either view, and that 

 he has always left an escape by the way he has spoken of 

 varieties. I happened to speak of the eye before he had read 

 that part, and it took away his breath — utterly impossible — 

 structure — function, &c, &c, &c, but when he had read it he 

 hummed and hawed, and perhaps it was partly conceivable, 

 and then he fell back on the bones of tho ear, which were 

 beyond all probability or conceivability. He mentioned a 

 slight blot, which I also observed, that in speaking of the 

 slave-ants carrying one another, you change the species with- 

 out giving notice first, and it makes one turn back. . . . 



. . . For myself I really think it is the most interesting 

 book I «ver read, and can only compare it to the first knowledge 

 of chemistry, getting into a new world or rather behind the 

 scenes. To me the geographical distribution, I mean the 

 relation of islands to continents is the most convincing of the 

 proofs, and the relation of the oldest forms to the existing 

 species. I dare say I don't feel enough the absence of 

 varieties, but then I don't in the least know if everything 

 now living were fossilized whether the palaeontologists could 

 distinguish them. In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely 

 satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much 

 the worse for the facts is my feeling. My ague has left me in 

 such a state of torpidity that I wish I had gone through the 

 process of natural selection. 



Yours affectionately. 



* His brother. 



t Dr., afterwards Sir Henry, Holland. 



