I was uncommonly interested by the sketch you give of your intended grand expedition, from which I suppose you will soon be returning. How earnestly I hope that it may prove in every way successful...
[When my father was at the Water-cure Establishment at Malvern he was brought into contact with clairvoyance, of which he writes in the following extract from a letter to Fox, September, 1850.
"You speak about Homoeopathy, which is a subject which makes me more wrath, even than does Clairvoyance. Clairvoyance so transcends belief, that one's ordinary faculties are put out of the question, but in homoeopathy common sense and common observation come into play, and both these must go to the dogs, if the infinitesimal doses have any effect whatever. How true is a remark I saw the other day by Quetelet, in respect to evidence of curative processes, viz., that no one knows in disease what is the simple result of nothing being done, as a standard with which to compare homoeopathy, and all other such things. It is a sad flaw, I cannot but think, in my beloved Dr. Gully, that he believes in everything. When Miss -- was very ill, he had a clairvoyant girl to report on internal changes, a mesmerist to put her to sleep--an homoeopathist, viz. Dr. --, and himself as hydropathist! and the girl recovered."
A passage out of an earlier letter to Fox (December, 1884) shows that he was equally sceptical on the subject of mesmerism: "With respect to mesmerism, the whole country resounds with wonderful facts or tales..I have just heard of a child, three or four years old (whose parents and self I well knew) mesmerised by his father, which is the first fact which has staggered me. I shall not believe fully till I see or hear from good evidence of animals (as has been stated is possible) not drugged, being put to stupor; of course the impossibility would not prove mesmerism false; but it is the only clear experimentum crucis, and I am astonished it has not been systematically tried. If mesmerism was investigated, like a science, this could not have been left till the present day to be DONE SATISFACTORILY, as it has been I believe left. Keep some cats yourself, and do get some mesmeriser to attempt it. One man told me he had succeeded, but his experiments were most vague, and as was likely from a man who said cats were more easily done than other animals, because they were so electrical!"]
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, December 4th [1849].
My dear Lyell,
This letter requires no answer, and I write from exuberance of vanity. Dana has sent me the Geology of the United States Expedition, and I have just read the Coral part. To begin with a modest speech, I AM ASTONISHED AT MY OWN ACCURACY!! If I were to rewrite now my Coral book there is hardly a sentence I should have to alter, except that I ought to have attributed more effect to recent volcanic action in checking growth of coral. When I say all this I ought to add that the CONSEQUENCES of the theory on areas of subsidence are treated in a separate chapter to which I have not come, and in this, I suspect, we shall differ more. Dana talks of agreeing with my theory IN MOST POINTS; I can find out not one in which he differs. Considering how infinitely more he saw of Coral Reefs than I did, this is wonderfully satisfactory to me. He treats me most courteously. There now, my vanity is pretty well satisfied...
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Malvern, April 9th, 1849.
My dear Hooker,
The very next morning after posting my last letter (I think on 23rd of March), I received your two interesting gossipaceous and geological letters; and the latter I have since exchanged with Lyell for his. I will write higglety-pigglety just as subjects occur. I saw the Review in the 'Athenaeum,' it was written in an ill-natured spirit; but the whole virus consisted in saying that there was not novelty enough in your remarks for publication. No one, nowadays, cares for reviews. I may just mention that my Journal got some REAL GOOD abuse, "presumption," etc.,--ended with saying that the volume appeared "made up of the scraps and rubbish of the author's portfolio." I most truly enter into what you say, and quite believe you that you care only for the review with respect to your father; and that this ALONE would make you like to see extracts from your letters more properly noticed in this same periodical.