Thanks HGB for agreeing to superintend translation of Origin.
Comments on HGB’s review.
Encloses corrections and preface for Schweizerbart. Discusses translation of term "natural selection".
Huxley’s Royal Institution lecture on Origin [10 Feb 1860, Not. Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 3 (1858–62): 195–200] an "entire failure" as an exposition of CD’s doctrine.
R. I. Murchison very civil.
CD counts Lyell among the converted.
Thanks PLS for information about variation in birds. Asks for more information.
Auguste Bravard’s discoveries magnificent.
Bravard has sent pamphlets [Observaciones geológicas (1857) and Monografia de los terrenos marinos terciarios (1858)] with strange doctrine that Pampean deposit is subaerial.
Review of Origin by Wollaston [Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 5 (1860): 132–43] clever and misinterprets CD only in a few places.
Wallace’s MS ["Zoological geography of the Malay Archipelago", J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 4 (1860): 172–84] admirably good.
Henslow "will go very little way with us". "He, also, shudders at the eye!"
Baden Powell says CD’s statement about eye is conclusive.
Leonard Jenyns cannot go as far as CD, yet cannot give good reason.
Discusses NA’s pamphlet on human progress. Suggests making it a book [A survey of human progress (1861)].
Comments on study of dead languages.
Denies that animals are "governed only by selfish motives".
Arranges to send ear-trumpet to Syms Covington.
Thinks AG’s review is admirable.
Reactions of others to the Origin.
Encloses reviews by Asa Gray and Bronn. Comments on Bronn review. Mentions review by Wollaston.
Comments on paper by W. H. Harvey in Gardeners’ Chronicle [(1860): 145–6]. Discusses Harvey’s belief in the permanence of monsters.
Discusses CL’s objection that still-living primitive forms failed to develop.
The survival of Lepidosiren and other primitive types of fish and mammals.
Comments on W. H. Harvey’s article on a monstrous Begonia [Gard. Chron. 18 Feb 1860].
Is astonished at being attacked for not allowing great and abrupt variations under nature. More evidence needed to make CD admit that forms have often changed "by saltum".
Too ill to go to club.
Gradation in the eye.
Hooker intends to reply [to W. H. Harvey’s article in Gard. Chron. (1860): 145–6].
Discusses Aspicarpa with respect to correlation.
Comments on monstrous animals.
Discusses objections of Bronn and Asa Gray to natural selection. Cites parallel between natural selection and Newton’s concept of gravitation.
Mentions German experiments on spontaneous generation.
Is extremely pleased by what FJP says of his book [Origin]. Recalls how slowly he changed his own opinion; does not think anyone "could at once undergo so great a revolution in opinion". Thanks FJP for his intended notice of the work [Bibl. Univers. Arch. Sci. Phys. & Nat. 7 (1860)].
Recommends an "excellent Review by that admirable Botanist Asa Gray" [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 29 (1860): 153–84].
L. Agassiz is very bitter against CD’s book but H. G. Bronn, although very much opposed, "with noble liberality of sentiment" is going to superintend a German translation.
As FJP’s studies lead him to reflect on "Geological Succession, Geographical Distribution, Classification, Homology & Embryology", CD expects that he will go a little further with him because "these facts … are inexplicable on the theory of creation".
Pleased ACR likes Origin. Every geological believer is most important. A long, stiff battle is ahead for the new doctrine.
HS put the case of selection strikingly and clearly in his article [Anonymous, "A theory of population, deduced from the general law of animal fertility", Westminster Rev. 57 (1852): 468–501]. Of CD’s numerous private critics only HS has rendered the philosophy fairly: his argument is an hypothesis that explains groups of facts.
Last sheets of AG’s review of Origin have arrived. CD’s comments and criticisms.
Discusses poultry crosses, "what a hopelessly difficult subject is that of inheritance!" Gives details of some pigeon crosses he made; cannot positively recall which produced the blue bird.
Discusses meaning of various English scientific terms.
Is much pleased that translation [of Origin, 1st German ed.] will be ready by May.
Comments on CL’s reaction to the Origin. Mentions reactions of other scientists.
Discusses fertility of Aspicarpa.
Criticises Herbert Spencer’s views on population.
Applauds JDH’s reply [25 Feb 1860] to W. H. Harvey in Gardeners’ Chronicle.
Asks JDH for some Goodenia.
Suggests Daniel Oliver try to cross Mimosa, noted for sterility.
