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From Charles Loring Brace   29 April 1867

Hastings on | Hudson | N.Y.

April 29—1867

Charles Darwin Esq

My dear Sir

Permit me to introduce to you as a correspondent my friend & neighbor Rob’t S. Rowley Esq, who first called my attention to that passage in Dr Well’s Essay on the Party-colored Female, to which you allude in the preface of your New Edition.1 Your acknowledgement should be to him— — I have written an article, defending the religious idea of your Hypothesis, which I hope to send you—2

Prof Agassiz has been attacking the theory this winter very earnestly, but in too ad captandum a style to raise his reputation with scientific men—3

I think you will find that Mr Rowley has some ingenious suggestions to offer—

Trusting that your health is much better, believe me dear Sir | Yours sincerely | C. L. Brace

1
In the Historical sketch in Origin 4th ed., pp. xiv–xv, CD added a reference to William Charles Wells’s ‘Account of a white female, part of whose skin resembles that of a negro’ (Wells 1818), and acknowledged Brace for drawing his attention to it. In the same connection in Origin 5th ed., pp. xvi–xvii, he mentioned both Rowley and Brace. Brace had evidently sent the reference to Wells 1818 to CD before August 1866 (see letter from Asa Gray, 7 August 1866). No correspondence between CD and Rowley has been found.
2
The article has not been identified; it has not been found in the Darwin Archive–CUL. However, for Brace’s views on Darwinism and religion, see a later article of his, ‘Darwinism in Germany’, in the North American Review 90 (1870): 284–99.
3
Since his return from his expedition to South America in 1866, Louis Agassiz had been propagating what he took to be the anti-Darwinian findings of the expedition, in a series of six lectures given at the Cooper Institute in New York City in February 1867 (J. L. R. Agassiz 1867). His lectures and publications on the subject, including also his and Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz’s A journey in Brazil (J. L. R. Agassiz and Agassiz 1868), were aimed at a popular audience (see Lurie 1960, pp. 351–7). Ad captandum vulgus: ‘to catch the rabble; to tickle the ears of the mob’ (H. P. Jones ed. 1900).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5518,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5518