To Mrs. Lesley.

Cambridge, Feb. 12, 1860.

About Thanksgiving time, I entered upon new duties, — the teaching of Natural Philosophy in Prof. Agassiz’s School; and, as this school has no winter vacation but the Christmas days, you see how I have hampered myself.

... I have received from Mr. Lesley his pamphlet on the gradations of words. I have looked over it, but not yet attentively enough. The idea of it is a very attractive one, and closely resembles the argument in that new book on “The Origin of Species,” — Darwin’s, — which I have just finished reading, and to which I have become a convert, so far as I can judge in the matter.

Agassiz comes out against its conclusions, of course, since they are directly opposed to his favorite doctrines on the subject; and, if true, they render his essay on Classification a useless and mistaken speculation. I believe that this development theory is a true account of nature, and no more atheistical than that approved theory of creation, which covers ignorance with a word pretending knowledge and feigning reverence. To admit a miracle when one isn’t necessary seems to be one of those works of supererogation which have survived the Protestant Reformation, and to count like the penances of old for merit in the humble philosopher. To admit twenty or more (the more, the better), as some geologists do, is quite enough to make them pious and safe. I would go even farther, and admit an infinite number of miracles, constituting continuous creation and the order of nature.

My friend Darwin Ware, in answering a request for some account of Chauncey, as he saw him in repeated summer vacations at the period which we have now reached, says: This extract from Mr. Ware’s letter is preceded by a little sketch of the vacation journeys to which he refers. “In 1857,” he says, “you and Chauncey and I were a fortnight together among the Franconia Mountains of New, Hampshire, and again in the following year. Those days in retrospect are bright with sunshine. You will remember how we passed them, — taking long walks, climbing the mountains, following up the courses of mountain streams, and bathing in the icy waters of secluded rocky basins fed by waterfalls, and sometimes, in the afternoon, strolling into the woods, or in some quiet nook, in the shade of trees, reading aloud in turn the one poet, Shakespeare, we had brought with us. “In 1860, we spent with Chauncey a vacation at Mount Desert. The little steamer that now carries so many to Bar Harbor then had only three or four passengers besides ourselves, and stopped only at Southwest Harbor. We had learned the secret, however, before we started, that not at South-west Harbor, but at Bar Harbor, was the place for the true worshipper ; and so, on landing from the boat, we took a wagon, and were conveyed directly there. At Roberts’s, — then the only house that received strangers, — we stayed a week or ten days, furnished with the most meagre accommodations, and a fare of little besides fish, berries. and milk. I remember no other permanent visitors then at this place. Some of the time we were on the water, but more we spent in climbing the mountainous island, and exploring the grand sea-coast. “In the following year, Chauncey, Gurney, and I passed a vacation together in excursions on foot among the Berkshire Hills. Chauncey and I walked from Pittsfield to Stockbridge, where Gurney joined us. About Lenox, Stockbridge, and thence to Bash Bish Falls, we had many a pleasant jaunt.” ³⁶—

“Chauncey was always ready for a long walk or a hard climb when it was proposed to him, although by nature disinclined to bodily exertion. The companionship on these excursions was the main thing he cared for; and his will offered little resistance in determining a day’s plan of recreation. His sweetness of temper, the wide range of his sympathies and knowledge, and the incessant activity of mind shown in his conversation, made him a charming comrade. The highest regions of thought, in its search after truth, were the most habitual to him; but he could incline to mirth and gayety, and joined in quiet sports with genuine relish. A strong, companionable sense of humor in him was more open to its impressions than active in producing them. The pervasive heartiness of his laugh was contagious, — its tone deep and mellow, and in strong contrast with his ordinary voice, which was on a high key, and almost feminine in refinement. When he was happy in his social intercourse, his face, which was very sensitive to the play of feeling, fairly beamed with genial pleasure. His large

stature, rather heavily moulded, was graced with the manner of the gentlest and most amiable of men. Such personal characteristics helped to inspire the sense of perfect fellowship which friends felt in his company.

“In these vacations, Chauncey talked most about what he was then most thinking; and I never knew the time when he was not pondering some deep learning in Science or Philosophy. This was the mode of his extraordinary intellectual growth. In the apparent absence of the means of nutrition, it was like the growth of a tree within which powerful processes are continually going on, by which, from the proper germ, is reared a giant oak. A few authentic books gave him the history of science and philosophy. The key of all the sciences, mathematics, he held with an easy grasp. Through meditation, he wrought out deductions that were knowledge, and framed those intelligent questions that are half the answers of truth. Comparatively little observation and research enabled him to make those answers whole. The naturalist has been able, from a single fossil scale, to describe the structure of the fish from which it came. In the same way, from the fragmentary segment of a system or a theory, Chauncey seemed able to reconstruct the full orb of thought. Such methods would not been been attended with large results, without the wonderful power he had of long-continued, concentrated attention, and of steadily holding in his imagination the realities upon which his thought was fixed.

“And yet, as a companion, he was not abstracted or self-absorbed. His highest thinking was never permitted to separate him from his friend. He made his meditations part of the common stock of the social partnership. With undivided interest and sympathy, he entertained another’s thought, and returned it with generous increase. In a mind so trained by great studies, and purified by the love of truth, there was no place for prejudice or intolerance: there was only entire impartiality and kind appreciation.

“The direction of Chauncey’s studies in 1857-58, and again in 1860-61, as I remember, well represented the twofold discipline of his powers, which enabled him afterwards to compose the two essays on subjects so diverse as ‘ A Physical Theory of the Universe ’ and the ‘ Evolution of Self-consciousness,’ published in his ‘ Philosophical Discussions.’ At the earlier period, I recall his comments on the successive theories in geology; the nebular hypothesis; the undulatory theory of light; his explanation of the formation of mountains and their disintegration; and of other science familiar to one who knew

‘ What land and sea, discoursing, say
In the sidereal years.’

At the later period, the experience philosophy, the utilitarian theory of morals, natural selection, and kindred doctrines, were the most frequent serious topics of Chauncey’s conversation. For a good while after our visit at Mount Desert, they passed, with us, under the humorous name of ‘The Mount Desert Philosophy.’

“These vacation rambles, under summer skies, through the most beautiful and impressive scenery of New England, I shall always cherish among the tenderest and most delightful of memories.”