Ɛpsilon

To E. H. O’Callaghan   14 July 1879

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

July 14 1879.

Dear Sir,

I will remember your remarks, but I shall never again write on such difficult subjects as that to which you refer.1 When I look to the future of the world hardly any event seems to me of such great importance as the settling of Australia, New Zealand, &c by the so called Anglo Saxons & it is very doubtful whether this would ever have occured, had there not been severe pressure on the population. From what I have seen (& from what Belt describes in Nicaragua) in South America I conclude that when men can procure subsistence with great ease they are apt to degenerate.2 Indeed wherever this is there is no progress. Decadence seems to follow.

Dear Sir | yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin.—

E H O’Callaghan | &c &c

Copy

1
No letter from O’Callaghan has been found; a note on the copy, made by O’Callaghan, reads: ‘(In the following copy (the original is before me) the writer refers to population, a question regarding which I had the misfortune to differ from him E.H.O’C)’. O’Callaghan has not been identified.
2
CD discussed the success of English colonisation in Descent 1: 179. Thomas Belt had described the indolence of the inhabitants of Juigalpa, Nicaragua, and commented that no progress would be made in the region until Mexico and Central America became part of the United States (Belt 1874, pp. 177–8).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12158,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12158