Dear Sir

I am fully aware that I owe you many apologies for my repeated letters to you, but I wish to call your attention to one point & hope that you will excuse me.¹ That you may better understand any short comings in my argument, I will say that I have received no special scientific education bearing upon the subject, as you have undoubtedly noticed.

I have always, ever since old enough to have boyish thoughts on the subject, had a sort of instinctive feeling & idea that mankind & every thing else must have arisen by progressive development. I recollect getting some credit with my instructor when I was thirteen years old by translating a passage in Sallust something like this “The man who would distinguish himself above other animals” &c while the rest of the class couldn’t go the animals but must say “other men” instead.²

When fourteen I wrote a sort of half serious & half comic “composition” as a school exercise, showing how mankind developed by degrees from frogs. Entering college at fifteen I advocated among my fellows as much as possible without rendering myself ridiculous, the idea that man was descended though something like the monkey from something at the bottom of the scale.³

Leaving college at the end of two years & giving up study on account of weak eyes I went into trade, but on all fitting occasions could not resist the opportunity of advocating “progressive developement” in general principles although I did not know at that time that any other human being held similar views. I well recollect the joy with which I first learned that others had had the same idea of the origin of man. Your advent placing the subject on a scientific basis was welcomed with rapture. I am now fifty two years old and still engaged in trade which takes all my time except as I steal a little for this subject.

I mention these things to show why I with so little special knowledge on the subject, especially in the line of your investigations, should take so much interest in it, and even venture to get up theories of my own on general principles.

The point to which I wish to call your attention is this. You consider all animals as descended from some four or five or perhaps from only one progenitor.⁴ Of course, it by no means follows from this that you mean that all animals had but from one to five prototypes among their ancestors after they left the water, or even after they progressed from plants to something fishy, if they did so progress.⁵ I think however that many would so understand you and thereby find unnecessary difficulties in yeilding their assent.

In the absence of proof or probability to the contrary I am disposed to find our progenitors reduced to from one to five prototypes only in the plants from which I suppose we sprung. I do not understand you as saying anything to the contrary but still you do not commit yourself on that point.

It seems to me to be worth something on the side of the influence of external circumstances and it is a point which I have not seen noticed that the more advanced nations occupy land which is said to have emerged from the sea last and consequently is saturated with the debris of a more advanced developement. Of course this is only one of many ways of influence in which Europe & the United States seem to have the advantage, all of which advantages combined contribute to the result— I mentioned to you some time ago that I considered the meeting of the original Asiatics & Africans near the Black Sea after starting from each side of the Andes in S.A. as plants, as a marked point, because they had just completed the circuit of the globe, as I supposed.⁶

The meeting of the Chinese & Americans in California, having between them travelled round the world seems to me to be a similar epoch. The Chinese current of course must run under the other for a long time and if the mixture of the two is ever productive of advancement I should look for it, a long time hence, in Europe & the United States (Eastern United States) as the preeminent developement areas.

You will notice that several other subjects finding a letter was going to you have jumped aboard. I hadn’t the heart to refuse them.

I wrote to you a long time ago about what I considered a remarkable monkey.⁷ I have learned that he died soon after; but I have not learned what was done with his skeleton. In fact I have not tried to learn so much as I intended to, though I have made some exertions to that end. I intend to follow it up however—

I am glad that you have begun to publish on the descent of Man & I shall wait the appearance of the 2^d volume with impatience.⁸

It may seem whimsical to you but I cannot help being struck with the state seal of California gotten up at the same time that “Natural Selection” gave progressive developement a good foot hold. Its motto “Eureka” at that time & place looks beyond the significance attatched to it by those who got it up.⁹ This is not scientific but may take place I suppose along side with the significance which I have attached to Borneo Natal Spain¹⁰ &c   The downfall of Popery as a temporal power and the starting of such a principle as “progressive developement” so full of side issues, so far reaching, so pregnant of big things, so searching, so overturning, so building up, marks an epoch, the beginning of an era which may well be heralded by the second grand cycle in the progress of the race.

Well may Nature hoist the flag “I have found it” stamping it as the one great thing most desirable to be found.

It is not without its significance also to my mind that its wonted influence is passing from Papal and anti “progressive development” France to Protestant and P. D. Germany. An united Monarchical Europe looks nearer at hand and is probably awaiting the coming of her rapidly advancing Bride to the point of maturity as its mate.

Asking a thousand pardons for the great liberties which I know I have taken, but which I trust you will pardon, however little you may agree with me, for the sake of my interest in the subject, I wish you continued prosperity in your favorite pursuit and in all other respects and am yours truly | Alex F. Boardman