Ɛpsilon

To Karl von Scherzer   14 May [1877]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

May. 14th

My dear Sir

I received M. Wagner’s essay’s, & suppose I ought to have written to you, but indeed I am often quite overwhelmed with letters to write.2

I wrote a long letter to M. Wagner about his views, with which I am sorry to say I cannot agree.— He does not offer any explanation, as far as I can see, of the endless beautiful adaptations throughout Nature.—3 Thanks for Büchners essay, which I will read if I can, but he writes difficult German.4 I have not received the grand Novara work.5

I am sorry to hear of your ill-health & hope that the Baths may do you good.—6

My dear Sir | yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the reference to Wagner 1877 (see n. 2, below).
2
Scherzer had sent CD a two-part article by Moritz Wagner that was published in Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung (Wagner 1877; CD’s copy is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL). It was later reprinted in a posthumous collection of Wagner’s essays (Wagner 1889, pp. 376–95). In 1876, Scherzer had sent copies of Wagner’s earlier essays (Wagner 1875; reprinted in Wagner 1889, pp. 282–342); see Correspondence vol. 24, letter to Karl von Scherzer, 22 September 1876 and n. 1.
3
See Correspondence vol. 24, letter to Moritz Wagner, 13 October 1876. In his copy of Wagner 1877, p. 161, CD double scored a passage in which Wagner stated that CD’s main objection to his theory was that it did not account for the many morphological adaptations of different species.
4
CD probably refers to Ludwig Büchner’s Die Darwin’sche Theorie von der Entstehung und Umwandlung der Lebewelt (The Darwinian theory of the origin and transformation of the living world; Büchner 1876). CD’s copy is in the Darwin Library–CUL.
5
Scherzer had offered to send CD the complete series of volumes from the Novara expedition (Novara exedition 1861–75; see Correspondence vol. 24, letter to Karl von Scherzer, 24 December 1876). He had previously sent CD the reports on anthropology (Weisbach 1867), ethnography (Friedrich Müller 1868), and craniology (Zuckerkandl 1875); see Correspondence vol. 15, letter from Karl von Scherzer, 21 November 1867, and Correspondence vol. 24, letter to Karl von Scherzer, 24 December 1876. CD also received a copy of the geological report from its author (Hochstetter 1864–6; see Correspondence vol. 16, letter from Ferdinand von Hochstetter, 26 March 1868). CD’s copies of these works are in the Darwin Library–CUL.
6
Scherzer planned to go to the hydropathic establishment at Sudbrook Park, near Ham, Surrey (see Correspondence vol. 24, letter to Karl von Scherzer, 24 December 1876 and n. 3).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10961,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10961