1857-59 DARWIN'S 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES' 91 



me in a letter by an old and very distinguished 

 friend you would not wonder at me being sen- 

 sitive, perhaps ridiculously sensitive. Forgive 

 these remarks. I should be a dolt not to value 

 your scientific opinion very highly. If my views 

 are in the main correct, whatever value they may 

 possess in pushing on science will now depend 

 very little on me, but on the verdict pronounced 

 by men eminent in science. 



' Believe me, 



' Yours very truly, 



' C. Darwin.' 



In the early part of this letter Darwin says 

 he is not able to hunt up some information for 

 which Owen has asked, as his ' notes for the 

 latter chapters are a chaos.' The 'old and very 

 distinguished friend ' Dr. Francis Darwin con- 

 siders to be Adam Sedgwick. 



If not ' dead against ' the theory of Natural 

 Selection, Owen at first looked askance at it, prefer- 

 ring the idea of the great scheme of Nature which 

 he had himself advanced. He was of opinion 

 that the operation of external influences and the 

 resulting ' contest of existence ' lead to certain 

 species becoming extinct. Thus it came about, he 

 supposed, that, like the dodo in recent times, the 

 dinornis and other gigantic birds had disappeared. 

 But he never, so far as can be ascertained, ex- 

 pressed a definite -opinion on Darwinism, and 



