The desire that his views might spread in France was always strong with my father, and he was therefore justly annoyed to find that in 1869 the publisher of the French edition had brought out a third edition without consulting the author. He was accordingly glad to enter into an arrangement for a French translation of the fifth edition; this was undertaken by M. Reinwald, with whom he continued to have pleasant relations as the publisher of many of his books in French.
He wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker:—
"I must enjoy myself and tell you about Mdlle. C. Royer, who translated the Origin into French, and for whose second edition I took infinite trouble. She has now just brought out a third edition without informing me, so that all the corrections, &c., in the fourth and fifth English editions are lost. Besides her enormously long preface to the first edition, she has added a second preface abusing me like a pickpocket for Pangenesis, which of course has no relation to the Origin. So I wrote to Paris; and Reinwald agrees to bring out at once a new translation from the fifth English edition, in competition with her third edition.... This fact shows that 'evolution of species' must at last be spreading in France."
It will be well perhaps to place here all that remains to be said about the Origin of Species. The sixth or final edition was published in January 1872 in a smaller and cheaper form than its predecessors. The chief addition was a discussion suggested by Mr. Mivart's Genesis of Species, which appeared in 1871, before the publication of the Descent of Man. The following quotation from a letter to Wallace (July 9, 1871) may serve to show the spirit and method in which Mr. Mivart dealt with the subject. "I grieve to see the omission of the words by Mivart, detected by Wright.[252] I complained to Mivart that in two cases he quotes only the commencement of sentences by me, and thus modifies my meaning; but I never supposed he would have omitted words. There are other cases of what I consider unfair treatment."
My father continues, with his usual charity and moderation:—
"I conclude with sorrow that though he means to be honourable, he is so bigoted that he cannot act fairly."
In July 1871, my father wrote to Mr. Wallace:—
"I feel very doubtful how far I shall succeed in answering Mivart, it is so difficult to answer objections to doubtful points, and make the discussion readable. I shall make only a selection. The worst of it is, that I cannot possibly hunt through all my references for isolated points, it would take me three weeks of intolerably hard work. I wish I had your power of arguing clearly. At present I feel sick of everything, and if I could occupy my time and forget my daily discomforts, or rather miseries, I would never publish another word. But I shall cheer up, I dare say, soon, having only just got over a bad attack. Farewell; God knows why I bother you about myself. I can say nothing more about missing-links than what I have said. I should rely much on pre-silurian times; but then comes Sir W. Thomson like an odious spectre.[253] Farewell.
" ... There is a most cutting review of me in the [July] Quarterly; I have only read a few pages. The skill and style make me think of Mivart. I shall soon be viewed as the most despicable of men. This Quarterly Review tempts me to republish Ch. Wright,[254] even if not read by any one, just to show some one will say a word against Mivart, and that his (i.e. Mivart's) remarks ought not to be swallowed without some reflection.... God knows whether my strength and spirit will last out to write a chapter versus Mivart and others; I do so hate controversy and feel I shall do it so badly."
The Quarterly review was the subject of an article by Mr. Huxley in the November number of the Contemporary Review. Here, also, are discussed Mr. Wallace's Contribution to the Theory of Natural Selection, and the second edition of Mr. Mivart's Genesis of Species. What follows is taken from Mr. Huxley's article. The Quarterly reviewer, though to some extent an evolutionist, believes that Man "differs more from an elephant or a gorilla, than do these from the dust of the earth on which they tread." The reviewer also declares that Darwin has "with needless opposition, set at naught the first principles of both philosophy and religion." Mr. Huxley passes from the Quarterly reviewer's further statement, that there is no necessary opposition between evolution and religion, to the more definite position taken by Mr. Mivart, that the orthodox authorities of the Roman Catholic Church agree in distinctly asserting derivative creation, so that "their teachings harmonize with all that modern science can possibly require." Here Mr. Huxley felt the want of that "study of Christian philosophy" (at any rate, in its Jesuitic garb), which Mr. Mivart speaks of, and it was a want he at once set to work to fill up. He was then staying at St. Andrews, whence he wrote to my father:—