Talking of "natural selection;" if I had to commence de novo, I would have used "natural preservation." For I find men like Harvey of Dublin cannot understand me, though he has read the book twice. Dr. Gray of the British Museum remarked to me that, "SELECTION was obviously impossible with plants! No one could tell him how it could be possible!" And he may now add that the author did not attempt it to him!
Yours ever affectionately, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. 15 Marine Parade, Eastbourne, October 8th [1860].
My dear Lyell,
I send the [English] translation of Bronn (A MS. translation of Bronn's chapter of objections at the end of his German translation of the 'Origin of Species.'), the first part of the chapter with generalities and praise is not translated. There are some good hits. He makes an apparently, and in part truly, telling case against me, says that I cannot explain why one rat has a longer tail and another longer ears, etc. But he seems to muddle in assuming that these parts did not all vary together, or one part so insensibly before the other, as to be in fact contemporaneous. I might ask the creationist whether he thinks these differences in the two rats of any use, or as standing in some relation from laws of growth; and if he admits this, selection might come into play. He who thinks that God created animals unlike for mere sport or variety, as man fashions his clothes, will not admit any force in my argumentum ad hominem.
Bronn blunders about my supposing several Glacial periods, whether or no such ever did occur.
He blunders about my supposing that development goes on at the same rate in all parts of the world. I presume that he has misunderstood this from the supposed migration into all regions of the more dominant forms.
I have ordered Dr. Bree ('Species not Transmutable,' by C.R. Bree, 1860.), and will lend it to you, if you like, and if it turns out good.
...I am very glad that I misunderstood you about species not having the capacity to vary, though in fact few do give birth to new species. It seems that I am very apt to misunderstand you; I suppose I am always fancying objections. Your case of the Red Indian shows me that we agree entirely...
I had a letter yesterday from Thwaites of Ceylon, who was much opposed to me. He now says, "I find that the more familiar I become with your views in connection with the various phenomena of nature, the more they commend themselves to my mind."
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.M. RODWELL. (Rev. J.M. Rodwell, who was at Cambridge with my father, remembers him saying:--"It strikes me that all our knowledge about the structure of our earth is very much like what an old hen would know of a hundred acre field, in a corner of which she is scratching.") 15 Marine Parade, Eastbourne. November 5th [1860].
My dear Sir,
I am extremely much obliged for your letter, which I can compare only to a plum-pudding, so full it is of good things. I have been rash about the cats ("Cats with blue eyes are invariably deaf," 'Origin of Species,' edition i. page 12.): yet I spoke on what seemed to me, good authority. The Rev. W.D. Fox gave me a list of cases of various foreign breeds in which he had observed the correlation, and for years he had vainly sought an exception. A French paper also gives numerous cases, and one very curious case of a kitten which GRADUALLY lost the blue colour in its eyes and as gradually acquired its power of hearing. I had not heard of your uncle, Mr. Kirby's case (William Kirby, joint author with Spence, of the well-known 'Introduction to Entomology,' 1818.) (whom I, for as long as I can remember, have venerated) of care in breeding cats. I do not know whether Mr. Kirby was your uncle by marriage, but your letters show me that you ought to have Kirby blood in your veins, and that if you had not taken to languages you would have been a first-rate naturalist.
I sincerely hope that you will be able to carry out your intention of writing on the "Birth, Life, and Death of Words." Anyhow, you have a capital title, and some think this the most difficult part of a book.