From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
29 Aug [1872]
Source of text:
DAR 94: 227–8
Summary:
Is now at work on Drosera and asks to borrow D. capensis and other species.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Showing 1–3 of 3 items
Is now at work on Drosera and asks to borrow D. capensis and other species.
Discusses ideas on the development of language; agrees with CD that it is a process governed by unconscious selection; he considers it analogous to unconscious selection of domestic animals by savages. Remarks on the differing views of Max Müller and W. D. Whitney regarding the origin of language and its development. Comments on the extent to which unintentional effects can be ascribed directly to the agency of free intelligent wills.
Encloses letter and cheque [from John Scott].
Again in thick of Ayrton matter. Tyndall and Huxley have shown themselves equal to the occasion in grasp of subject, tenacity of purpose, independence, and good-will.