MY LIF 



account of the views of Buffon, Dr. Darwin, and Lamarck, and 

 pecially of Mr. Patrick Matthew, should be given to the 



world; but I am sorry that VOU should have, as I think, so 



completely failed in a just estimation of the value of their 

 work as compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin, — because 



it will necessarily prejudice naturalists against VOU, and will 

 cause 'Life and Habit' to be neglected; and this I should 

 greatly regret. 



" To my mind, your quotations from Mr. Patrick Matthew 

 are the most remarkable things in your whole book, because 

 he appears to have completely anticipated the main ideas both 

 of the ' Origin of Species ' and of ' Life and Habit.' 



" I should have to write a long article to criticize your book 

 (which perhaps I may do). In your admiration of Lamarck 

 you do not seem to observe that his views are all pure con- 

 jecture, utterly unsupported by a single fact. Where has it 

 been proved that, in any one case, desires have caused varia- 

 tion? It is pure theory, with no fact to support it. And even 

 if desires might, in a long course of generations, produce some 

 effect, it can be demonstrated that in the same time ' natural 

 selection ' or ' survival of the fittest ' would produce so much 

 greater an effect as to overpower the other unless the two 

 worked together. 



" I am sorry to see also much that seems to me mere 

 verbal quibbles. For instance, at p. 388 (last par.) you turn 

 ' spontaneous variability ' into ' unknown causes,' and then, 

 of course, make nonsense of Mr. Darwin's words. In this 

 way I will undertake to make nonsense of any argument. 

 ' Spontaneous variability ' is a fact, as explained, for 

 example, in my review of Mr. Murphy's book (along with 

 yours) in Nature. It is an absolutely universal fact in the 

 organic world (and for all I know in the inorganic too) and 

 is probably a fundamental fact, due to the impossibility of any 

 tiuo organisms ever having been subjected to exactly identical 

 conditions, and the extreme complexity both of organisms 

 and their environment. This normal variability wants no 

 other explanation. Its absence is inconceivable, because it 

 would imply that diversity of conditions produced identity of 



