PUBLICATION OF THE ' OEIGIN ' 511 
did not fully appreciate them all, and there are many little 
matters I hope one day to talk over with you. I saw a 
highly flattering notice in the ' English Churchman ' — short 
and not at all entering into discussion, but praising you and 
your book and talking patronisingly of the Doctrine ! 
Bentham and Henslow will still shake their heads, I 
fancy. 
Ever yours affectionately, 
Jos. D. Hooker. 
P.S. — I expect to think that I would rather be author of 
your book than of any other on Nat. Hist. Science. 
Kew : January, about 20th, 1860. 
Dear Darwin,— I have had another talk with Bentha-m, 
who is gi'eatly agitated by your book— evidently the stern 
keen intellect is aroused and he finds it is too late to halt 
between two opinions ; how it will go we shall see. I am 
intensely interested in what he shall come to and never 
broach the subject to him. 
I finished Geolog. Evidence Chapters yesterday : they 
are very fine and very striking, but I cannot see they are such 
forcible objections as you still hold them to be. I would 
say that you still in your secret soul underrate the imper- 
fection of Geol. Eecord, though no language can be stronger 
or arguments fairer and sounder against it. Of course I 
am influenced by Botany and the conviction that we have 
in a fossihzed condition i of the plants that have existed, 
and that not ttfuVoo o^ t^^^e we have are recognisable 
specifically. I never saw so clearly just the fact that it is 
not intermediates between existing species we want but 
between these and the unknown tertium quid. 
You certainly make a hobby of Nat. Selection and 
probably ride it too hard— that is a necessity of your case. 
If improvement of the creation by variation doctrine is 
conceivable, it will be by unburdening your theory of Natural 
Selection, which at first sight seems overstrained ; i.e. to 
account for too much. I think too that some of your 
difficulties w^hich you override by Nat. Selection may give 
way before other explanations, — but oh Lord ! hov/ little 
we do know and have known, to be so advanced in know- 
ledge by one theory. If we thought ourselves to be knowing 
