D^r. Darwin

I have written to Sclater who got me the 4 Potato tubers to get you some.² I have given 2 to our Pleasure Ground Keeper, & 2 to our Bot. Garden man, & shall watch results carefully.³

I will see to the Poplars, & report.⁴

I have been having a long correspondence with Lyell, & have given him quite as deflagrating a yarn as I sent you—& likened him to the Theologians!—adding that I had always hitherto classed him as the sole sexagenarian philosopher who could change his opinion on good ground—⁵ He proposes some alterations of the two obnoxious passages, which will at any rate do justice to the hypothesis as he states it,—which the former ones did not.⁶ Lyell dwells, & with reason on the fact that he makes as many converts whether he withholds or gives his own opinion. I tell him perhaps more, as people like to draw their own inferences but that is not the particular point we as his friends now look to.

He has written to me also about the date of publication of the Australian Essay, as preceding your Origin,⁷—in this matter he has got into a fix by giving said Essay a prominence which in the history of the discussion it (& its author) do not deserve— I have such an extreme aversion to intrude myself personally into such matters, & such an abomination of reclamation, that I cannot set him right, even did the plan of his book now admit of his giving the Essay less prominence— As it is I am ashamed of seeing it paraded with an italicised heading, just as you & the “Origin” are.—& an importance given to its priority of publication which it never dreamt of claiming—⁸ Had I really believed that your “Origin” would have been out so soon after it I really think I should have delayed the Fl. Tasmaniae, rather than antedated you—but though I knew you were actually printing the Origin, I knew how long it had been delayed,—I knew how uncertain your health was—, & I was working myself to death to get the Tasmania Flora & its (for me) gigantic Expenses off my hands.⁹ As it is, Lyell seems to think me entitled to a goodly share of the credit, of establishing though not originating

1. because of your over-generous acknowledgement of assistance from me in the Origin.¹⁰

2. Because it was my making him eat the leek of variation, that so stupified his senses that he was enabled to swallow Origin, & apply selection (as gastric juice)¹¹

3. Because I forced the card of non-reversion of varieties.¹²

4. Because I first applied many of your results to the classⁿ. & descripⁿ of one Flora & country. in a way intelligeable to him.

5. Because he understood my arrangement of the subject better than yours—at least so he said—some 18 mo. ago.

All this is no reason for putting me in the same category with you as propounder of the doctrine, which his work seems to me too much to do.— However I have not alluded to this subject to him—nor should I, if he had been as careful never to mention my name, as Huxley¹³ would seem to be. not that he really is so in the least I am sure.

I am grieved about this Falconer affair, F. is so cruelly impracticable & churlish when his prejudices are touched or priority overlooked;¹⁴ & he has a most mischievous backer in D^r Percy,¹⁵ who he makes a great friend of. I really do not know the merits of the case, & am so dissatisfied myself with the confused & confusing elements of the first XII Chapters, that I can form no opinion whether he is right or wrong in saying that due credit is not given to himself Prestwich & J. Gunn.—¹⁶ I do hope that he (F.), will not write a pamphlet & add another scandal to Science.¹⁷ I have a great mind to see & talk to him, but he is the very devil to discuss a matter of the kind with.—

I have finished Lyell & am enchanted with the Glacial chapters, Language & the whole treatment of the origin & development subjects (with above qualifications.) it certainly is a grand book on the whole, & well worthy of Lyells Scientific Reputation. He never rises to the magnificence of Huxleys language, nor to the sublimity of some of the passages in H^s. little book on the Position of Man, which one can read 1000 times with fresh delight.¹⁸ By the way surely the last few pages of Huxley are not clear, I do not see how he can logically throw away all the evidence of the two simioid human skulls as worth nothing, after his admissions regarding them.¹⁹

I go to Lubbocks for next Sunday & if I can will walk over to Down²⁰

More Cameroon’s Mt Plants are coming, which will enable me to complete my paper & discuss the cold period quoad tropical African Mts & Flora—²¹ Were the Bees & combs worth anything?²² Another man is getting you some in Luando. (Mr Monteiro)²³

I have been plagued always at intervals ever since I was 18 with heart symptoms, but less this last 4 years (after a very bad bout) & latterly (2 years) hardly at all—dull pain over region—palpitations,—pain on left shoulder,—tingling in arms & fingers,—fainting feeling,—pricking of pins, & at other times worms crawling in region of heart—& so on.²⁴ I never could connect them with any physical or physiological condition, or use or abuse of functions, cerebral digestive or sexual—except that they were, if anything, worst when I was costive— All my friends relations & acquaintances have heart complaint! so think nothing of it— they were a horrible nuisance—especially the feeling of fainting—for which I have rushed to stimulants, more than once.

Ever Yours affection. | J D Hooker.