Describes the funeral of Aunt Sarah [Elizabeth Wedgwood].

Writes about their new billiard table.

Enquires about the relationship of English grains to French milligrammes.

Asks GHD what the chances are against squinting and non-squinting children coming alternately in a family of ten.

CD has come to think a name better than "Pangenesis" is needed. Asks GHD to get a suggestion from a classics scholar. "Cell-genesis wd be perfect if it cd be put into Greek."

Congratulations on GHD’s brilliant tripos success.

CD relays the advice of Sir W. R. Grove on the dismal prospects of a law career.

Asks GHD to look in William Thomson’s book [W. Thomson and P. G. Tait, Treatise on natural philosophy, vol. 1 (1867)] to see how many million years ago Thomson says earth’s crust solidified. CD is troubled by "brevity of the world", because pre-Silurian creatures must have lived during endless ages "else my views wd be wrong, which is impossible – Q.E.D.".

John Lubbock regrets GHD did not take the Eton post. JL thinks scientific masters will soon occupy places as high and as profitable as classical masters.

Thanks GHD for extracts, but says the subject of music is beyond him.

Suggests that GHD deliberate over one or two sentences of his paper on dress ["Developments in dress", Macmillan’s Mag. 22 (1872): 410–16].

Refers to prospective marriage of Amy [Ruck and CD’s son Francis].

Concerned about GHD’s health. Sends a prescription for a cough mixture.

Distressed by the poor health of GHD and Horace. Asks them to come home.

Instinctive responses in animals.

Anxious to have GHD come home because of his poor health. Recommends Huxley’s physician (Andrew Clark) – an advocate of milk diet.

Thinks highly of GHD’s article [probably "On beneficial restrictions to liberty of marriage", Contemp. Rev. 22 (1873): 412–26]. A good omen for the future.

CD thinks GHD’s letter is an excellent clarification [of CD’s conjectural view on the elimination of useless parts in species], but does not want to publish it as his [CD’s] own. Asks GHD to think carefully before he publishes it.

Asks GHD whether he can tell him what inclination a polished or waxy leaf ought to hold to the horizon in order to let vertical rain rebound off as much as possible.

CD gives his criticisms of GHD’s essay on religion and the moral sense. Urges him to delay publishing for some months and then to consider whether it is new and important enough to counterbalance the effects of its publication. J. S. Mill would never have influenced the age as he has done had he not refrained from expressing his religious convictions. Cites John Morley’s Life of Voltaire [1872]: direct attacks produce little effect; real good comes from slow and silent side attacks. "My advice is to pause, pause, pause."

"It is a fearfully difficult moral problem about speaking out on religion, & I have never been able to make up my mind."

An Irishman, a "grand breeder" of short-horns, declared at lunch that CD’s books had been "a great help to [him] in breeding!"

CD writes about organising a subscription for Dohrn’s Zoological Station at Naples. Has drawn up a draft circular for naturalists to sign to show their support for the Station.