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To John Lubbock   26 March [1867]

Down

March 26th

My dear Lubbock

I have not read or heard of the book on “Primitive Marriage” nor do I know what “exogamy” means; so that I am not a little in the dark.—1

I do not think any evidence has been published of an instinctive repugnance to close intermarriage with animals. I have received some private accounts of such feeling with domestic animals, but they were so few, that I have not thought it prudent to give them.2

Indirectly the end must, I think, be largely gained by the wandering of the young males, & their expulsion from the herd in social animals, by the old males.3 I heartily wish I could have given you any better information. In my new book I have a chapter on Interbreeding & give all the evidence which I have.4

It is a long time since we have met & if Mahomet does not come to the mountain, the mountain must come some Sunday to Mahomet.5

Yours affectly | C. Darwin

Footnotes

1
See letter from John Lubbock, 25 March 1867 and nn. 1 and 2. CD later read John Ferguson McLennan’s book (McLennan 1865), an annotated copy of which is in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 559–61). CD referred to his ideas several times in Descent; for CD’s discussion of exogamy related to sexual selection, including the views of McLennan and Lubbock, see especially Descent 2: 358–65. On contemporary criticism of McLennan’s ideas, see the introduction in McLennan 1970, pp. xxxviii–xl. See also Jann 1996.
2
See letter from John Lubbock, 25 March 1867. CD refers to his book on domestic animals and plants, Variation. In Descent 2: 361–2, CD noted the breeding habits of several different primates.
3
CD included this idea in Descent 2: 362–3.
4
CD refers to chapter 17 in Variation (Variation 2: 114–44).
5
CD alters the proverb attributed to Francis Bacon: ‘If the mountain will not come to Mohamet, Mohamet must go to the mountain’ (Speake ed. 2003, p. 210). The most recent recorded meeting of Lubbock and CD was on 2 October 1866 (see Correspondence vol. 14, letter to J. D. Hooker, 2 October [1866]).

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.

Jann, Rosemary. 1996. Darwin and the anthropologists: sexual selection and its discontents. In Sexualities in Victorian Britain, edited by Andrew H. Miller and James Eli Adams. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

McLennan, John Ferguson. 1865. Primitive marriage: an inquiry into the origin of the form of capture in marriage ceremonies. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black.

McLennan, John Ferguson. 1970. Primitive marriage: an inquiry into the origin of the form of capture in marriage ceremonies. Edited and with an introduction by Peter Rivière. Reprint of the first edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.

Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.

Summary

Close inbreeding and factors acting against it.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-5463
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 263: 65 (EH 88206509)
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5463,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5463.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 15

letter

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