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From George Henslow   20 March 1868

St John’s Parsonage | St Johnswood | N.W.

March 20/68

My dear Sir

May I venture to ask you to give me your candid criticisms on any point you may think fit, in the article of mine in “Natural Theology”, in the accompanying number of the Educational Times?1

I have contemplated reprinting it in an enlarged form, but should be very glad if I can secure a few criticisms first: that I may endeavour to correct wherever it may appear that my reasoning is unsound.2 I may add that having my “belief” on Probabilities; I firmly “believe” in Evolution myself: & my wish is to endeavour—though I fear I am not equal to the task—to prove the argument of Nat: theology to be as sound, if not sounder on that Hypothesis as upon the old Creative one.

yrs very faithfully | George Henslow

1
The enclosure has not been found, but Henslow refers to a paper, ‘Natural theology, considered in reference to its present position’, read in November 1867 at a meeting of the College of Preceptors and published in the March 1868 issue of the Educational Times (Henslow 1867).
2
Henslow later produced an expanded version of his article, which was published in Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute (Henslow 1871). CD’s pre-publication copy of the article is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6029,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6029