If you are IN EVEN SO SLIGHT A DEGREE staggered (which I hardly expect) on the immutability of species, then I am convinced with further reflection you will become more and more staggered, for this has been the process through which my mind has gone. My dear Henslow,
Yours affectionately and gratefully, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. (The present Sir John Lubbock.) Ilkley, Yorkshire, Saturday [November 12th, 1859].
...Thank you much for asking me to Brighton. I hope much that you will enjoy your holiday. I have told Murray to send a copy for you to Mansion House Street, and I am surprised that you have not received it. There are so many valid and weighty arguments against my notions, that you, or any one, if you wish on the other side, will easily persuade yourself that I am wholly in error, and no doubt I am in part in error, perhaps wholly so, though I cannot see the blindness of my ways. I dare say when thunder and lightning were first proved to be due to secondary causes, some regretted to give up the idea that each flash was caused by the direct hand of God.
Farewell, I am feeling very unwell to-day, so no more.
Yours very truly, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO JOHN LUBBOCK. Ilkley, Yorkshire, Tuesday [November 15th, 1859].
My dear Lubbock,
I beg pardon for troubling you again. I do not know how I blundered in expressing myself in making you believe that we accepted your kind invitation to Brighton. I meant merely to thank you sincerely for wishing to see such a worn-out old dog as myself. I hardly know when we leave this place,--not under a fortnight, and then we shall wish to rest under our own roof-tree.
I do not think I hardly ever admired a book more than Paley's 'Natural Theology.' I could almost formerly have said it by heart.
I am glad you have got my book, but I fear that you value it far too highly. I should be grateful for any criticisms. I care not for Reviews; but for the opinion of men like you and Hooker and Huxley and Lyell, etc.
Farewell, with our joint thanks to Mrs. Lubbock and yourself. Adios.
C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO L. JENYNS. (Now Rev. L. Blomefield.) Ilkley, Yorkshire, November 13th, 1859.
My dear Jenyns,
I must thank you for your very kind note forwarded to me from Down. I have been much out of health this summer, and have been hydropathising here for the last six weeks with very little good as yet. I shall stay here for another fortnight at least. Please remember that my book is only an abstract, and very much condensed, and, to be at all intelligible, must be carefully read. I shall be very grateful for any criticisms. But I know perfectly well that you will not at all agree with the lengths which I go. It took long years to convert me. I may, of course, be egregiously wrong; but I cannot persuade myself that a theory which explains (as I think it certainly does) several large classes of facts, can be wholly wrong; notwithstanding the several difficulties which have to be surmounted somehow, and which stagger me even to this day.
I wish that my health had allowed me to publish in extenso; if ever I get strong enough I will do so, as the greater part is written out, and of which MS. the present volume is an abstract.
I fear this note will be almost illegible; but I am poorly, and can hardly sit up. Farewell; with thanks for your kind note and pleasant remembrance of good old days.
Yours very sincerely, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO A.R. WALLACE. Ilkley, November 13th, 1859.
My dear Sir,
I have told Murray to send you by post (if possible) a copy of my book, and I hope that you will receive it at nearly the same time with this note. (N.B. I have got a bad finger, which makes me write extra badly.) If you are so inclined, I should very much like to hear your general impression of the book, as you have thought so profoundly on the subject, and in so nearly the same channel with myself. I hope there will be some little new to you, but I fear not much.