... I think you expect too much in regard to change of opinion on the subject of Species. One large class of men, more especially I suspect of naturalists, never will care about any general question, of which old Gray, of the British Museum, may be taken as a type; and secondly, nearly all men past a moderate age, either in actual years or in mind are, I am fully convinced, incapable of looking at facts under a new point of view. Seriously, I am astonished and rejoiced at the progress which the subject has made; look at the enclosed memorandum. —— says my book will be forgotten in ten years, perhaps so; but, with such a list, I feel convinced the subject will not.

[Here follows the memorandum referred to:]

Geologists.Zoologists and
Palæontologists.		Physiologists.Botanists.
Lyell.
Ramsay.[196]
Jukes.[197]
H. D. Rogers.[198]		Huxley.
J. Lubbock.
L. Jenyns
(to large extent).
Searles Wood.[199]		Carpenter.
Sir. H. Holland
(to large extent).		Hooker.
H. C. Watson.
Asa Gray
(to some extent).
Dr. Boott
(to large extent).
Thwaites.[200]

C. D. to Asa Gray. Down, April 3 [1860].

... I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, and now small trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!...

You may like to hear about reviews on my book. Sedgwick (as I and Lyell feel certain from internal evidence) has reviewed me savagely and unfairly in the Spectator.[201] The notice includes much abuse, and is hardly fair in several respects. He would actually lead any one, who was ignorant of geology, to suppose that I had invented the great gaps between successive geological formations, instead of its being an almost universally admitted dogma. But my dear old friend Sedgwick, with his noble heart, is old, and is rabid with indignation.... There has been one prodigy of a review, namely, an opposed one (by Pictet,[202] the palæontologist, in the Bib. Universelle of Geneva) which is perfectly fair and just, and I agree to every word he says; our only difference being that he attaches less weight to arguments in favour, and more to arguments opposed, than I do. Of all the opposed reviews, I think this the only quite fair one, and I never expected to see one. Please observe that I do not class your review by any means as opposed, though you think so yourself! It has done me much too good service ever to appear in that rank in my eyes. But I fear I shall weary you with so much about my book. I should rather think there was a good chance of my becoming the most egotistical man in all Europe! What a proud pre-eminence! Well, you have helped to make me so, and therefore you must forgive me if you can.

My dear Gray, ever yours most gratefully.

C. D. to C. Lyell. Down, April 10th [1860].