From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Struthers
Date:
21 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 147: 506
Summary:
Comments on JS’s lecture on evolution ["Address on evolution", Aberdeen Daily Free Press 24 Feb 1874].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Thomas Mellard Reade
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
21 Nov 1874
Source of text:
DAR 176: 28
Summary:
Sends his paper ["Tidal action as a geological cause", Proc. Liverpool Geol. Soc. 2 (1874): 50–72].
Has not yet studied CD’s list of South American molluscs.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
John Scott Burdon Sanderson, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
23 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
University of British Columbia Library, Rare Books and Special Collections (Darwin - Burdon Sanderson letters RBSC-ARC-1731-1-36)
Summary:
Thanks for MS which he intends to read while on a week’s holiday.
Sends thanks for Francis Darwin’s offer of help and says that Francis’s experiments on digestion are complete.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
24 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 103: 195–7
Summary:
"Half an answer" to CD’s query on visit of Sphinx to Hedychium gardnerianum.
Business affairs and family ill health keep him busy.
G. J. Allman will succeed Bentham as President of Linnean Society. Busk has refused.
Huxley is well.
JDH has indoctrinated Sir Stafford Northcote with his merits.
Lyell frail.
Old J. E. Gray goes on publishing.
"Is not [Thomas] Belt splendid!"
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
25 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
DAR 95: 317–19
Summary:
Thanks for information about Hedychium. Hopes wings of Sphinx will be found covered with pollen for that will be a fine bit of prophecy from the structure of a flower to special and new means of fertilisation.
Has been at Descent so hard he has done nothing, not even H. Spencer’s answer.
Has not yet read Croll ["Ocean currents", London Edinburgh & Dublin Philos. Mag. 47 (1874): 94–122, 168–90].
Has heard nothing about Carter and Eozoon. Eozoon, he infers, is done for.
Has read Belt [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1874)]: best of all natural history travel books.
Has written to Fritz Müller about leaf-carrying ants.
Hopes to resume work on Drosera.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
27 [Mar 1874]
Source of text:
DAR 95: 320
Summary:
Etty [Henrietta Litchfield] is helping with Coral reefs [2d ed.]; will JDH lend her his copy?
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Smith, Elder & Co
Date:
27 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
National Library of Scotland (MS.23181, ff.16-20 (S. E. & Co. work slip, ff.16-17, letter ff.18-19, address envelope f.20))
Summary:
Heavily correcting sheets for Coral reefs, 2d ed. [1874]. Offers to pay extra printer’s charges.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Émile Alglave
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
27 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 159: 39
Summary:
On EA’s persecution by new government for liberal–republican position of his Revues; threat to remove him from Faculté de Droit, unless he renounces relations with Revues or changes their politics.
Has reviewed CD’s Orchids.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Thomas Henry Huxley
Date:
28 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 293)
Summary:
Asks for THH’s description of brain and skull [of man and apes] for 2d ed. of Descent [supplement to ch. 7].
Asks about Dohrn affair and contributions for Naples station. Doubts subscriptions will be successful.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Francis Ellingwood Abbot
Date:
30 Mar 1874
Source of text:
Harvard University Archives (Papers of F. E. Abbot, 1841–1904. Named Correspondence, 1857–1903. Folder: Darwin, Charles and W. E. Darwin (son), 1871–1883, box 44. HUG 1101)
Summary:
FEA has expressed CD’s views on the moral sense with remarkable clearness and correctness; his eulogy is magnificent ["Darwin’s theory of conscience and its relation to scientific ethics", Index 12 Mar 1874]. Cannot give a judgment on the essay because he has had "no practice in following abstract and abstruse reasoning".
CD does not see how morality can be "objective and universal". No one would call the maternal bond in lower animals a "moral obligation". When a social animal "becomes in some slight incipient degree" a moral creature "capable of approving or disapproving of its own conduct" do not such obligations remain of a so-called instinctive nature rather than becoming at once moral obligations?
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
John Scott Burdon Sanderson, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
30 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
University of British Columbia Library, Rare Books and Special Collections (Darwin - Burdon Sanderson letters RBSC-ARC-1731-1-28); DAR 58.2: 59–64
Summary:
Sends results of experiments on digestion. Encloses two sets of notes: "Experiments on the digestibility of certain preparations sent by Mr Darwin" and "Note for Mr Darwin" [marked by CD for insertion in ch. 6 of Insectivorous plants].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Phillips
Date:
31 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.439)
Summary:
Regrets he cannot visit Oxford.
Comments on sketches in letter from JP [9360].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Thomas Henry Huxley
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
31 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 166: 332
Summary:
His note on brain [in man and apes for 2d ed. of Descent] nearly finished.
Has heard nothing about Dohrn.
THH has been invited to lecture in America.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Scott Burdon Sanderson, 1st baronet
Date:
31 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
University of British Columbia Library, Rare Books and Special Collections (Darwin - Burdon Sanderson letters RBSC-ARC-1731-1-5)
Summary:
Thanks for the careful experiments, particularly on organic acids.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Julius Wilhelm Albert (Albert) Wigand
Date:
31 Mar 1874
Source of text:
Christie’s, London (dealers) (12 July 2017)
Summary:
Confirms receipt of a book that had been lost by the Post Office (Vol. 1 Der Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newtons und Cuviers (Darwinism and the natural researches of Newton and Cuvier; Wigand 1874–7).
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Arthur Charles Hamilton Gordon, 1st Baron Stanmore
Date:
Apr 1874
Source of text:
Transactions of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius n.s. 8 (1875): 106–9
Summary:
Petition to protect gigantic tortoises on the Mascarene.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Albrecht Carl Ludwig Gotthilf (Albert) Günther
Date:
[c. 2 Mar 1874]
Source of text:
Shrewsbury School, Taylor Library (39)
Summary:
Encloses a circular [9384?] to explain the predicament he is in. Asks whether AG can get anyone at the British Museum, other than Owen, to join J. E. Gray in signing.
Believes the account of the Mallotus in American Naturalist [5 (1871): 119] is trustworthy.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury; Philip Lutley Sclater; Charles Lyell, 1st baronet; William Benjamin Carpenter; Michael Foster
Date:
[7 Apr 1874]
Source of text:
DAR 97: C52–3
Summary:
Circular requesting recipients to sign an enclosed [missing] statement [relating to appeal for Naples Zoological Station] if they approve of it.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Thomas Gold Appleton
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
2 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 159: 113
Summary:
Sends old Japanese picture suggesting evolution, found by Charles Longfellow.
Is pleased to hear CD attended a séance [18 Jan 1874]; asks for his views about communication among spirits.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
2 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 198: 127
Summary:
Is willing to sell the land CD wants for £300.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project