294 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [i860. 



was never admitted into his intimacy, and he therefore never 

 made any communications to me in relation to his views and 

 labours. I have been throughout one of his most sincere 

 admirers, and fully adopted his theories and conclusions, 

 notwithstanding the severe pain and disappointment they at 

 first occasioned me. On the day that his celebrated paper 

 was read at the Linnean Society, July 1st, 1858, a long paper 

 of mine had been set down for reading, in which, in com- 

 menting on the British Flora, I had collected a number of 

 observations and facts illustrating what I then believed to be 

 a fixity in species, however difficult it might be to assign their 

 limits, and showing a tendency of abnormal forms produced 

 by cultivation or otherwise, to withdraw within those original 

 limits when left to themselves. Most fortunately my paper 

 had to give way to Mr. Darwin's, and when once that was 

 read, I felt bound to defer mine for reconsideration ; I began 

 to entertain doubts on the subject, and on the appearance of 

 the ' Origin of Species,' I was forced, however reluctantly, to 

 give up my long-cherished convictions, the results of much 

 labour and study, and I cancelled all that part of my paper 

 which urged original fixity, and published only portions of 

 the remainder in another form, chiefly in the 'Natural History 

 Review.' I have since acknowledged on various occasions 

 my full adoption of Mr. Darwin's views, and chiefly in my 

 Presidential Address of 1863, and in my thirteenth and last 

 address, issued in the form of a report to the British Associa- 

 tion at its meeting at Belfast in 1874. 



I prize so highly the letters that I have of Mr. Darwin's, 

 that I should feel obliged by your returning them to me when 

 you have done with them. Unfortunately I have not kept 

 the envelopes, and Mr. Darwin usually only dated them by 

 the month not by the year, so that they are not in any 

 chronological order. 



Yours very sincerely, 



GEORGE BENTHAM. 



