JDH’s opinion of Herbert Spencer.

Rejects CD’s view of inheritance of induced modifications.

Huxley grows fat.

John Scott’s paper [see 4332] read at Linnean Society; praised by George Bentham.

Himalayan pine in Macedonia.

JDH is in a quarrel with H. C. Watson.

Bentham proposes John Scott be made an associate of the Linnean Society.

CD’s climbing plant experiments make it impossible to deny nerve force in plants.

Has discussed Frankland’s new glacial theory with Lyell.

Bishop Colenso’s trial.

Possibility of Scott’s coming to Kew as a curator.

Sends a Corydalis.

Hermann Crüger’s paper [see 4394] splendid, but he has made a mess of propagating Cinchona in Trinidad.

JDH’s opinion of Germans.

Reception of Scott’s paper.

Difficulty of writing Boott’s obituary.

Critical of Edward Frankland’s glacial theory.

Falconer’s and Ramsay’s views on Himalayan lakes lack support of basic evidence.

Taxonomic distribution of climbing plants.

Huxley picks quarrels with minor figures and thus magnifies them.

List of four plants sent.

John Scott’s career.

Huxley’s vicious attack on anthropologists.

Critique of Joseph Prestwich’s theory of rivers.

Bitter feelings between the Hookers and the Veitch family of nurserymen.

JDH explains why he cannot take Scott on at Kew.

John Tyndall cannot answer CD’s questions on glaciers. Edward Frankland’s ignorance. In JDH’s opinion, heaviness of winter snowfall is the greatest element in size of glaciers and this is a function of low mean temperature. Discusses descent of glaciers.

JDH has written to J. H. Balfour for a character reference for John Scott.

J. H. Balfour gives Scott excellent character reference, but says he is unfit either to superintend or be subordinate.

Herbert Spencer’s review of J. M. Schleiden is interesting [see 4457].

Men of Scott’s Celtic temperament are very troublesome. Tries to dissuade CD from hiring him as a scientific gardener.

George Rolleston, not Spencer, wrote review of Schleiden [Nat. Hist. Rev. (1864): 187–99].

Again refuses to help Scott as "unfitted" to make his way in the world. Scott is unwilling to take his part in the "struggle for life", unlike Tyndall, Faraday, Huxley, and Lindley, who established themselves. Scott’s work is not science, but "scientific horticulture".

JDH on John Scott.

Curious about the rationale of pollen prepotence.

Working on variation in New Zealand flora.

Forwards a letter from H. W. Bates to JDH announcing HWB’s appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society.

Is burning to hear CD’s reaction to Wallace’s excellent paper on man ["Origin of human races and the antiquity of man", J. Anthropol. Soc. Lond. 2 (1864): clviii–clxxxvi].

Wallace’s disclaimer of credit for natural selection is high-minded.

No summary available.

JDH suggests Scott go to India; he will write letters of introduction.

Conversation with Herbert Spencer.

George Bentham would like to know how CD’s view of hybridism diverges from Charles Naudin’s.

JDH is writing letters for Scott, whose temper will be "no obstacle for Hindoos and Musselmen working under him".

New curator at Kew finds considerable neglect, with hundreds of plants dying.

CD’s photograph looks like J. R. Herbert’s Moses in the fresco in the House of Lords.

JDH is delighted about oxlip, but hybridity does not explain some large patches that are uniform and do not vary towards either cowslip or primrose.

Encloses letter from W. H. Harvey discussing Myosotis sylvatica and the common dandelion.