More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1 A Record of His Work in a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters

A box has just arrived in which were two of your most kind and affectionate letters. You do not know how happy they have made me. One is dated December 15th, 1833, the other Jan...

I have just returned from Mendoza, having crossed the Cordilleras by two passes. This trip has added much to my knowledge of the geology of the country. Some of the facts, of th...

...What a curious, wonderful case is that of the Lycopodium! (14/1. Sir J.D. Hooker wrote, November 8, 1844: "I am firmly convinced (but not enough to print it) that L. Selago v...

You must have been surprised at not having heard sooner about the house. Emma and I only returned yesterday afternoon from sleeping there. I will give you in detail, as my fathe...

References to the Journals in which Mr. Darwin's papers were published will be found in his "Life and Letters" III., Appendix II. We are greatly indebted to Mr. C.F. Cox, of New...

some into my saying that a bear could be converted into a whale. As it offended persons, I struck it out in the second edition; but I still maintain that there is no especial di...

but not the cut itself, and I think my memory is real, and not as often happens in similar cases, [derived] from hearing the thing often repeated, [when] one obtains so vivid an...

(315/1. The following letter refers to notes by Sir J.D. Hooker which we have not seen. Though we are therefore unable to make clear many points referred to, the letter seems to...

We arrived here on the 24th of October, after our first cruise on the coast of Patagonia. North of the Rio Negro we fell in with some little schooners employed in sealing: to sa...

Your letter has interested me greatly; but how inextricable are the subjects which we are discussing! I do not think I said that I thought the productions of Asia were HIGHER (7...

I beg to enclose what appears to me a demonstration on your own principles, that Natural Selection could produce sterility of hybrids. If it does not convince you, I shall be gl...

I was indeed delighted to see your handwriting; but I felt almost sorry when I beheld how long a letter you had written. I know that you are indomitable in work, but remember ho...

I thank you sincerely for your most interesting letter. You refer much too modestly to your own knowledge and judgment, as you are much better fitted to throw light on your own...

I have been so repeatedly struck by the utter inability of numbers of intelligent persons to see clearly, or at all, the self-acting and necessary effects of Natural Selection,...

The "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin" was published in 1887. Since that date, through the kindness of various correspondents, additional letters have been received; among the...

On my return home yesterday I found your letter and MS., which I have read with extreme interest. Your note and every word in your paper are expressed with the same kind feeling...

I have received your very kind note of April 8th. In truth it is preposterous in me to give you hints; but it will give me real pleasure to write to you just as I talk to Hooker...

(180/1. Falconer had proposed Darwin for the Copley Medal of the Royal Society (which was awarded to him in 1864), but being detained abroad, he gave his reasons for supporting...

(155/1. The original letter is dated "December 10th," but this must, we think, be a slip of the pen for January 10th. It contains a reference to No. VI. of the "Lectures to Work...

It is quite curious how our opinions agree about Forbes' views. (319/1. See Letter 20.) I was very glad to have your last letter, which was even more valuable to me than most of...

(Chapter II./1. Since the publication of the "Life and Letters," Mr. Huxley's obituary notice of Charles Darwin has appeared. (Chapter II./2. "Proc. R. Soc." volume 44, 1888, an...

From the spirit of your review in the "Pall Mall Gazette" of my last book, which has given me great pleasure, I have thought that you would perhaps inform me on one point, withh...

I thank you for your paper on pigeons (189/1. "On the Pigeons of the Malay Archipelago" (The "Ibis," October, 1865). Mr. Wallace points out (page 366) that "the most striking su...

As this note requires no answer, I do not scruple to write a few lines to say how faithful and full a resume you have given of my notions on the moral sense in the "Pall Mall,"...

I send by this post Asa Gray, which seems to me very good, with the stamp of originality on it. Also Bronn's "Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie." (95/1. See Letter 93.)

I have read your paper with much interest. (151/1. "On the Nature and Peculiarities of the Fern-spore." "Bot. Soc. Edin." Read June 12th, 1862.) You ask for remarks on the matte...

I ought to have written sooner to say that I am very willing to subscribe 1 pound 1 shilling to the African man (though it be murder on a small scale), and will send you a Post-...

I am very much obliged for your note and the extract, which have interested me extremely. I cannot disbelieve for a moment Agassiz on Glacial action after all his experience, as...

(3/1. Extracts from Darwin's letters to Henslow were read before the Cambridge Philosophical Society on November 16th, 1835. Some of the letters were subsequently printed, in an...

(47/1. In the "Life and Letters," II., page 72, is given a letter (June 16th, 1856) to Lyell, in which Darwin exhales his indignation over the "extensionists" who created contin...

I should have less scruple in troubling you if I had any confidence what my work would turn out. Sometimes I think it will be good, at other times I really feel as much ashamed...

I ordered the journal (203/1. "Quarterly Journal of Science," October, 1867, page 472. A review of the Duke of Argyll's "Reign of Law.") a long time ago, but by some oversight r...

I have been recalling my thoughts on the question whether the Glacial period affected the whole world contemporaneously, or only one longitudinal belt after another. To my sorro...

(31/1. In the "Life and Letters," I., page 392, is a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker from Mr. Darwin, to whom the former had dedicated his "Himalayan Journals." Mr. Darwin there wrote...

I enclose a letter of Wyman's which touches on brains. Wyman is mistaken in supposing that I did not know that the Cave-rat was an American form; I made special enquiries. He do...

(223/1. The following is printed from a draft letter inscribed by Mr. Darwin "Against organs having been formed by direct action of medium in distinct organisms. Chiefly luminou...

(146/1. The following letter is interesting in connection with a letter addressed to Sir J.D. Hooker, March 26th, 1862, No. 136, where the value of Natural Selection is stated m...

I was much pleased to see and sign your certificate for the Geolog[ical Society]; we shall thus occasionally, I hope, meet. (320/1. Sir Joseph was elected a Fellow of the Geolog...

(30/1. The first paragraph of this letter is published in the "Life and Letters," I., page 372, as part of a series of letters to Strickland, beginning at page 365, where a biog...

It has just occurred to me that I took no notice of your questions on extinction in St. Helena. I am nearly sure that Hooker has information on the extinction of plants (112/1....

I have been much interested by Bentham's paper in the "Natural History Review," but it would not, of course, from familiarity, strike you as it did me. (125/2. This refers to Be...

Many thanks about the lupin. Your letter has interested me extremely, and reminds me of old times. I suppose, by your writing, you would like to hear my notions. I cannot admit...

I have just finished with very great interest "Man's Place." (164/1. "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," 1863 (preface dated January 1863).) I never fail to admire the clear...

Dr. Engelmann, of St. Louis, Missouri, who knew European botany well before he came here, and has been an acute observer generally for twenty years or more in this country, in r...

I have read your essay with much curiosity and interest, but you probably have no idea how excessively difficult it is to understand. (271/1. "A Theory of Heredity" ("Journal of...

I am very much obliged for your present of your "Comp. Anatomy." (175/1. "Lectures on the Elements of Comparative Anatomy," 1864.) When strong enough I am sure I shall read it w...

I have read the pages (356/1. The paper on Arctic plants in Volume XXIII. of the Linnean Society's "Transactions," 1860-62.) attentively (with even very much more admiration tha...

(366/1. Sir Joseph had asked (July 31st, 1866): "Is there an evidence that the south of England and of Ireland were not submerged during the Glacial epoch, when the W. and N. of...

I am heartily glad to hear that my Lyellian notes have been of the slightest use to you. (340/1. The Copley Medal was given to Sir Charles Lyell in 1858. Mr. Darwin supplied Sir...

