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To W. Z. Seddon   4 February 1880

Down. Beckenham. Kent.

Feby. 4. 1880.

Dear Sir.

I wish that you or anybody else could account for the colours of the different races of man.1

Few persons believe that differences of climate suffice.—

I have offered an explanation in my Descent of Man which hardly anybody has accepted.2

Since then other views equally or more improbable have been published, & this is all that I can say—

Dear Sir. | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin.

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1
See letter from W. Z. Seddon, 2 February 1880. Seddon’s schoolmaster had suggested that climate might be a contributing factor in determining skin colour.
2
In Descent 2d ed., pp. 195–6, CD added information on the susceptibility of lighter skin to sunburn and suggested the possibility that darker skin might be gradually acquired by humans through natural selection in some places.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12460,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12460