INDEPENDENT LINES OF THOUGHT 501 
special investigations, the result of which often helped to push 
him along the Darwinian path, were frequently prompted or 
stimulated by Darwin's enquiries. His own ideas involved 
mutabiUty of species. Yet so long as he remained unpersuaded 
of a true cause for mutability, he could hardly have carried 
these ideas to their full completion. 
Darwin's feeling, well expressed in the letter of December 25, 
1859, which is given in the * Life and Letters,' ii. 252, appears 
further from an as yet unpublished passage in his letter of 
November 14, 1858, the remainder of which is given in CD. ii. 
139 and M.L. i. 455. 
I have for some time thought that I have done you an 
ill-service, in return for the immense good which I have 
reaped from you, in discussing all my notions with you ; 
and now there is no doubt of it, as you would have arrived 
at the mixture [?] independently. My only comfort is, 
that without you were prepared to give up species, you must 
have been greatly bothered in your conclusions, for the 
ranges of identical and representative species are so mixed 
up in this case, as hardly to be separated. And I can most 
truly say that I never thought that I might be interfering 
with your independent work. 
And again, on January 28, 1859 : 
I never did pick anybody's pocket, but whilst writing 
my present chapter [Geographical Distribution] I keep on 
feehng (even while differing most from you) just as if I were 
steaHng from you, so much do I owe to your writings and 
conversation : so much more than mere acknowledgments 
show. 
Hooker, however, took the opposite view in the missing 
letter to which Darwin replies on April 2 : 
Do not fear about interfering with me in your pubhca- 
tions. I have little doubt your views will be, and have 
arisen, independent of mine. 
[And on Ap. 7,] The Fl. Austr. and Origin contain much 
of the same, but yet somehow everything is taken up from 
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