From Herbert Spencer 22 April 1865
88, Kensington Garden’s Sqre.
22nd. Apl. 1865
My dear Sir
We are getting our staff of the Reader into better working order; and are proposing forthwith to use all the means available for making a more decided impression, and establishing our position.1 Profs Huxley and Tyndall, Mr. J. S. Mill2 and myself, have severally agreed to write a few leading articles by way of giving the intended tone and direction.3
Among other means of making the public aware of the character of the Reader, we propose to obtain, so far as possible, occasional brief letters from the leading men of science, announcing such interesting novelties as admit of being understood by the general public, and are of fit nature to be quoted from our columns. I have a letter from Sir John Herschel consenting to aid us in this way. Sir Charles Lyell, too, has promised the like aid.
Can you in like manner give us, occasionally, the valuable help of your name?
I am aware that your health is so precarious that you are obliged to be very economical of your energies—a fact which I greatly regret. And I am fully impressed with the fact, that it would be wrong to ask you to undertake any other labours than those important ones which occupy you. The favor we ask, however, does not involve such a waste of labour in any appreciable degree. A letter of a dozen lines would suffice the purpose of giving us the weight of your name; and making it apparent that you joined in the effort to establish a scientific journal, and an organ of progressive opinion.4 We are all just now making considerable sacrifices to do this; and feel the necessity of concentrating all possible means of insuring that success which we have not yet quite achieved.
very sincerely yours | Herbert Spencer
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Desmond, Adrian. 1994–7. Huxley. 2 vols. London: Michael Joseph.
Spencer, Herbert. 1904. An autobiography. 2 vols. London: Williams and Norgate.
Summary
Wonders whether CD might contribute, if possible, an occasional letter to the Reader to help in their effort to establish the journal.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4817
- From
- Herbert Spencer
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Kensington Gardens Square, 88
- Source of text
- DAR 177: 225
- Physical description
- LS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4817,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4817.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13