at you as the type of cautious scientific judgment (to my mind one of the
highest and most useful qualities), that I suspect my opinion will be
superfluous. It makes me laugh to think what a joke it will be if I have
to caution you, after your cautions on the same subject to me!

I will order Owen's book ('Classification of the Mammalia,' 1859.); I am
very glad to hear Huxley's opinion on his classification of man; without
having due knowledge, it seemed to me from the very first absurd; all
classifications founded on single characters I believe have failed.

...What a grand, immense benefit you conferred on me by getting Murray to
publish my book. I never till to-day realised that it was getting widely
distributed; for in a letter from a lady to-day to E., she says she heard a
man enquiring for it at the RAILWAY STATION!!! at Waterloo Bridge; and the
bookseller said that he had none till the new edition was out. The
bookseller said he had not read it, but had heard it was a very remarkable
book!!!...


CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, 14th [January, 1860].

...I heard from Lyell this morning, and he tells me a piece of news. You
are a good-for-nothing man; here you are slaving yourself to death with
hardly a minute to spare, and you must write a review of my book! I
thought it ('Gardeners' Chronicle', 1860. Referred to above. Sir J.D.
Hooker took the line of complete impartiality, so as not to commit
Lindley.) a very good one, and was so much struck with it that I sent it to
Lyell. But I assumed, as a matter of course, that it was Lindley's. Now
that I know it is yours, I have re-read it, and, my kind and good friend,