Ɛpsilon

To John Tyndall   20 October 1877

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

Oct 20. 1877

My dear Tyndall,

I read your address in ‘The Times’, though in rather a cursory manner, & as I was interested in it, I determined to read it again when republished.1 I return the proofs by my son Horace, as you may want them; & I have now only looked only at the passage about myself. You would never I am sure say anything which I should dislike, & what you do say honours & pleases me greatly. Your short character of Faraday is quite beautiful.2

Believe me, yours very sincerely, | Charles Darwin

1
A description of Tyndall’s presidential address to the Birmingham and Midland Institute, ‘Science and man’, had appeared in The Times, 2 October 1877, p. 8.
2
These were probably the revised proofs of Tyndall’s address; it was published with additions in Tyndall’s Fragments of science (Tyndall 1879, 2: 337–74). In it, Tyndall discussed the perfection of Michael Faraday’s character and his religous faith, but countered the claim that religious belief alone ensured moral purity and grace by referring to CD, whom he described as the ‘Abraham of scientific men’ (ibid., pp. 269–70).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 only looked] ‘only’ interl in CD’s hand

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11193,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11193