From Samuel Butler   2 January 1880

Dear Sir

Will you kindly refer me to the edition of ‘Kosmos’ wh: contains the text of D^r Krause’s article on D^r Erasmus Darwin, as translated by M^r W. S. Dallas?

I have before me the last February number of Kosmos, which appears by your preface to be the one from wh: M^r Dallas has translated; but his translation contains long and important passages which are not in the February number of Kosmos, while many passages in the original article are omitted in the translation.¹

Among the passages introduced are the last six pages of the English article, which seem to condemn by anticipation the position I have taken as regards D^r Erasmus Darwin in my book Evolution old & New, and which I believe I was the first to take.² The concluding and therefore, perhaps, most prominent sentence of the translation you have given to the public stands thus;—

“Erasmus Darwin’s system was in itself a most significant first step in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but the wish to revive it at the present day as has actually been seriously attempted shows a weakness of thought and a mental anachronism which no man can envy.”³

The Kosmos which has been sent me from Germany contains no such passage—

As you have stated in your preface that my book Evolution old & New appeared subsequently to D^r Krause’s article, and as no intimation is given that the article has been altered and added to since its original appearance, while the accuracy of the translation as though from the February number of Kosmos, is as you expressly say guaranteed by M^r Dallas’s “scientific reputation together with his knowledge of German”,⁴ your readers will naturally suppose that all they read in the translation appeared in February last, and therefore before Evolution old and New was written, and therefore independently of, and necessarily without reference to that book.

I do not doubt that this was actually the case, but have failed to obtain the edition which contains the passage above referred to, and several others which appear in the translation.

I have a personal interest in this matter and venture therefore to ask for the explanation which I do not doubt you will readily give me

I am | y^r. faithfully | S. Butler—⁵