You must permit me to have the pleasure to thank you for your kind present of your Physical Geography. I feel honoured by your gift, & shall prize this Book with your autograph. I am pleased with your note on my book on species, though apparently you go but a little way with me. The point which you raise on intelligent Design has perplexed me beyond measure; & has been ably discussed by Prof. Asa Gray, with whom I have had much correspondence on the subject. One cannot look at this Universe with all living productions & man without believing that all has been intelligently designed; yet when I look to each individual organism, I can see no evidence of this. For, I am not prepared to admit that God designed the feathers in the tail of the rock-pigeon to vary in a highly peculiar manner in order that man might select such variations & make a Fan-tail; & if this be not admitted (I know it would be admitted by many persons), then I cannot see design in the variations of structure in animals in a state of nature, - those variations which were useful to the animal being preserved & those useless or injurious being destroyed. But I ought to apologise for thus troubling you.

You will think me very conceited when I say I feel quite easy about the ultimate success of my views, with much error, as yet unseen by me, to be no doubt eliminated); & I feel this confidence, because I find so many young & middle-aged truly good workers in different branches, either partially or wholly accepting my views, because they find they can thus group & understand many scattered facts. This has occurred with those who have chiefly or almost exclusively studied morphology, geographical distribution, systematic botany, simple geology and paleontology. Forgive me boasting, if you can; I do so because I should value your partial acquiescence in my views, more than that of almost any other human being.

To Asa Gray, 5 June 1861
My dear Gray

. . . I have been led to think more on [your caution on design], & grieve to say that I come to differ more from you. It is not that designed variation makes, as it seems to me, my Deity "Natural Selection" superfluous; but rather from studying lately domestic variations & seeing what an enormous field of undesigned variability there is ready for natural selections to appropriate for any purpose useful for each creature.

. . . I never knew the newspapers so profoundly interesting. N. America does not do England justice: I have not seen or heard of a soul who is not with the North. Some few, & I am one, even wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against Slavery. In the long run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity. - What wonderful times we live in. - Massachusetts seems to show noble enthusiasm. Great God how I should like to see that greatest curse on Earth Slavery abolished.

To Asa Gray, 21 July 1861
My dear Gray

. . . How I should like half-an-hours conversation on Design: nothing else would make us quite understand each other. As no one has aided the subject of natural selection & the knowledge of my Book so much as you, I must tell you what has pleased me much after the many attacks on me for neglecting "Induction" "Baconian philosophy" etc. We in England think John Stuart Mill the highest authority on such subjects, & he said lately to a friend, who wrote to me as follows: "he considers that your reasoning throughout is in the most exact accordance with the strict principles of logic. He also says the method of investigation you have followed is the only one proper to such a subject." - My wife's remark on reading this was "why you know nothing about Logic."

To Charles Lyell, 1 August 1861
My dear Lyell,

. . . With respect to Sexuality, I have often speculated on it, & have always concluded that we are too ignorant to speculate - no physiologist can conjecture why the two elements go to form the new being; & more than that why nature strives at uniting the two elements from two individuals; what I am now working at, viz. Orchids, is admirable illustration of the law. - I should certainly conclude that all Sexuality had descended from one prototype. Do you not underrate the degree of lowness of organization at which sexuality occurs, viz. in Hydra: & still lower in some of the one-celled free Confervae which "conjugate," which good judges (Thwaites) believe is simplest form of true sexual generation. But the whole case is a mystery.

There is another point on which I have occasionally wished to say a few words. - I believe you think with Asa Gray that I have not allowed enough for the stream of variation having been guided by a Higher power. - I have had lately a good deal of correspondence on this head. Herschel in his Phy. Geograph. has sentence with respect to the Origin something to the effect that the higher law of providential arrangement should always be stated. But astronomers do not state that God directs the course of each comet and planet. - The view that each variation has been providentially arranged seems to me to make natural selection entirely superfluous, & indeed takes whole case of appearance of new species out of the range of science. But what makes me most object to Asa Gray's view, is the study of the extreme variability of domestic animals. - He who does not suppose that each variation in the Pigeon was providentially caused, by accumulating which variations man made a Fantail, cannot, I think, logically argue that the tail of the Woodpecker was formed by variations providentially ordained. - It seems to me that variations in the domestic & wild conditions are due to unknown causes & are without purpose & in so far accidental; & that they become purposeful only when they are selected by man for his pleasure, or by what we call natural selection in the struggle for life & under changing conditions. I do not wish to say that God did not foresee everything which would ensue; but here comes very nearly the same sort of wretched embroglio as between free-will & preordained necessity.

I doubt whether I have made what I think clear; but certainly A. Gray's notion of the course of variation having been led, like a stream of water by Gravity, seems to me to smash the whole affair. It reminds me of a Spaniard whom I told I was trying to make out how the Cordillera were formed; & he answered me that it was useless for "God made them." It may be said that God foresaw how they would be made. I wonder whether Herschel would say that you ought always to give the higher providential Law, & declare that God had ordered all certain changes of level that certain mountains should arise. - I must think that such views of Asa Gray & Herschel merely show that the subject in their minds is in Comte's theological stage of science.

...Of course I do not want any answer to my quasi theological discussion: but only for you to think of my notions, if you understand them.

