Chapter 270

From the spirit of your review in the "Pall Mall Gazette" of my last book, which has given me great pleasure, I have thought that you would perhaps inform me on one point, withholding, if you please, your name.

You say that my phraseology on beauty is "loose scientifically, and philosophically most misleading." (241/1. "Mr. Darwin's work is one of those rare and capital achievements of intellect which effect a grave modification throughout all the highest departments of the realm of opinion...There is throughout the description and examination of Sexual Selection a way of speaking of beauty, which seems to us to be highly unphilosophical, because it assumes a certain theory of beauty, which the most competent modern thinkers are too far from accepting, to allow its assumption to be quite judicious...Why should we only find the aesthetic quality in birds wonderful, when it happens to coincide with our own? In other words, why attribute to them conscious aesthetic qualities at all? There is no more positive reason for attributing aesthetic consciousness to the Argus pheasant than there is for attributing to bees geometric consciousness of the hexagonal prisms and rhombic plates of the hive which they so marvellously construct. Hence the phraseology which Mr. Darwin employs in this part of the subject, though not affecting the degree of probability which may belong to this theory, seems to us to be very loose scientifically, and philosophically most misleading."--"Pall Mall Gazette.") This is not at all improbable, as it is almost a lifetime since I attended to the philosophy of aesthetics, and did not then think that I should ever make use of my conclusions. Can you refer me to any one or two books (for my power of reading is not great) which would illumine me? or can you explain in one or two sentences how I err? Perhaps it would be best for me to explain what I mean by the sense of beauty in its lowest stage of development, and which can only apply to animals. When an intense colour, or two tints in harmony, or a recurrent and symmetrical figure please the eye, or a single sweet note pleases the ear, I call this a sense of beauty; and with this meaning I have spoken (though I now see in not a sufficiently guarded manner) of a taste for the beautiful being the same in mankind (for all savages admire bits of bright cloth, beads, plumes, etc.) and in the lower animals. If the blue and yellow plumage of a macaw (241/2. "What man deems the horrible contrasts of yellow and blue attract the macaw, while ball-and-socket-plumage attracts the Argus pheasant"--"Pall Mall Gazette," March 21st, 1871, page 1075.) pleases the eye of this bird, I should say that it had a sense of beauty, although its taste was bad according to our standard. Now, will you have the kindness to tell me how I can learn to see the error of my ways? Of course I recognise, as indeed I have remarked in my book, that the sense of beauty in the case of scenery, pictures, etc., is something infinitely complex, depending on varied associations and culture of the mind. From a very interesting review in the "Spectator," and from your and Wallace's review, I perceive that I have made a great oversight in not having said what little I could on the acquisition of the sense for the beautiful by man and the lower animals. It would indeed be an immense advantage to an author if he could read such criticisms as yours before publishing. At page 11 of your review you accidentally misquote my words placed by you within inverted commas, from my Volume II., page 354: I say that "man cannot endure any great change," and the omitted words "any great" make all the difference in the discussion. (241/3. "Mr. Darwin tells us, and gives us excellent reasons for thinking, that 'the men of each race prefer what they are accustomed to behold; they cannot endure change.' Yet is there not an inconsistency between this fact and the other that one race differs from another exactly because novelties presented themselves, and were eagerly seized and propagated?")

Permit me to add a few other remarks. I believe your criticism is quite just about my deficient historic spirit, for I am aware of my ignorance in this line. (241/4. "In the historic spirit, however, Mr. Darwin must fairly be pronounced deficient. When, for instance, he speaks of the 'great sin of slavery' having been general among primitive nations, he forgets that, though to hold a slave would be a sinful degradation to a European to-day, the practice of turning prisoners of war into slaves, instead of butchering them, was not a sin at all, but marked a decided improvement in human manners.") On the other hand, if you should ever be led to read again Chapter III., and especially Chapter V., I think you will find that I am not amenable to all your strictures; though I felt that I was walking on a path unknown to me and full of pitfalls; but I had the advantage of previous discussions by able men. I tried to say most emphatically that a great philosopher, law-giver, etc., did far more for the progress of mankind by his writings or his example than by leaving a numerous offspring. I have endeavoured to show how the struggle for existence between tribe and tribe depends on an advance in the moral and intellectual qualities of the members, and not merely on their capacity of obtaining food. When I speak of the necessity of a struggle for existence in order that mankind should advance still higher in the scale, I do not refer to the MOST, but "to the MORE highly gifted men" being successful in the battle for life; I referred to my supposition of the men in any country being divided into two equal bodies--viz., the more and the less highly gifted, and to the former on an average succeeding best.

But I have much cause to apologise for the length of this ill-expressed letter. My sole excuse is the extraordinary interest which I have felt in your review, and the pleasure which I have experienced in observing the points which have attracted your attention. I must say one word more. Having kept the subject of sexual selection in my mind for very many years, and having become more and more satisfied with it, I feel great confidence that as soon as the notion is rendered familiar to others, it will be accepted, at least to a much greater extent than at present. With sincere respect and thanks...