Darwin Correspondence Project

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Dec. 4th.—

My dear General Sabine

You must permit me to thank you for your splendid eulogium on what I have done in natural history,—even if it be as improper to thank you as to thank a Judge for his judgment. As I read your address in the Reader I declare that I felt quite amazed at what I had done. You have made me hold my head very loftily with infinite pride. I shd. of course have liked you to have said a little more on the ``Origin'', but you could write only according to your own judgment or to that of those in whom you trust. You will think me very presumptuous, when I say that I now feel no shadow of doubt on the future progress of Natural Selection, for I have lately received from Germany such a string of excellent names of men, who have already declared or who will immediately declare, their full adhesion to the principle, that I look at it as impossible that so many men, good & true, should all be deceived.— Forgive this outburst of vanity & remember that you have made me a very proud gentleman.

Pray believe me | Yours very sincerely obliged | Charles Darwin