I867J 'REIGN OF LAW.' 245 



guiding principle with God (ignoring waste of seed and of 

 young monsters, &c), and that making a new plan for the 

 structure of animals was thought, and thought was labour, 

 and therefore God kept to a uniform plan, and left rudiments. 

 This is no exaggeration. In short, God is a man, rather 

 cleverer than us. ... I am very much obliged for the Nation 

 (returned by this post) ; it is admirably good. You say I al- 

 ways guess wrong, but I do not believe any one, except Asa 

 Gray, could have done the thing so well. I would bet even, 

 or three to two, that it is Asa Gray, though one or two pas- 

 sages staggered me. 



I finish my book on i Domestic Animals,' &c, by a single 

 paragraph, answering, or rather throwing doubt, in so far as 

 so little space permits, on Asa Gray's doctrine that each 

 variation has been specially ordered or led along a beneficial 

 line. It is foolish to touch such subjects, but there have been 

 so many allusions to what I think about the part which God 

 has played in the formation of organic beings,* that I 

 thought it shabby to evade the question. ... I have even 

 received several letters on the subject. ... I overlooked 

 your sentence about Providence, and suppose I treated it as 

 Buckland did his own theology, when his Bridgewater Treat- 

 ise was read aloud to him for correction. . . . 



[The following letter, from Mrs. Boole, is one of those 

 referred to in the last letter to Sir J. D. Hooker :] 



Dear Sir, — Will you excuse my venturing to ask you a 

 question, to which no one's answer but your own would be 

 quite satisfactory? 



* Prof. Judd allows me to quote from some notes which he has kindly 

 given me : — " Lyell once told me that he had frequently been asked if 

 Darwin was not one of the most unhappy of men, it being suggested that 

 his outrage upon public opinion should have filled him with remorse." Sir 

 Charles Lyell must have been able, I think, to give a satisfactory answer 

 on this point. Professor Judd continues : — 



" I made a note of this and other conversations of Lyell's at the time. 



