From Emma Darwin to F. P. Cobbe [14 April 1871]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent.
Friday.
My dear Miss Cobbe
Many thanks for your book. I shall value it very much & I think it is a common trouble to become less & less in sympathy with the usual prayers—2 I am most glad to have it.
Mr Darwin has been much interested in your article as he likes to read all that you have to say against his views.3
He does not know whether you will agree with him, or if you do whether it will in any degree reconcile you to the imaginary case of the hive-bee becoming intellectual enough to acquire a moral sense—that, apparently in contradiction to what you say, the principle of acting for the good of others of the community & of the species wd still hold sovereign sway—4
I may say that the above sentence was written before he had read the article in Pall Mall for Ap. 12—in which this point is touched on, & which differs curiously from your view.5
very truly yours | Emma Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Cobbe, Frances Power. 1871. Darwinism in morals. Theological Review 8: 167–92.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Keynes, Randal. 2001. Annie’s box. Charles Darwin, his daughter and human evolution. London: Fourth Estate.
Summary
Thanks for FPC’s book (presumablyAlone to the alone: prayers for theists (Cobbe ed. 1871)).
CD much interested in article ‘Darwinism in morals’ in the Theological Review (Cobbe 1871).
CDs and FPC’s views on moral sense in hive bees, and an article in the Pall Mal Gazette ([Morley] 1871b).
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7684F
- From
- Emma Wedgwood/Emma Darwin
- To
- Frances Power Cobbe
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- The Huntington Library (CB 389)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7684F,” accessed on 19 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7684F.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19