THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN

INCLUDING AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CHAPTER

EDITED BY HIS SON

FRANCIS DARWIN




VOLUME I



PREFACE

In choosing letters for publication I have been largely guided by the wish
to illustrate my father's personal character. But his life was so
essentially one of work, that a history of the man could not be written
without following closely the career of the author. Thus it comes about
that the chief part of the book falls into chapters whose titles correspond
to the names of his books.

In arranging the letters I have adhered as far as possible to chronological
sequence, but the character and variety of his researches make a strictly
chronological order an impossibility. It was his habit to work more or
less simultaneously at several subjects. Experimental work was often
carried on as a refreshment or variety, while books entailing reasoning and
the marshalling of large bodies of facts were being written. Moreover,