Ɛpsilon

WCP5333

Letter (WCP5333.5878)

[1]1

22d./May/642

My dear Hooker3

What a good kind heart you have got. — You cannot tell how your letter4 has pleased me. — I will write to Scott5 & ask him, if he chooses to go out & risk getting employment6 — If he will not, he must want all energy. — He says himself he wants stoicism ; & is too sensitive; I hope he may not want courage. — I feel sure he is a remarkable man with much good in him, but no doubt many errors & blemishes — I can vouch for his high intellect (in my judgment he is the best observer [2] I ever came across); for his modesty, at least in correspondence; & there is something high-minded in his determination not to receive money from me. — I shall ask him whether he can get good character for probity & sobriety. — & whether he can get aid from his relations for his voyage out — I will help, & if necessary pay the whole voyage & give him enough to support him for some weeks at Calcutta.7 I will write when I hear, — from him – [3] God Bless you, — you, who are so overworked, are most generous to take so much trouble about a man you have had nothing to do with8 —

I have about a cubic yard of books & pamphlets unread, & amongst them Naudin[']s9 late papers;10 so I can say little — all that I remember was feeling greatest doubts about rapidity & universality of Hybrids reverting to either parent-type11 — neither Gärtner12 nor Kölreuter13 found this so general & G[ärtner]. reared 8 or 10 successive generations of Hybrid [4] Dianthus14 & found them uniform in character15 — What made me doubt was that Naudin rather sneers at precautions necessary against intends insects, & he does not state that neither parent-species grew in gardens16 — I know that the first year all Gärtner's experiments were acknowledged by him to be worthless from underrating insect-agency.17 —

I have now read Wallace's paper on Man, & think it most striking & original & forcible;18 I wish he had [5]19 written Lyell's20 chapter on Man.21 I quite agree about his high-mindiness [sic], & have long thought so; but in this case it is too far & I shall tell him so. — I am not sure that I fully agree with his views about man; but there is no doubt, in my opinion, on the remarkable genius shown by the paper. — I agree, however, to the main new leading idea.22 —

You quite overrate my tendril [6] work23 & there is no occasion to plague myself about priority. By the way I observed yesterday an odd little fact, that in the vine the Flower buds are borne on a true tendril, for the whole mass of flowers steadily revolves in 2°. 15’.24 — I have almost finished my Lythrum25 paper:26 I fear it can be copied & sent only just before close of Session of Linn[ean]. Soc[iety]. & that the title alone will be read. — It really is a wondrous case; by far [the] oddest case I have ever observed.

My dear old fellow

Yours affe[ctionate]ly]. | C. Darwin27 [signature]

