You have cockered me up to that extent, that I now feel I can face a score of savage reviewers. I suppose you are still with the Lyells. Give my kindest remembrance to them. I triumph to hear that he continues to approve.
Believe me, your would-be modest friend.
The following passage from a letter to Lyell shows how strongly he felt on the subject of Lyell's adherence:—"I rejoice profoundly that you intend admitting the doctrine of modification in your new edition;[172] nothing, I am convinced, could be more important for its success. I honour you most sincerely. To have maintained in the position of a master, one side of a question for thirty years, and then deliberately give it up, is a fact to which I much doubt whether the records of science offer a parallel. For myself, also I rejoice profoundly; for, thinking of so many cases of men pursuing an illusion for years, often and often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted my life to a phantasy. Now I look at it as morally impossible that investigators of truth, like you and Hooker, can be wholly wrong, and therefore I rest in peace."
T. H. Huxley[173] to C. Darwin. Jermyn Street, W. November 23rd, 1859.
My dear Darwin,—I finished your book yesterday, a lucky examination having furnished me with a few hours of continuous leisure.
Since I read Von Bär's[174] essays, nine years ago, no work on Natural History Science I have met with has made so great an impression upon me, and I do most heartily thank you for the great store of new views you have given me. Nothing, I think, can be better than the tone of the book, it impresses those who know nothing about the subject. As for your doctrine, I am prepared to go to the stake, if requisite, in support of Chapter IX.,[175] and most parts of Chapters X., XI., XII.; and Chapter XIII. contains much that is most admirable, but on one or two points I enter a caveat until I can see further into all sides of the question.
As to the first four chapters, I agree thoroughly and fully with all the principles laid down in them. I think you have demonstrated a true cause for the production of species, and have thrown the onus probandi, that species did not arise in the way you suppose, on your adversaries.
But I feel that I have not yet by any means fully realized the bearings of those most remarkable and original Chapters III., IV. and V., and I will write no more about them just now.
The only objections that have occurred to me are, 1st that you have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum so unreservedly.... And 2nd, it is not clear to me why, if continual physical conditions are of so little moment as you suppose, variation should occur at all.
However, I must read the book two or three times more before I presume to begin picking holes.