1 859.] RESTING AT ILKLEY. 1/5 



My larger book will have to be wholly re-written, and not 

 merely the present volume expanded ; so that I want to waste 

 as little time over this volume as possible, if another edition 

 be called for ; but I fear the subject will be too perplexing, as 

 I have treated it, for general public. 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Ilkley, Yorkshire. 



Sunday [Oct. 23rd, 1859]. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, I congratulate you on your ' Intro- 

 duction ' * being in fact finished. I am sure from what I read 

 of it (and deeply I shall be interested in reading it straight 

 through), that it must have cost you a prodigious amount of 

 labour and thought. I shall like very much to see the sheet, 

 which you wish me to look at. Now I am so completely a 

 gentleman, that I have sometimes a little difficulty to pass the 

 day; but it is astonishing how idle a three weeks I have 

 passed. If it is any comfort to you, pray delude yourself by 

 saying that you intend " sticking to humdrum science." But 

 I believe it just as much as if a plant were to say that, " I have 

 been growing all my life, and, by Jove, I will stop growing." 

 You cannot help yourself; you are not clever enough for that. 

 You could not even remain idle, as I have done, for three 

 weeks ! What you say about Lyell pleases me exceedingly ; 

 I had not at all inferred from his letters that he had come so 

 much round. I remember thinking, above a year ago, that if 

 ever I lived to see Lyell, yourself, and Huxley come round, 

 partly by my book, and partly by their own reflections, I 

 should feel that the subject is safe, and all the world might 

 rail, but that ultimately the theory of Natural Selection 

 (though, no doubt, imperfect in its present condition, and 

 embracing many errors) would prevail. Nothing will ever 

 convince me that three such men, with so much diversified 



* 'Australian Flora.' 



