The World Will Not Be Inherited By

I Have Just Finished My Sketch Of My Species Theory. If As I Believe That My Theory Is True & If It Be Accepted Even By One Competent Judge, It Will Be A Considerable Step In Science. I Therefore Write This, In Case Of My Sudden Death, As My Most Solemn & Last Request, Which I Am Sure You Will Consider The Same As If Legally Entered In My Will, That You Will Devote 400£ To Its Publication & Further Will Yourself, Or Through Hensleigh [wedgwood], Take Trouble In Promoting It.

It Is Certain That There May Be Extraordinary Mental Activity With An Extremely Small Absolute Mass Of Nervous Matter: Thus The Wonderfully Diversified Instincts, Mental Powers, And Affections Of Ants Are Notorious, Yet Their Cerebral Ganglia Are Not So Large As The Quarter Of A Small Pin's Head. Under This Point Of View, The Brain Of An Ant Is One Of The Most Marvelous Atoms Of Matter In The World, Perhaps More So Than The Brain Of A Man.

I Am Quite Conscious That My Speculations Run Beyond The Bounds Of True Science....it Is A Mere Rag Of An Hypothesis With As Many Flaw[s] & Holes As Sound Parts.

I Have Rarely Read Anything Which Has Interested Me More, Though I Have Not Read As Yet More Than A Quarter Of The Book Proper. From Quotations Which I Had Seen, I Had A High Notion Of Aristotle's Merits, But I Had Not The Most Remote Notion What A Wonderful Man He Was. Linnaeus And Cuvier Have Been My Two Gods, Though In Very Different Ways, But They Were Mere Schoolboys To Old Aristotle.

We Can Allow Satellites, Planets, Suns, Universe, Nay Whole Systems Of Universes, To Be Governed By Laws, But The Smallest Insect, We Wish To Be Created At Once By Special Act.