LITERARY WORK, ETC. 213 



finally rejected it; and I think I have shown why it is not 

 effective in nature. It is a view which is continually cropping 

 up as if it were a new discovery, and a Dutch botanist, De 

 Vries, has recently written a large work claiming that new 

 species are produced in this manner, through what he terms 

 " mutations." It was therefore important to show that all 

 such methods are fallacious, and that owing to the constancy, 

 universality, and extreme severity of elimination through sur- 

 vival of the fittest, such large and abrupt variations, except 

 through some extraordinary and almost impossible concurrence 

 of favourable conditions, can never permanently maintain 

 themselves. 



Another article (in the October issue of the same Review) 

 on " The Expressiveness of Speech " develops a new principle 

 in the origin of language, and brought me a holograph (and 

 partly unintelligible) letter from Mr. Gladstone, expressing 

 his concurrence with it. I also brought out a new edition of 

 my " Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," containing two new 

 chapters, and a new preface giving a sketch of the changes of 

 opinion on the subject during the preceding half century. 



In July I went with my friend Mr. William Mitten for a 

 short botanizing tour in Switzerland. We walked a good 

 deal of the time, and I thus had a further opportunity of exam- 

 ining glacial phenomena. We went to Lucerne, whence we 

 ascended the Stanzerhorn by the electric railway, and found a 

 very interesting flora on the summit. Then to the head of the 

 lake, and to Gceschenen, whence we walked to Andermatt; 

 then over the Furca pass to the Rhone glacier, staying two 

 days at the hotel ; then over the Grimsel pass, where we greatly 

 enjoyed both the flowers and the wonderful indications of 

 glacial action, especially on the slope down to and around the 

 Hotel Grimsel, where we stayed the night. The valley down 

 to Meiringen was excessively interesting, being ice-worn every- 

 where. We stayed an hour at the fine Handeck cascade, 

 and then, with the help of a chaise, into which two ladies 

 hospitably received us, got on to Meiringen. Here we 

 stayed two days, exploring the gorge of the Aar and the won- 

 derful rock-barrier of the Kirchet, visited the Reichenbach 



