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From John Farr   10 July 1873

North Hill | Highgate N

July 10th 1873

Dear Sir,

I thank you kindly for your Photograph and letter.1 I shall prize them greatly, as coming from one who has changed the current of human thought to a considerable extent, by a process of right reasoning based on accumulated facts.

I shall read your works with additional zest, knowing you are alive and well. Your photograph represents you aged, but I hope you will be spared many years to enjoy the calm serenity of a well spent life. And when I feel inclined to write to you, I will do so without apology or hesitation.

I have very much admired the writings of the brothers Andrew & George Comb, now deceased; I daresay you are acquainted with the writings of both. I mean George Comb on the “Constitution of Man”, and Andrew on “Physiology”.2

I am, Dear Sir | yours sincerely | John Farr

C. Darwin Esqr

1
The letter from CD has not been found. For Farr’s request, see the letter from John Farr, 7 July 1873.
2
G. Combe 1828 used phrenology to promote a secular society based on natural laws. It had a wide readership amongst the reform-minded working and middle classes in Britain, selling 100,000 copies by 1860 (see Cooter 1984, pp. 120–33). It appears on CD’s list ‘Books to be read 1852–60’ in his reading notebooks (see Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV). Andrew Combe’s Principles of physiology applied to the preservation of health (A. Combe 1834) also drew on phrenological principles (ODNB).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8973,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8973