(20/1. Edward Forbes was at work on his celebrated paper in the "Geological Survey Memoirs" for 1846. We have not seen the letter of Darwin's to which this is a reply, nor, inde...

(332/1. The "verdict" referred to in the following letter was Sir J.D. Hooker's opinion on Darwin's MS. on geographical distribution. The first paragraph has been already publis...

I have been considering the terrible problem. Let me first say that no man could have more earnestly wished for the success of Natural Selection in regard to sterility than I di...

I meant to have replied to your interesting letter of January 1st long before this time, and also that of November 24th, which I doubt if I have ever acknowledged. But after get...

(41/1. The following letter illustrates Darwin's work on aberrant genera. In the "Origin," Edition I., page 429, he wrote: "The more aberrant any form is, the greater must be th...

I have long had it in mind to write you upon the subject of which you speak, but have been prevented by a very natural feeling of distrust in the worthiness and truth of the vie...

I have been for ten weeks at Water-cure, and on my return a fortnight ago through London I found a copy of your Memoir, and heartily do I thank you for it. (347/1. "Diagnostic C...

I know that you have been overworking yourself, and that makes you think that you are doing nothing in science. If this is the case (which I do not believe), your intellect has...

(87/1. In the "Origin of Species" a section of Chapter X. is devoted to "The succession of the same types within the same areas, during the late Tertiary period" (Edition I., pa...

I was greatly interested by your address, which I have now read thrice, and which I believe will have much influence on all who read it. But you are mistaken in thinking that I...

I did not receive your essay for some days after your very kind letter, and I read german so slowly that I have only just finished it. (268/1. "Studien zur Descendenz-Theorie" I...

The quickness and earnestness of your reply to my letter gives me the greatest encouragement, and I am much delighted at the unexpected interest which your questions and comment...

I have been an ungrateful dog for not having answered your letter sooner, but I have been so hard at work correcting proofs (317/1. The second edition of the "Journal."), togeth...

I hope and think you are too severe on Lyell's early chapters. Though so condensed, and not well arranged, they seemed to me to convey with uncommon force the antiquity of man,...

(110/1. See Letter 95, note. This letter was written in reply to a long one from W.H. Harvey, dated August 24th, 1860. Harvey had already published a serio-comic squib and a rev...

I have been a shameful time in returning your documents, but I have been very busy scientifically, and unscientifically in planting. I have been exceedingly interested in the de...

I must write to thank you for your last letter, and to tell you how much all your views and facts interest me. I must be allowed to put my own interpretation on what you say of...

I fully agree that the difficulty is great, and might be made much of by a mere advocate. Will you oblige me by reading again slowly from pages 267 to 272. (92/2. The reference...

I write this morning in great tribulation about Tristan d'Acunha. (48/1. See "Flora Antarctica," page 216. Though Tristan d'Acunha is "only 1,000 miles distant from the Cape of...

(133/1. The following letter was published in the "Life" of Mr. Fawcett (1885); we are indebted to Mrs. Fawcett and Messrs. Smith & Elder for permission to reprint it. See Lette...

I am particularly obliged for your facts about solitary islands having several species of peculiar genera; it knocks on the head some analogies of mine; the point stupidly never...

Your long letter of the 8th inst. is full of interest to me, and I shall follow out your hints as far as I can. I rejoice in furnishing facts to others to work up in their beari...

The present plan is to try whether any existing breeds happen to have acquired accidentally any degree of sterility; but to this point hereafter. The enclosed MS. will show what...

(343/1. Mr. Darwin used the knowledge of the spread of introduced plants in North America and Australia to throw light on the cosmic migration of plants. Sir J.D. Hooker apparen...

(98/1. The reference here is to the review on the "Origin of Species" generally believed to be by the late Sir R. Owen, and published in the April number of the "Edinburgh Revie...

(66/1. The memorial referred to in the following letter was addressed on November 18th to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was signed by Huxley, Bentham, W.H. Harvey, Henfrey...

Thanks also for your own (136/1. See note in Letter 135.) and Bates' letter now returned. They are both excellent; you have, I think, said all that can be said against direct ef...

It is my decided opinion that you ought to send an account to some scientific society, and I think to the Royal Society. (235/1. Mr. Jenner Weir's case is given in "Animals and...

I have got out all the specimens, which I have thought could by any possibility be of any use to you; but I have not looked at them, and know not what state they are in, but sho...

I am glad to hear that you are going (222/1. In his Presidential Address at Norwich.) to touch on the statement that the belief in Natural Selection is passing away. I do not su...

As I suppose Erasmus (Erasmus Darwin) has given all the particulars of the journey, I will say no more about it, except that altogether it has cost me 7 pounds. We got into our...

Tuckwell's "Reminiscences of Oxford," London, 1900, page 50.) It is of enormous importance the showing the world that a few first-rate men are not afraid of expressing their opi...

I have read your paper (145/1. "On the disputed Affinity of the Mammalian Genus Plagiaulax, from the Purbeck beds."--"Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume XVIII., page 348, 1862.) w...

I hope the proof-sheets having been sent here will not inconvenience you. I have read them with infinite satisfaction, and the whole discussion strikes me as admirable. I have n...

I return by this post Dawson's lecture, which seems to me interesting, but with nothing new. I think he must be rather conceited, with his "If Dr. Hooker had known this and that...

I enclose you a proof of the last page, that you may see what our flora amounts to. The genera of the Cryptogams (Ferns down to Hepaticae) are illustrated in fourteen crowded pl...

(121/1. Mr. Darwin's letters to Mr. Tegetmeier, taken as a whole, give a striking picture of the amount of assistance which Darwin received from him during many years. Some cita...

...I have really no criticism, except a trifling one in pencil near the end, which I have inserted on account of dominant and important species generally varying most. You speak...

I should be very much obliged for your opinion on the enclosed. You may remember in the three first volumes tabulated, all orders went right except Labiatae. By the way, if by a...

I declare that you read the reviews on the "Origin" more carefully than I do. I agree with all your remarks. The point of correlation struck me as well put, and on varieties gro...

What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel works of nature! With respect to crossing, from one sentence in your lett...

...I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed my Maer visit,--I felt in anticipation my future tranquil life: how I do hope you may be as happy as I know I shall be: but it frightens...

I like the first part of your paper in the "Gard. Chronicle" (376/1. The lecture on Insular Floras ("Gard. Chron." January 1867).) to an extraordinary degree: you never, in my o...

You will be weary of notes from me about the little book of yours. It is lucky for me that I expressed, before reading No. VI. (157/1. "Lectures to Working Men," No. VI., is a c...

(243/1. Sir Joseph Hooker wrote (August 5th, 1871) to Darwin about Lord Kelvin's Presidential Address at the Edinburgh meeting of the British Association: "It seems to me to be...

Very many thanks about the Elodea, which case interests me much. I wrote to Mr. Marshall (100/1. W. Marshall was the author of "Anacharis alsinastrum, a new water-weed": four le...

(119/1. This refers to the first number of the new series of the "Natural History Review," 1861, a periodical which Huxley was largely instrumental in founding, and of which he...

I am very much obliged to you for your interesting letter. I have long been very anxious, even for as short a sketch as you have kindly sent me of the botanical geography of the...

I am glad to receive to-day an advertisement of your book. I have been wonderfully interested by the articles in the "Contemporary." Those were splendid hits about the Prince of...

Most sincere thanks for your kind congratulations. I never received a note from you in my life without pleasure; but whether this will be so after you have read pangenesis (208/...

