Sets a time for CD to call.
Showing 1–7 of 7 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.
Sets a time for CD to call.
Will not be returning to London for a week; writes to save CD’s calling.
Is not prepared to express an opinion on man’s origin. On pure anatomical grounds he would form a family of the higher division of the primates, but if man’s intellectual, moral, and religious nature is considered, then "he differs more from an Anthropoid Ape than such an Ape differs from a lump of granite".
Apologises for saying more than was necessary in his previous letter. Although he feels gratitude and esteem for CD, he execrates those who use natural selection to oppose man’s higher interests and impede his advance. Has seen Huxley’s Man’s place in nature for sale among a crowd of obscenities at most Italian railway stations.
Asks by what action CD believes bee, spider, and fly orchids came to resemble their namesakes
and how the beauty of bivalves could have been produced by natural or sexual selection.
In his reply to [7227] CD questions the significance of the supposed likeness of the bee, spider, and fly orchids to their presumed namesakes.
He thinks that the beauty of shells is altogether incidental and of no use to the animals.
On amount of modification and lines of descent in determining the position in man.
Reference to StGJM’s article "On the appendicular skeleton of the primates" Phil. Trans. R. Soc. [157 (1867): 299–430],
and his [and James Murie’s] article on lemurs ["On the anatomy of Lemuroidea"] Trans. Zool. Soc. [7 (1872): 1–114].