290 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [i860. 



interested by finding accidentally in Brewster's ' Life of 

 Newton,' that Leibnitz objected to the law of gravity because 

 Newton could not show what gravity itself is. As it has 

 chanced, I have used in letters this very same argument, 

 little knowing that any one had really thus objected to the law 

 of gravity. Newton answers by saying that it is philosophy 

 to make out the movements of a clock, though you do not 

 know why the weight descends to the ground. Leibnitz fur- 

 ther objected that the law of gravity was opposed to Natural 

 Religion ! Is this not curious ? I really think I shall use the 

 facts for some introductory remarks for my bigger book. 



. . . You ask (I see) why we do not have monstrosities in 

 higher animals ; but when they live they are almost always 

 sterile (even giants and dwarfs are generally sterile), and we do 

 not know that Harvey's monster would have bred. There is 

 I believe only one case on record of a peloric flower being 

 fertile, and I cannot remember whether this reproduced itself. 

 To recur to the eye. I really think it would have been dis- 

 honest, not to have faced the difficulty; and worse (as Talley- 

 rand would have said), it would have been impolitic I think, 

 for it would have been thrown in my teeth, as H. Holland 

 threw the bones of the ear, till Huxley shut him up by showing 



what a fine gradation occurred amongst living creatures. 

 I thank you much for your most pleasant letter. 



Yours affectionately, 



C. DARWIN. 

 P.S. I send a letter by Herbert Spencer, which you can 



read or not as you think fit. He puts, to my mind, the 



philosophy of the argument better than almost any one,. 



at the close of the letter. I could make nothing of Dana's 



idealistic notions about species ; but then, as Wollaston says,. 



I have not a metaphysical head. 



By the way, I have thrown at Wollaston's head, a paper by 



Alexander Jordan, who demonstrates metaphysically that all 



our cultivated races are God-created species. 



