22 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. . . . 

 I think I have found out (here 's presumption !) the simple 

 way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various 

 ends. You will now groan, and think to yourself, " on 

 what a man have I been wasting my time and writing to." 

 I should, five years ago, have thought so . . .' 1 



Elaborate investigations of all kinds during the 

 long years which led up to the central work of 

 Darwin's life were discussed in detail with the 

 greatest of his friends, and it was an inestimable 

 advantage that the ideas of the Origin were thus 

 searchingly tried beforehand by so critical and, 

 in the best sense, sceptical a mind as Hooker's 

 ' you terrible worrier of poor theorists ! ' 2 as 

 Darwin called him. Again in 1868 : 



1 1 have got your photograph over my chimney-piece, and 

 like it much ; but you look down so sharp on me that I 

 shall never be bold enough to wriggle myself out of any 

 contradiction.' 3 



The friendship with Asa Gray began with a 

 meeting at Kew some years before the publication 

 of Natural Selection. Darwin soon began to ask 

 for help in the work which was ultimately to 

 appear as the Origin. The following letter to 

 Hooker, June 10, 1855, shows what he thought of 

 the great American botanist : 



' I have written him a very long letter, telling him some of 



1 Life and Letters, ii. 23, 24. See also on p. 32 the letter, dated 

 Oct. 12, [1845], in which Darwin confided his belief 'that species 

 are mutable' to the Rev. L. Jenyns (Blomefield). The passage 

 from a letter dated Feb. 14, 1845, to the same correspondent, 

 quoted on p. 42 n. 1, suggests that the communication of Oct. 12 

 was written in 1844 and not 1845. 



2 Feb. 28, [18581. More Letters, i. 105. 



3 More Letters, ii. 376, 377. 



