To Thomas Henry Huxley 3 January [1861]1
Down Bromley Kent
Jan 3d.
My dear Huxley
I have just finished Nor I of N. H. Review & must congratulate you, as chiefly concerned, on its excellence.2 The whole seems to me admirable,—so admirable that it is impossible that other numbers shd. be so good, but it would be foolish to expect it. I am rather a croaker & I do rather fear that the merit of the articles will be above the run of common readers & subscribers.
I have been much interested by your Brain article.3 What a complete & awful smasher (& done like a “buttered angel”) it is for Owen! What a canting humbug he is to have left out that sentence in the Lecture before the orthodox Cambridge Dons.4 I like Lubbock’s paper very much: how well he writes.5 MacDonnels, of course, pleases me greatly.—6 But I am very curious to know who wrote the Protozoa article:7 I shall hear, if it be not a secret, from Lubbock. It strikes me as very good, & by Jove how Owen is shown up—“this great & sound reasoner”.8
By the way this reminds me of a passage which I have just observed in Owen’s address at Leeds,9 which a clever Reviewer might turn into good fun. He defines (p. xc) & further on amplifies his definition that Creation means “a process he knows not what”. And in previous sentence he says facts shake his confidence that the Apteryx in N. Zealand & Red Grouse in England are “distinct creations”. So that he has no confidence that these birds were produced by “processes he knows not what”.— What miserable inconsistencies & rubbish this truckling to opposite opinions leads the great generaliser!
Farewell, I heartily rejoice in the clear merit of this number.— I hope Mrs. Huxley goes on well.—10 Etty keeps much the same, but has not got up to the same pitch, as when you were here.—11
Farewell | C. Darwin
P.S.12 In my little historical sketch of opinion on Species, I have picked out the foregoing sentences and his axiom of ordained becoming &c.;13 and if the reader has any acuteness, I shall thus take some revenge;14 but I shall make no comments;—I am not bold enough and do not want to come to open quarrel. But we shall never be friends again. What an admirable résume of Botanical Papers; I suppose by Oliver.—15 What labour!
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
M’Donnell, Robert. 1861. On an organ in the skate which appears to be the homologue of the electrical organ of the torpedo. Natural History Review n.s. 1: 57–60. [Vols. 8,9]
Origin 3d ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 3d edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1861.
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. 1860a. Palæontology or a systematic summary of extinct animals and their geological relations. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black.
Turrill, William Bertram. 1959. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, past and present. London: Herbert Jenkins.
Summary
Congratulates THH on first number of Natural History Review.
THH’s article on brain ["On the zoological relations of man with the lower animals", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1861): 67–84] completely smashes Owen.
Owen’s Leeds address [Rep. BAAS (1858): xlix–cx].
In his historical sketch of opinion on species CD has picked out some sentences [by Owen] with which he will take some revenge. CD is not bold enough to come to an open quarrel.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3041
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 155, 372–6)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp C 1p
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3041,” accessed on 2 November 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3041.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 9