I received yesterday your most kind letter of the 23rd and your "Statistics," and two days previously another copy. I thank you cordially for them. Botanists write, of course, f...

Your letter discusses lots of interesting subjects, and I am very glad you have sent for your letter to Bates. (135/1. Published in Mr. Clodd's memoir of Bates in the "Naturalis...

You encourage me so, that I will slowly go on salting seeds. I have not, I see, explained myself, to let you suppose that I objected to such cases as the former union of England...

I have read Nos. IV, and V. (156/1. "On our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature," being six Lectures to Working Men delivered at the Museum of Practical G...

I thank you very sincerely for your letter, and am much pleased that you go a little way with me. You will think it presumptuous, but I am well convinced from my own mental expe...

(299/1. On April 9th, 1880, Mr. Huxley lectured at the Royal Institution on "The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species." The lecture was published in "Nature" and in Huxley's "...

(150/1. The following is the first of a series of letters addressed to the late John Scott, of which the major part is given in our Botanical chapters. We have been tempted to g...

Will you make a present to each of the little girls (if not too big and grandiose) of six pence (for which I send stamps), who are going to collect seeds for me: viz., Lychnis,...

I have just finished your lecture (281/2. "The Scientific Evidence of Organic Evolution: a Discourse" (delivered before the Philosophical Society of Ross-shire), Inverness, 1877...

We shall be at home this day week, taking two days on the journey, and right glad I shall be. The whole has been a failure to me, but much enjoyment to the young...My wife has a...

I have just read with intense interest as far as page xxvi (348/1. For Darwin's impression of the "Introductory Essay to the Tasmanian Flora" as a whole, see "Life and Letters,"...

(23/1. The following extract gives the germ of what developed into an interesting discussion in the "Origin" (Edition I., page 147). Darwin wrote, "I suspect also that some case...

(307/1. Mr. Graham's book, the "Creed of Science," is referred to in "Life and Letters," I., page 315, where an interesting letter to the author is printed. With regard to chanc...

(284/1. Mr. Torbitt was engaged in trying to produce by methodical selection and cross-fertilisation a fungus-proof race of the potato. The plan is fully described in the "Life...

What you say about the Cape flora's direct relation to Australia is a great trouble to me. Does not Abyssinia highland, (341/1. In a letter to Darwin, December 21st (?), 1858, S...

I thank you for so kindly taking the trouble of writing to me, on naturalised plants. I did not know of, or had forgotten, the clover case. How I wish I knew what plants the clo...

I am sorry you cannot give any verdict on continental extensions; and I infer that you think my argument of not much weight against such extensions; I know I wish I could believ...

Wallace: "Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species" (loc. cit., page 186).); and I have added that I kn...

I send Blyth (106/1. See Letter 27.); it is a dreadful handwriting; the passage is on page 4. In a former note he told me he feared there was hardly a chance of getting money fo...

(142/1. This refers to the MS. of Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.)," published in the "Natural H...

I was on the point of adding to an order to Williams & Norgate for your Lectures (149/1. "A Course of Six Lectures to Working Men," published in six pamphlets by Hardwicke, and...

It is working hours, but I am trying to take a day's holiday, for I finished and despatched yesterday my Climbing paper. For the last ten days I have done nothing but correct re...

(53/1. The following letter is chiefly of interest as showing the amount and kind of work required for Darwin's conclusions on "large genera varying," which occupy no more than...

I ought to have written before to thank you for the copies of your papers on Primula and on "Cross-unions of Dimorphic Plants, etc." The latter is particularly interesting and t...

the passages where rudimentary organs are said to be more variable than others, because no longer under the restraining influence of Natural Selection. And still more distinctly...

I received several days ago two large packets, but have as yet read only your letter; for we have been in fearful distress, and I could attend to nothing. Our poor boy had the r...

My second volume on the everlasting barnacles is at last published (34/1. "A Monograph of the Sub-class Cirripedia. II. The Balanidae, the Verrucidae." Ray Society, 1854.), and...

If my letters did not gene you it is impossible that you should suppose that yours were of no use to me! I would throw up the whole thing were it not for correspondence with you...

I am extremely much obliged to you for having so fully entered on my point. I knew I was on unsafe ground, but it proves far unsafer than I had thought. I had thought that Brull...

I ought to apologise for troubling you, but I have at last carefully read your excellent criticisms on my book. (115/1. Bronn added critical remarks to his German translation of...

Many thanks for Hooker's letter; it is a real pleasure to me to read his letters; they are always written with such spirit. I quite agree that Agassiz could never mistake weathe...

There never was such a good man as you for telling me things which I like to hear. I am not at all surprised that Hallett has found some varieties of wheat could not be improved...

Your kind note has been forwarded to me here. You will be surprised to hear that we all--children, servants, and all--have been here for nearly two months. All last autumn and w...

islands were covered with fine trees; in the conglomerate, I found one 15 feet in circumference perfectly silicified to the very centre. The alternations of compact crystalline...

(247/1. Mr. Fiske, who is perhaps best known in England as the author of "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," had sent to Mr. Darwin some reports of the lectures given at Harvard Un...

I have thought a good deal about my salting experiments (321/1. For an account of Darwin's experiments on the effect of salt water on the germination of seeds, see "Life and Let...

I am heartily glad to hear of your intended marriage. A good wife is the supreme blessing in this life, and I hope and believe from what you say that you will be as happy as I h...

I have been much interested by your letter, which is as clear as daylight. I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of "the sur...

I thank you sincerely for writing to me and for your very interesting letter. Your name has for very long been familiar to me, and I have heard of your zealous exertions in the...

I am much obliged for your letter, which has been very interesting to me. Your "indefinite" answers are perhaps not the least valuable part; for Botany has been followed in so m...

I have received the crossing paper which you were so kind as to send me. It is very clear, and I quite agree with it; but the point in question has not been a difficulty to me,...

As you are interested in pangenesis, and will some day, I hope, convert an "airy nothing" into a substantial theory, I send by this post an essay by Hackel (275/2. "Die Perigene...

About the "Pall Mall." (224/1. "Pall Mall Gazette," August 22nd, 1868. In an article headed "Dr. Hooker on Religion and Science," and referring to the British Association addres...

I must have the pleasure of thanking you for your long and interesting letter. The cause and means of the transition from an hermaphrodite to a unisexual condition seems to me a...

Yours was a splendid letter, and I was very curious to hear something about the Liverpool meeting (238/1. Mr. Huxley was President of the British Association at Liverpool in 187...

I have been much interested by your letter. I received your former paper on Phytophagic variety (186/1. For "Phytophagic Varieties and Phytophagic Species" see "Proc. Entomolog....

How kind you have been to give me so much of your time! Your letter is of real use, and has been and shall be well considered. I am much pleased to find that we do not differ as...

I do not know whether your MS. instructions are sent in; but even if they are not sent in, I daresay what I am going to write will be absolutely superfluous (25/1. The results o...

I have just got as far as Lycopodium in your Flora, and, in truth, cannot say enough how much I have been interested in all your scattered remarks. I am delighted to have in pri...

I had no thought that you would measure the thickness of the walls of the cells; but if you will, and allow me to give your measurements, it will be an immense advantage. As it...

This shall be such an extraordinary note as you have never received from me, for it shall not contain one single question or request. I thank you for your impression on my views...

I am extremely much obliged for your very kind present of your beautiful work, "Seasons with the Sea-Horses;" and I have no doubt that I shall find much interesting from so care...

