My dear Hooker

I am heartily glad that you have been offered the Presidentship of the B. Assoc. for it is a great honour, & as you have so much work to do I am equally glad that you have declined it.¹ I feel, however, convinced that you would have succeeded very well; but if I fancy myself in such a position it actually makes my blood run cold. I look back with amazement at the skill & taste with which the D. of Argyll made a multitude of little speeches at Glasglow.² By the way I have not seen the Duke’s book,³ but I formerly thought that some of the articles which appeared in periodicals were very clever, but not very profound. One of these was reviewed in the Saturday Review some years ago; & the fallacy of some main argument was admirably exposed, & I sent the article to you, & you agreed strongly with it.⁴ Now I have forgotten this counter-argument & I know I shall be humbugged by the Duke, if I reread him as I suppose I must. There was the other day a rather good review of the Duke’s book in the Spectator, & with a new explanation, either by the Duke or Reviewer (I could not make out which) of rudimentary organs; viz that economy of labour & material was a great guiding principle with God (ignoring waste of seed & of young, monsters &c &c), & that making a new plan for the structure of animals was thought & thought was labour, & therefore God kept to a uniform plan & left rudiments.⁵ This is no exaggeration. In short, God is a man rather cleverer than us: I wonder they did not suggest that he would suffer from indigestion, if he worked his brains too much.— I am very much obliged for the “Nation” (returned by this post): it is admirably good:⁶ you say I always guess wrong, but I do not believe anyone, except Asa Gray could have done the thing so well. I would bet even, or 3 to 2, that it is Asa Gray, though one or two passages staggered me.

I finish my Book on “Domestic Animals &c” by a single paragraph answering, or rather throwing doubt, in so far as so little space permits on Asa Gray’s doctrine that each variation has been specially ordered or led along a beneficial line. It is foolish to touch such subjects, but there have been so many allusions to what I think about the part which God has played in the formation of organic beings, that I thought it shabby to evade the question.⁷ I have even received several letters on subject. One was a funny one from a lady with a whole string of questions, & when I said I could not answer one; she wrote she was perfectly satisfied & it was exactly what she expected.—⁸ I overlooked your sentence about Providence, & suppose I treated it as Buckland did his own theology, when his Bridgewater Treatise was read aloud to him for correction.⁹ I do not quite understand what you mean; partly from Providence meaning either simply God or hourly, providential care.—

That seems a very difficult point to conjecture on, whether an insular genus originated on the island or survived there.¹⁰ When several allied species occur in an archipelago the probability seems that it was created there; as it shows it has long there been a varying & is a well adapted form. I forget whether the Umbellifers live on the other Atlantic Islands.¹¹

Supposing that the Deer’s bones are not those of a naturalised animal, (for certainly there was no deer, when Mauritius was discovered) it is a grand case of continental extension & of greatest value. If you see Owen, caution him, but not from me, about the many animals which have been there naturalised.¹²

I saw in Proof-sheet the passage in a note by Owen about ideal types; he outdoes himself in audacious impudence on this head, & makes it the ground for an attack on Huxley.¹³

Send me a copy of your Insular paper when printed, as several of us want to read it.—¹⁴

I told Murray not to publish my book blindly, & he has kept the M.S long & is frightened, perhaps with good reason, for I never know when I go too much into detail; & the details are to be printed in smaller type; & at last the M.S is in printer’s hands.—¹⁵ In the interval I began a chapter on Man, for which I have long collected materials, but it has grown too long, & I think I shall publish separately a very small volume, “an essay on the origin of mankind:”¹⁶ I have convinced myself of the means by which the Races of man have been mainly formed, but I do not expect I shall convince anyone else.—¹⁷ I wish the dreadful six-month labour of correcting press was over.—¹⁸

Hensleigh Wedgwood has been very ill, & is sadly pulled down, but is now recovering.—¹⁹

Give our very kind remembrances to M^rs Hooker & our congratulations on her coming down stairs²⁰

Ever yours affect^y | C. Darwin

On Feb 13^th we go for a week to 6 Queen Anne St.—²¹ I wish there was any chance of your being in London & seeing you.—