86 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.* [i860. 



You say that you think that Benthan is touched, " but, 

 like a wise man, holds his tongue." Perhaps you only mean 

 that he cannot decide, otherwise I should think such silence 

 the reverse of magnanimity ; for if others behaved the same 

 way, how would opinion ever progress ? It is a dereliction of 

 actual duty.* 



I am so glad to hear about Thwaites.f ... I have had an 

 astounding letter from Dr. Boott ; J it might be turned into 

 ridicule against him and me, so I will not send it to any one. 

 He writes in a noble spirit of love of truth. 



I wonder what Lindley thinks ; probably too busy to read 

 or think on the question. 



I am vexed about Bentham's reticence, for it would have 

 been of real value to know what parts appeared weakest to a 

 man of his powers of observation. 



Farewell, my dear Hooker, yours affectionately, 



C. Darwin. 



P.S. — Is not Harvey in the class of men who do not at all 

 care for generalities? I remember your saying you could 

 not get him to write on Distribution. I have found his works 

 very unfruitful m every respect. 



[Here follows the memorandum referred to :] 



* In a subsequent letter to Sir J. D. Hooker (March 12th, i860), my 

 father wrote, " I now quite understand Bentham's silence." 



f Dr. G. J. K. Thwaites, who was born in 18 11, established a reputa- 

 tion in this country as an expert microscopist, and an acute observer, work- 

 ing especially at cryptogamic botany. On his appointment as Director of 

 the Botanic Gardens at Peradenyia, Ceylon, Dr. Thwaites devoted himself 

 to the flora of Ceylon. As a result of this he has left numerous and valu- 

 able collections, a description of which he embodied in his ' Enumeratio 

 Plantarum Zeylaniae ' (1864). Dr. Thwaites was a Fellow of the Linnean 

 Society, but beyond the above facts little seems to have been recorded of 

 his life. His death occurred in Ceylon on September nth, 1882, in his 

 seventy-second year. Athenceum, October 14th, 1882, p. 500. 



X The letter is enthusiastically laudatory, and obviously full of genuine 

 feeling. 



