when he says all anatomists were
astonished at Owen's paper: it was often quoted with approbation. I
_well_ remember Lyell's admiration at this new classification! (Do not
repeat this.) I remember it because, though I knew nothing whatever
about the brain, I felt a conviction that a classification thus founded
on a single character would break down, and it seemed to me a great
error not to separate more completely the Marsupialia....
What an accursed evil it is that there should be all this quarreling,
within what ought to be the peaceful realms of science.
I will go to my own present subject of inheritance and forget it all for
a time. Farewell, my dear old friend.
C. DARWIN.
C. DARWIN TO T. H. HUXLEY
OCTOBER 3d, 1864.
_My Dear Huxley:_
If I do not pour out my admiration of your article on Koelliker, I shall
explode. I never read anything better done. I had much wished his
article answered, and indeed thought of doing so myself, so that I
considered several points. You have hit on all, and on some in addition,
and oh, by Jove, how well you have done it! As I read on and came to
point after point on which I had thought, I could not help jeering and
scoffing at myself, to see how infinitely better you had done it than I
could have done. Well, if any one who does not understand Natural
Selection will read this, he will be a blockhead if it is not as clear
as daylight. Old Flourens was hardly worth the powder and shot; but how
capitally you bring in about the Academician, and your metaphor of the
sea-sand is _inimitable_.
It is a marvel to me how you can resist becoming a regular reviewer.
Well, I have exploded now, and it has done me a deal of good.
C. DARWIN TO E. RAY LANKESTER
DOWN, March 15th [1870].
_My Dear Sir:_
I do not know whether you will consider me a very troublesome man, but I
have just finished your book, and cannot resist telling you how the
whole has much interested me. No doubt, as you say, there must be much
speculation on such a subject, and certain results cannot be reached;
but all your views are highly suggestive, and to my mind that is high
praise. I have been all the more interested, as I am now writing on
closely allied though not quite identical points. I was pleased to see
you refer to my much despised child, 'Pangenesis,' who I think will some
day, under some better nurse, turn out a fine stripling. It has also
pleased me to see how thorou
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