To Charles Lyell, 1 October 1861
My dear Lyell

Thank you for the most interesting correspondence. What a wonderful case that of Bedford [fossil pit]. I thought the problem sufficiently perplexing before, but now it beats anything I ever heard of. Far from being able to give any hypothesis for any part, I cannot get the facts into my mind.

...But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders. - I am going to write a little Book for Murray on orchids & today I hate them worse than everything so farewell & in a sweet frame of mind, I am

To Asa Gray, after 11 October 1861

I am so glad that you will look to some of your Rubiaceae, & I hope that may find time to make a few experiments. - Thanks for notes about your Hollies, & I hope you will look a little to them. There is to me incomparably more interest in observing than in writing; but I feel quite guilty in trespassing on these subjects & not sticking to varieties of the confounded cocks, Hens & Ducks. - I hear that Lyell is savage at me. - I shall never resist Linum next summer.

What you say about our keeping in our intrenchments & firing long shots about Design has made me laugh. - I suspect I am more cowardly than you, as I ought to be, as I do not feel sure of my ground. - Here is my answering long shot about the cream-jug-nose: I should believe it to have been designed (as I did formerly each part of each animal) until I saw a way of its being formed without design, & at the same time saw in its whole structure (as in homologies, embryology, rudimentary organs, distribution &c) evidence, of its having been produced in a quite distinct manner, i.e. by descent from another cream-jug whose nose subserved, perhaps, some quite distinct use. When I think of my beloved orchids, with rudiments of five anthers, with one pistil converted into a rostellum, with all the cohesion of parts, it really seems to me incredibly monstrous to look at an orchid as created as we now see it. Every part reveals modification on modification. But enough & more than enough.

To Asa Gray, 11 December 1861

...What a thing it is, that when you receive this we may be at war, & we two be bound, as good patriots, to hate each other, though I shall find this hating you very hard work. - How curious it is to see two countries, just like two angry & silly men, taking so opposite a view of the same transaction! So far as I can see we rest entirely on Wilkes' acting as Judge. - I fear there is no shadow of doubt we shall fight, if the two Sourthern rogues are not given up. And what a wretched thing it will be, if we fight on side of slavery. No doubt it will be said we fight to get cotton; but I fully believe that this has not entered into the motive in the least. - Well, thank Heaven we private individuals, have nothing to do with so awful a responsibility. - Again how curious it is that you seem to think that you can conquer the south; & I never meet a soul, even those who would most wish it, who thinks it possible, - that is to conquer & retain it. I do not suppose the mass of people in your country will believe it; but I feel sure if we do go to war, it will be with the utmost reluctance by all classes, ministers of government & all. - Time will show, & it is no use writing or thinking about it.

With respect to Design, I feel more inclined to show a white flag than to fire my usual long-range shot. I like to try & ask you a puzzling question, but when you return the compliment, I have great doubts whether it is a fair way of arguing. If anything is designed, certainly Man must be; one's "inner consciousness" (though a false guide) tells one so; yet I cannot admit that man's rudimentary mammae; bladder drained as if he went on all four legs; and pug-nose were designed. If I was to say that I believed this, I should believe it in the same incredible manner as the orthodox believe the Trinity in Unity. - You say that you are in a haze; I am in thick mud; - the orthodox would say in fetid abominable mud. I believe I am in much the same frame of mind as an old Gorilla would be in if set to learn the first book of Euclid. The old Gorilla would say it was of no manner of use; & I am much of the same mind; yet I cannot keep out of the question.

Endlinks

• The Voyage of the Beagle (compiled by www.literature.org)
• The Origin of Species (ibid.)
• Descent of Man (compiled by Carnegie Mellon's Books On-Line)

A brief biography of Darwin.

The French reader's guide to Darwin.

Evolution and Intelligent Design: Is Darwin in the Details? - a forum in the Feb-Mar 1997 issue of Boston Review, sponsored by the M.I.T. Department of Political Science. The discussion is based on two book reviews published in 1996: Dennett's Strange Idea, a review of Daniel Dennett's Natural Selection :Science of Everything, Universal Acid, Cure for the Common Cold . . . by H. Allen Orr; and Feeling for the Organism, a review of Richard Dawkins' Climbing Mount Improbable by Robert C. Berwick. Particpants of the discussion include Dawkins, Dennett, Russell Doolittle, and Douglas J. Futuyma among others.

The Darwin-L Web Server is an international discussion group for professionals in the historical sciences. According to administrator Dr. Robert O'Hara, "The group is not devoted to any particular discipline, such as evolutionary biology, but rather seeks to promote interdisciplinary comparisons across the entire range of fields concerned with historical reconstruction, including evolution, historical linguistics, archeology, geology, cosmology, historical geography, textual transmission, and history proper. Darwin-L is not an amateur chat forum, nor a forum for discussion of creationism and evolution." Darwin-L currently has about 700 members from more than 35 countries.

The Talk.Origins Archives - a collection of articles and essays, most of which have appeared in the Usenet group talk.origins. This newsgroup is "devoted to the discussion and debate of biological and physical origins. Most discussions center on the creation/evolution controversy, but other topics include the origin of life, geology, biology, catastrophism, cosmology, and theology." This Web site also includes talk.origins FAQs, the "post of the month," and links to related sites.

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