Ɛpsilon

To E. J. Collings   25 May [1879]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R. [Leith Hill Place, Surrey.]

May 25th

Dear Sir

I cannot spare the time to answer your letter fully, & as I am writing away from home, I cannot give full references.—2 You will find something on the subject in my Descent of Man, but you yourself must judge whether it is of any value— Mr Romanes gave last year at Dublin, before Brit. Assoc. an excellent lecture on the mind of animals, & this was published in the Nineteenth Century or Fortnightly Review,—I think the former.3 An admirable article on same subject by Prof James appeared within about a year in the N. American Journal of Speculative Philosophy, or some such title; but it is not likely that you cd. see this in Bolton.4 Nor do I possess a copy.

Wishing you success in the discussion, I remain | Dear Sir | yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and letter from E. J. Collings, 21 May 1879.
2
See letter from E. J. Collings, 21 May 1879. Collings had asked for material on animal reasoning. CD was staying with his sister and brother-in-law, Caroline Sarah Wedgwood and Josiah Wedgwood III, at Leith Hill Place, Surrey.
3
In Descent 1: 34–69, CD compared the mental powers, including reasoning (ibid., pp. 46–8) of humans and animals. George John Romanes’s article ‘Animal intelligence’ (Romanes 1878b) was a version of his lecture to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Romanes 1878a). It was published in the October 1878 issue of Nineteenth Century.
4
William James’s article ‘Brute and human intellect’ was published in the July 1878 issue of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (James 1878).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

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1.6 on same subject] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12061,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12061