268 



THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 



[i860. 



Asa Gray to J. D. Hooker. 



Cambridge, Mass., 



January 5th, 1860. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, Your last letter, which reached me 

 just before Christmas, has got mislaid during the upturning^ 

 in my study which take place at that season, and has not yet 

 been discovered. I should be very sorry to lose it, for there 

 were in it some botanical mems. which I had not secured. . .. 



The principal part of your letter was high laudation of 

 Darwin's book. 



Well, the book has reached me, and I finished its careful 

 perusal four days ago ; and I freely say that your laudation 

 is not out of place. 



It is done in a masterly manner. It might well have taken 

 twenty years to produce it. It is crammed full of most 

 interesting matter thoroughly digested well expressed 

 close, cogent, and taken as a system it makes out a better 

 case than I had supposed possible. . . . 



Agassiz, when I saw him last, had read but a part of it. 

 He says it is poor very poor II (entre nous). The fact [is] 

 he is very much annoyed by it, .... and I do not wonder 

 at it. To bring all ideal systems within the domain of science,, 

 and give good physical or natural explanations of all his 

 capital points, is as bad as to have Forbes take the glacier 

 materials . . . and give scientific explanation of all the 

 phenomena. 



Tell Darwin all this. I will write to him when I get a. 

 chance. As I have promised, he and you shall have fair-play 

 here. ... I must myself write a review of Darwin's book for 

 4 Silliman's Journal ' (the more so that I suspect Agassiz means, 

 to come out upon it) for the next (March) No., and I am now 

 setting about it (when I ought to be every moment working 

 the Exploring] Expedition Compositae, which I know far more 

 about). And really it is no easy job as you may well imagine. 



