Ɛpsilon

From J. F. McLennan   30 July 1877

Woodbury Cottage, | Biggin Hill, Norwood, S.E.

30th. July 77

My dear Mr. Darwin,

With this I send Azara by book post & with many thanks. I found no other passages bearing on Infanticide than those you directed me to; but see p 146 & 152 for systems of abortion. Page 92 gives me a fresh instance of Nair polyandry in connectn. with female infanticide.1

As to abortion: I think it must be counted a refinement on & advance from infanticide & since the evidence shows that a system of infanticide is always, on the whole, a system of female infanticide we must infer a former practice of female infanticide where we find a practice of abortion.

What I say as to systems of infanticide being always on the whole systems of female infanticide rests not on speculatn. but evidence. Spencer has just given us all a terrible lesson as to the evils of taking things “out of one’s head”.2

I wish I had been nearer you that I might borrow books freely. I fear I am terribly in arrear, having nearly 8 years’ books of travels to overtake. I am making a list of books to buy to take with me to Algiers. If you can suggest any I shd. buy I shall be obliged.—

At last we have warm weather & I am thankful. The late damp tried me much.

Mrs. McLennan3 is some what better & joins me in kind messages to you all. We are expecting to see the Litchfields4 here on Friday.

I am yours very sincerely | J. F McLennan

CD annotations

4.2 I am … shall be obliged 4.4] ‘Falconer Palaeog’ blue crayon
1
CD’s letter has not been found. He had evidently sent McLennan his copy of Azara 1809 (Voyages dans l’Amérique Méridionale). See letter from J. F. McLennan, 24 July 1877. McLennan referred to what he took to be a very early form of family organisation as Nair polyandry from its prevalence among the Nairs of southern India; women usually lived with their mother or a brother, and had several husbands (see McLennan 1865, pp. 184–8; see also letter from L. H. Morgan, 26 June 1877 and n. 8). Azara 1809, 2: 92–4, discussed the marriage customs of the Guanas of Paraguay, alleging that the mothers buried most of their female babies alive, because they believed this was to the advantage of the surviving females. CD scored these pages in his copy now in the Darwin Library–CUL; see Marginalia 1: 26.
2
In an article in Fortnightly Review, 1 June 1877 (McLennan 1877), McLennan had criticised Herbert Spencer’s remarks on exogamy in his Principles of sociology 1: 649ff. (Spencer 1876–96). See also letter from L. H. Morgan, 26 June 1877.
4
Henrietta Emma Litchfield, CD’s daughter, and her husband, Richard Buckley Litchfield.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11082,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11082