black and red colours, whilst feeding on large green leaves. If any one objected to male butterflies having been made beautiful by sexual selection, and asked why should they not have been made beautiful as well as their caterpillars, what would you answer? I could not answer, but should maintain my ground. Will you think over this, and some time, either by letter or when we meet, tell me what you think?

He seems to have received an explanation by return of post, for a day or two afterwards he could write to Wallace :

"Bates was quite right; you are the man to apply to in a difficulty. I never heard anything more ingenious than your suggestion, and I hope you may be able to prove it true. That is a splendid fact about the white moths; it warms one's very blood to see a theory thus almost proved to be true."

Mr. Wallace's suggestion was that conspicuous caterpillars or perfect insects (e.g. white butterflies), which are distasteful to birds, benefit by being promptly recognised and therefore easily avoided.*

The letter from Darwin to Wallace goes on: "The reason of my being so much interested just at present about sexual selection is, that I have almost resolved to publish a little essay on the origin of Mankind, and I still strongly think (though I failed to convince you, and this, to me, is the heaviest blow possible) that sexual selection has been the main agent in forming the races of man.

"By the way, there is another subject which I shall introduce in my essay, namely, expression of countenance. Now, do you happen to know by any odd chance a very good-natured and acute observer in the Malay Archipelago, who you think would make a few easy observations for me on the expression of the Malays when excited by various emotions?"

The reference to the subject of expression in the above letter is explained by the fact, that my father's original intention was to give his essay on this subject as a chapter in the Descent of Man, which in its turn grew, as we have seen, out of a proposed chapter in Animals and Plants.

He got much valuable help from Dr. Günther, of the Natural History Museum, to whom he wrote in May 1870 :

"As I crawl on with the successive classes I am astonished to find how similar the rules are about the nuptial or wedding

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* Mr. Jenner Weir's observations published in the Transactions of the Entomological Society (1869 and 1870) give strong support to the theory in question.

dress' of all animals. The subject has begun to interest me in an extraordinary degree; but I must try not to fall into my common error of being too speculative. But a drunkard might as well say he would drink a little and not too much! My essay, as far as fishes, batrachians and reptiles are concerned, will be in fact yours, only written by me.'

The last revise of the Descent of Man was corrected on January 15th, 1871, so that the book occupied him for about three years. He wrote to Sir J. Hooker: "I finished the last proofs of my book a few days ago; the work half-killed me, and I have not the most remote idea whether the book is worth publishing."

He also wrote to Dr. Gray:

"I have finished my book on the Descent of Man, &c., and its publication is delayed only by the Index: when published, I will send you a copy, but I do not know that you will care about it. Parts, as on the moral sense, will, I dare say, aggravate you, and if I hear from you, I shall probably receive a few stabs from your polished stiletto of a pen."

The book was published on February 24, 1871. 2500 copies were printed at first, and 5000 more before the end of the year. My father notes that he received for this edition £1470.

Nothing can give a better idea (in a small compass) of the growth of Evolutionism, and its position at this time, than a quotation from Mr. Huxley *:—

:

"The gradual lapse of time has now separated us by more than a decade from the date of the publication of the Origin of Species; and whatever may be thought or said about Mr. Darwin's doctrines, or the manner in which he has propounded them, this much is certain, that in a dozen years the Origin of Species has worked as complete a revolution in Biological Science as the Principia did in Astronomy;" and it had done So, "because in the words of Helmholtz, it contains an essentially new creative thought.' And, as time has slipped by, a happy change has come over Mr. Darwin's critics. The mixture of ignorance and insolence which at first characterised a large proportion of the attacks with which he was assailed, is no longer the sad distinction of anti-Darwinian criticism."

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A passage in the Introduction to the Descent of Man shows that the author recognised clearly this improvement in the position of Evolutionism. "When a naturalist like Carl Vogt ventures to say in his address, as President of the National

*Contemporary Review, 1871.

Institution of Geneva (1869), personne, en Europe au moins, n'ose plus soutenir la création indépendante et de toutes pièces, des espèces,' it is manifest that at least a large number of naturalists must admit that species are the modified descendants of other species; and this especially holds good with the younger and rising naturalists. Of the older and honoured chiefs in natural science, many, unfortunately, are still opposed to Evolution in every form."

In Mr. James Hague's pleasantly written article, "A Reminiscence of Mr. Darwin" (Harper's Magazine, October 1884), he describes a visit to my father "early in 1871,” shortly after the publication of the Descent of Man. Mr. Hague represents my father as "much impressed by the general assent with which his views had been received," and as remarking that "everybody is talking about it without being shocked."

Later in the year the reception of the book is described in different language in the Edinburgh Review: "On every side it is raising a storm of mingled wrath, wonder and admiration."