1
The page is numbered 236 in pencil in the top righthand corner. The letter is written in pencil until the penultimate paragraph on page 4 ending "… from underrating insect agency". The remainder beginning "I have now read Wallace's paper on Man…" is written in ink.
2
The date has been added in ink as a later annotation.
3
Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1817-1911). British botanist and explorer. Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 1865-1885. President of the Royal Society 1873-1878.
4
Hooker’s letter to Darwin of 19 May 1864 (Burkhardt, F., et al. (Eds). 2001. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [pp. 196-198]).
5
Scott, John (1836-1880). British botanist and gardener. Previously at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, in 1859 he became foreman of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. He emigrated to India in 1864, and became curator of the Calcutta Botanic Garden in 1865, where he carried out numerous botanical experiments and observations on Darwin’s behalf, including studies on dimorphism in Primula.
6
Hooker had suggested that John Scott (see endnote 5) would probably find employment if he travelled to India.
7
Darwin paid for Scott's passage to Calcutta (see endnote 5).
8
Hooker assisted Scott (see endnote 5) in making arrangements for the journey to India and offered to give him letters of introduction to his botanical contacts.
9
Naudin, Charles Victor (1815-1899). French naturalist and botanist. He ran experiments on hybridization and the acclimation of plants for the production of new species. Both Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel studied his work, considered a precursor of modern genetics. He was interested in the diversification of plants, particularly pumpkins.
10
Darwin is probably referring to Naudin, C. V. 1862. Mémoire sur les hybrides du règne végétal which appeared in Recueil des savants étrangers and won him the Grand Prize of the Institute of Botany in 1862. ʹ
11
Naudinism asserts that species are formed in the same way as our cultivated varieties, whose formation Naudin (see endnote 9) attributed to systematic selection by Man. Contrary to the generally accepted view, he established the non-permanence of hybrids. See Biaringhem, L. 1920-1921. Mendélisme et naudinisme; exposé des hypothèses fondamentales de l'hérédité expérimentale. L'Année Biologique. 11: i-xx.
12
Gärtner/Gaertner, Karl Friedrich von (1772-1850). German physician and botanist specialising in plant hybridisation. He defended the stability of species, and argued that although the transmutation of species was evidently possible, the new species would not last because of a law of reversion which prevented them from spreading freely. Darwin discusses the experiments of von Gärtner and Kölreuter (see endnote 13) in the ninth chapter of On the Origin of Species, ʹHybridism — Distinction between the sterility of first crosses and of hybridsʹ.
13
Kölreuter, Joseph Gottlieb (1733-1806). German botanist who pioneered artificial fertilisation in plants and conducted experiments in hybridisation. In Kölreuter, J. G. 1761-1766. Vorläufige Nachricht von einigen, das Geschlecht der Pflanzen betreffenden Versuchen. Leipzig, Germany: Johann Friedrich Gleditschens Buchhandlung, he reported more than 500 different attempted hybridizations
14
A genus of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, native mainly to Europe and Asia. They include carnation, pink and sweet william.
15
In Gärtner, C. F. von. 1849. Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich. Stuttgart, Germany: Gedruckt Bei K. F. Hering & Comp., he recorded nearly 10,000 separate experiments involving some 750 species of plants which yielded 250 different hybrids.
16
After reading Naudin, C. V. 1858. Observations concernant quelques plantes hybrides qui ont été cultivées au Muséum. Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Botanique). 9: 257-278, which argued that all hybrids inevitably reverted to their parent forms, Darwin noted that cross pollination from insects of the hybrids with pollen from the parent species could have been mistaken for reversion to the parent type.
17
Gärtner published these experimental results in Gärtner, K. F. von. 1826. Nachricht über Versuche, die Befruchtung einiger Gewächse betreffend. Naturwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen. Herausgegeben von eine gesellschaft in Würtemberg. 1: 35-66; and then admitted his error in Gärtner, K. F. von. 1827. Correspondenz. Flora. 10: 74-80. For Darwin’s views on Gärtner’s, Kölreuter’s, and Naudin’s work on hybrid reversion, see Darwin, C. R. 1866. On the Origin of Species, 4th edition. London: John Murray [pp. 331-335]; and Darwin, C. R. 1868. The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. 2 vols. London: John Murray [Vol. 1, p. 392 and Vol. 2. pp. 36, 49-50].
18
Darwin refers to Wallace, A. R. 1864. The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced From the Theory of "Natural Selection". Journal of the Anthropological Society of London. 2: clviii-clxx (followed by an account of related discussion on pp. clxx-clxxxvii). Wallace read this paper at the ASL meeting of 1 March 1864.
19
The page is numbered 236B in pencil and the author has numbered the page 5, both in the top righthand corner.
20
Lyell, Charles (1797-1875). British geologist and author, notably of the influential Principles of Geology (1830–1833). President of the Geological Society of London, 1835–1837 & 1849–1851. Lyell was a close friend of Darwin, and contributed significantly to his thinking on the evolutionary process. He helped to arrange the joint presentation of papers by Darwin and ARW on natural selection to the Linnean Society in July 1858.
21
Chapters 10 and 14 of Lyell, C. 1863. The Geological Evidences for the Antiquity of Man with Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation. 3rd ed. London: John Murray, discussed topics covered in ARW’s 1864 paper (see endnote 18).
22
Darwin’s opinion of ARW’s 1864 paper (see endnote 18) is set out in his letter to ARW of 28 May 1864 (WCP1858_L5941).
23
Following On the Origin of Species, Darwin set out to produce evidence for his theory of natural selection, initially studying plants. The spontaneous revolving habit of stems and tips in many plant groups serve to obtain light and/or support. Darwin explored the reasons for why these adaptations might have evolved and in what ways they may have been advantageous, appearing first as an essay [Darwin, C. 1865. On the movements and habits of climbing plants. Journal of the Linnean Society of London (Botany). 9: 1-118] and later as a book: Darwin, C. 1875. On the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants. 2nd ed. London: John Murray.
24
Darwin included a drawing in (1865) On the movements and habits of climbing plants (see endnote 23), of what he called the ‘common peduncle’, the ‘flower-tendril’, and the ‘sub-peduncle’, or the stalk, of an inflorescence of Vitis vinifera, the common vine (p. 81). He wrote that the whole peduncle moved spontaneously, but to a lesser degree than a true vine tendril (without the flowers). He described the true tendril as making ‘two elliptical revolutions at an average rate of 2 h. 15 m.’ (p. 80).
25
A genus of 38 species of flowering plants in the family Lythraceae, native to temperate regions. L. saliceria is the purple loosestrife.
26
Darwin, C. 1864. On the sexual relations of the three forms of Lythrum salicaria. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London (Botany). 8: 169-196 (read 16 June 1864). He described three different forms of hermaphrodite plant, with distinct female organs (long-styled, mid-styled and short-styled), each with two sets of stamens differing from each other in form and function. After performing multiple crosses he found that ʺThe long-styled form had to be fertilized with pollen from its own two distinct kinds of anthers, from the two in the mid-styled, and from the two in the short-styled form. The same process had to be repeated with both the mid- and short-styled formsʺ (p. 178). He concluded ʺAs the species is trimorphic and each form can fertilize the two other forms, it is two to one in favour of the two turning out different forms and being consequently both fertileʺ (p. 194).
27
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). British naturalist, geologist and author, notably of On the Origin of Species (1859).

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Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP5333.5878)]

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Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15] Transcription checked by Barton, Michael [2020-03-08]

Please cite as “WCP5333,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP5333