84 MY LIFE [Chap. 



the following letter to the author, which may be of interest to 

 those naturalists who either have not seen the work or who 

 have forgotten its essential features : — 



" Waldron Edge, Duppas Hill, Croydon, 

 ''May 9, 1879. 



"My dear Sir, 



" Please accept my thanks for the copy of ' Evolu- 

 tion Old and New,' and of ' Life and Habit,' which you were 

 so good as to send me. 



" I have just finished reading the former with mixed feel- 

 ings of pleasure and regret. I am glad that a connected 

 account of the views of Buffon, Dr. Darwin, and Lamarck, and 

 especially of Mr. Patrick Matthew, should be given to the 

 world ; but I am sorry that you should have, as I think, so 

 completely failed in a just estimation of the value of their 

 work as compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin, — because 

 it will necessarily prejudice naturalists against you, and will 

 cause * Life and Habit ' to be neglected ; and this I should 

 greatly regret. 



" To my mind, your quotations from Mr. Patrick Matthew 

 are the most remarkable things in your whole book, because 

 he appears to have completely anticipated the main ideas 

 both of the ' Origin of Species ' and of ' Life and Habit' 



" I should have to write a long article to criticize your book 

 (which perhaps I may do). In your admiration of Lamarck 

 you do not seem to observe that his views are all pure con- 

 jecture, utterly unsupported by a single fact. Where has it 

 been proved that, in any one case, desires have caused varia- 

 tion ? It is pure theory, with no fact to support it. And even 

 if desires might, in a long course of generations, produce some 

 effect, it can be demonstrated that in the same time * natural 

 selection ' or * survival of the fittest ' would produce so much 

 greater an effect as to overpower the other unless the two 

 worked together. 



" I am sorry to see also much that seems to me mere 

 verbal quibbles. For instance, at p. 388 (last par.) you turn 



