8o MEMORIAL SKETCH. 



still further in the direction here indicated ; he had had 

 occasion again and again to point out how arbitrary were 

 the bounds set by previous investigators, and how un- 

 satisfactory was the old doctrine of the immutability of 

 fixed types.* 



He was ready, therefore, to give sympathetic and in- 

 telligent consideration to Mr. Darwin's main thesis, and in 

 the correspondence which ensued, Mr. Darwin warmly ex- 

 pressed his pleasure at the support which was likely to be 

 afforded to it. 



I must thank you (he wrote on November i8, 1859) for 

 your letter on my own account, and, if I know myself, still 

 more warmly for the subject's sake. As you seem to have 

 understood my last chapter without reading the previous chapters, 

 you must have maturely and most profoundly self thought out 

 the subject, for I have found the most extraordinary difficulty 

 in making even able men understand at what I was driving. 



The next day came a second note — 



I beg pardon for troubling you again. If, after reading my 

 book, you are able to come to a conclusion in any degree 

 definite, will you think me very unreasonable in asking you to 

 let me hear from you ? I do not ask for a long discussion, but 

 merely for a brief idea of your general impression. From your 

 widely-extended knowledge, habit of investigating truth, and 

 abilities, I should value your opinion in the very highest rank. 



After another fortnight, Mr. Darwin replied to the com- 

 munication which he had thus invited : " I am perfectly 

 "delighted at your letter. It is a great thing to have got a 

 "great physiologist on our side." Two articles, one in the 

 National Review for January, i860, and the other in the 

 British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review for April, 

 enabled Dr. Carpenter to give an outline of Mr. Darwin's 



* At the meeting of the British Association in Glasgow, in 1855, Dr. Car- 

 penter dehvered one of the evening lectures, and took as his subject the 

 " Range of Variation of Species." 