I am really truly sorry to hear about your [health]. I entreat you to write down your own case,--symptoms, and habits of life,--and then consider your case as that of a stranger...

Owing to all sorts of work, I have only just now finished reading your "Natural Conditions of Existence." (303/1. Semper's "Natural Conditions of Existence as they affect Animal...

That you may not misunderstand how far I go with Pallas and his many disciples I should like to add that, though I believe that our domestic dogs have descended from several wil...

I do not feel that I shall grapple with the sterility argument till my return home; I have tried once or twice, and it has made my stomach feel as if it had been placed in a vic...

I have almost finished your Arctic paper, and I must tell you how I admire it. (354/1. "Outlines of the Distribution of Arctic Plants" [Read June 21st, 1860], "Linn. Soc. Trans....

I return enclosed: if you write, thank Mr. Kingsley for thinking of letting me see the sound sense of an Eastern potentate. (154/1. Kingsley's letter to Huxley, dated December 2...

I thank you much for your letter and the parcel of shoots. The case of the yellow plum is a treasure, and is now safely recorded on your authority in its proper place, in contra...

"I am going mad and am in despair over your confounded Antarctic island flora. Will you read over the Tristan list, and see if my remarks on it are at all accurate. I cannot mak...

I succeeded in persuading myself for twenty-four hours that Huxley's lecture was a success. (94/1. At the Royal Institution. See "Life and Letters," II., page 282.) Parts were e...

Many thanks for your note and for all the trouble about the seeds, which will be most useful to me next spring. On my return home I will send the shillings. (116/1. Shillings fo...

(367/1. In a letter of July 31st, Sir J.D. Hooker wrote, "You must not suppose me to be a champion of continental connection, because I am not agreeable to trans-oceanic migrati...

Absence from home and consequent idleness are the causes that I have not sooner thanked you for your very kind present of your Lectures. (161/1. "On the Germs and Vestiges of Di...

I am much obliged for your extract (187/1. Mr. Wallace had sent Darwin a note about a tufted cock-blackbird, which transmitted the character to some of its offspring.); I never...

I am very much obliged for your kind letter, and I have waited for a week before answering it in hopes of receiving the "kleine Schrift" (226/1. The "kleine Schrift" is "Ueber d...

I received some weeks ago your great work (198/1. "Generelle Morphologie," 1866.); I have read several parts, but I am too poor a German scholar and the book is too large for me...

I send the MS., but as far as I can judge by just skimming it, it will be of no use to you. It seems to bear on transitional forms. I feel sure that I have other and better case...

Argyll, in which he stated that the letter had been written to him by Mr. Darwin in reply to the question, "why it was that he did assume the unity of mankind as descended from...

I have been greatly interested by your account of your American life. What an extraordinary and self-contained life you have led! and what vigour of mind you must possess to fol...

"From the rising of the sun and from the west" (Isa. xlv. 6) all the nations know concerning the Torah (Theory) (277/2. Lit., instruction. The Torah is the Pentateuch, strictly...

I received yesterday morning your present of that work to which I, for one, as well as so many others, owe a debt of gratitude never to be forgotten. I have read with the greate...

Your letter has been forwarded to me here, where I am profiting by a few weeks' rest and hydropathy. Your letter has interested and amused me much. I am extremely glad you have...

It is a most tiresome drawback to my satisfaction in writing that, though I leave out a good deal and try to condense, every chapter runs to such an inordinate length. My presen...

I am sorry to find that Sir Wyville Thomson does not understand the principle of Natural Selection, as explained by Mr. Wallace and myself. If he had done so, he could not have...

I shall not consider all your notes on my MS. for some weeks, till I have done with crossing; but I have not been able to stop myself meditating on your powerful objection to th...

I am very much obliged to you for having sent me your address (225/1. Address to Section D of the British Association. ("Brit. Assoc. Report," Norwich meeting, 1868, page 83.))....

It would be a very great pleasure to me if I could think that my letters were of the least use to you. I must have expressed myself badly for you to suppose that I look at islan...

I have been unwell, so have delayed thanking you for your admirable letter. I hope you will not think me presumptuous in saying how much I have been struck with your varied know...

I thank you most sincerely for sending me your Memoir. (160/1. Etude sur l'Espece a l'occasion d'une revision de la Famille des Cupuliferes. "Biblioth. Univ. (Arch. des Sc. Phys...

I thank you for your very interesting letter, which it has given me much pleasure to receive. I never heard of anything so odd as the Prior in the Holy Catholic Church believing...

Now for a few words on science. Many thanks for facts on neuters. You cannot tell how I rejoice that you do not think what I have said on the subject absurd. Only two persons ha...

Shall you attend the Council of the Royal Society on Thursday next? I have not been very well of late, and I doubt whether I can attend; and if I could do anything (pray conceal...

Some months ago you were so kind as to say you would measure the thickness of the walls of the basal and side plates of the cell of the bee. Could you find time to do so soon? W...

Hearty thanks for your most interesting letter and three very valuable extracts. I am very glad that you have been looking at the South Temperate insects. I wish that the materi...

(282/1. In 1877 the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on Mr. Darwin by the University of Cambridge. At the dinner given on the occasion by the Philosophical Society, Mr. Hu...

As this note requires no sort of answer, you must allow me to express my lively admiration of your paper in the "Nineteenth Century." (296/1. "Nineteenth Century," January 1880,...

Many thanks for your pleasant note in return for all my stupid trouble. I did not fully appreciate your insect-diving case (141/1. "On two Aquatic Hymenoptera, one of which uses...

Many thanks for your note received this morning; and now for another "wriggle." According to my notions, the sub-arctic species would advance in a body, advancing so as to keep...

I heard yesterday from a relation who had seen in a newspaper that you were C.B. I must write one line to say "Hurrah," though I wish it had been K.C.B., as it assuredly ought t...

I have finished the reading of your MS., and have been very much delighted and instructed. Your case is a most strong one, and gives me a much higher idea of change than I had p...

Many thanks for your very entertaining letter, which was a great relief after hearing a long stupid lecture from Duncan on Materia Medica, but as you know nothing either of the...

I received several weeks ago your note telling me that you could not visit England, which I sincerely regretted, as I should most heartily have liked to have made your personal...

One must judge by one's own light, however imperfect, and as I have found no other book (339/1. A. De Candolle's "Geographie Botanique," 1855.) so useful to me, I am bound to fe...

the effect that the higher law of Providential Arrangement should always be stated. But astronomers do not state that God directs the course of each comet and planet. The view t...

Did I tell you how deeply pleased I was with Gray's notice of my Arctic essay? (355/1. "American Journal of Science and Arts," XXXIV., and in Gray's "Scientific Papers," Volume...

I received this morning your "Unite de l'Espece Humaine" [published in 1861], and most sincerely do I thank you for this your very kind present. I had heard of and been recommen...

I am confined to the sofa with boils, so you must let me write in pencil. You would laugh if you could know how much your note pleased me. I had the firmest conviction that you...

Whilst I think of it, let me tell you that years ago I remember seeing in the Museum of the Geological Society a tooth of hippopotamus from Madagascar: this, on geographical and...

Thanks for your jolly letter. I have read your second article (377/1. The lecture on Insular Floras was published in instalments in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," January 5th, 12th...

I thank you for your very kind, long, and interesting letter. The case is so wonderful and difficult that I dare not express any opinion on it. Of course, I regret that Hilgendo...

I write one line merely to thank you for your pleasant note, and to say that I will keep your secret. I will shake my head as mysteriously as Lord Burleigh. Several persons have...

