To Adam Sedgwick 24 April 1860

My Dear Sedgwick

Many thanks for the Review. You have so pencilled it, that I have ventured to direct your attention (in a soft pencil) easily rubbed out to a few passages which seem to justify an opinion held by the leading naturalists of London respecting the author vs. that he has a theory of his own to be matured, and is vexed at having been somewhat forestalled. Whether such an idea be right or wrong I can't say, but there are sentences which look wonderfully like private pique, & that are certainly irrelevant, & unnecessarily sneering, seeing how far the author really does agree with the idea of succession by modification (in some way or other) of successive generations. Tho' I don't believe C. D. has solved the problem, it is very clear that O. is looking forward to its solution, & apparently that he is to be solver. If it be in the power of man to solve it, I hope he will, but in the meantime I think he need not be quite so supercilious upon an honest, hardworking & painstaking fellow labourer. I am told this article has lowered O's reputation for fairness in the eyes of some eminent naturalists who studiously avoid, as much as they can, mixing themselves up with the "Odium Scientificum" - if such an expression be allowable

Ever affectionately

J. S. Henslow