90 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. III. 
following note written to Lyell, which is included 
by Francis Darwin in his ‘ Life’ of his father : — 
‘ How curious I shall be to know what line 
Owen will take ! Dead against us, I fear ; but he 
wrote me a most liberal note on the reception of 
my book, and said he was quite prepared to 
answer fairly, and without prejudice, my line of 
argument’ 
After a meeting with Owen, Darwin writes 
him the following interesting letter respecting the 
‘ Origin :’ — 
Down, Bromley, Kent : December 13 (1859). 
‘ Dear Owen, — ... You made a remark in 
our conversation something to the effect that my 
book could not probably be true as it attempted 
to explain so much. I can only answer that this 
might be objected to any view embracing two or 
three classes of facts. Yet I assure you that its 
truth has often and often weighed heavily on me ; 
and I have thought that perhaps my book might 
be a case like Macleay’s quinary system.® So 
strongly did I feel this that I resolved to give 
it all up, as far as I could, if I did not convince 
at least two or three competent judges. You 
smiled at me for sticking myself up as a martyr ; 
but I assure you if you had heard the unmerciful 
and, I think, unjust things said of my book and to 
8 ‘ An artificial attempt at a among naturalists.’— Nat. 
natural system of classification Biogr. 
which soon became a byword 