You must not let me worry you. I am an obstinate pig, but you must not be miserable at my looking at the same thing in a different light from you. I must get to the bottom of th...

I came here on account of my father's health, which has been sadly failing of late, but to my great joy he has got surprisingly better...I had not heard of your botanical appoin...

I have to thank you for two notes, one through Hooker, and one with some letters to be posted, which was done. I anticipated your request by making a few remarks on Owen's revie...

Your letter received this morning interested me more than even most of your letters, and that is saying a good deal. I must scribble a little on several points. About Lyell and...

I have been very much pleased to see how boldly and clearly you speak out on the modification of species. I thank you for giving me the pages of reference; but they were superfl...

I write a line to wish you good-bye, as I hear you are off on Wednesday, and to thank you for the Dionoea, but I cannot make the little creature grow well. I have this day read...

I shall be very glad to be of any sort of use to you in regard to the beetles. But first let me thank you for your kind note and offer of specimens to my children. My boys are a...

I suppose that you have received Hackel's book (194/1. "Generelle Morphologie," 1866.) some time ago, as I have done. Whenever you have had time to read through some of it, enou...

How rich and valuable a letter you have most kindly sent me! The case of Baronne Prevost (199/1. See "Variation under Domestication," Edition II., Volume I., page 406. Mr. River...

I have been glad to see Watson's letter, and am sorry he is a renegade about Natural Selection. It is, as you say, characteristic, with the final fling at you.

(269/1. The late Mr. Lawson Tait wrote to Mr. Darwin (June 2nd, 1875): "I am watching a lot of my mice from whom I removed the tails at birth, and I am coming to the conclusion...

...I have speculated on the probability of there having been a post-Glacial Arctic-Norwego-Greenland in connection, which would account for the strong fact, that temperate Green...

about L. trigynum: the functional difference in the two forms of Linum is really wonderful. I assure you I quite long to see you and a few others in London; it is not so much th...

(252/1. The correspondence with Professor Hyatt, of Boston, U.S., originated in the reference to his and Professor Cope's theories of acceleration and retardation, inserted in t...

I received your interesting letter of November 5th some little time ago, and despatched immediately a copy of my "Journal of Researches." I fear you will think me troublesome in...

I should think it was not necessary to get a written agreement. (148/1. Mr. Bates' book, "A Naturalist on the Amazons," was published in 1863.) I have never had one from Murray....

I am quite delighted to hear about the Copley and Lyell. (69/1. The Copley Medal of the Royal Society was awarded to Lyell in 1858.) I have grown hot with indignation many times...

I thank you very sincerely for your two kind notes. The next time you write to your father I beg you to give him from me my best thanks, but I am sorry that he should have had t...

I thank you for your very pleasant and amusing note and invitation to dinner, which I am sorry to say I cannot accept. I shall come up (stomach willing) on Thursday for Phil. Cl...

I am much obliged for your long and interesting letter. You have indeed good right to speak confidently about the habits of wild birds and animals; for I should think no one bes...

Many thanks for Ledebour and still more for your letter, with its admirable resume of all your objections. It is really most kind of you to take so very much trouble about what...

(193/1. The following letter refers to the 4th edition of the "Origin," 1866, which was translated by Professor Carus, and formed the 3rd German edition. Carus continued to tran...

The Lyells have been here, and were extremely pleasant, but I saw them only occasionally for ten minutes, and when they went I had an awful day [of illness]; but I am now slowly...

With respect to the points in your note, I may sometimes have expressed myself with ambiguity. At the end of Chapter XXIII., where I say that marked races are not often (you omi...

Your conclusion that all speculation about preordination is idle waste of time is the only wise one; but how difficult it is not to speculate! My theology is a simple muddle; I...

You will have received before this the note which I addressed to Leicester, after finishing Volume I., and you will have received copies of my little review (167/1. "Nat. Hist....

(274/1. The reference is to the theory put forward in the first edition of "Variation of Animals and Plants," II., page 15, that the asserted tendency to regeneration after the...

With respect to reversion, I have been raking up vague recollections of vague facts; and the impression on my mind is rather more in favour of reversion than it was when you wer...

Your note has been wonderfully interesting. Your term, "pithecoid man," is a whole paper and theory in itself. How I hope the skull of the new Macrauchenia has come. It is grand...

Plants lie under an enormous disadvantage in respect to such discussions in not passing through larval stages. I do not know whether you can distinguish a plant low from non-dev...

On Tuesday I will send off from London, whither I go on that day, Ledebour's three remaining volumes, Grisebach and Cybele, i.e., all that I have, and most truly am I obliged to...

I grieve to think how little I saw of Henslow for many years. With respect to a biography of Henslow, I cannot help feeling rather doubtful, on the principle that a biography co...

Thank you for your note and giving me a chance of seeing you in town; but it was out of my power to take advantage of it, for I had previously arranged to go up to London on Mon...

I know you have no time for speculative correspondence; and I did not in the least expect an answer to my last. But I am very glad to have had it, for in my eclectic work the op...

Thank you much for telling me all about the C.B., for I much wished to hear. It pleases me extremely that the Government have done this much; and as the K.C.B.'s are limited in...

I now want to ask your opinion, and for facts on a point; and as I shall often want to do this during the next year or two, so let me say, once for all, that you must not take t...

(308/1. Romanes had reviewed Roux's "Struggle of Parts in the Organism" in "Nature," September 20th, 1881, page 505. This led to an attack by the Duke of Argyll (October 20th, p...

Hearty thanks for De Candolle received. I have put the big genera in hand. Also many thanks for your valuable remarks on the affinities of the species in great genera, which wil...

I have had another talk with Bentham, who is greatly agitated by your book: evidently the stern, keen intellect is aroused, and he finds that it is too late to halt between two...

As for the anthropologists being a bete noire to scientific men, I am not surprised, for I have just skimmed through the last "Anthrop. Journal," and it shows, especially the lo...

I have read your papers with extreme interest, and I have carefully read every word of them. (122/1. "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley." (Read March 5th and...

I hope that you will permit me to thank you for sending me a copy of your paper in "The Geologist" (124/1. In a letter to Hooker (April 23rd?, 1861) Darwin refers to Hutton's re...

I have just finished your Japan memoir (349/1. "Diagnostic Characters of New Species of Phaenogamous Plants collected in Japan by Charles Wright. With observations upon the Rela...

Have you seen Bentham's remarks on species in his address to the Linnean Society? (171/1. Presidential address before the Linnean Society by G. Bentham ("Journ. Proc. Linn. Soc....

(129/1. It was in reply to the following letter that Darwin wrote to Fawcett: "You could not possibly have told me anything which would have given me more satisfaction than what...

I am much obliged for your kind gift of "The Genesis, etc." (306/1. "The Genesis of the Tertiary Species of Planorbis," in the "Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. Anniversary Mem." 1880.),...

I have been particularly glad to get your splendid eloge of Lindley. His name had been lately passing through my head, and I had hoped that Miers would have proposed him for the...

I thank you much for your letter. Had I seen the interest of my remark I would have made many more measurements, though I did make several. I stated the facts merely to give the...

(39/1. The following letter shows Darwin's interest in the adjudication of the Royal medals. The year 1855 was the last during which he served on the Council of the Society. He...

Zoological Arguments, etc." page 300; "On Natural History as Knowledge, Discipline, and Power," page 305, do not seem to us to contain anything likely to offend; but Falconer's...

does not exclude still more general laws, i.e. the ordering of the whole universe. I have said that Natural Selection is to the structure of organised beings what the human arch...

As I am away from home on account of my daughter's health, I do not know your address, and fly this at random, and it is of very little consequence if it never reaches you.

