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[498] to allow him to follow this line of investigation closely, but it was never absent from his view of the animal kingdom as a whole. He valued extremely Mrs. Holbrook's thoughtful sympathy, and as the following letter connects itself with the winter evening talks by the ‘Hollow Tree’ fireside, and was suggested by them, it may be given here, though in date it is a little in advance of the present chapter.

To Mrs. Holbrook.

Cambridge, July, 1852.
. . . I am again working at the human races, and have opened another line of investigation in that direction. The method followed by former investigators does not seem to me to have been altogether the best, since there is so little agreement between them. The difficulty has, no doubt, arisen on one side from the circumstance that the inquirer sought for evidence of the unity of all races, expecting the result to agree with the prevailing interpretation of Genesis; and on the other from too zoological a point of view in weighing the differences observed. Again, both have almost set aside all evidence not directly derived from the examination of the


Houghton, Mifflin and company, New York, Boston, 1885.

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