i843-] NATURAL SELECTION. 23 



flora as you have done the Galapagos. In the Systematic 

 paper I was rather disappointed in not finding general 

 remarks on affinities, structures, &c., such as you often give 

 in conversation, and such as De Candolle and St. Hilaire 

 introduced in almost all their papers, and which make them 

 interesting even to a non-Botanist." 



" Very soon afterwards [continues Sir J. D. Hooker] in a 

 letter dated January 1844, the subject of the 'Origin of 

 Species ' was brought forward by him, and I believe that I 

 was the. first to whom he communicated his then new ideas 

 on the subject, and which being of interest as a contribution 

 to the hktory of Evolution, I hej*e copy from his letter " : ] 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



[January nth, 1844.] 



. . . Besides a general interest about the southern lands, I 

 have been npw ever since my return engaged in a very pre- 

 sumptuous work, and I know no, one individual who would 

 not say a very foolish one. I was so struck with the distri- 

 bution of the Galapagos organisms, &c. &c., and with the 

 character of the American fossil mammifers, &c. &c., that I 

 determined to collect blindly every sort of fact, which could 

 bear any way on what are species. I have read heaps of 

 agricultural and horticultural books, and have never ceased 

 collecting facts. At last gleams of light have come, and I am 

 almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion I started 

 with) that species are not (it. is like confessing a murder) 

 immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of 

 a " tendency to progression," " adaptations from the Slow 

 willing of animals/ 5 &a ! But the conclusions I am led to arc 

 not widely different from his ; though the means of change 

 are wholly so. I think I have found out (here's presump- 

 tion!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely 

 adapted to various ends. You will now groan, and think to 



