Ɛpsilon

To Ernst Krause   29 January 1881

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

Jan. 29th 1881

My dear Sir

I send by this post a copy of Nature with your letter, which has been very well translated by Mr Balfour.—1 The letter seems to me in every way excellent.— It says everything which I wished to be said & not a word which I would wish unsaid. I thank you cordially. I shall now feel easy, & Mr. Butler may abuse me to his heart’s content.2

Yours faithfully & gratefully | Charles Darwin

P.S | You will see a long review of Mr Butler’s book by Mr. Romanes.3 It seems to me very well done, but all my family think that he has used too strong language, & perhaps this is the case.—

Mr Butler’s vanity is a real psychological curiosity.—

1
CD had asked Francis Maitland Balfour to translate Krause’s response to Samuel Butler; it was published as a letter to Nature dated 12 January 1881, and appeared in the issue for 27 January 1881, p. 288 (see letter to F. M. Balfour, 12 January 1881).
2
For Butler’s attack on CD, see Butler 1880, pp. 58–62, and the letter to Leslie Stephen, 11 January 1881 and n. 3.
3
George John Romanes’s review of Butler 1880 appeared in Nature, 27 January 1881, pp. 285–7.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.4 now] above del ‘not’
3.2 but] above del ‘&’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13032,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13032