Regrets he has not time to develop points touched on in her letter and that he does not understand what information she wants.

All the inhabitants of Down hope JL will endeavour to induce the Post Office to improve the telegraph service.

Has no idea about length of index [for Descent]. W. S. Dallas wrote it would take ten days more. Asks how many presentation copies he may have. Lists journals to receive review copies.

Suggests periodicals to receive review copies [of Descent].

Is "ashamed at my corrections".

Discusses mailing of presentation copies [of Descent]. Sends addresses of A. R. Wallace and St George Mivart.

Finished the last proofs of Descent a few days ago. "I shall be well abused."

St George Mivart’s Genesis [of species]: very good, unfortunately theological. Will tell heavily against natural selection but not against evolution, and this is "infinitely more important".

Comments on StGJM’s book [Genesis of species (1871)]. Has no personal objection to a word of it, but regrets their views differ so much.

Acknowledges StGJM’s kind letter. [See 7451.]

Offers to alter the "dogmatic assertion" referred to on page 102 [of StGJM’s On the genesis of species] but in 5th ed. of Origin and in Variation CD finds only qualified expressions.

Seeks information and observations on the contraction of the orbicular muscles as a consequence of skin irritation.

CD apologises for having thought that StGJM’s religious feelings had led him to feel personal animosity towards him. [See 7454.]

He remembers having thought and written that belief in evolution is infinitely more important for science than belief in Natural Selection. For his own part he would have felt little interest in evolution apart from the explanation "in a general manner" of how each organism is so adapted to its conditions.

He has found passage on false belief, Variation 2: 414, and does not think the whole with context is dogmatic. [Encloses copy of the passage.]

Asks that review copy [of Descent] be sent to F. P. Cobbe.

Discusses mailing of presentation copies.

Returns pamphlets.

B. T. Lowne’s observation [Mon. Microsc. J. 4 (1870): 326–30] that boiling does not kill certain moulds is curious, but then how account for absence of all living things in Pasteur’s experiment?

Always delighted to see a word in favour of Pangenesis.

Thiselton-Dyer’s paper ["On spontaneous generation and evolution", Q. J. Microsc. Sci. 10 (1870): 333–54] is Spencerian.

The chemical conditions for first production of life are said to exist at present, but in some warm little pond today such matter would be absorbed or devoured, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.

Will send copy of Descent.

Comments on JC-B’s MS on expression among insane. Asks about weeping in insane men. Do idiots laugh when pleased?

Thanks for photographs of insane. Asks for additional photographs.

Comments on Henry Maudsley [Body and mind (1870)].

Pointed ears in the insane.

Asks that a presentation copy [of Descent?] be sent to Edward Blyth. Comments on publication.

Discusses presentation copies [of Descent]. Dallas returned proofs of index on Friday. Asks for John Stuart Mill’s address.

Discusses publication of Descent. Orders copies of vol. 2 sent to Wallace, Mivart, and F. P. Cobbe.

Will attend Athenaeum and vote for RC.

JC-B’s MS most useful.

P. Gratiolet’s observations on contraction and dilation of pupils of eye of a person in extreme terror. Has JC-B ever observed this? Expression has been his hobby-horse for 30 years.

Receipt for payment by John Murray of £630 for the first edition, consisting of 2500 copies, of Descent.

Suggests sending his book [Descent?] to Popular Science Review.