Ɛpsilon

To Deane Parker Pennethorne   22 May [1868]

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

May 22nd.

Dear Sir

I am much obliged for your note & paper on man.1 As I have attended during some years to the same question & have lately been writing a short essay on it, it is not surprising that I have not found anything actually new to me in your paper.2 Nevertheless it is always interesting & instructive to see how other men look at the same subject.

I am therefore much obliged to you for having sent me the paper, & I am glad to say that we agree upon almost all points.

Pray believe me, dear Sir | yours faithfully | Charles Darwin

LS

Postmark: MY 23 68

1
Pennethorne’s letter to CD has not been found. His manuscript paper, ‘Transmutation of man according to the Darwinian theory’ is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
2
CD’s work on the descent of human beings and on sexual selection was published in Descent: he had originally envisaged adding a chapter on humans to Variation, and then had decided to make it a small, free-standing work (see Correspondence vol. 15, letter to J. D. Hooker, 8 February [1867]).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6198,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6198