To T. H. Huxley 18 September [1860]
Summary
Expresses his grief upon hearing of the death of THH’s young son. Recalls his own bitter loss of a child.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 18 Sept [1860] |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley papers) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2920B |
From Charles Lyell 18 September 1860
Summary
It is strange that Agassiz, who is for the "sanctity of species", should favour Pallas’s view of hybrid origin of domestic dog.
CL has not meant to advocate successive creation of types but to question assumption that all mammals descended from single stock. Why should a Triassic reptile or bird not move towards mammalian form because an ancestral marsupial has appeared? Believes recent appearance of rodents and bats in Australia explains their lack of development.
Can CD supply a reference on plant extinction on St Helena?
Believes marsupials better adapted for surviving drought in Australia than higher mammals.
Will not press argument about lack of development of mammalian forms on islands, but CD should note objection.
Does CD’s belief in multiple origin of dogs affect faith in single primates in different regions?
Does time lapse between putative independently descended mammalian forms mean first form will "keep down" later incipient one? Thus Homo sapiens has prevented improvement of other anthropomorphs; bats and rodents on islands would prevent improvement of lower forms into mammalian.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 18 Sept 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 187–95d) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2920C |
letter | (2) |
Darwin, C. R. | (1) |
Lyell, Charles | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (1) |
Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (2) |
Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
Lyell, Charles | (1) |