To F. J. Wedgwood [after 1 April 1871?]
Summary
Protests against FJW making the struggle for existence still more odious by calling it ‘selfish competition’.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Frances Julia (Snow) Wedgwood |
Date: | [after 1 Apr 1871?] |
Classmark: | Christie’s, London (dealers) (3 March 2004) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-7651F |
Matches: 4 hits
- … Protests against FJW making the struggle for existence still more odious by calling it ‘ …
- … protest against your making the struggle for existence (which is sufficiently melancholy …
- … chapter V) where he contends that the struggle for existence, and its consequence, natural …
- … Natural selection follows from the struggle for existence; and this from a rapid rate of …
To W. T. Preyer 29 March 1869
Summary
Congratulates WP on the success of his lectures.
Discusses the phrase "struggle for existence".
Sends a list of his papers.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Thierry (William) Preyer |
Date: | 29 Mar 1869 |
Classmark: | DAR 147: 254–6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6687 |
Matches: 5 hits
- … his lectures. Discusses the phrase "struggle for existence". Sends a list of his papers. …
- … on Reversion— About the term “Struggle for Existence” I have always felt some doubts but …
- … quite the same idea. — The words “Struggle for Existence” express I think exactly what …
- … to say in English that two men struggle for existence who may be hunting for the same food …
- … again it may be said that a man struggles for existence against the waves of the sea when …
Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1867a. On the struggle for existence amongst plants. Popular Science Review 6: 131–9.
Todes, Daniel P. 1989. Darwin without Malthus. The struggle for existence in Russian evolutionary thought. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
To Albert Gaudry 17 September [1866]
Summary
Thanks AG for Considérations générales [sur les animaux fossiles] de Pikermi [1866]. The observations on the various intermediate fossil forms seem most valuable.
AG does not fully understand what CD means by "the struggle for existence, or concurrence vitale".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Albert-Jean (Albert) Gaudry |
Date: | 17 Sept [1866] |
Classmark: | Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Milan (Library: Fondo Gaudry b. 7, fasc. 28, doc. 1) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5213 |
Bilgili, Alper. 2017. Beating the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence: Darwin, social Darwinism and the Turks. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 65: 19–25.
From Henry Groves 1 April 1882
Summary
Has forwarded some plants of Nitella opaca. Has observed their struggle for existence for several years in the gravel-pit pools at Mitcham.
Author: | Henry Groves |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 1 Apr 1882 |
Classmark: | DAR 165: 236 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13751 |
To Carl du Prel 19 May 1874
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Carl Ludwig August Friedrich Maximilian Alfred (Carl) Du Prel, baron |
Date: | 19 May 1874 |
Classmark: | DAR 144: 5 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-9462 |
To Thomas Rivers [14 February 1863]
Summary
Delighted by curious case of inheritance in the weeping ash [cited in missing letter from TR] "which produced weeping seedlings and itself lost the weeping peculiarity!" Wishes he could get authentic information on the weeping elm.
What TR says of seedlings conquering each other well illustrates struggle for existence and natural selection.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Rivers |
Date: | [14 Feb 1863] |
Classmark: | 19th Century Shop (dealers) (catalogue 5, 1988) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3982 |
From W. T. Preyer 21 March 1869
Summary
Has given a lecture series on Darwinism which was attended by 200–500 students.
Would like to compile a list of CD’s works.
Author: | William Thierry (William) Preyer |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Mar 1869 |
Classmark: | DAR 174: 67 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6676 |
From M. T. Masters 24 January 1876
Summary
He is surveying the literature on the struggle for existence among pasture plants. Asks CD for the "many cases on record" of changed relations among plants under slightly changed conditions alluded to in the Origin. [See M. T. Masters, J. B. Lawes and J. M. Gilbert "Agricultural, botanical, and chemical results of experiments on the mixed herbage of permanent meadow, conducted for more than twenty years in succession on the same land (pt 2, The botanical results)", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 173 (1883): 1181–413.]
Author: | Maxwell Tylden Masters |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 24 Jan 1876 |
Classmark: | DAR 171: 86 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10366 |
To J. D. Hooker 3 June [1857]
Summary
"Law" [see 2092] correlating variability and abnormal development not confirmed by JDH for plants.
CD studies struggle for existence in his weed garden.
Scotch fir observed at Moor Park.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 3 June [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 200 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2101 |
From W. W. Reade 18 September 1871
Summary
There is a primary law of growth and innate improvement. Natural selection is a secondary law that operates to "arrange the details". This is not Lamarckian, because will is not involved.
Thanks for Chauncey Wright’s pamphlet [Darwinism (1871)].
Amused by critics who say CD is metaphysically unsophisticated.
