for himself, but you would not say interest was dying out if you were to look at the last number of the Anthropological Review, in which I am incessantly sneered at. I think Lyell's Principles will produce a considerable effect. I hope I have given you the sort of information which you want. My head is rather unsteady, which makes my handwriting worse than usual.
If you argue about the non-acceptance of Natural Selection, it seems to me a very striking fact that the Newtonian theory of gravitation, which seems to every one now so certain and plain, was rejected by a man so extraordinarily able as Leibnitz. The truth will not penetrate a preoccupied mind.
Wallace, in the Westminster Review, in an article on Protection has a good passage, contrasting the success of Natural Selection and its growth with the comprehension of new classes of facts, with false theories, such as the Quinarian Theory, and that of Polarity, by poor Forbes, both of which were promulgated with high advantages and the first temporarily accepted.
| To C. Lyell. |
| 15, Marine Parade, Eastbourne, Oct. 3rd [1860]. |
Your last letter has interested me much in many ways.
I enclose a letter of Wyman's which touches on brains. Wyman is mistaken in supposing that I did not know that the Cave-rat was an American form; I made special enquiries. He does not know that the eye of the Tucutuco was carefully dissected.
With respect to reviews by A. Gray. I thought of sending the Dialogue to the Saturday Review in a week's time or so, as they have lately discussed Design. I have sent the second, or August, Atlantic article to the Annals and Mag. of Nat. History. The copy which you have I want to send to Pictet, as I told A. Gray I would, thinking from what he said he would like this to be done. I doubt whether it would be possible to get the October number reprinted in this country; so that I am in no hurry at all for this.
I had a letter a few weeks ago from Symonds on the imperfection of the Geological Record, less clear and forcible than I expected. I answered him at length and very civilly, though I could hardly make out what he was driving at. He spoke about you in a way which it did me good to read.
I am extremely glad that you like A. Gray's reviews. How generous and unselfish he has been in all his labour! Are you not struck by his metaphors and similes? I have told him he is a poet and not a lawyer.
I should altogether doubt on turtles being converted into land tortoises on any one island. Remember how closely similar tortoises are
