ten-repeated assertion that our aristocracy are
more beautiful than the middle classes. I allow that they present
_specimens_ of the highest kind of beauty, but I doubt the average. I
have noticed in country places a greater average amount of good looks
among the middle classes, and besides, we unavoidably combine in our
idea of beauty, intellectual expression and refinement of _manner_,
which often make the less appear the more beautiful. Mere physical
beauty--that is, a healthy and regular development of the body and
features approaching to the _mean_ or _type_ of European man--I believe
is quite as frequent in one class of society as the other, and much more
frequent in rural districts than in cities.

With regard to the rank of man in zoological classification, I fear I
have not made myself intelligible. I never meant to adopt Owen's or any
other such views, but only to point out that from _one_ point of view he
was right. I hold that a distinct _family_ for man, as Huxley allows, is
all that can possibly be given him zoologically. But at the same time,
if my theory is true--that while the animals which surrounded him have
been undergoing modification in _all_ parts of their bodies to a
_generic_ or even _family_ degree of difference, he has been changing
almost wholly in the brain and head--then, in geological antiquity the
_species_ of man may be as old as many mammalian _families_, and the
origin of the _family_ man may date back to a period when some of the
orders first originated.

As to the theory of Natural Selection itself, I shall always maintain it
to be actually yours and yours only. You had worked it out in details I
had never thought of, years before I had a ray of light on the subject,
and my paper would never have convinced anybody or been noticed as more
than an ingenious speculation, whereas your book has revolutionised the
study of natural history, and carried away captive the best men of the
present age. All the merit I claim is the having been the means of
inducing _you_ to write and publish at once.

I may possibly some day go a little more into this subject (of Man),
and, if I do, will accept the kind offer of your notes. I am now,
however, beginning to write the "Narrative of my Travels" which will
occupy me a long time, as I hate writing narrative, and after Bates's
brilliant success rather fear to fail. I shall introduce a few chapters
on geographical distribution and other such topics.