I enclose a criticism, a taste of the future--
_Rev. S. Haughton's Address to the Geological Society, Dublin._[159]
"This speculation of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace would not be worthy of notice were it not for the weight of authority of the names (_i.e._ Lyell's and yours), under whose auspices it has been brought forward. If it means what it says, it is a truism; if it means anything more, it is contrary to fact."
_C. D. to J. D. Hooker._ Down, May 11th [1859].
MY DEAR HOOKER,--Thank you for telling me about obscurity of style. But on my life no nigger with lash over him could have worked harder at clearness than I have done. But the very difficulty to me, of itself leads to the probability that I fail. Yet one lady who has read all my MS. has found only two or three obscure sentences; but Mrs. Hooker having so found it, makes me tremble. I will do my best in proofs. You are a good man to take the trouble to write about it.
With respect to our mutual muddle,[160] I never for a moment thought we could not make our ideas clear to each other by talk, or if either of us had time to write _in extenso_.
I imagine from some expressions (but if you ask me what, I could not answer) that you look at variability as some necessary contingency with organisms, and further that there is some necessary tendency in the variability to go on diverging in character or degree. _If you do_, I do not agree. "Reversion" again (a form of inheritance), I look at as in no way directly connected with Variation, though of course inheritance is of fundamental importance to us, for if a variation be not inherited, it is of no signification to us. It was on such points as these I _fancied_ that we perhaps started differently.
I fear that my book will not deserve at all the pleasant things you say about it, and Good Lord, how I do long to have done with it!
Since the above was written, I have received and have been _much interested_ by A. Gray. I am delighted at his note about my and Wallace's paper. He will go round, for it is futile to give up very many species, and stop at an arbitrary line at others. It is what my father called Unitarianism, "a featherbed to catch a falling Christian."...
_C. D. to J. Murray._ Down, June 14th [1859].