To J. D. Hooker   29 [May 1860]1

Down Bromley Kent

29th

My dear Hooker

Your letter contained two capital pieces of news, that Mrs. Hooker’s troubles are safely over which is a real blessing,2 & that the Admiralty should have been liberal.3 I truly rejoice at this, though of course the remuneration is as nothing to the labour expended.—   Many thanks for Harvey’s letter,4 which I will keep a little longer & then return.—   I will write to him & try to make clear, from analogy of domestic productions, the part which I believe Selection has played.5 I have been reworking my pigeons & other domestic animals & I am sure that anyone is right in saying that Selection is the efficient cause, though as you truly say variation is the base of all.—

Why I do not believe so much as you do in Physical agencies, is that I see in almost every organism (though far more clearly in animals than in plants) adaptation, & this except in rare instance must, I shd. think, be due to selection.—

Do not forget the Pyrolas when in flower. My blessed little Scævola has come into flower & I will try artificial fertilisation on it.—

Yours ever affect | C. Darwin

I have looked over Harvey’s letter & have assumed (I hope rightly) that he could not object to knowing that you had forwarded it to me.—

Endorsement: ‘May/60’

1
The endorsement is confirmed by the reference to the Hookers‘ new baby (see n. 2, below).
2
Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker was born on 27 May 1860.
3
The reference has not been traced. It may possibly relate to the publishing of Hooker 1859, the costs of which Hooker had primarily borne. See letter to J. D. Hooker, 8 February [1860].
4
William Henry Harvey corresponded with Hooker in May and June 1860 about the theological implications of CD’s theory. A letter from Hooker to Harvey dated 26 May 1860 indicates that Harvey had written a long letter to Hooker discussing natural selection, which is probably the one referred to here. See L. Huxley ed. 1918, 1: 516–20.
5
CD’s letter to Harvey has not been found. See, however, letter to W. H. Harvey, [20–4 September 1860].

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.5 clear,] interl
1.8 though] before abandoned caret
1.8 you] interl
2.2 almost] interl
5.1 I have looked … to me.—- 5.2] added pencil

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2816,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2816