JDH discusses the health of Brian Houghton Hodgson's wife. His own wife, Frances, has had a tooth out but otherwise the Hooker family are all well, he particularly mentions his son Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker "growing a pace in stature & wisdom". He mentions a rocking horse much loved by his children. Thomas Thomson & his wife spent some time at Kew & have now gone to Hastings. [Sir James William] Colvile's house is shut up. Mentions chatting with [Sir Lawrence] Peel & a coin expert named Mr. Thomas at the Athenaeum Club. [Charles] Lyell is still working on his 'age of man', JDH comments that he will struggle to reconcile his old geology with recent discoveries, including Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. [Thomas Henry] Huxley is working on a publication about the relation of men to lower animals, JDH is very impressed with it. Summarises & critiques [Richard] Owen's paper, read at the Royal Society, on the dinosaur Gryphosaurus & its relation to birds vs. reptiles. JDH notes that the paper actually backs up [Charles] Darwin's: "much disputed dogma" regarding the geological record. JDH mentions some of Darwin's work and praises him as 'the first naturalist in Europe...as great as any that ever lived'. Discusses the reception, by the press and clergy, of Bishop [John William] Colenso's writings on the interpretation of the Bible. Mentions the Schlagintweit's book.
Maintains his view on crossing. Thinks practical breeders would agree with him; doubts that variability and domestication are at all necessarily correlative.
Identical plants in different conditions a heavy argument against "direct action" [of physical conditions].
His 1000-pigeon case is altered if long-beaked are in least degree sterile with short-beaked.
His work on dimorphism inclines him to believe that sterility is at first a selected quality to keep incipient species distinct.
Case of easy modification of Lythrum pollen to favour or prevent crossing.
Monsters.
Has just finished chapter on variations of cultivated plants.
Edinburgh doctors have sent him Diploma of Medical Society.
On Asa Gray’s letter; has written why he avoids alluding to the war.
Has read Max Müller [see 3752] – last part unphilosophical.
On CD’s pigeon example, long-beaked and short-beaked pigeons must be either sterile or not inter se. There is "no such thing as Equality – hence no such thing as chance and Nat. Sel. is the sword of Damocles hanging over your head if you make a slip in your premisses."
Has read note on Lythrum sent several weeks ago. Its consequences are of most prolific order to CD’s doctrine.
Kew has no wild gooseberries.
JDH praises the Saturday Review reply [14 (1862): 589] to the Duke of Argyll’s bitter review of Orchids ["The supernatural", Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378–97].
"Throttled off" Welwitschia paper at Linnean Society [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1863): 1–48].
Has read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America [1835–40] – disagrees with it. Tocqueville says democracy in America is a success. Democracy has persisted because there has been no cause for its overthrow (i.e., no struggle for existence, too much mobility).
Sends J. W. Dawson’s unsatisfactory letter.
Thanks for Begonia and Oxalis.
Keeps obstinate about crossing and could argue till doomsday, but will not bother JDH.
Sees that JDH has finished Welwitschia.
Thinks Huxley’s Working Men’s Lectures excellent.
Has finished Linum paper [Collected papers 2: 93–105],
and abstract of Bates’s paper for Natural History Review,
and has begun to arrange concluding chapters [for Variation]. Is paralysed on how to begin.
Thanks for Dawson’s letter. Doubts his evidence that climate of land was not glacial when upheaved after submergence.
Encloses memorandum of questions for C. V. Naudin.
Expression of the emotions.
Is building a hothouse for plant experimenting.
JDH’s ideas on America are more atrocious than his. What a new idea that struggle for existence is necessary to try to purge a government! Probably true. Slavery draws him one way one day, another the next. Yankees are "detestable toward us". Tocqueville.
No summary available.
Hostile to Spencer’s application of natural selection to society.
JDH on J. E. Gray’s views on collecting.
JDH collecting Wedgwood ware.
Comments on items in the Saturday Review and the Edinburgh Review.
Genera plantarum reviewed in Parthenon by a man who says JDH is disgraced by being "obviously tinged with Darwinism".
CD by chance has found that Saturday Review article [14 (1862): 589] on Duke of Argyll was written by his [CD’s] nephew, Henry Parker.
Asa Gray sends American newspapers which CD never reads.
JDH’s impression on meeting [J. A.] Froud[e].
CD’s projected three volume work.
Complains at poor state of some [unspecified] plant collection.
