en
for an inheritance to all the nations of the earth.

And I have "proceeded to do a marvellous work among this people, even a
marvellous work and a wonder" (Isa. xxix. 14), enabling them now to read
in the Torah of Moses our teacher, "plainly and giving the sense"
(Neh. viii. 8), that which thou hast given in thy Torahs (works of
instruction). And when my people perceive that thy view has by no means
"gone astray" (Num. v. 12, 19, etc.) from the Torah of God, they will
hold thy name in the highest reverence, and "will at the same time
glorify the God of Israel" (Isa. xxix. 23).

"The vision of all this" (Isa. xxix. 11) thou shalt see, O Prince of
Wisdom, in this book, "which goeth before me" (Gen. xxxii. 21); and
whatever thy large understanding finds to criticise in it, come, "write
it in a table and note it in a book" (Isa. xxx. 8); and allow me to name
my work with thy name, which is glorified and greatly revered by

Thy servant, Naphtali Hallevi [i.e. the Levite].

Dated here in the city of Radom, in the province of Poland, in the month
of Nisan in the year 636, according to the lesser computation (i.e. A.M.
[5]636 = A.D. 1876).

LETTER 278. TO OTTO ZACHARIAS. 1877.

When I was on board the "Beagle" I believed in the permanence of
species, but, as far as I can remember, vague doubts occasionally
flitted across my mind. On my return home in the autumn of 1836 I
immediately began to prepare my journal for publication, and then saw
how many facts indicated the common descent of species (278/1. "The
facts to which reference is here made were, without doubt, eminently
fitted to attract the attention of a philosophical thinker; but until
the relations of the existing with the extinct species and of the
species of the different geographical areas, with one another were
determined with some exactness, they afforded but an unsafe foundation
for speculation. It was not possible that this determination should have
been effected before the return of the "Beagle" to England; and thus the
date which Darwin (writing in 1837) assigns to the dawn of the new light
which was rising in his mind becomes intelligible."--From "Darwiniana,"
Essays by Thomas H. Huxley, London, 1893; pages 274-5.), so that in
July, 1837, I opened a notebook to record any facts which might bear on
the question; but I did not become convinced that species were mutable
until, I think, two or three years had elapsed. (278/2. On this last
point see pag