From G. G. Stokes to T. H. Huxley 5 December 1864

Lensfield Cottage Cambridge

5^th Dec^r. 1864

Dear Huxley,

There was one expression in my last¹ which is not perhaps rigorously exact. Instead of saying “declining to honour it with the Copley Medal of the Royal Society” I should have said simply “not honouring it with the Copley Medal of the Royal Society”² For declining implies having been asked, and there was no asking in the present case.

Yours very truly | G. G. Stokes

See letter from G. G. Stokes to T. H. Huxley, 5 December 1864.

See letter from G. G. Stokes to T. H. Huxley, 5 December 1864 and nn. 1 and 4.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4701,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4701

Summary

Wishes to correct an expression in his last letter which is "perhaps not rigorously exact": he should not have said "declining to honour it [the Origin] with the Copley Medal" but simply "not honouring it with the Copley medal". "Declining implies having been asked and there was no asking in the present case."

Letter details

Record number: DCP-LETT-4701
From: George Gabriel Stokes, 1st baronet
To: Thomas Henry Huxley
Date: 5 Dec 1864
Sent from: Cambridge
Source of text: DAR 99: 76
Physical description: 2pp

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Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12.

From G. G. Stokes to T. H. Huxley 5 December 1864

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