Wishes to inform CD that, contrary to CD’s impression, natural selection is widely accepted in U. S. by educated men; encloses copies of his lectures, papers, and the Index.

Thanks CD for interest in FEA’s work and for money for Index. Sends 1870 volume of Index.

Praises CD’s services to free-thought.

Asks for CD’s view of the influence of his theory on religion, to use in lecture.

For CD’s approval, cites passage from CD note he wants to quote in a lecture;

pleads for CD’s moral support for FEA’s work in free-thought movement.

Sends $50 [dollars or pounds!?] because he wants CD to become regular contributor to Index.

CD is grateful for the eulogy in Index [no. 104]. Many would disagree. It is the fashion to say he is a good observer with "an utterly illogical mind".

Thanks CD for five dollars and two-year subscription to Index, and for permission to quote CD’s compliments on Truths for the times.

Asks CD to read and comment, for publication, on his forthcoming essay in Index on the evolution of conscience and morals through action and reaction between man and the moral environment.

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?