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To T. R. R. Stebbing   11 February 1881

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

Feb. 11th 1881

My dear Sir

You must allow me to thank you cordially for your letter in Nature, which has gratified me deeply.—1 The case could not have been better put, & it is a strictly true interpretation of my conduct. I have not the least idea how I have offended Mr Butler so grievously that he is never weary of calling me a liar & scoundrel.— The omission of a statement that Dr Krause had corrected & enlarged his article before it was translated was merely accidental, & I ought to have thanked him publickly for having taken so much pains, but forgot to do so.—2

The forgetfulness was chiefly due to my being much engaged all the time in experimental work.3 If I had, (as I ought to have done) stated that the article had been revised, it could have made no difference to Mr Butler or any other human being.—

I had not intended writing all this, so excuse me, & believe me | Yours truly obliged | Charles Darwin

P.S. | The Historical sketch appeared in 1861 in the 3d Edition; there was no time to make any improvements in the 2d. Edition—4

Footnotes

1
Stebbing had written to Nature to point out that Samuel Butler’s accusation that CD had ignored the work of earlier evolutionists in Origin had been remedied when CD added the historical sketch of the progress of evolution to later editions (Nature, 10 February 1881, p. 336). See also n. 4, below.
2
Butler claimed that unacknowledged use had been made of his work Evolution, old and new (Butler 1879) when Ernst Krause revised his essay on Erasmus Darwin before its publication with CD’s biographical sketch of his grandfather in Erasmus Darwin (see letter to Ernst Krause, 7 February 1881).
3
When writing Erasmus Darwin in 1879, CD had also been conducting experiments for Movement in plants (CD’s ‘Journal’, Correspondence vol. 27, Appendix II).
4
See Origin 3d ed., pp. xiii–xix. Origin 2d ed. was published at the start of 1860, about eight weeks after the first edition had been published (Freeman 1977).

Bibliography

Butler, Samuel. 1879. Evolution, old and new: or, the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, as compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin. London: Hardwicke and Bogue.

Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause. Translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1879.

Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.

Movement in plants: The power of movement in plants. By Charles Darwin. Assisted by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray. 1880.

Origin 2d ed.: 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. 1860.

Origin 3d ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 3d edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1861.

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.

Summary

Thanks him for his letter in Nature [23 (1880–1): 336, concerning Samuel Butler’s Unconscious Memory]. Explains how revision in Krause’s part [of Erasmus Darwin] and the subsequent misunderstanding came about.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13050
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing
Sent from
Down
Source of text
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.583)
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13050,” accessed on 16 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13050.xml

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