From J. D. Hooker   5 January 1875

Athenæum Club | Pall Mall S.W.

Jany 5/75.

Dear Darwin

Huxley dissuades me so strenuously from writing to Mivart, on the grounds of his being a Fellow of the R.S., & I it’s President, that I suppose I must submit. I must confess that I cannot well see why the Secretary may & the President may not, to which the answer is that the Secretary’s having done it first,—if right—, renders the action of the President secondary—& if not right for the Secretary, it is still less so for the President.1

I must confess that I do not at all like the idea of the Presidentship limiting action in such a matter.— My letter is written, & couched in a strain that is widely different from Huxley’s, but I hesitate to send it if it would at all compromise me in my official position.2 I shall hold my hand till I hear what Bentham says:3 meanwhile I must give Mivart the cold shoulder, if I should happen to meet him.

Ever aff yrs | Jos D Hooker

1
Hooker had wanted to write to St George Jackson Mivart about Mivart’s attack on George Howard Darwin’s paper on marriage ([Mivart] 1874, p. 70, G. H. Darwin 1873b; see Correspondence vol. 22, letter from J. D. Hooker, 21 December 1874). Thomas Henry Huxley was a secretary of the Royal Society of London.
2
Huxley had circulated a copy of his letter to Mivart to CD and Hooker; see Correspondence vol. 22, letter from T. H. Huxley, 23 December 1874, enclosure.
3
George Bentham, who worked on botany at Kew, had legal training and was a member of the Royal Society (ODNB).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9800,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9800