Author: | William Winwood Reade |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 18 Sept 1871 |
Classmark: | DAR 176: 49 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-7950 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … without the geometrical ratio & struggle for existence— But without the battle it would …
- … of the individual. As it is, the struggle for existence supposing there is a regular law …
- … excited into special activity by the struggle for existence—or if its ordinary results are …
- … believe that had there been no struggle for existence there w d have been no development. …
From J. J. Weir [before 5] March 1868
Summary
Does not think females give preference to any males. Coloration, pugnacity; cases of use of colour in struggle for existence. [see Descent 1: 395.]
Author: | John Jenner Weir |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [before 5] Mar 1868 |
Classmark: | DAR 82: A109–12 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5985 |
From A. R. Wallace 11 March [1867]
Summary
ARW responds to CD’s list of queries about expression. Suggests acquiring informants through publishing the queries in newspapers. His doubts about their importance.
Has submitted caterpillar question to Entomological Society.
Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 11 Mar [1867] |
Classmark: | DAR 106: B24, B45; DAR 82: A22 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5437 |
To William Graham 3 July 1881
Summary
Praises WG’s Creed of science.
He disagrees that the existence of natural laws implies purpose, but his "inmost conviction" is that "the Universe is not the result of chance". But then has horrid doubt whether convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from lower animals, are at all trustworthy.
Believes natural selection is doing more for progress of civilisation than WG admits.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Graham |
Date: | 3 July 1881 |
Classmark: | DAR 144: 345 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13230 |
From J. D. Hooker [21 December 1862]
Summary
"Throttled off" Welwitschia paper at Linnean Society [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1863): 1–48].
Has read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America [1835–40] – disagrees with it. Tocqueville says democracy in America is a success. Democracy has persisted because there has been no cause for its overthrow (i.e., no struggle for existence, too much mobility).
Sends J. W. Dawson’s unsatisfactory letter.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [21 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 80–2 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3856 |
From Jonathan Peel 4 March 1868
Summary
Sends copy of a paper on his flock of sheep, which confirms much of what CD says in Variation,
together with a note he made of an instance of cattle "determining the existence" of a tree [cf. Origin, ch. 3].
Author: | Jonathan Peel |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 4 Mar 1868 |
Classmark: | DAR 46.1: 96–7 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5977 |
From Anton Dohrn 12 February 1874
Author: | Felix Anton (Anton) Dohrn |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 12 Feb 1874 |
Classmark: | DAR 172: 1 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-9285 |
To J. D. Hooker 24 December [1862]
Summary
Thanks for Dawson’s letter. Doubts his evidence that climate of land was not glacial when upheaved after submergence.
Encloses memorandum of questions for C. V. Naudin.
Expression of the emotions.
Is building a hothouse for plant experimenting.
JDH’s ideas on America are more atrocious than his. What a new idea that struggle for existence is necessary to try to purge a government! Probably true. Slavery draws him one way one day, another the next. Yankees are "detestable toward us". Tocqueville.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 24 Dec [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 177 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3875 |
letter | (150) |
bibliography | (3) |
Arnott, Neil | (1) |
Bates, H. W. | (1) |
Bentham, George | (1) |
Bradlaugh, Charles | (1) |
Bronn, H. G. | (1) |
Candolle, Alphonse de | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (94) |
Darwin, Emma | (2) |
Darwin, Francis | (1) |
Darwin, G. H. | (1) |
Du Prel, Carl | (1) |
Falconer, Hugh | (2) |
Fick, Heinrich | (1) |
Gaudry, Albert | (1) |
Graham, William | (1) |
Gray, Asa | (3) |
Greenwood, Frederick | (1) |
Haeckel, Ernst | (2) |
Hancock, Albany | (1) |
Henslow, J. S. | (1) |
Hooker, J. D. | (11) |
Kerner von Marilaun, Anton | (1) |
Lyell, Charles | (3) |
Moulinié, J. J. | (1) |
Murray, John (b) | (2) |
Müller, Fritz | (3) |
Prestwich, Joseph | (1) |
Preyer, William | (1) |
Rivers, Thomas | (1) |
Scott, John | (2) |
Semper, C. G. | (1) |
Thiel, Hugo | (1) |
Thiselton-Dyer, W. T. | (1) |
Wallace, A. R. | (1) |
Wedgwood, Emma | (2) |
Wedgwood, F. J. | (1) |
Woodward, S. P. | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (147) |
Hooker, J. D. | (18) |
Gray, Asa | (7) |
Wallace, A. R. | (6) |
Lyell, Charles | (5) |
Darwin and Down
Summary
Charles and Emma Darwin, with their first two children, settled at Down House in the village of Down (later ‘Downe’) in Kent, as a young family in 1842. The house came with eighteen acres of land, and a fifteen acre meadow. The village combined the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The charm of the place to me is that almost every field is intersected (as alas is our’s) by …
Alfred Russel Wallace’s essay on varieties
Summary
The original manuscript about varieties that Wallace composed on the island of Gilolo and sent to Darwin from the neighbouring island of Ternate (Brooks 1984) has not been found. It was sent to Darwin as an enclosure in a letter (itself missing), and was…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The original manuscript about varieties that Wallace composed on the island of Gilolo and sent to …
Species and varieties
Summary
On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most famous book, and the reader would rightly assume that such a thing as ‘species’ must therefore exist and be subject to description. But the title continues, …or…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most …
Essay: Design versus necessity
Summary
—by Asa Gray DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY.—DISCUSSION BETWEEN TWO READERS OF DARWIN’S TREATISE ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, UPON ITS NATURAL THEOLOGY. (American Journal of Science and Arts, September, 1860) D.T.—Is Darwin’s theory atheistic or pantheistic…
Matches: 1 hits
- … —by Asa Gray DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY.—DISCUSSION BETWEEN TWO READERS OF DARWIN’S TREATISE …
Review: The Origin of Species
Summary
- by Asa Gray THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION (American Journal of Science and Arts, March, 1860) This book is already exciting much attention. Two American editions are announced, through which it will become familiar to many…
Matches: 1 hits
- … - by Asa Gray THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION (American Journal …
Was Darwin an ecologist?