Haeckel seems to have been one of the first to write to my father about the Descent of Man. I quote from Darwin's reply :

"I must send you a few words to thank you for your interesting, and I may truly say, charming letter. I am delighted that you approve of my book, as far as you have read it. I felt very great difficulty and doubt how often I ought to allude to what you have published; strictly speaking every idea, although occurring independently to me, if published by you previously ought to have appeared as if taken from your works, but this would have made my book very dull reading; and I hoped that a full acknowledgment at the beginning would suffice.* I cannot tell you how glad I am to find that I have expressed my high admiration of your labours with sufficient clearness; I am sure that I have not expressed it too strongly."

In March he wrote to Professor Ray Lankester :—

"I think you will be glad to hear, as a proof of the

* In the introduction to the Descent of Man the author wrote:-"This last naturalist [Haeckel] has recently published his Natürliche Schöpfungs-Geschichte, in which he fully discusses the genealogy of man. If this work had appeared before my essay had been written, I should probably never have completed it. Almost all the conclusions at which I have arrived, I find confirmed by this naturalist, whose knowledge on many points is much fuller than mine."

increasing liberality of England, that my book has sold wonderfully and as yet no abuse (though some, no doubt, will come, strong enough), and only contempt even in the poor old Athenæum."

About the same time he wrote to Mr. Murray :

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Many thanks for the Nonconformist [March 8, 1871]. I like to see all that is written, and it is of some real use. If you hear of reviewers in out-of-the-way papers, especially the religious, as Record, Guardian, Tablet, kindly inform me. It is wonderful that there has been no abuse as yet. On the whole, the reviews have been highly favourable."

The following extract from a letter to Mr. Murray (April 13, 1871) refers to a review in the Times *

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"I have no idea who wrote the Times' review. He has no knowledge of science, and seems to me a wind-bag full of metaphysics and classics, so that I do not much regard his adverse judgment, though I suppose it will injure the sale."

A striking review appeared in the Saturday Review (March 4 and 11, 1871) in which the position of Evolution is well stated. "He claims to have brought man himself, his origin and constitution, within that unity which he had previously sought to trace through all lower animal forms. The growth of opinion in the interval, due in chief measure to his own intermediate works, has placed the discussion of this problem in a position very much in advance of that held by it fifteen years ago. The problem of Evolution is hardly any longer to be treated as one of first principles: nor has Mr. Darwin to do battle for a first hearing of his central hypothesis, upborne as it is by a phalanx of names full of distinction and promise in either hemisphere."

We must now return to the history of the general principle of Evolution. At the beginning of 1869 † he was at work on

* April 7 and 8, 1871.

† His holiday this year was at Caerdeon, on the north shore of the beautiful Barmouth estuary, and pleasantly placed in being close to wild hill country behind, as well as to the picturesque wooded “hummocks," between the steeper hills and the river. My father was ill and somewhat depressed throughout this visit, and I think felt imprisoned and saddened by his inability to reach the hills over which he had once wandered for days together.

He wrote from Caerdeon to Sir J. D. Hooker (June 22nd):

"We have been here for ten days, how I wish it was possible for you to pay us a visit here; we have a beautiful house with a terraced garden, and a really magnificent view of Cader, right opposite. Old Cader is a grand fellow, and shows himself off superbly with every changing light. We remain here till the end of July, when the H. Wedgwoods have the

T

the fifth edition of the Origin. The most important alterations were suggested by a remarkable paper in the North British Review (June, 1867) written by the late Fleeming Jenkin.

It is not a little remarkable that the criticisms, which my father, as I believe, felt to be the most valuable ever made on his views should have come, not from a professed naturalist but from a Professor of Engineering.

The point on which Fleeming Jenkin convinced my father is the extreme difficulty of believing that single individuals, which differ from their fellows in the possession of some useful character can be the starting point of a new variety. Thus the origin of a new variety is more likely to be found in a species which presents the incipient character in a large number of its individuals. This point of view was of course perfectly familiar to him, it was this that induced him to study "unconscious selection," where a breed is formed by the longcontinued preservation by Man of all those individuals which are best adapted to his needs: not as in the art of the professed breeder, where a single individual is picked out to breed from.

It is impossible to give in a short compass an account of Fleeming Jenkin's argument. My father's copy of the paper (ripped out of the volume as usual, and tied with a bit of string) is annotated in pencil in many places. I quote a passage opposite which my father has written good

sneers "-but it should be remembered that he used the word "sneer" in rather a special sense, not as necessarily implying a feeling of bitterness in the critic, but rather in the sense of "banter." Speaking of the "true believer," Fleeming Jenkin says, p. 293:

"He can invent trains of ancestors of whose existence there is no evidence; he can marshal hosts of equally imaginary foes; he can call up continents, floods, and peculiar atmospheres ; he can dry up oceans, split islands, and parcel out eternity at will; surely with these advantages he must be a dull fellow if he cannot scheme some series of animals and circumstances explaining our assumed difficulty quite naturally. Feeling the difficulty of dealing with adversaries who command so huge a domain of fancy, we will abandon these arguments, and trust to

house. I have been as yet in a very poor way; it seems as soon as the stimulus of mental work stops, my whole strength gives way. As yet I have hardly crawled half a mile from the house, and then have been fearfully fatigued. It is enough to make one wish oneself quiet in a comfortable tomb."