254 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



which was very substantial, and, being very hungry after our 

 long walk, we made a hearty meal of it. My brother felt no 

 ill effects from this, but in my case it brought on a severe 

 attack of inflammation of the stomach and bowels, which 

 kept me in bed some weeks, and taught me not to overtax 

 my usually good digestion. 



During my residence at Neath I kept up some correspon- 

 dence with H. W. Bates, chiefly on insect collecting. We 

 exchanged specimens, and, I think in the summer of 1847, 

 he came on a week's visit, which we spent chiefly in beetle- 

 collecting and in discussing various matters, and it must have 

 been at this time that we talked over a proposed collecting 

 journey to the tropics, but had not then decided where to go. 

 Mr. Bates' widow having kindly returned to me such of my 

 letters as he had preserved, I find in them some references to 

 the subjects in which I was then interested. I will, therefore, 

 here give a few extracts from them. 



In a letter written November 9, I finish by asking : 

 " Have you read * Vestiges of the Natural History of 

 Creation,' or is it out of your line ? " And in my next letter 

 (December 28), having had Bates' reply to the question, I say : 

 " I have rather a more favourable opinion of the * Vestiges ' 

 than you appear to have. I do not consider it a hasty 

 generalization, but rather as an ingenious hypothesis strongly 

 supported by some striking facts and analogies, but which 

 remains to be proved by more facts and the additional light 

 which more research may throw upon the problem. It 

 furnishes a subject for every observer of nature to attend to ; 

 every fact he observes will make either for or against it, and it 

 thus serves both as an incitement to the collection of facts, and 

 an object to which they can be applied when collected. Many 

 eminent writers support the theory of the progressive develop- 

 ment of animals and plants. There is a very philosophical 

 work bearing directly on the question — Lawrence's * Lectures 

 on Man' — delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons, 

 now published in a cheap form. The great object of these 

 * Lectures ' is to illustrate the different races of mankind, and 

 the manner in which they probably originated, and he arrives 



