Will judge CD’s book [Origin] free from two superstitions: the dogma of the permanent species and the need of an act of intervention to bring change.

JDH’s congratulations on Origin.

Lyell believes S. P. Woodward wrote review in Athenæum.

Lyell’s and Huxley’s positive responses.

JDH has only plunged into a few chapters.

Believes natural selection will become recognised as an established truth in science, though it will shock the ideas of many men.

Questions CD’s view in Origin that domestic dogs are not descended from a single stock. Occasional crossings of domestic stock with wild species could explain cases of reversion towards wild specific forms. CD’s views on hybridity do not then have to be contradicted in constructing an ancestral stock.

Has just finished Origin. CD has demonstrated a true cause for the production of species.

CD has loaded himself with unnecessary difficulty in adopting natura non facit saltum.

Writes of "the Dr’s" [Henry Holland’s] mixed reactions to the book.

Adds a personal opinion, "it is the most interesting book I ever read".

Thanks CD for the Origin; AS has read the book "with more pain than pleasure". CD has deserted "the true method of induction" and many of his wide conclusions are "based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved". His "grand principle – natural selection" is "but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts".

Comments on pp. 201, 211, and 218 [of Origin].

Sends some bees CD requested

and discusses the differences among several animal species on islands of the West Indies.

Sends a correction for Origin reprint.

Congratulates CD on Origin; has been "initiated into an entirely new province of knowledge".

Notes error involving rhinoceros.

Encloses other notes.

Comments on the Origin. Outlines difficulties he finds in CD’s theory. Believes CD must define natural selection more accurately and mentions instances in which that principle is an insufficient cause to account for the form of certain structures.

JDH half through Origin. High praise for facts and reasoning.

Lyell told JDH his criticisms: small matters JDH did not appreciate.

Reactions of G. Bentham, J. S. Henslow, and C. C. Babington.

Forwards letter from Asa Gray.

Bentham is very agitated by Origin. CD over-emphasises natural selection. His theory accounts for too much and would be improved by unburdening it of natural selection.

Cannot agree with all of CD’s views [in Origin].

Thinks too much is made of the Galapagos. The peculiarity of their ornithology will break down.

Offers to answer any questions on ornithology.

Examples of animals that dwell in dark places, some of which are blind, some not. Asks: where causes are the same, why is not the effect? Does not think disuse is the answer, but arrested development.

Comments also on the absence of a ligament in four mammals and asks how natural selection accounts for this.

No doubt about worm-holes in the Long Mynd, and they are certainly lower than J. Barrande’s primordial zone. Fossils in Laurentian gneiss.

Response to Origin. Praise for summary of chapter 10 and chapter 11.

The dissimilarity of African and American species is ‘necessary result of “Creation” adapting new species to the pre-existing ones. Granting this unknown & if you please miraculous power acting’.

C. T. Gaudin writes of Oswald Heer’s finding many species common between Miocene floras of Iceland and Switzerland. Interesting for CD’s migration theory.

Wonders whether CD would be interested in a book by Dr Bucknell [J. C. Bucknill?] on psychology.