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Darwin Correspondence Project

To St G. J. Mivart   8 January [1872]

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Jan 8th

Private

My dear Sir

I most fully agree with what you say about pursuing the truth at all costs.1 I will not enter on any details, as I am convinced that nothing which I could say would have any influence on you.— If I had not been personally known to you, I shd. not have been vexed at the spirit which seems to me & to some others to pervade all your articles in relation to me, notwithstanding general expressions to the contrary.— I can say this confidently, as I read the Month long before I knew that you were the author, & considered carefully all the arguments, without caring about the denunciation of atheism &c., as I had been well accustomed to covert sneers of all kinds & to denunciations of all kinds.—2 As it is your several articles have mortified me more than those of any other man, excepting Prof. Owen; & for the same reasons, as I was silly enough to think he felt friendly towards me.—3 I hope that you will now let this correspondence drop, as I want to drive the whole subject out of my mind; & I can protect myself for the future by not reading your controversial writings, only those devoted to ordinary science.— So you can pursue your course, & I can pursue mine for a little longer, without our interfering with each other.

My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

2
Mivart had published books and articles critical of CD’s theory of natural selection, including one in the Catholic journal, the Month ([Mivart] 1869). He also published On the genesis of species (Mivart 1871a), and an anonymous review of Descent in Quarterly Review ([Mivart] 1871c), which CD correctly suspected was by him, and a riposte to Thomas Henry Huxley in Contemporary Review (Mivart 1872a).
3
CD had enjoyed apparently cordial relations with Richard Owen, who described fossil mammal specimens from the Beagle voyage, until Owen published a hostile review of Origin in the Edinburgh Review ([Owen] 1860; see Correspondence vol. 8 and ODNB s.v. Owen, Sir Richard).

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.

[Mivart, St George Jackson.] 1869. Difficulties of the theory of natural selection. Month 11: 35–53, 134–53, 274–89.

ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.

Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.

[Owen, Richard.] 1860b. [Review of Origin & other works.] Edinburgh Review 111: 487–532.

Summary

Wishes their correspondence regarding their differences to be dropped, as CD feels that nothing he could say would have any influence on StGJM.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-8149
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
St George Jackson Mivart
Sent from
Down
Postmark
JA 8 72
Source of text
Natural History Museum, Library and Archives (General Special Collections DC AL 1/18)
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8149,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8149.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 20

letter

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