As for Rotifers and Tardigrades being spontaneously generated, my mind can no more digest such statements, whether true or false, than my stomach can digest a lump of lead. Dr. Bastian is always comparing Archebiosis, as well as growth, to crystallisation; but, on this view, a Rotifer or Tardigrade is adapted to its humble conditions of life by a happy accident, and this I cannot believe...He must have worked with very impure materials in some cases, as plenty of organisms appeared in a saline solution not containing an atom of nitrogen.
I wholly disagree with Dr. Bastian about many points in his latter chapters. Thus the frequency of generalised forms in the older strata seems to me clearly to indicate the common descent with divergence of more recent forms. Notwithstanding all his sneers, I do not strike my colours as yet about Pangenesis. I should like to live to see Archebiosis proved true, for it would be a discovery of transcendent importance; or, if false, I should like to see it disproved, and the facts otherwise explained; but Ishall not live to see all this. If ever proved, Dr. Bastian will have taken a prominent part in the work. How grand is the onward rush of science; it is enough to console us for the many errors which we have committed, and for our efforts being overlaid and forgotten in the mass of new facts and new views which are daily turning up.
This is all I have to say about Dr. Bastian's book, and it certainly has not been worth saying...
CHARLES DARWIN TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
Down, December 11, 1872.
My dear Sir, I began reading your new book ('Histoire des Sciences et des Savants.'
1873.) sooner than I intended, and when I once began, I could not stop; and now you must allow me to thank you for the very great pleasure which it has given me. I have hardly ever read anything more original and interesting than your treatment of the causes which favour the development of scientific men. The whole was quite new to me, and most curious. When Ibegan your essay I was afraid that you were going to attack the principle of inheritance in relation to mind, but I soon found myself fully content to follow you and accept your limitations. I have felt, of course, special interest in the latter part of your work, but there was here less novelty to me. In many parts you do me much honour, and everywhere more than justice. Authors generally like to hear what points most strike different readers, so I will mention that of your shorter essays, that on the future prevalence of languages, and on vaccination interested me the most, as, indeed, did that on statistics, and free will. Great liability to certain diseases, being probably liable to atavism, is quite a new idea to me. At page 322 you suggest that a young swallow ought to be separated, and then let loose in order to test the power of instinct; but nature annually performs this experiment, as old cuckoos migrate in England some weeks before the young birds of the same year. By the way, I have just used the forbidden word "nature," which, after reading your essay, I almost determined never to use again. There are very few remarks in your book to which I demur, but when you back up Asa Gray in saying that all instincts are congenital habits, I must protest.
Finally, will you permit me to ask you a question: have you yourself, or some one who can be quite trusted, observed (page 322) that the butterflies on the Alps are tamer than those on the lowlands? Do they belong to the same species? Has this fact been observed with more than one species? Are they brightly coloured kinds? I am especially curious about their alighting on the brightly coloured parts of ladies' dresses, more especially because I have been more than once assured that butterflies like bright colours, for instance, in India the scarlet leaves of Poinsettia.
Once again allow me to thank you for having sent me your work, and for the very unusual amount of pleasure which I have received in reading it.
With much respect, I remain, my dear Sir, Yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.
[The last revise of the 'Expression of the Emotions' was finished on August 22nd, 1872, and he wrote in his Diary:--"Has taken me about twelve months."As usual he had no belief in the possibility of the book being generally successful. The following passage in a letter to Haeckel gives the impression that he had felt the writing of this book as a somewhat severe strain:--"I have finished my little book on 'Expression,' and when it is published in November I will of course send you a copy, in case you would like to read it for amusement. I have resumed some old botanical work, and perhaps I shall never again attempt to discuss theoretical views.
"I am growing old and weak, and no man can tell when his intellectual powers begin to fail. Long life and happiness to you for your own sake and for that of science."It was published in the autumn. The edition consisted of 7000, and of these 5267 copies were sold at Mr. Murray's sale in November. Two thousand were printed at the end of the year, and this proved a misfortune, as they did not afterwards sell so rapidly, and thus a mass of notes collected by the author was never employed for a second edition during his lifetime.
Among the reviews of the 'Expression of the Emotions' may be mentioned the unfavourable notices in the "Athenaeum", November 9, 1872, and the "Times", December 13, 1872. A good review by Mr. Wallace appeared in the 'Quarterly Journal of Science,' January 1873. Mr. Wallace truly remarks that the book exhibits certain "characteristics of the author's mind in an eminent degree," namely, "the insatiable longing to discover the causes of the varied and complex phenomena presented by living things." He adds that in the case of the author "the restless curiosity of the child to know the 'what for?' the 'why?' and the 'how?' of everything" seems "never to have abated its force."A writer in one of the theological reviews describes the book as the most "powerful and insidious" of all the author's works.