Thanks CD for offer of financial support. Discusses application for funds for Ceylon trip.

Has told John Collier to write to CD to arrange for portrait.

Will read [W. Graham’s] Creed of science.

Has got into row with W. B. Carpenter over thought-reading.

Thanks Fd’AF for his interesting letter. CD suggests observations it would be worth making [in the Azores] although he is too old to make any direct use of them. Fauna and flora of different islands should be compared and the plants and animals from all high mountain summits collected. Suggests Fd’AF investigate the presence of glacial deposits and fossils on the islands. Survival of eggs in salt-water should be tested, as the wide distribution of lizards, land molluscs, and earthworms is a perplexing problem.

Will be very glad to read the essays Fd’AF sent.

Praises WG’s Creed of science.

He disagrees that the existence of natural laws implies purpose, but his "inmost conviction" is that "the Universe is not the result of chance". But then has horrid doubt whether convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from lower animals, are at all trustworthy.

Believes natural selection is doing more for progress of civilisation than WG admits.

Movement of plants to shake off water: FM’s invaluable observations.

Inquires about "bloom" on leaves.

Fertilisation of Melastomataceae, roles of the two sets of anthers.

Is returning to Down.

Rejoices that GJR writes so much in Nature.

Comments on FMB’s book [Treatise on comparative embryology, 2 vols. (1880–1)]. Had already purchased copy. Could second copy be sent to someone else? Fritz Müller?

Will be glad to read over her article.

Thanks for a "grand volume" [vol. 3 of Monographiae phanerogamarum (1878–96)].

A stock certificate has arrived for FD.

Comments on the response to Movement in plants, which seems to have been successful.

Is going over revises of Earthworms.

Is investigating further his notion that leaves align themselves in the rain so as to shoot off drops of water.

AdeC thinks Monographiae phanerogamarum may be of some use to CD for the most nearly correct names to adopt.

Reports splendid cases of "paraheliotropism" which he now believes is one of the commonest movements of plants.

Enthusiasm for Henry George’s Progress and poverty. Considers it to rank with Adam Smith’s work. His own work on the land question [Land nationalisation (1882)].

Thanks for suggesting that a spare copy of his book [Treatise on comparative embryology (1880–1)] be sent to Fritz Müller.

Would be honoured if CD would come to dine with him, distinguished foreign guests, and H.R.H. Prince of Wales, on 3 Aug, the opening of the [7th International Medical] Congress.

Comments on her life of Lyell.

Declines dinner invitation.

Will order Progress and poverty. Comments on ARW’s political interests and his own absorption in W. Graham’s The creed of science.

His sojourn at Ullswater: "life has become very wearisome to me".

Thanks AB for his letter, his essay on climates ["Theorie der wechselnden kontinentalen und insularen Klimate", Bot. Jahrb. 2 (1882): 1–50, 177–84], and for his photograph. Sends his own.