84 MY LIFE [Chap. 



the following letter to the author, which may be of interest to 

 those naturalists who either have not seen the work or who 

 have forgotten its essential features : — 



" Waldron Edge, Duppas Hill, Croydon, 

 "May 9, 1879. 



"My dear Sir, 



" Please accept my thanks for the copy of ' Evolu- 

 tion Old and New,' and of ' Life and Habit,' which you were 

 so good as to send me. 



" I have just finished reading the former with mixed feel- 

 ings of pleasure and regret. I am glad that a connected 

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

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

 world ; but I am sorry that you 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 you, 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 



