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From J. D. Hooker   [12 January 1863]1

[Royal Gardens Kew]

Dr. Darwin

Can you answer this2   I have just finished Huxleys Lectures—3 the 3 last are tremendously good,4 how lucidly & vigorously he writes— if he took more pains he would be a Scientific Buckle:5 & Oh My what praise of you—& all merited too, richly.—6 I hope you are better.7 I am off to freeze in Paris on Saturday with Bentham for 10 days—8

Ever yours affec | J D Hooker

What is the sum of our knowledge regarding qualities induced in the individual being in any degree hereditary?

Monday.

CD annotations

End of letter: ‘(Medallions)9 | Naudin’10

Footnotes

1
The date is established by the reference to Hooker’s planned trip to Paris (see n. 8, below); 12 January 1863 fell on a Monday.
2
No enclosure containing Hooker’s query has been found; however, see the letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 January [1863].
3
T. H. Huxley 1863a. See letter to T. H. Huxley, 10 [January 1863] and n. 2.
4
T. H. Huxley 1863a, pp. 83–157.
5
Hooker refers to the historian Henry Thomas Buckle, the author of History of civilisation in England (Buckle 1857–61), a work that CD greatly admired (see, for example, Correspondence vol. 7, letters to J. D. Hooker, 23 February [1858] and 31 March [1858], and Correspondence vol. 10, letter to J. D. Hooker, 7 March [1862]).
7
In his letter to Hooker of 3 January [1863], CD wrote that the poor state of his health was ‘ludicrous’, and the slightest excitement caused ‘shaking & vomiting’.
8
Hooker and George Bentham departed for Paris on 17 January 1863 (Jackson 1906, p. 193).

Bibliography

Buckle, Henry Thomas. 1857–61. History of civilization in England. 2 vols. London: John W. Parker & Son.

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

Jackson, Benjamin Daydon. 1906. George Bentham. London: J. M. Dent. New York: E. P. Dutton.

Summary

Huxley’s lectures [Man’s place in nature (1863)]; he would be a scientific H. T. Buckle, if he were more careful.

Asks CD what the evidence is for inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-3892
From
Joseph Dalton Hooker
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
unstated
Source of text
DAR 101: 98
Physical description
ALS 2pp †

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3892,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3892.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11

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