On THH’s Lectures to working men.

Work by Ferdinand J. Cohn on the contractile tissue of plants ["Über contractile Gewebe im Pflanzenreich" Abh. Schlesischen Ges. Vaterl. Cult. 1 (1861)] seems important. CD has come to the conclusion that there must be some substance in plants analogous to the supposed diffused nervous matter in lower animals.

[Part of P.S. missing from original.]

Has not answered CD’s former letters. Has been ill. Will look up fish business as soon as he is square again.

Pleads guilty to both criticisms of "Miss Henrietta Minor Rhadamanthus Darwin" [see 3896] of points in his Lectures [to working men].

Too busy to examine specimen. Will ask W. H. Flower to do it. Long catalogue of what keeps him busy and concerned.

C. Carter Blake, "a jackal of Owen’s", is the reviewer in Edinburgh Review and Anthropological Review [see 4223]. Has sent back his diploma of Hon. Fellowship to Anthropological Society.

Asks CD to sign certificate nominating Flower for Royal Society.

No doubt that Owen wrote "Oken" and the archetype book, which appeared in its second edition in French.

Pressures of work and family.

Surprised at Kölliker’s misunderstanding; of Flourens he could have believed anything.

Family news.

His pleasure at Royal Society Copley Medal for CD. Recounts meeting of Royal Society Council.

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."

He is certain he heard "expressly excluded" [of Origin from consideration in Royal Society award of Copley Medal]. Believes GGS may have inadvertently substituted "excluded" for "omitted". THH then submits his reasons for objecting to the passage as a whole even with the word "omitted".

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.

THH never imagined that "we" referred to anyone but the [Royal] Society Council. Still objects to inclusion of the passage, since "an agreement to say nothing" [about the Origin] does not justify comment on it by one party to the agreement.

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.

THH rejects GGS’s charges. Chides him with possibility that if he substituted "Falconer" for "Busk" he might have done it also for "excluded" and "omitted".

Sends photograph.

THH wishes he could write the popular zoology but writing is a boring and slow process when he is not interested, and he is overburdened with lectures.

Thanks for [E. Eudes?] Deslongchamps’ paper.

Henry Huxley born.

Leader in Reader [4 (1864): 821] is by THH. It has got him into trouble with some of his friends.

Sends Catalogue [of the collection of fossils in the Museum of Practical Geology (1865)], most of which was written in pre-Darwinian epoch [i.e., 1857].

Hears magnum opus [Variation] completely developed, though not yet born.

Glad to read what CD sends. Any glimmer of light on those subjects is of utmost importance.

Quotes a letter from Haeckel on progress of Darwinism in Germany.

MS arrived. Has glanced at it and sees he must put on his sharpest spectacles and best considering cap.