304 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [i860. 



have been naturally selected for the creature's own benefit. 

 Imagine a Pouter in a state of nature wading into the water 

 and then, being buoyed up by its inflated crop, sailing about 

 in search of food. What admiration this would have excited 

 adaptation to the laws of hydrostatic pressure, &c. &c. For 

 the life of me I cannot see any difficulty in natural selection 

 producing the most exquisite structure, if such structure can 

 be arrived at by gradation, and I know from experience how 

 hard it is to name any structure towards which at least some 

 gradations are not known. 



Ever yours, 



C. DARWIN. 



P.S. The conclusion at which I have come, as I have told 

 Asa Gray, is that such a question, as is touched on in this 

 note, is beyond the human intellect, like " predestination and 

 free will," or the " origin of evil." 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down [April i8th, 1860]. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, I return 's letter. . . . Some of 



my relations say it cannot possibly be 's article,* because 



the reviewer speaks so very highly of . Poor dear simple 



folk ! My clever neighbour, Mr. Norman, says the article is 

 so badly written, with no definite object, that no one will 

 read it. ... Asa Gray has sent me an article f from the 

 United States, clever, and dead against me. But one argu- 

 ment is funny. The reviewer says, that if the doctrine were 

 true, geological strata would be full of monsters which have 

 failed. A very clear view this writer had of the struggle for 

 existence ! 



* The ' Edinburgh Review.' where the author says that we ought 

 | 'North American Review,' to find "an infinite number of other 

 April 1860. " By Professor Bowen," varieties gross, rude, and purpose- 

 is written on my father's copy. The less the unmeaning creations of 

 passage referred to occurs at p. 488, an unconscious cause." 



