Ɛpsilon

To R. A. Blair   9 December 1878

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Dece. 9th. 1878

Dear Sir

Professor Flower has suffered from a long illness & this has caused much delay in the examination of the wings of the geese.1 But I received yesterday his Report & letter which I enclose (& which need not be returned) as you may like to see them.2 I fear that there is no connection between the deformity & the injury. The owner when he saw several goslings thus deformed, (a not uncommon form of quasi inheritance) remembered the accident, & naturally attributed the deformity to this cause. It has been probably a case of “post hoc” & not “propter hoc”.—3 I grieve that you shd. have expended so much time, trouble & great kindness in vain.

As for myself I am well accustomed in my experimental work to get definite results only once in three or four times, & thus alone can Science prosper.—

With my renewed thanks | I remain Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

1
Blair had sent Flower the deformed wings in July (see letter from R. A. Blair, 17 July 1878).
3
Post hoc ergo propter hoc: after this therefore because of this (Latin); in logic, the post hoc fallacy is the assumption that since one event followed another, the earlier one must have caused the later one.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 Kent.] before del ‘Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.’
1.1 has] interl
1.5 (a not … inheritance) 1.6] interl
2.1 work] after del ‘to’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11780,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11780