40 GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN.' [1853. 



I really suspect there is something absolutely opposed to each 

 other and hostile in the two frames of mind required for 

 systematising and reasoning on large collections of facts. 

 Many of your arguments appear to me very well put, and, 

 as far as my experience goes, the candid way in which you 

 discuss the subject is unique. The whole will be very useful 

 to me whenever I undertake my volume, though parts take 

 the wind very completely out of my sails ; it will be all nuts 

 to me ... for I have for some time determined to give the 

 arguments on both sides (as far as I could), instead of arguing 

 on the mutability side alone. 



In my own Cirripedial work (by the way, thank you for 

 the dose of soft solder ; it does one or at least me a great 

 deal of good) in my own work I have not felt conscious 

 that disbelieving in the mere permanence of species has made 

 much difference one way or the other ; in some few cases 

 (if publishing avowedly on the doctrine of non-permanence), 

 I should not have affixed names, and in some few cases 

 should have affixed names to remarkable varieties. Certainly 

 I have felt it humiliating, discussing and doubting, and 

 examining over and over again, when in my own mind the 

 only doubt has been whether the form varied to-day or 

 yesterday (not to put too fine a point on it, as Snagsby * would 

 say). After describing a set of forms as distinct species, tearing 

 up my MS., and making them one species, tearing that up 

 and making them separate, and then making them one 

 again (which has happened to me), I have gnashed my 

 teeth, cursed species, and asked what sin I had committed 

 to be so punished. But I must confess that perhaps nearly 

 the same thing would have happened to me on any scheme 

 of work. 



I am heartily glad to hear your Journal f is so much 

 advanced ; how magnificently it seems to be illustrated ! 



* In Bleak House.' f Sir J. D. Hooker's ' Himalayan Journal.' 



