To J. D. Hooker 22 [May 1864]
[Down]
22d.
My dear Hooker
What a good kind heart you have got.— You cannot tell how your letter has pleased me.— I will write to Scott & ask him, if he chooses to go out & risk getting employment—1 If he will not, he must want all energy. He says himself he wants stoicism; & is too sensitive;2 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 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.—3 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.4 I will write when I hear,—from him— 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 with—
I have about a cubic yard of books & pamphlets unread, & amongst them Naudins late papers;5 so I can say little—all that I remember was feeling greatest doubts about rapidity & universality of Hybrids reverting to either parent-type—6 neither Gärtner nor Kölreuter found this so general & G. reared 8 or 10 successive generations of Hybrid Dianthus & found them uniform in character—7 What made me doubt was that Naudin rather sneers at precautions necessary against insects, & he does not state that neither parent–species grew in gardens—8 I know that the first year all Gärtner’s experiments were acknowledged by him to be worthless from underrating insect-agency.—9
I have now read Wallace’s paper on Man, & think it most striking & original & forcible;10 I wish he had written Lyell’s chapter on Man.11 I quite agree about his high-mindiness, & have long thought so; but in this case it is too far & I shall tell him so.—12 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.—13
You quite overrate my tendril work & there is no occasion to plague myself about priority.14 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’.—15 I have almost finished my Lythrum paper: I fear it can be copied & sent only just before close of Session of Linn. Soc. & that the title alone will be read.—16 It really is a wondrous case; by far oddest case I have ever observed.
My dear old fellow Yours affect. | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
‘Climbing plants’: On the movements and habits of climbing plants. By Charles Darwin. [Read 2 February 1865.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 9 (1867): 1–118.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Gärtner, Karl Friedrich von. 1826. Nachricht über Versuche, die Befruchtung einiger Gewächse betreffend. Naturwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen. Herausgegeben von eine gesellschaft in Würtemberg 1: 35–66.
Gärtner, Karl Friedrich von. 1827. Correspondenz. Flora 10: 74–80.
Gärtner, Karl Friedrich von. 1849. Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich. Mit Hinweisung auf die ähnlichen Erscheinungen im Thierreiche, ganz umgearbeitete und sehr vermehrte Ausgabe der von der Königlich holländischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart.
Kölreuter, Joseph Gottlieb. 1761–6. Vorläufige Nachricht von einigen das Geschlecht der Pflanzen betreffenden Versuchen und Beobachtungen. Leipzig: Gleditschischen Handlung.
Mayr, Ernst. 1986. Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter’s contributions to biology. Osiris 2d ser. 2: 135–76.
Naudin, Charles Victor. 1852. Considérations philosophiques sur l’espèce et la variété. Revue Horticole 4th ser. 1: 102–9.
Naudin, Charles Victor. 1858. Observations concernant quelques plantes hybrides qui ont été cultivées au Muséum. Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Botanique) 4th ser. 9: 257–78.
Naudin, Charles Victor. 1862. Cucurbitacées cultivées au Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle en 1862. Description d’espèces nouvelles et de quelques formes hybrides obtenues de plantes de cette famille. Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Botanique) 4th ser. 18: 159–208.
Naudin, Charles Victor. 1863. Nouvelles recherches sur l’hybridité dans les végétaux. Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Botanique) 4th ser. 19: 180–203.
Olby, Robert. 1985. Origins of Mendelism. 2d edition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Origin 4th ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 4th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1866.
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.
‘Three forms of Lythrum salicaria’: On the sexual relations of the three forms of Lythrum salicaria. By Charles Darwin. [Read 16 June 1864.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 8 (1865): 169–96. [Collected papers 2: 106–31.]
Van Riper, A. Bowdoin. 1993. Men among the mammoths: Victorian science and the discovery of human prehistory. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
CD’s pleasure at JDH’s willingness to help Scott find a position in India.
Naudin underrates contamination of his experiments by insects. Thus CD doubts Naudin’s results on rapidity and universality of reversion in hybrids.
Wallace’s paper on man [see 4494] reflects his genius, although CD does not fully agree with it.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4506
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 115: 236
- Physical description
- ALS 6pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4506,” accessed on 1 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4506.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12