To G. H. Darwin   27 May [1874]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

May 27

My dear George

Mr D Spalding has been here to lunch & I have been delighted with him.2 He wants to know which periodical & date contained that article about Ernergy & Thought, or some such title, in which it was maintained that there was no loss of energy in thinking, & which you & I read.3

He is going to experimentise on the sense of direction in animals, & has been trying blindfolded children, & I think has arrived at the same results as you have. Will you let him use your results. If so send them to me & I will forward them. He found a difference in left handed children.4

yours affect | C. Darwin

LS

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from D. A. Spalding, 21 July 1874.
3
The article may have been Benjamin Apthorp Gould’s ‘On force and will’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History 5 (1870): 300–3.
4
George was evidently working on directional instinct; CD sent his notes to Spalding, but they have not been found (see letter to G. H. Darwin, 10 June 1874 and n. 4). For details of Spalding’s experiments, see Spalding 1873.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9472,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9472