To J. D. Baldwin 21 January [1873]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent.
Jan 21st
Dear Sir
I am much obliged for your letter of Jan. 4th.—2 I see no difficulty in your suggestion that the offspring of an original progenitor might have spread over the earth before (I doubt about long before) they deserved to be called human beings;—that is if the definition of a human being is to be the power of speaking.
Nevertheless I much doubt whether philologists are justified in assuming that the most distinct existing languages could not have been derived from a common stock, far more simple or less developed than any one now spoken.—3
Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Alter, Stephen G. 2005. William Dwight Whitney and the science of language. Baltimore, Md., and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Summary
Discusses JDB’s views on the spread of human-like creatures across the world, and the development of language.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8746F
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- John Denison Baldwin
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Steven S. Raab (dealer) (September 2001)
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8746F,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8746F.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 21
