Then his enthusiastic yielding to the simple and natural
attraction which flowers and trees have always exerted upon the
sympathetic observer led step by step to the study of groups and
families, until, on his second sojourn at Neath, and about a year before
his journey to South America with H.W. Bates, we find him deliberately
pondering over the problem which many years later he described by saying
that he "had in fact been bitten by the passion for species and their
description."
In a letter to Bates dated November 9th, 1847, he concludes by asking,
"Have you read 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,' or is it
out of your line?" and in the next (dated December 28th), in reply to
one from his friend, he continues, "I have a rather more favourable
opinion of the 'Vestiges' than you appear to have, I do not consider it
a hasty generalisation, but rather an ingenious hypothesis strongly
supported by some striking facts and analogies, but which remains to be
proved by more facts and the additional light which more research may
throw upon the problem..
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