Down Bromley Kent 
Sept. 5th 
My dear Gray 
I forget the exact words which I used in my former letter, but I daresay I said that I thought you would 
utterly despise me, when I told you what views I had arrived at, which I did because I thought I was 
bound as an honest man to do so. 
I shd have been a strange mortal, seeing how much I owe to your quite extraordinary kindness, if in 
saying this I had meant to attribute the least bad feeling to you. Permit me to tell you, that before I had 
ever corresponded with you. Hooker had shown me several of your letters (not of a private nature) & 
these gave me the warmest feeling of respect to you; & I shd indeed be ungrateful if your letters to me 
& all I have heard of you, had not strongly enhanced this feeling. But I did not feel in the least sure that 
when you knew whither I was tending, that you might not think me so wild & foolish in my views (God 
knows arrived at slowly enough, & I hope conscientiously) that you would think me worth no more 
notice or assistance. To give one example, the last time I saw my dear old friend Falconer, he attacked 
me most vigorously, but quite kindly, & told me "you will do more harm than any ten naturalists will do 
good"— "I can see that you have already corrupted & half-spoiled Hooker"(!!). Now when 1 see such 
strong feeling in my oldest friends, you need not wonder that I always expect my views to be received 
with contempt. But enough & too much of this.— 
I thank you most truly for the kind spirit of your last letter. I agree to every word in it; & think I go as far 
as almost anyone in seeing the grave difficulties against my doctrine. With respect to the extent to 
which I go, all arguments in favour of my notions fall rapidly away the greater the scope of forms 
considered. But in animals, embryology leads me to an enormous & frightful range. The facts which kept 
me longest scientifically orthodox are those of adaptation— the pollen-masses in Asclepias —the 
misseltoe with its pollen carried by insects & seed by Birds the woodpecker with its feet & tail beak & 
tongue to climb trees & secure insects. To talk of climate or Lamarckian habit producing such 
adaptations to other organic beings is futile. This difficulty, I believe I have surmounted. As you seem 
interested in subject, & as it is an immense advantage to me to write to you & to hear ever so briefly, 
what you think, I will enclose (copied so as to save you trouble in reading) the briefest abstract of my 
notions on the means by which nature makes her species. Why I think that species have really changed 
depends on general facts in the affinities, embryology, rudimentary organs, geological history & 
geographical distribution of organic beings. In regard to my abstract you must take immensely on trust; 
each paragraph occupying one or two chapters in my Book. You will, perhaps, think it paltry in me, when 
I ask you not to mention my doctrine; the reason is, if anyone, like the Author of the Vestiges, were to 
hear of them, he might easily work them in, & then I shd have to quote from a work perhaps despised 
by naturalists & this would greatly injure any chance of my views being received by those alone whose 
opinion I value.— 
I have been lately at work on a point which interests me much; namely dividing the species of several 
Floras into two as nearly as equal cohorts as possible— one with all those forming large genera, & the 
other with the small genera. Thus in your U. States Flora, I make (with omissions of naturalised & of a 
