254 THE SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. LCh. XIV. 



I have read LyelPs book. [The Antiquity of Man.] The 

 whole certainly struck me as a compilation, but of the highest 

 class, for when possible the facts have been verified on the spot, 

 making it almost an original work. The Glacial chapters seem 

 to me best, and in parts magnificent. I could hardly judge 

 about Man, as all the gloss and novelty was completely worn 

 off. But certainly the aggregation of the evidence produced a 

 very striking effect on my mi ad. The chapter comparing 

 language and changes of species, seems most ingenious and 

 interesting. He has shown great skill in picking out salient 

 points in the argument for change of species ; but I am deeply 

 disappointed (I do not mean personally) to find that his timidity 

 prevents him giving any judgment. . . . From all my com- 

 munications with him, I must ever think that he has really 

 entirely lost faith in the immutability of species ; and yet one 

 of his strongest sentences is nearly as follows ; " If it should 

 ever | be rendered highly probable that species change by 

 variation and natural selection," &c. &c. I had hoped he would 

 have guided the public as far as his own belief went. . . . One 

 thing does please me on this subject, that he seems to appreciate 

 your work. No doubt the public or a part may be induced to 

 think that, as he gives to us a larger space than to Lamarck, 

 he must think that there is something in our views. When 

 reading the brain chapter, it struck me forcibly that if he had 

 said openly that he believed in change of species, and as a 

 consequence that man was derived from some Quadrumanous 

 animal, it would have been very proper to have discussed by 

 compilation the differences in the most important organ, viz. the 

 brain. As it is, the chapter seems to me to come in rather by 

 the head and shoulders. I do not think (but then I am as pre- 

 judiced as Falconer and Huxley, or more so) that it is too 

 severe ; it struck me as given with judicial force. It might 

 perhaps be said with truth that he had no business to judge on 

 a subject on which he knows nothing ; but compilers must do 

 this to a certain extent. (You know I value and rank high 

 compilers, being one myself!) 



The Lyells are coming here on Sunday evening to stay till 

 Wednesday. I dread it, but I must say how much disappointed 

 I am that he has not spoken out on species, still less on man. 



every one believed to be closed. Professor Huxley (Medical Times, 

 Oct. 25th, 1862, quoted in Man's Place in Nature, p. 117) spoke of the 

 " two years during which this preposterous controversy has dragged its 

 weary length." And this no doubt expressed a very general feeling, 

 f The italics are not Lvell's. 



