Announces great ally for CD: K. E. von Baer "worth all the Owens & Bishops that ever were pupped". Quotes Baer: "J’ai énoncé les mêmes idées que M. Darwin", but based only on zoological geography.
Would be glad to have Chauncey Wright’s [Origin] review for the Natural History Review.
Against all predictions his Edinburgh lecture was well received [Evidence as to man’s place in nature (1863)].
Took his old line about problem of infertility of hybrids as a test of CD’s views.
Report [from a newspaper] not quite right about what he said, but they have not refuted his statement that some form of progressive development theory is certainly true, nor that man and the apes come from same stock. Owen has gone in for progressive development in second edition of the Palaeontology [1861].
The Witness attacks THH’s lecture.
Assures CD he spoke more favourably of his doctrines than the reports show.
Agrees with CD’s arguments on sterility of hybrids and predicts physiological experiments will produce physiological species sterile inter se. Has come even closer to CD’s view especially since Primula paper. Will soon be more Darwinian than CD.
Glad to receive CD’s pat on back for address.
Wants to know what CD thinks of the argument on geological contemporaneity.
On his poor health.
The BAAS meeting at Cambridge was exhausting.
Owen came to attack him but was beaten; his paper fell flat.
A "society for propagation of common honesty in all parts of the world" was established at Cambridge [THH’s "Thorough Club"?].
Thanks for a contribution ["On the so-called ""auditory-sac"" of cirripedes", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1863): 115–16; Collected papers 2: 85–7]. Is sending a proof.
This year’s lecture to working men to be devoted to CD’s book.
Sends first three of his Lectures to working men [on our knowledge of the phenomena of organic nature (1863)]. Does not intend them to be widely circulated.
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.
His suspicions regarding [Edward] Sabine’s treatment of CD were justified by the Anniversary Address. THH, [George] Busk, and [Hugh] Falconer insisted on a more accurate account of the grounds on which the Copley Medal was awarded to CD.
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".
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.
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.