What are you doing now? I have never yet got hold of the "Edinburgh Review," in which I hear you are well abused. By the way, I heard lately from Asa Gray that Wyman was delight...

I write to-day so that there shall be no delay this time in thanking you for your interesting and long letter received this morning. I am sure that you will excuse brevity when...

I must thank you for the gift of your Art Primer, which I have read with much pleasure. Parts were too technical for me who could never draw a line, but I was greatly interested...

I have got fine large drawings (84/1. For Mr. Huxley's R.I. lecture.) of the Pouter, Carrier, and Tumbler; I have only drawings in books of Fantails, Barbs, and Scanderoon Runts...

(127/1. The following letter was in reply to one from Mr. Hindmarsh, to whom Mr. Darwin had written asking for information on the average number of animals killed each year in t...

I am preparing a new and cheap edition of the "Origin," and shall introduce a new chapter on gradation, and on the uses of initial commencements of useful structures; for this,...

More than thirty years ago I was introduced to you at your rooms in Christ's College by A.W. Grisebach, and had the pleasure of seeing your noble collection of British Coleopter...

I shall be very glad to hear, at some future day, your criticisms on the "causes of variability." Indeed, I feel sure that I am right about sterility and Natural Selection. Two...

Many thanks for your agreeable note. Please keep the geographical MS. till you hear from me, for I may have to beg you to send it to Murray; as through Lyell's intervention I ho...

In my opinion your Catalogue (59/1. It appears from a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker (December 25th, 1857) that the reference is to the proofs of Huxley's "Explanatory Preface to the...

Many thanks for your pleasant letter. I agree to every word you say about "Fraser" and the "Quarterly." (107/1. Bishop Wilberforce's review of the "Origin" in the "Quarterly Rev...

2. I cannot now remember in what work I saw the statement about Peloria affecting the axis, but I know it was one which I thought might be trusted. I consulted also Dr. Falconer...

(215/1. The following extract from a letter to Sir Joseph Hooker (dated April 3rd, 1868) refers to his Presidential Address for the approaching meeting of the British Associatio...

(291/1. "This letter was in reply to a suggestion that in his preface Mr. Darwin should point out by references to "The Origin of Species" and his other writings how far he had...

The "Beagle" arrived at Falmouth on Sunday evening, and I reached home late last night. My head is quite confused with so much delight, but I cannot allow my sisters to tell you...

I send by this post a review by Asa Gray, so good that I should like you to see it; I must beg for its return. I want to ask, also, your opinion about getting it reprinted in En...

I have just received enclosed for you, and I have thought that you would like to read the latter half of A. Gray's letter to me, as it is political and nearly as mad as ever in...

What a good kind friend you are! I know well that this medal must have cost you a deal of trouble. It is a very great honour to me, but I declare the knowledge that you and a fe...

Many thanks for Harvey's letter (103/2. W.H. Harvey had been corresponding with Sir J.D. Hooker on the "Origin of Species."), which I will keep a little longer and then return....

Very many thanks for your letter, which has told me exactly what I wanted to know. I shall give up all thoughts of trying to get the book (197/1. Hackel's "Generelle Morphologie...

I was about to write to-day, when your jolly letter came this morning, to tell you that after carefully going over the N.Z. Flora, I find that there are only about thirty repute...

reference is to proof-sheets.), as usual, with great interest. The points are awfully intricate, almost at present beyond the confines of knowledge. The view which I should have...

George has been explaining our differences. I have admitted in the new edition (273/1. In the second edition (1875) of the "Variation of Animals and Plants," Volume II., page 35...

I suppose you will be in Hart St. (9/1. Sir Charles Lyell lived at 16, Hart Street, Bloomsbury.) to-morrow [or] the 14th. I write because I cannot avoid wishing to be the first...

(297/1. A letter to M. Fabre is given in "Life and Letters," III., page 220, in which the suggestion is made of rotating the insect before a "homing" experiment occurs.)

I thank you for your letter, which has quite delighted me. I sincerely congratulate you on your success in making a graft-hybrid (206/1. Prof. Hildebrand's paper is in the "Bot....

Although I have never particularly attended to the points in dispute between Dr. (Richard) King and the other Arctic gentlemen, yet I have carefully read all the articles in the...

(309/1. On December 27th, 1881, Mr. Jenner Weir wrote to Mr. Darwin: "After some hesitation in lieu of a Christmas card, I venture to give you the return of some observations on...

I am very sorry that I can add nothing to my very brief notice, without reading again Weismann's work and getting up the whole subject by reading my own and other books, and for...

You are a pretty fellow to talk of funking the returning thanks at the dinner for the medal. (38/1. The Royal medal was given to Sir Joseph in 1854.) I heard that it was decided...

Since I wrote a few days ago and sent off three copies of your book, I have read the English translation (227/1. "Facts and Arguments for Darwin." See "Life and Letters," III.,...

(361/1. In the earlier part of this letter Mr. Darwin refers to a review on Planchon in the "Nat. History Review," April 1865. There can be no doubt, therefore, that "Thomson's...

The same post that brought the enclosed brought Dana's pamphlet on the same subject. (162/1. The pamphlet referred to was published in "Silliman's Journal," Volume XXV., 1863, p...

Referring to page 344 again (368/1. "Origin of Species," Edition III., pages 343-4: "In some cases, however, as by the breaking of an isthmus and the consequent irruption of a m...

I have no criticism, except one sentence not perfectly smooth. I think your introductory remarks very striking, interesting, and novel. (158/1. "On the Development of Chloeon (E...

I quite agree in admiration of Forbes' Essay (351/1. "Memoir of the Geolog. Survey of the United Kingdom," Volume I., 1846.), yet, on my life, I think it has done, in some respe...

It was very good of you to give up so much of your time to write to me your last interesting letter. The evidence seems good about the tameness of the alpine butterflies, and th...

You know how I work subjects: namely, if I stumble on any general remark, and if I find it confirmed in any other very distinct class, then I try to find out whether it is true,...

Your remark on the relation of the award of the medal and the present outburst of bigotry had not occurred to me. It seems very true, and makes me the more gratified to receive...

You have done me a very great service in sending me the pages of the "Farmer." I do not know whether you wish it returned; but I will keep it unless I hear that you want it. Old...

The returned sheet is chiefly that which I received in MS. Parts seem to me (though perhaps it may be forgetfulness) much improved, and I retain my former impression that the wh...

We come up on Saturday, the 15th, for a week. I want much to see you for a short time to talk about my youngest boy and the School of Mines. I know it is rather unreasonable, bu...

I do not know whether you will forgive a stranger addressing you. My name may possibly be known to you. I am now writing a book on the variation of animals and plants under dome...

I have at last found time to read [the] first chapter of your "Dolomit Riffe" (285/1. "Dolomitriffe Sudtirols und Venetiens." Wien, 1878.), and have been exceedingly interested...

I hope you are getting on well with your lectures, and that you have enjoyed some pleasant walks during the late delightful weather. I write to tell you (as perhaps you might ha...

I am truly obliged for all the trouble which you have taken for me, and for your very interesting note. I had only vaguely heard it said that frogs had a rudiment of a sixth toe...

I am much obliged for your very interesting letter. Your results appear to me highly important, as they eliminate one means by which animals might perhaps recognise direction; a...

This is the last letter which I shall ever write to you from the shores of America, and for this reason I send it. In a few days time the "Beagle" will sail for the Galapagos Is...

Thanks for your very pleasant note. It amuses me to see what a bug-bear I have made myself to you; when having written some very pungent and good sentence it must be very disagr...

