THE PUBLICATION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.'
"Remember that your verdict will probably have more influence than my book in deciding whether such views as I hold will be admitted or rejected at present; in the future I cannot doubt about their admittance, and our posterity will marvel as much about the current belief as we do about fossil shells having been thought to have been created as we now see them."--From a letter to Lyell, Sept. 1859.
OCTOBER 3RD, 1859, TO DECEMBER 31ST, 1859.
Under the date of October 1st, 1859, in my father's Diary occurs the entry:--"Finished proofs (thirteen months and ten days) of Abstract on _Origin of Species_; 1250 copies printed. The first edition was published on November 24th, and all copies sold first day."
In October he was, as we have seen in the last chapter, at Ilkley, near Leeds: there he remained with his family until December, and on the 9th of that month he was again at Down. The only other entry in the Diary for this year is as follows:--"During end of November and beginning of December, employed in correcting for second edition of 3000 copies; multitude of letters."
The first and a few of the subsequent letters refer to proof-sheets, and to early copies of the Origin which were sent to friends before the book was published.
_C. Lyell to C. Darwin._ October 3rd, 1859.
MY DEAR DARWIN,--I have just finished your volume, and right glad I am that I did my best with Hooker to persuade you to publish it without waiting for a time which probably could never have arrived, though you lived till the age of a hundred, when you had prepared all your facts on which you ground so many grand generalizations.
It is a splendid case of close reasoning, and long substantial argument throughout so many pages; the condensation immense, too great perhaps for the uninitiated, but an effective and important preliminary statement, which will admit, even before your detailed proofs appear, of some occasional useful exemplification, such as your pigeons and cirripedes, of which you make such excellent use.
I mean that, when, as I fully expect, a new edition is soon called for, you may here and there insert an actual case to relieve the vast number of abstract propositions. So far as I am concerned, I am so well prepared to take your statements of facts for granted, that I do not think the "pièces justificatives" when published will make much difference, and I have long seen most clearly that if any concession is made, all that you claim in your concluding pages will follow. It is this which has made me so long hesitate, always feeling that the case of Man and his races, and of other animals, and that of plants is one and the same, and that if a "vera causa" be admitted for one, instead of a purely unknown and imaginary one, such as the word "Creation," all the consequences must follow.