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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.
AE, philosophy professor, is disposed to accept natural selection, but argues that it lacks direction. Suggests that direction would be given if one assumed the appearance of multiple advantageous traits in a single individual. Cites Herbert Spencer, Rudolf Virchow, Claude Bernard, and Carl Vogt.
David Forbes thinks WED’s chalk samples have been penetrated by surface mud.
Sends information on composition of chalk at Shoreham and Folkestone.
Thanks CD for Origin, 6th ed.
Has declined chair at Strasbourg.
Describes research on calcareous sponges.
Criticises Pangenesis.
Sends dirt residue of chalk samples for David Forbes to examine.
Response to 6th ed. of Origin. CD’s answer to Mivart on initial stages of modifications is complete; the "eye and ear objection" is not handled so satisfactorily.
A. S. Packard would like to visit CD to pay his respects.
P.S. Information on earthworm activity on chalk downs, including two rough sketches for CD.
Down parish and family matters.
JM arranges to pay CD for the latest issue of Descent.
Wishes to use some of Fritz Müller’s observations in his paper on mimicry.
CD’s reply and Huxley’s article ["Mr Darwin’s critics", Contemp. Rev. 18 (1871): 443–76] have answered all of Mivart’s objections to natural selection as applied to man.
Has just finished his work [? The martyrdom of man (1872)]. The new points are: (1) Negroes have whiskers; (2) their music is sometimes agreeable; (3) the Kaffirs are Negroes.
Plans for visit to CD.
Has failed to discover the signs of earthworm activity that CD described.
On how various human emigrations have supported the work of natural selection.
Defends the view that soil and air account for taller stature of westerners in U. S.
Will see CD tomorrow.
CD insists too strongly, in Descent, on man’s origin from a simian ancestor, rather than some other primate.
Discusses problems of obtaining money for the alteration of Down church.
Describes habits of worms.
Discusses Leersia experiments.
A. G. Butler has named the specimens sent by CD with Fritz Müller’s letter.
Sends several facts relating to sexual selection, mimicry, and hybrids.
Discusses the possibility that mimicked and mimicking forms have descended from originally allied forms and have diverged in structure but not in appearance.
