From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Thomas William Denby
Date:
1 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 97: C43
Summary:
Writes concerning the land he wishes to purchase from Sir John Lubbock.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Edmund Hartnack
Date:
1 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 97: C42
Summary:
Has been waiting several months for a microscope objective and would like it without delay.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Thomas Lauder Brunton, 1st baronet
Date:
4 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 143: 159
Summary:
On digestive powers of Drosera and those of higher animals.
Comments on expression on two halves of human face.
Responds to TLB’s views of serpent- and fire-worship.
Poison of venomous snakes.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
4 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
DAR 95: 313–16
Summary:
CD guessed Carruthers was stirred up by Owen. Disgraceful treatment of Bentham.
Work on Descent and Coral reefs stops his doing anything of real interest.
Asa Gray’s letter. CD has acknowledged the honour [honorary membership in the Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.].
"What a demon on earth Owen is. I do hate him."
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Alfred Newton
Date:
9 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
Cambridge University Library (MS Add. 9839/1D/60)
Summary:
Asks AN to vote for CD’s nephew, Henry Parker, at the Athenaeum.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Tyndall
Date:
9 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
DAR 261.8: 33 (EH 88205971)
Summary:
Asks JT to support his nephew, Henry Parker, for election to the Athenaeum.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Traherne Moggridge
Date:
10 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 146: 381
Summary:
Criticises paper by Ziegler [see 9339].
Acid experiments on seeds have failed.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Praskov’ja Fëdorovna Perfil’eva (Pauline Perfilieff)
Date:
11 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 147: 242
Summary:
Sends photograph.
Comments on Mme P’s bulldogs.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Alfred Newton
Date:
12 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
Cambridge University Library (MS Add. 9839/1D/61)
Summary:
Cannot answer AN’s questions about Origin; it would take weeks to find the references. Assures AN he stated nothing without an authority he thought good.
Feels sure missel thrushes have increased in number since his youth. Starlings have also increased astonishingly in Kent. "How inexplicable most of these cases are".
In a P.S. remembers his source for statement about increase of missel thrushes in Origin.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Alfred Newton
Date:
14 Mar 1874
Source of text:
Cambridge University Library (MS Add. 9839/1D/62)
Summary:
Can give no definite information. Believes severe winters are by far the most important check on numbers of birds; the destruction of eggs is of subordinate importance.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Alexander Pearson Fletcher
Date:
[after 14 Mar 1874]
Source of text:
DAR 97: C54r
Summary:
Testifies to the trustworthiness of Charles Pearson.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Henrietta Emma Darwin; Henrietta Emma Litchfield
Date:
21 [Mar 1874]
Source of text:
DAR 153: 84
Summary:
Proof-correcting [of 2d ed. of Coral reefs?].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Struthers
Date:
21 Mar 1874
Source of text:
DAR 147: 506
Summary:
Comments on JS’s lecture on evolution ["Address on evolution", Aberdeen Daily Free Press 24 Feb 1874].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
25 Mar [1874]
Source of text:
DAR 95: 317–19
Summary:
Thanks for information about Hedychium. Hopes wings of Sphinx will be found covered with pollen for that will be a fine bit of prophecy from the structure of a flower to special and new means of fertilisation.
Has been at Descent so hard he has done nothing, not even H. Spencer’s answer.
Has not yet read Croll ["Ocean currents", London Edinburgh & Dublin Philos. Mag. 47 (1874): 94–122, 168–90].
Has heard nothing about Carter and Eozoon. Eozoon, he infers, is done for.
Has read Belt [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1874)]: best of all natural history travel books.
Has written to Fritz Müller about leaf-carrying ants.
Hopes to resume work on Drosera.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
27 [Mar 1874]
Source of text:
DAR 95: 320
Summary:
Etty [Henrietta Litchfield] is helping with Coral reefs [2d ed.]; will JDH lend her his copy?
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Henrietta Emma Darwin; Henrietta Emma Litchfield
Date:
27 [Mar 1874]
Source of text:
DAR 153: 85
Summary:
Thanks her for her excellent criticisms and corrections [for 2d ed. of Coral reefs?].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Francis Ellingwood Abbot
Date:
30 Mar 1874
Source of text:
Harvard University Archives (Papers of F. E. Abbot, 1841–1904. Named Correspondence, 1857–1903. Folder: Darwin, Charles and W. E. Darwin (son), 1871–1883, box 44. HUG 1101)
Summary:
FEA has expressed CD’s views on the moral sense with remarkable clearness and correctness; his eulogy is magnificent ["Darwin’s theory of conscience and its relation to scientific ethics", Index 12 Mar 1874]. Cannot give a judgment on the essay because he has had "no practice in following abstract and abstruse reasoning".
CD does not see how morality can be "objective and universal". No one would call the maternal bond in lower animals a "moral obligation". When a social animal "becomes in some slight incipient degree" a moral creature "capable of approving or disapproving of its own conduct" do not such obligations remain of a so-called instinctive nature rather than becoming at once moral obligations?
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project