Pray let me add a word of congratulation on the completion of your wonderful volume, to those which I am sure you will have received from every side. I have laid it down in the...

(263/1. This is, we believe, the first letter addressed by the late Mr. Romanes to Mr. Darwin. It was put away with another on the same subject, and inscribed "Romanes on Aborti...

I send by this post the article in the Victorian Institute with respect to frogs' spawn. If you remember in your boyhood having ever tried to take a small portion out of the wat...

I must send you a line to say what a good fellow you are to send me so long an account of the Oxford doings. I have read it twice, and sent it to my wife, and when I get home sh...

I am greatly relieved by your letter this morning about my Arctic essay, for I had been conjuring up some egregious blunder (like the granitic plains of Patagonia).. Certes, aft...

Although you are so kind as to tell me not to write, I must just thank you for the proofs of your paper, which has interested me greatly. (295/1. See "The Shell Mounds of Omori"...

I must have the pleasure of thanking you for your extremely kind letter. I am very much pleased that you approve of my book, and that you are going to pay me the extraordinary c...

I thank you cordially for so kindly and promptly answering my questions. I will quote some of your remarks. The case seems to me of some importance with reference to my heretica...

of Organic Life at Successive Geological Periods."), and like it extremely; it all seems to me very clear, cautious, and sagacious. You do not allude to one very striking point...

The only parts I have yet met with where I somewhat differ from your views, are in the chapter on the causes of variability, in which I think several of your arguments are unsou...

On reading over your excellent review (300/1. See "Nature," November 4th, 1880, page 1, a review of Volume I. of the publications of the "Challenger," to which Sir Wyville Thoms...

I do not see how the mountains of New Zealand, S. Australia, and Tasmania could have been peopled, and [with] so large an extent of antarctic (373/1. "Introductory Essay to Flor...

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 t...

I have been asked by some of your friends (eighteen in number) to inform you that they have placed, through Robarts, Lubbock & Co., the sum of 2,100 pounds to your account at yo...

As you say that you have good private information that Government does intend to remove the collection from the British Museum, the case to me individually is wholly changed; an...

(11/1. Lyell started on his first visit to the United States in July, 1841, and was absent thirteen months. Darwin returned to London July 23rd, 1841, after a prolonged absence;...

I most entirely subscribe to all you say in your note. I have had some correspondence with Hooker on the subject. As it seems certain that a movement in the British Museum is ge...

I am still unable to write otherwise than by dictation. In a letter received two or three weeks ago from Asa Gray he writes: "I read lately with gusto Wallace's expose of the Du...

manner described by me. With respect to Wagner's curious discovery my opinion is worth nothing; no doubt it is a great anomaly, but it does not appear to me nearly so incredible...

(76/1. The date of this letter is unfortunately doubtful, otherwise it would prove that at an early date he was acquainted with Erasmus Darwin's views on evolution, a fact which...

(91/1. The date of this letter is doubtful; but as it evidently refers to the 2nd edition of the "Origin," which appeared on January 7th, 1860, we believe that December 9th, 185...

I have taken my leisure in thanking you for your last letter and discussion, to me very interesting, on the increase of species. Since your letter, I have met with a very simila...

Very many thanks for your kind consideration. The correspondence was in the "Athenaeum." I got some mathematician to make the calculation, and he blundered and caused me much sh...

In "Nature" of March 5th (page 415), the Duke of Argyll has printed a very interesting letter of Mr. Darwin's, from which he drew the inference that the writer "assumed mankind...

With respect to "highness" and "lowness," my ideas are only eclectic and not very clear. It appears to me that an unavoidable wish to compare all animals with men, as supreme, c...

I am sorry you should have given yourself the trouble to answer my ideas on sterility. If you are not convinced, I have little doubt but that I am wrong; and, in fact, I was onl...

It is very long since I have heard from you, and I am much obliged for your letter. It is good news that you are going to bring out a new edition of your Poultry book (237/1. "T...

I am in the second volume of your book, and I have been astonished at the immense number of interesting facts you have brought together. I read the chapter on pangenesis first,...

I am correcting a second edition of "Variation under Domestication," and find that I must do it pretty fully. Therefore I give a short abstract of potato graft-hybrids, and I wa...

I am much obliged for your note and kind intended present of your volume. (21/1. No doubt the late Mr. Blomefield's "Observations in Natural History." See "Life and Letters," II...

I have just finished your present of the Life of Hume (292/1. "Hume" in Mr. Morley's "English Men of Letters" series. Of the biographical part of this book Mr. Huxley wrote, in...

Notwithstanding the kind consideration shown in your last sentence, I must thank you for your interesting and clearly expressed letter. I have directed my publisher to send you...

the equatorial regions. (Bates, loc. cit., pages 352, 353.)) You seem to me to have put the case with admirable clearness and with crushing force. I am quite staggered with the...

The more I think of Falconer's letter (166/1. Published in the "Athenaeum" April 4th, 1863, page 459. The writer asserts that Lyell did not make it clear that certain material m...

I have just received your note. Unfortunately I cannot attend at the British Museum on Monday. I do not suppose my opinion on the subject of your note can be of any value, as I...

I am much obliged for your kind and long communication, which I have read with great interest, as well as your articles in "Nature." The subject seems to me as important and int...

I this morning received your pleasant and friendly note of November 30th. The first part of my MS. is in Murray's hands to see if he likes to publish it. There is no preface, bu...

I am quite delighted that you think so highly of Huxley's article. (246/1. A review of Wallace's "Natural Selection," of Mivart's "Genesis of Species," and of the "Quarterly Rev...

I thank you for your criticisms on the "Origin," and which I have not time to discuss; but I cannot help doubting, from your expression of an "INNATE...selective principle," whe...

You cannot well imagine how much I have been pleased by what you say about pangenesis. None of my friends will speak out, except to a certain extent Sir H. Holland, who found it...

...I was very glad to hear Humboldt's views on migrations and double creations. It is very presumptuous, but I feel sure that though one cannot prove extensive migration, the le...

I have just finished the New Zealand "Manual" (372/1. "Handbook of the New Zealand Flora."), and am thinking about a discussion on the geographical distribution, etc., of the pl...

I have been greatly interested by your letter to Hooker, and I must thank you from my heart for so generously defending me, as far as you could, against my powerful attackers. N...

Very many thanks for the orchids, which have proved extremely useful to me in two ways I did not anticipate, but were too monstrous (yet of some use) for my special purpose.

I have had this morning a letter from old Bronn (93/1. See "Life and Letters, II., page 277.) (who, to my astonishment, seems slightly staggered by Natural Selection), and he sa...

I have had the house full of visitors, and when I talk I can do absolutely nothing else; and since then I have been poorly enough, otherwise I should have answered your letter l...

...With respect to Huxley, I was on the point of speaking to Crawford and Strezlecki (who will be on Committee of the Athenaeum) when I bethought me of how Owen would look and w...

Very many thanks for your kindness in writing to me at such length, and I am glad to say for your sake that I do not see that I shall have to beg any further favours. What a ran...

(260/1. This letter, with others from Darwin to Meldola, is published in "Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection," by E.B. Poulton, pages 199 et seq., London, 1896.)

I must have the pleasure of thanking you for your kindness in sending me your essay on the Brachiopoda. (261/1. "The Brachiopoda, a Division of Annelida," "Amer. Assoc. Proc." V...

I write one line to tell you that you are a real good man to propose coming here for a Sunday after Exeter. Do keep to this good intention...I am sure Exeter and your other visi...

