WCP4076

Letter (WCP4076.4021)

[1]

9. Devonshire St.

Portland Place

Monday [19 February 1872].1

My dear Wallace

We have taken this house for a month, & if ever you are in this quarter of the Town & want some luncheon at 1 o clock, for Heaven sake call here.—

I sent you off yesterday on Saturday my new Edit[ion]. of Origin,2 the last which I shall ever bother myself in trying to improve. There is nothing worth your looking at except perhaps the [one word illeg. crossed out] new [2] Chapter VII.— But I have given [a] list of the more important alterations.

Many thanks for your Presidential address,3 which I have read with much interest. I think you hardly do justice to Kowalevsky's4 conclusions, when you speak of them as founded on histological research alone.

You give an admirable resume of H[erbert]. Spencer's5 [3] doctrine & I wish I could see my way to accept it fully; but I do so essentially in as far as I am quite inclined to believe that each segment originally contained all organs, excepting mouth.—

Ever yours | very sincerely | Ch. Darwin [signature]

1
The date is established by the Charles Darwin Correspondence. (<https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-8211.xml> [accessed 30 December 2019].)
2
Darwin, C. R. 1872. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. 6th Ed. London: John Murray.
3
Wallace, A. R. 1872. The President's Address. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London for the Year 1871. 101. li-lxxv.
4
Kovalevsky, Alexander Onufrievich (1840-1901). Russian embryologist; Professor of histology, St. Petersburg 1890-94.
5
Spencer, Herbert (1820-1903). British philosopher, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP4076.4021)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Darwin Correspondence Project [2012-11-20] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Beros, Matt [2020-06-10]

Transcription (WCP4076.4464)

[1]

From Charles Darwin.) 9. Devonshire St. Portland Place. Monday.(Jan. or Feb. 1872.)

My dear Wallace

We have taken this house for a month, & if ever you are in this quarter of the Town & want some luncheon at 1 o’clock, for Heaven sake call here.—

I sent you off on Saturday my new Edition of Origin1, the last which I shall ever bother myself in trying to improve. There is nothing worth your looking at except perhaps the new Chapter VII2.— But I have given list of the more important alterations.

Many thanks for your Presidential address, which I have read with a much interest. I think you hardly do justice to Kowalevsky’s3 conclusions, when you speak of <them?> as founded on histological researches alone. You give an admirable resume of H.Spencer’s4 doctrine & I wish I could see my way to accept it fully; but I do so especially in as far as I am quite inclined to believe that each segment originally contained all organs excepting mouth.

Ever yours very sincerely | Ch.Darwin.

P.S. How curiously inaccurate the author of article in "The Mouth"?5 is in some respects. He speaks of similarity of teeth of Thylacinus & canis as being so great as to bespeak community of descent, & what a profound difference in essential nature in incisors & promoter & molars: How odd (2) with the Giraffe — but it is not worth writing. —

(This letter is in the possession of Mr.Wilfred Evans to whose sister it was given by Dr.A.R.Wallace.)

(N.B. There is nothing to show that the P.S. belongs to this letter but it accomponies[sic] it now though the handwriting differs in being more illegible.)6

1
On the Origin of Species, first edition published in Nov. 1859
2
Chapter VII: Instinct
3
Alexander Kowalevsky (1840-1901), an 19th century biologist, worked on the intersection of evolution and embryology
4
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and classilcal liberal political theorist, theorized that all structures in the universe develop from a simple, undifferentiated, homogeneity to a complex, differentiated, heterogeniety. He first expressed his evolutionary ideas in his essay "Progress: Its Law and Cause" (1857) two years before Darwin published his On the Origins book.
5
"The Mouth" was written with ink on the transcript. No information was found on the article.
6
These notes were typed in the transcript.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Transcription (WCP4076.4464)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Clerx, William [2012-11-20] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15]

Please cite as “WCP4076,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4076