To Alfred Espinas   [before 1 July 1877]1

I have now read your work but I have nothing particular to say.2 It seems to be a valuably & very valuable Work & you have been quite indefatigable in acquiring great knowledge from all sources. Every one alluding to the mental power & nature of animals wd be bound to study it— p 5 43 As you hardly admit the principle of evolution we view all subjects from such widely differt points of view, that it is not surprising that we should often differ. Allow me to point out that you have unintentionally misrepresented me at p. 47. I have not discussed the origin of the instinct of domesticity, & have only alluded to them with respect to the question whether the aphides receive any advantage from giving to the ants the sweet secretion.—4 I shd have added defence from enemies

ADraft

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Alfred Espinas, 1 July 1877.
2
There is an annotated copy of Espinas’s Des sociétés animales: étude de psychologie comparée (Espinas 1877) in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 223). This draft, along with other notes, is written on a sheet of notepaper tipped into the back of the book.
3
In his notes on Espinas 1877, CD wrote, ‘54 Actions performed without distinct reasoning—good’. Espinas had written: ‘Does not the experimenter in the laboratory torment matter in a thousand ways without always knowing what he expects from his experiments?’
4
In Espinas 1877, p. 47, Espinas wrote that CD attributed the aphid-farming instinct in some ants to natural selection. See Origin, pp. 210–11, where CD discussed whether the aphids were benefited by being relieved of their sticky secretion by ants.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 I have now … valuably & 1.2] added
1.1 I have now … enemies 1.10] pencil; crossed blue crayon
1.4 p 5 4] interl; line leading to caret from box in margin
1.6 should] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11027,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11027