I received this morning a copy of your work "Contra Wigand," either from yourself or from your publisher, and I am greatly obliged for it. (266/1. Jager's "In Sachen Darwins ins...

I know you like all cases of negative geological evidence being upset. I fancied that I was a most unwilling believer in negative evidence; but yet such negative evidence did se...

I am glad that you are a candidate for the Chair of Physiology in Paris. As you are aware from my published works, I have always considered your investigations on the production...

Hooker has sent me a letter of Thwaites (102/1. See Letter 97.), of Ceylon, who makes exactly the same objections which you did at first about the necessity of all forms advanci...

I received your letter this morning, and it was quite impossible that you should receive an answer by 4 p.m. to-day. But this does not signify in the least, for your proposal se...

Thank you for telling me about the Pliocene mammal, which is very remarkable; but has not Owen stated that the Pliocene badger is identical with the recent? Such a case does ind...

I am very much obliged for your kind letter and present of your beautiful volume. (239/1. "Die Thierzucht," 1868.) Your work is not new to me, for I heard it so highly spoken of...

It is not worth while troubling you, but my conscience is uneasy at having forgotten to thank you for your "Etna" (77/1. "On the Structure of Lavas which have been consolidated...

I received a week or two ago the work which you and Prof. Marion have been so kind as to send me. (304/1. Probably "L'Evolution du Regne vegetal," I. "Cryptogames," Saporta & Ma...

I have been particularly struck by your remarks on the Glacial period. (353/1. In his "Contributions to the Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley," "Trans. Entom. Soc." Volume V., p...

(Chapter I./1. In the process of removing the remainder of Mr. Darwin's books and papers from Down, the following autobiographical notes, written in 1838, came to light. They se...

Thank you exceedingly for your long letter, and I am in truth ashamed of the time and trouble you have taken for me; but I must some day write again to you on the subject of you...

I thank you very sincerely for your kind and interesting letter. It would be false in me to pretend that I care very much about my election to the Institute, but the sympathy of...

In the succession of the older Formations the species and genera of trilobites do change, and then they all die out. To any one who believes that geologists know the dawn of lif...

out to the general reader the importance of your view, and stating that I have been puzzled for many years on this very point. If, as I am inclined to believe, your view can be...

I have just received your note, forwarded to me from my home. I thank you very truly for your intended present, and I am sure that your book will interest me greatly. I am delig...

You say that the Bishop and Owen will be down on you (140/1. This refers to the "Antiquity of Man," which was published in 1863.): the latter hardly can, for I was assured that...

(220/1. In "Nature," May 25th, 1871, page 69, appeared a letter on pangenesis from Mr. A.C. Ranyard, dealing with the difficulty that the "sexual elements produced upon the scio...

I return you with very many thanks your valuable work. I am sure I have not lost any slip or disarranged the loose numbers. I have been interested by looking through the volumes...

It is very kind of you to send me the Japanese books, which are extremely curious and amusing. My son Frank is away, but I am sure he will be much obliged for the two papers whi...

"Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a...

Will you think of some of the largest genera with which you are well acquainted, and then suppose 4/5 of the species utterly destroyed and unknown in the sections (as it were) a...

I have two notes to thank you for, and I return Wollaston. It has always seemed to me rather strange that Forbes, Wollaston and Co. should argue, from the presence of allied, an...

I had heard that your work was to be translated, and I heard it with pleasure; but I can take no share of credit, for I am not an active, only an honorary member of the Society....

I write only to say that I entirely appreciate your answer to my objection on the score of the comparative rareness of Northern warm-temperate forms in the Southern hemisphere....

...Sir C. Lyell spoke to me as if he has greatly admired pangenesis. I am very glad H. Spencer at once acknowledges that his view was something quite distinct from yours. Althou...

...One word more about the flora derived from supposed Pleistocene antarctic land requiring land intercommunication. This will depend much, as it seems to me, upon how far you f...

I was very glad to receive your review (169/1. The review on De Candolle's work on the Oaks (A. Gray's "Scientific Papers," I., page 130).) of De Candolle a week ago. It seems t...

You are so kind as to offer to lend me Maillet's (200/1. For De Maillet see Mr. Huxley's review on "The Origin of Species" in the "Westminster Review," 1860, reprinted in "Lay S...

I am glad that you are attending to the colours of dioecious flowers; but it is well to remember that their colours may be as unimportant to them as those of a gall, or, indeed,...

I rejoice beyond measure at the lecture. I shall be at home in a fortnight, when I could send you splendid folio coloured drawings of pigeons. Would this be in time? If not, I t...

Many thanks for the book. (294/1. Ernst Hackel's "Freedom in Science and Teaching," with a prefatory note by T.H. Huxley, 1879. Professor Hackel has recently published (without...

I quite agree how humiliating the slow progress of man is, but every one has his own pet horror, and this slow progress or even personal annihilation sinks in my mind into insig...

I forget whether you take in the "Times;" for the chance of your not doing so, I send the enclosed rich letter. (81/1. See the "Times," December 1st and December 5th, 1859: two...

I thank you cordially for your letter. Your facts and discussion on the loss of the hairs on the legs of the caddis-flies seem to me the most important and interesting thing whi...

I send a very imperfect answer to [your] question, which I have written on foreign paper to save you copying, and you can send when you write to Thomson in Calcutta. Hereafter I...

I have lately (i.e., in new edition of the "Origin") (228/1. Fifth edition, 1869, pages 150-57.) been moderating my zeal, and attributing much more to mere useless variability....

Mr. Darwin presents his compliments to the Editor, and would be greatly obliged if he would address and post the enclosed letter to the author of the two admirable reviews of th...

As was his custom, Mr. Darwin pinned at the end of the first volume of the 1841-51 edition a piece of paper containing a list of the pages where marked passages occur. This pape...

(277/1. The following letter refers to a book, "Toledoth Adam," written by a learned Jew with the object of convincing his co-religionists of the truth of the theory of evolutio...

Many thanks for your "Biology," which I have read. (272/1. "A Course of Practical Instruction in Elementary Biology," by T.H. Huxley and H.N. Martin, 1875. For an account of the...

(163/1. The following extract refers to Owen's paper in the "Linn. Soc. Journal," June, 1857, in which the classification of the Mammalia by cerebral characters was proposed. In...

What a capital number of the "Linnean Journal!" Owen's is a grand paper; but I cannot swallow Man making a division as distinct from a chimpanzee as an Ornithorhynchus from a ho...

How I should like to know whether Milne Edwards has read the copy which I sent him, and whether he thinks I have made a pretty good case on our side of the question. There is no...

add that if you have observed in your enormous experience any remarkable "bud-variations," and could spare time to inform me, and allow me to quote them on your authority, it wo...

Earth-movements, 1840-1881. 2.IX.II. Ice-action, 1841-1882. 2.IX.III. The Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, 1841-1880. 2.IX.IV. Coral Reefs, Fossil and Recent, 1841-1881. 2.IX.V. Clea...

One word more upon the Deification (105/1. "If we confound 'Variation' or 'Natural Selection' with such creational laws, we deify secondary causes or immeasurably exaggerate the...

One line to say that I have received your note and the proofs safely, and will read them with the greatest pleasure; but I am certain I shall not be able to send any criticism o...

...About New Zealand, at last I am coming round, and admit it must have been connected with some terra firma, but I will die rather than admit Australia. How I wish mountains of...

I have got the Lectures, and have read them. (46/1. The reference is presumably to the Royal Institution Lectures given in 1854-56. Those which we have seen--namely, those repri...