Will bring materials for Royal Institution lecture [when he comes to London].
Plans to bring out separate detailed volumes [on his theory], starting with domestic variation.
Showing 21–40 of 47 items
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.
Will bring materials for Royal Institution lecture [when he comes to London].
Plans to bring out separate detailed volumes [on his theory], starting with domestic variation.
Local affairs and finances.
Suggests HF investigate hippopotamus tooth.
Has heard HF is very antagonistic to his views on species. Cannot believe a false theory would explain so many classes of facts.
Urges appointment of Edward Blyth as naturalist on an expedition to China.
Delighted JDH coming to Down. They will discuss Origin. JDH’s remarks that theory explains too much are excellent, yet CD cannot see his error.
Would welcome American edition of Origin.
Comments on Hooker’s introductory essay [in Flora Tasmaniae].
Cites C. V. Naudin’s article ["Considérations philosophiques sur l’espèce et la variété", Rev. Hortic. 4th ser. 1 (1852): 102–9].
Mentions letter from William Jardine criticising discussion of the Galapagos in the Origin.
Asa Gray offers to arrange for reprinting Origin in U. S. CD has told him JM would send sheets of 2d ed. by post.
CD thinks he has good scheme for his "larger work" in three volumes, with separate titles and a general title. Will be two years before first volume is ready because of his health.
Received JDH’s introduction to Flora Tasmaniae.
Criticism of C. V. Naudin’s descent theory.
Asks that Lyell be allowed to see letter.
Much pleased that LH approves of Origin.
"Ilkley [Wells] did me extraordinary good."
Wants to know C. J. F. Bunbury’s opinion of Origin.
Thanks JM for present of McClintock’s work [Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, The voyage of the "Fox" in the Arctic seas (1859)], which he and his wife look forward to reading.
Asks to be told when reprint [of Origin] is ready.
Sends Origin to FJP. "I rest my conviction solely on the fact, as it seems to me, that the theory explains large classes of facts otherwise inexplicable." Has made important converts: Lyell, Hooker, Huxley, and W. B. Carpenter.
Thanks for AG’s Japan memoir [Mem. Am. Acad. Arts & Sci. 6 (1857–9): 377–452]. Does not think AG’s arguments for a warm post-glacial period are sufficient, but will not be sorry to be proved wrong.
Believes natural selection explains many classes of facts which repeated creation does not.
Writes of some responses to the Origin.
Sends MS on pigeons for THH’s lecture at Royal Institution.
CD will not write to L. Descaisne to defend his priority over C. V. Naudin.
Feels success of theory depends on acceptance and application by good and well-known workers, like JDH, Huxley, and Lyell.
Henry Holland and others have attacked his reasoning from analogy to one primordial created form – by which CD means only that we know nothing of how life originated. The reasoning seems probable to him, so he has kept it in.
His poor health keeps him from work.
His book [Origin] is a success "in the ordinary sense" – has had to reprint another 3000 copies.
Will now begin his "bigger book" which he plans to publish in three separate volumes with distinct titles and also a general title.
Discusses purchase of additional land.
High, detailed praise for introductory essay to Flora Tasmaniae [reprinted as On the flora of Australia (1859)]. CD expects it to convert botanists from doctrine of immutable creation.
Has sent off last proof of 2d ed. of Origin. Assumes JM has remembered the diagram. Asks that remaining clean sheets be sent to Asa Gray.