2O6 PUBLICATION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [1859. 



C. Lyell to C. Darwin. 



October 3rd, 1859. 



MY DEAR DARWIN, I have just finished your volume 

 and right glad I am that I did my best with Hooker to 

 persuade you to publish it without waiting for a time which 

 probably could never have arrived, though you lived till the 

 age of a hundred, when you had prepared all your facts on 

 which you ground so many grand generalizations. 



It is a splendid case of close reasoning, and long substan- 

 tial argument throughout so many pages ; the condensation 

 immense, too great perhaps for the uninitiated, but an effective 

 and important preliminary statement, which will admit, even 

 before your detailed proofs appear, of some occasional useful 

 exemplification, such as your pigeons and cirripedes, of which 

 you make such excellent use. 



I mean that, when, as I fully expect, a new edition is soon 

 called for, you may here and there insert an actual case to 

 relieve the vast number of abstract propositions. So far as 

 I am concerned, I am so well prepared to take your state- 

 ments of facts for granted, that I do not think the "pieces 

 justificatives" when published will make much difference, and 

 I have long seen most clearly that if any concession is made, 

 all that you claim in your concluding pages will follow. It 

 is this which has made me so long hesitate, always feeling 

 that the case of Man and his races, and of other animals, and 

 that of plants is one and the same, and that if a " vera causa " 

 be admitted for one, instead of a purely unknown and imagin- 

 ary one, such as the word " Creation," all the consequences 

 must follow. 



I fear I have not time to-day, as I am just leaving this 

 place, to indulge in a variety of comments, and to say how 

 much I was delighted with Oceanic Islands Rudimentary 

 Organs Embryology the genealogical key to the Natural 

 System, Geographical Distribution, and if I went on I should 

 be copying the heads of all your chapters. But I will say a 



