Expresses his delight with and admiration for THH’s "Coming of age [of The origin of species]" in Nature [22 (1880): 1–4].
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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.
Expresses his delight with and admiration for THH’s "Coming of age [of The origin of species]" in Nature [22 (1880): 1–4].
CD has offered Ernst Haeckel £100 but does not know where to get further aid. Sorry to hear about Du Bois-Reymond, but is not in the least surprised about R. Virchow.
Asks THH question on flow of glaciers after ice has been fractured and fragmented.
CD had to leave Royal Society lecture [joint paper by THH and J. Tyndall, "On the structure and motions of glaciers", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 147 (1857): 327–46] before the end because of headache.
Murray has sold out Origin; wants a new edition immediately.
Asks THH to check whether Geoffroy de St Hilaire is correct [form of name].
Would be grateful for THH’s impressions on the truth of natural selection.
Sends enclosure [unspecified].
Reminds THH to mention [German] translation [of Origin] when he writes to R. A. von Kölliker.
Relates anecdote concerning the blind Henry Fawcett and the Bishop of Oxford; Fawcett proclaimed, within the other’s hearing, that the Bishop had not read the Origin.
Returns a letter, which, when it is published, he believes will make readers take up THH’s lectures in a more impartial spirit.
Sabine’s Royal Society address [awarding the Copley Medal to CD], in referring to the Origin, did not contain the words "expressly excluded". The actual words were "expressly omitted from the grounds of our award". This was not meant to place the Origin on a sort of index expurgatorium, but was a simple statement of fact.
Wishes to correct an expression in his last letter which is "perhaps not rigorously exact": he should not have said "declining to honour it [the Origin] with the Copley Medal" but simply "not honouring it with the Copley medal". "Declining implies having been asked and there was no asking in the present case."
It is improbable that he changed the wording of Sabine’s address without his noticing. Proceeds to defend the passage by quoting the rules of the award of the Copley Medal and the Royal Society Council’s action in this case, which is accurately presented in the wording of the award.
Corrects a minor error in his last letter.
Urges THH to return proofs of his paper to Royal Society. Some authors are more ready to come down on reviewers and secretary for delay than to get on with their own proofs.
Is writing confidentially not to justify the passage referred to [see 9759], which he much regrets, but to state facts. He never intended any personal hostility to [George] Darwin and seeks advice about how to make reparation.
Thanks THH and Hooker for defending George Darwin against Mivart’s libel.
A confidential letter explaining in detail the extent to which he regrets his attack upon [George] Darwin’s article.
CD has written to Mivart to say that he will never hold any communication with him in future.
Is alarmed by the petitions against vivisection that are being circulated. Believes there is scope for reasonable legislation and would like to see eminent physiologists prepare a petition so that the science could be protected and animals saved from needless suffering.
Sends suggestions for observations on glacial phenomena that might be made on the [Polar] expedition [of H. M. S. Alert and Discovery, 1875–6].
Offers to send Ascidia specimens of Beagle voyage. Describes some of them.
Hopes THH will review his book [Living Cirripedia, vol. 1] which has been published for a year with no notice taken of it except briefly by Dana.
Discusses Limulus-like larva. "I have become a man of one idea.– cirripedes morning & night."
THH’s catalogue [THH and R. Etheridge, A catalogue of the collection of fossils in the Museum of Practical Geology (1865), part published in 1857] best résumé he has seen of science of natural history. On classification he is not quite sure that he wholly goes along with THH. Encloses a few criticisms of THH’s preface.[enclosure survives as copy only].
Invites Mrs Huxley and the children to spend a fortnight at Down.
MS of Chauncey Wright’s review has not yet arrived.
[P.S. missing from original.]