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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.
Thanks for agreeing to write the preface for RM’s translation of Weismann.
Will arrange to meet CD when he comes to London.
Forwards pamphlet (Jules Carret 1878) to GHD.
Encloses a letter [missing] on the progress of the Fuegians.
His eldest son has married.
Thanks for ACR’s Physical geology [5th ed. (1878)]; delighted with its success, proving there is a large body of men in England capable of appreciating sound geological science.
Thanks for account of Fuegians
and news about old "Beaglers".
Has been reading A. A. Brassey [Around the world in the yacht "Sunbeam" (1878)].
Acknowledges receipt of French translation of Forms of flowers. "No one more than you has made us feel the beauties of Creation and made us enter more profoundly into the secrets of nature."
Encloses William Thomson’s report on GHD’s paper. Some of it was written in Rayleigh’s hand.
Explains the occurrence of cattle on the Fuegian islands.
Discusses intentions with regard to missionary stations and steamers in the area.
CD elected foreign associate of the Royal Academy of Sciences [K. Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften].
EdB-R’s paper will be available in English in the New York periodical, Popular Science Monthly, and he hopes CD will read it. [See 11742 and 11842.]
Delighted with [William Thomson’s] report. "There can be no doubt now about the value of your work." CD has "not been so much pleased for a long time".
Has observed rare instances of Ophrys apifera with "cut labellum". Suggests it was done by large dragonfly mistaking the flower for a fly visiting a flower. Stimulated to study Ophrys by Orchids.
Sends thanks [for election to Prussian Academy of Sciences].
Appreciates the copy of address [Darwin versus Galiani (1876)].
Describes the change in shape of a worm over a candle-flame.
Discusses three "laws of race preservation" which are evolving: (1) natural selection; (2) the sociological law of sympathetic selection, or indiscriminate survival; (3) moral law – social selection or the "Birth of the Fittest".
A memorial signed by CD and many others, calling upon the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, to convene Parliament to discuss the ultimatum addressed to the Amir of Afghanistan, Sher Ali Khan, by the Viceroy of India, E. R. Bulwer-Lytton.
CD hopes GAG is right [see 11744]. His second law seems largely acted on in civilised societies. Evil that would follow from checking benevolence to weak and diseased would be greater than by allowing them to survive and procreate. CD doubts that artificial checks would be advantageous to the world at large. If birth could be prevented, and control were not thought immoral, "would there not be a danger of profligacy amongst unmarried women?"
Invites CD to join the Association of Liberal Thinkers and encloses information on its constitution. Huxley and Tyndall are co-operating.
Discusses colour variations in the geometer moth, Gnophos obscurata. Concludes that the increasing proportion of the darker form is related to the effect of smoke that is blackening the chalk slopes on which they live.
Invites RM to luncheon.
Glad to join Association of Liberal Thinkers and to pay usual subscription. Refuses any office and does not allow his name to be used to promote the association because neither his health nor his mental habits will allow him to take an active part.