Has not yet heard from Cambridge. Thinks perhaps they do not intend to give him the degree.
Showing 1–20 of 22 items
The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
Has not yet heard from Cambridge. Thinks perhaps they do not intend to give him the degree.
Thanks for an extract from a sermon, in which CD is abused by an archimandrite: he considers it a great honour.
C. E. Bessey’s case [see 10969] came too late, as the sheets had been printed, but CD thinks it should be carefully investigated as a possible case of incipient heterostyly.
Is trying to make out the function of "bloom", the waxy secretion on leaves and fruits.
Sends quotation from Lamarck’s Philosophie zoologique [(1809), 2: 318] on effects of habit.
Urgently requests a pair of braces. "Please remember that I am 6. ft high & require rather long bracers."
Sends six photographs of himself as a contribution to correspondent’s charity.
CD would prefer not to be a witness in court. In any case CD’s opinion is strongly opposed to that of CB and Annie Besant. Has read only notices of their book [Charles Knowlton, Fruits of philosophy, with preface by the publishers A. Besant and C. Bradlaugh (1877)] but believes artificial checks to the natural rate of human increase are very undesirable and that the use of artificial means to prevent conception would soon destroy chastity and, ultimately, the family.
Thanks correspondent for his essay and kind allusions [to Cross and self-fertilisation].
Thanks LHM for his Ancient society [1877].
Pleased that a Grace has been submitted to confer on CD an honorary LL.D.; hopes his health will permit him to attend the ceremony.
Asks FD to forward some eczema mixture to Southampton for him
and to hunt out notes on earthworm activity at Beaulieu Abbey.
Discusses effects of natural selection. Discusses absence of blending between geographical races as a problem. Discusses effect of natural selection on productivity of an organism.
Comments on GJR’s review of Grant Allen’s book [Physiological aesthetics (1877)].
Thanks RLT for his work, Diseases of women.
CD is also interested by RLT’s letter reporting a cat rearing chickens. "What a wonderful instinct is the maternal one."
CD cannot see the Emperor of Brazil because he is in Southampton, but he sends sincere respects for the Emperor’s role in assisting science.
Forms of flowers will soon be published and is not a long book.
Does not suppose he will publish any more books, "though perhaps a few more papers". He "cannot endure being idle, but Heaven knows whether I am capable of any more good work".
Erratum JVC sent was due to a printer’s error after he had seen last proofs.
Has no objection to the flattering wish of the Cologne Gazette [to publish a translation of "Sketch of an infant", Collected papers 2: 191–200], but wishes the editor had first read the article. Still doubts it was worthy of admission to Mind.
Asks permission for French translation [of "Biographical sketch of an infant"].
Advises correspondent on adopting a career; "each person shd. follow his natural bent & improve his special abilities".
Strongly recommends study of J. S. Mill’s Logic.
His own zeal for science was most stimulated by Herschel’s Introduction to the study of natural philosophy.
Asks for a copy [of an unknown item] to be sent to Down.
Thanks OB for his work on Schopenhauer [Arthur Schopenhauer. Beitrag zu einer Dogmatik der Religionslosen (1877)]
and for his remarks on bees and clover. When CD spoke, last spring, of the few seeds produced by red clover, he supposed it was due to rarity of humble-bees.