From Searles Valentine Wood 18 February 1862
Brentwood | Essex
My dear Sir
I am much obliged by your very friendly note & for your commendatory remark upon my monogh.1 I have been waiting to see if I cod procure any information you require but I fear after all my delay I shall not be able to give a very satisfactory answer to your question.2
As a general rule among the Mollusca I may say that the Genus most abundant in species & the species most abundant in individuals will present the greatest variation as we might naturally expect altho this rule like most others is not without exceptions I have found some species of fossils which are but rare or sparingly exhibited present very great diversity of character this possibly may have arisen from a paucity of individuals in one locality—while another locality which has not been examined or perhaps removed might have furnished them more abundantly & the apparently rare species might not in reality have been so altho no doubt some animals have a greater tendency to change than others or possess a less adaptability to altered conditions by which of course greater permanence of character will be maintained. In regard to the the special genus Lucina there is I believe every possible variation between what are called sectional divisions & the line of demarkation is extremely shadowy fading away in a most evanescent manner. The same may I believe be said of any other extensive Genus such as Helix, Unio, Cerithium, Conus Cypræa &c &c which have been divided into sections but which merge imperceptibly the one into the other
I presume that you are still employed collecting & arranging data for your work of which the essay published is you tell us but an outline I hope that I may live to see it & that you may have health & strength to complete the work you have begun3 I may add in reference to your remark about the obloquy thrown upon it that it has been a great surprise to me that so much toleration has been accorded to you as seems to me to have been the case I admired your courage in so boldly avowing your opinions
The mistake into which Authors like that of the vestiges4 fell by treating the organic world as a chain of developement in a continuous line instead of as an ever diverging ramification of being had furnished the opponents of the Theory of the origin of beings by the natural process of production out of a preexisting form with the means of an easy victory & it was in the midst of the general gratulation at this “scotching of the snake” that your sounder views came upon the world & backed by the reputation that you had previously so justly acquired they cod not be so easily poohpoohed as might have been the case had they emanated from a less known man. I think that your thus boldly coming forwar⟨d⟩ is a merit of itself (apart from that attaching to the lucid developement of your argument⟨)⟩ & I rather suspect that there are other naturalists who have by their studies been forced to regard this natural origin of being as the true one but have not the confidence to avow their conviction in the face of the opprobrium which has been attached to such opinions
Believe me Dear Sir | Yours very truly | Searles Wood
Feb. 18. 62
Chas Darwin Esq
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Browne, Janet. 1980. Darwin’s botanical arithmetic and the ‘principle of divergence’, 1854–1858. Journal of the History of Biology 13: 53–89.
[Chambers, Robert.] 1844. Vestiges of the natural history of creation. London: John Churchill.
Kohn, David. 1985. Darwin’s principle of divergence as internal dialogue. In The Darwinian heritage, edited by David Kohn. Princeton: Princeton University Press in association with Nova Pacifica (Wellington, NZ).
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Secord, James A. 1989. Behind the veil: Robert Chambers and Vestiges. In History, humanity and evolution: essays for John C. Greene, edited by James R. Moore. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Vols. 8,10]
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Wood, Searles Valentine. 1861–77. A monograph of the Eocene Mollusca, or, descriptions of shells from the older Tertiaries of England. Bivalves. 3 pts. and supplement. London.
Summary
Variation in Mollusca. The most abundant forms vary most.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3452
- From
- Searles Valentine Wood
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Brentwood
- Source of text
- DAR 181: 144
- Physical description
- ALS 6pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3452,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3452.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10