Brief observations on expression in Africa.
Alexander Agassiz is a good investigator, who differs with his father on evolution.
The behaviour of women and savages is a little easier to understand than that of civilised men.
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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.
Brief observations on expression in Africa.
Alexander Agassiz is a good investigator, who differs with his father on evolution.
The behaviour of women and savages is a little easier to understand than that of civilised men.
Sends insect that carries dead ants, dead leaves, etc., on its back, as protective imitation.
The Negro’s idea of beauty is the same as white man’s.
Believes the Jollops select for blackness.
Native immunity from coast fever is not complete.
Has found stone instruments.
Could not go up the Niger, as trading steamers are trying to keep their trade in the dark.
Has seen several albinos, but no blushing. Thinks blacks do blush.
W. C. Wells’s theory relating black skin-colour and immunity to malaria may be true. Has seen Negroes come down with fever, but these were generally light in colour.
Ideas of female beauty of W. African Negroes are on the whole the same as those of Europeans.
Pleased CD is quoting him in Descent.
CD is correct; his notes are on the Jollof, not the Tollof, tribe.
On sexual selection and the sense of beauty among the W. African Negroes.
Sends quotation about Lycurgus and Spartan exposure of infants who were deemed defective.
Bibliographic references on sense of beauty and morals.
Meeting with CD postponed.
Thinks G. H. Lewes will review Descent in Pall Mall Gazette.
Sir Andrew Smith says Hottentots and Kaffirs laugh till they cry.
Various comments on Descent;
on suicide on Gold Coast;
on mulattoes’ not being prolific.
Praise for gentle but resolute tone of Descent.
Prefers W. C. Wells’s explanation of the formation of the Nehro type to CD’s sexual selection.
Outlines his view of the origin of man by natural selection.
Believes CD will not consider him a good Darwinian since he accepts natural selection only as a secondary law.
There is a primary law of growth and innate improvement. Natural selection is a secondary law that operates to "arrange the details". This is not Lamarckian, because will is not involved.
Thanks for Chauncey Wright’s pamphlet [Darwinism (1871)].
Amused by critics who say CD is metaphysically unsophisticated.
Surprised at Mivart’s harsh review [Q. Rev. 131 (1871): 47–90], considering courteous tone of his book. Assures CD he has not been converted by Mivart.
Sees his ideas on conscious and non-conscious intelligence are already in Murphy [J. J. Murphy, Habit and intelligence (1869)].
Encloses an extract from S. W. Baker’s The Albert N’yanza [1866] on the behaviour of the giraffe [See Origin, 6th ed., p. 178], and some references to Baker’s Nile tributaries [1867].