From Francis Galton   24 December 1869

My dear Darwin,

It would be idle to speak of the delight your letter has given me,¹ for there is no one in the world whose approbation in these matters can have the same weight as yours. Neither is there any one whose approbation I prize more highly, on purely personal grounds, because I always think of you in the same way as converts from barbarism think of the teacher who first relieved them from the intollerable burden of their superstition. I used to be wretched under the weight of the old fashioned ‘arguments from design’,² of which I felt though I was unable to prove to myself, the worthlessness. Consequently the appearance of your ‘Origin of Species’ formed a real crisis in my life; your book drove away the constraint of my old superstition as if it had been a nightmare and was the first to give me freedom of thought.

I now look forward anxiously to your final opinion after you have quite gone through the book.—³ Wishing you and yours a very happy Christmas

Believe me very sincerely yours | Francis Galton