372 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



south-west coast of the island of Waigiou, at the north-west 

 extremity of New Guinea. How I came here would be too 

 long to tell, the details I send to my mother and refer you 

 to her. While hon. members are shooting partridges I am 

 shooting, or trying to shoot, birds of paradise — red at that, 

 as our friend Morris Haggar would say. But enough of this 

 nonsense. I meant to write you of matters more worthy of a 

 naturalist's pen. I have been reading of late two books of 

 the highest interest, but of most diverse characters, and I wish 

 to recommend their perusal to you if you have time for any- 

 thing but work or politics. They are Dr. Leon Dufour's 

 * Histoire de la Prostitution ' and Darwin's * Origin of Species.* 

 If there is an English translation of the first, pray get it. 

 Every student of men and morals should read it, and if many 

 who talk gHbly of putting down the * social evil ' were first 

 to devote a few days to its study, they would be both much 

 better qualified to give an opinion and much more diffident 

 of their capacity to deal with it. The work is truly a history, 

 and a great one, and reveals pictures of human nature more 

 wild and incredible than the pen of the romancist ever dared 

 to delineate. I doubt if many classical scholars have an idea 

 of what were really the habits and daily life of the Romans 

 as here delineated. Again I say, read it. 



" The other book you may have heard of and perhaps read, 

 but it is not one perusal which will enable any man to 

 appreciate it. I have read it through five or six times, each 

 time with increasing admiration. It will live as long as the 

 *Principia' of Newton. It shows that nature is, as I before 

 remarked to you, a study that yields to none in grandeur and 

 immensity. The cycles of astronomy or even the periods of 

 geology will alone enable us to appreciate the vast depths of 

 time we have to contemplate in the endeavour to understand 

 the slow growth of life upon the earth. The most intricate 

 effects of the law of gravitation, the mutual disturbances of 

 all the bodies of the solar system, are simplicity itself com- 

 pared with the intricate relations and complicated struggle 

 which have determined what forms of life shall exist and in 

 what proportions. Mr. Darwin has given the world a new 



