[Two letters on kindred subjects may appropriately follow in this place. Thanking M. Henri Gadeau de Kerville for his "Causeries sur le Transformisme," he writes (February 1):—]
Dear Sir,
Accept my best thanks for your interesting "causeries," which seem to me to give a very clear view of the present state of the evolution doctrine as applied to biology.
There is a statement on page 87 "Apres sa mort Lamarck fut completement oublie," which may be true for France but certainly is not so for England. From 1830 onwards for more than forty years Lyell's "Principles of Geology" was one of the most widely read scientific books in this country, and it contains an elaborate criticism of Lamarck's views. Moreover, they were largely debated during the controversies which arose out of the publication of the "Vestiges of Creation" in 1844 or thereabouts. We are certainly not guilty of any neglect of Lamarck on this side of the Channel.
If I may make another criticism it is that, to my mind, atheism is, on purely philosophical grounds, untenable. That there is no evidence of the existence of such a being as the God of the theologians is true enough; but strictly scientific reasoning can take us no further. Where we know nothing we can neither affirm nor deny with propriety.
[The other is in answer to the Bishop of Ripon, enclosing a few lines on the principal representatives of modern science, which he had asked for.]
4 Marlborough Place, June 16, 1887.
My dear Bishop of Ripon,
I shall be very glad if I can be of any use to you now and always. But it is not an easy task to put into half-a-dozen sentences, up to the level of your vigorous English, a statement that shall be unassailable from the point of view of a scientific fault-finder—which shall be intelligible to the general public and yet accurate.
I have made several attempts and enclose the final result. I think the substance is all right, and though the form might certainly be improved, I leave that to you. When I get to a certain point of tinkering my phrases I have to put them aside for a day or two.