NA TURE 



529 



THE CORRESPONDENCE OF CHARLES 

 DARWIN. 



More Letters of Charles Darwin. A Record of his 

 Work in a Series of hitherto Unpublished Letters. 

 Edited by Francis Darwin, Fellow of Christ's 

 College, and A. L. Seward, Fellow of Emmanuel 

 College, Cambridge. In two volumes, illustrated. 

 Vol. i., pp. xxiv + 494; vol. ii., pp. viii + 508. 

 (London : J. Murray, 1903.) Price 32s. net. 



WE close most biographies with the exclamation 

 " too long and far too many letters," but the 

 three volumes of the " Life and Letters of Charles 

 Darwin," published in 1SS7, left their readers, like 

 young Oliver Twist, "asking for more." At that 

 time considerations of space and other reasons pre- 

 vented the editors from publishing numerous letters in 

 their possession, and since then many of great interest 

 have been received. From this unused material they 

 have compiled, with only a few slight repetitions, " an 

 almost complete record of Darwin's work," which 

 will be welcomed, we are sure, not only by students 

 of science, but also by all interested in the history of 

 the Earth and Man. It is now nearly forty-four years 

 since the " Origin of Species " was first published. 

 The book was received with objurgation by the many, 

 with praise by the few, yet in about half that time it 

 had forced its way to a front place among the classics 

 of scientific literature, and though opinions still differ 

 about the prime factor in producing a species, a 

 place is assured to Charles Darwin among naturalists 

 similar to that of Isaac Newton among physical mathe- 

 maticians. The former, indeed, has effected, outside 

 his own field, an even more rapid and extensive 

 transformation of thought. The idea of evolution 

 has acted like a solvent in subjects to which 

 it might have been supposed alien, for it has even won 

 recognition from theology, by the partisans of which 

 it was at first so vociferously and ignorantly assailed. 

 It. has, in short, succeeded in revealing the " How " of 

 the natural order, though making no pretence of 

 fathoming the mystery of the " Why." 



The " Life and Letters " contained an autobio- 

 graphical sketch written in Darwin's later years for the 

 information of his children. When the family removed 

 from the old home at Down, they discovered a frag- 

 ment of another — dated so long ago as 1838 — which is 

 included in the present work. This has a special value 

 as containing fuller and clearer reminiscences of his 

 childhood — information which is always welcome to the 

 students of human nature, for the child in so many 

 respects is the father of the man. From his earliest 

 days Darwin was a collector of curiosities — seeking for 

 minerals and stones before he was nine years old — 

 and was always anxious to understand their structures 

 and significance. He was not, however, quite a 

 pattern good boy, for he confesses to flying into 

 passions and often telling fibs These, however, were 

 not to get him out of scrapes, but simply results of 

 indulging a too vivid imagination, with the desire to 

 NO. T 74 ^, VOL. 67] 



astonish the hearers. The tenor of his letters and 

 the devotion of his family circle prove beyond question 

 how effectively he overcame the former fault, and his 

 writings would almost lead us to think the latter in- 

 credible, for they show conscientious accuracy to have 

 been one of his most marked characteristics. But it 

 proved him to possess the imaginative faculty, without 

 which perhaps no great generalisation has ever been 

 made. Pegasus, indeed, must be ridden with a curb, 

 but that steed alone can carry its rider across the 

 bounds of space and time. 



The present volumes pass briefly over school davs at 

 Shrewsbury, the short residence at Edinburgh, and the 

 undergraduate life at Cambridge, where a friendship 

 with Prof. Henslow proved the turning- point of his 

 career. Some half-dozen letters, written during his 

 voyage on the Beagle — every one well worth preserva- 

 tion — are now printed for the first time, and two or 

 three relating to his marriage and settling at Down. 

 One, addressed to his fiancie, shows what the wives 

 of scientific men have often to endure, for he confesses 

 that Charles Lyell and he had been talking " un- 

 sophisticated geology " for half an hour, with " poor 

 Mrs. Lyell sitting by a monument of patience," adding 

 that he wants practice in ill-treating the female sex, for 

 he did not observe Lyell had any compunction; " I 

 hope to harden my conscience in time ; few husbands 

 seem to find it difficult to do this." But what he owed 

 to this marriage we learn by an extract from his auto- 

 biography, which, now that Mrs. Darwin has passed 

 away, is very rightly printed in the present work, for 

 it shows what true and deep feeling lay beneath that 

 calm exterior. 



The period between his settling at Down and writing 

 the " Origin of Species " is covered by fifty-eight 

 letters, addressed chiefly to Huxley and Hooker, his 

 most intimate friends. They form a very interesting 

 addition to those already published in the second 

 volume of the " Life and Letters," and throw further 

 light upon the incubation of the idea which was to 

 bring order out of a scientific chaos. Its publication 

 was accelerated, as is well known, by the receipt of a 

 manuscript from Dr. A. R. Wallace, proving that the 

 conception which Darwin had been laboriously working 

 out for some years had dawned upon the former during 

 his researches in the Malay Archipelago. No circum- • 

 stances could have offered a more favourable oppor- 

 tunity for a wrangle about priority; they proved the 

 nobility of both men's natures by cementing their 

 friendship, and a correspondence discussing topics 

 arising from the " Origin of Species " is not the least 

 interesting part of the present work. With the appear- 

 ance of the " Origin," the letters become more varied 

 and the writers more numerous ; points had to be de- 

 fended or developed, and new facts sought in corrobora- 

 tion. To all thoughtful objectors Darwin replied with 

 courtesy and candour; of ignorant vituperation he took 

 no note, except sometimes to lament, if it were the ill- 

 considered utterance of a fellow-student in science. 

 Knowing that he had built upon the solid rock of fact, 

 he went about his work with unruffled calmness, little 

 heeding" the storm which might rage outside. 



The publication of the " Origin " seemed to act as 

 a stimulant to greater literary activity, for it was 



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