Summary
One of the most fascinating aspects of Charles Darwin’s correspondence is the extent to which the experiments he performed at his home in Down, in the English county of Kent, seem to prefigure modern scientific work in ecology.
Matches: 1 hits
- … I gave two seeds to a confounded old cock, but his gizzard ground them up; at least I cd. not …
Essay: Natural selection & natural theology
Summary
—by Asa Gray NATURAL SELECTION NOT INCONSISTENT WITH NATURAL THEOLOGY. Atlantic Monthly for July, August, and October, 1860, reprinted in 1861. I Novelties are enticing to most people; to us they are simply annoying. We cling to a long-accepted…
Matches: 1 hits
- … —by Asa Gray NATURAL SELECTION NOT INCONSISTENT WITH NATURAL THEOLOGY. Atlantic …
Essay: What is Darwinism?
Summary
—by Asa Gray WHAT IS DARWINISM? The Nation, May 28, 1874 The question which Dr. Hodge asks he promptly and decisively answers: ‘What is Darwinism? it is atheism.’ Leaving aside all subsidiary and incidental matters, let us consider–1. What the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … —by Asa Gray WHAT IS DARWINISM? The Nation, May 28, 1874 The question which …
Darwin in public and private
Summary
Extracts from Darwin's published works, in particular Descent of man, and selected letters, explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual selection in humans, and both his publicly and privately expressed views on its practical implications…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The following extracts and selected letters explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual …
New material added to the American edition of Origin
Summary
A ‘revised and augmented’ American edition of Origin came on the market in July 1860, and was the only authorised edition available in the US until 1873. It incorporated many of the changes Darwin made to the second English edition, but still contained…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The ‘historical sketch’ printed as a preface to the American edition ( Origin US ed., pp …
Natural Science and Femininity
Summary
Discussion Questions|Letters A conflation of masculine intellect and feminine thoughts, habits and feelings, male naturalists like Darwin inhabited an uncertain gendered identity. Working from the private domestic comfort of their homes and exercising…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Discussion Questions | Letters A conflation of masculine intellect and feminine …
Thomas Rivers
Summary
Rivers and Darwin exchanged around 30 letters, most in 1863 when Darwin was hard at work on the manuscript of Variation of plants and animals under domestication, the lengthy and detailed sequel to Origin of species. Rivers, an experienced plant breeder…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The Project was contacted by the owner of an important Darwin letter that contains a rare instance …
Natural Selection: the trouble with terminology Part I
Summary
Darwin encountered problems with the term ‘natural selection’ even before Origin appeared. Everyone from the Harvard botanist Asa Gray to his own publisher came up with objections. Broadly these divided into concerns either that its meaning simply wasn’t…
Matches: 1 hits
- … I suppose “natural selection” was bad term but to change it now, I think, would make confusion …
How old is the earth?
Summary
One of Darwin’s chief difficulties in making converts to his views, was convincing a sceptical public, and some equally sceptical physicists, that there had been enough time since the advent of life on earth for the slow process of natural selection to…
Matches: 1 hits
- … One of Darwin’s chief difficulties in making converts to his views, was convincing a sceptical …
Sexual selection
Summary
Although natural selection could explain the differences between species, Darwin realised that (other than in the reproductive organs themselves) it could not explain the often marked differences between the males and females of the same species. So what…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Although natural selection could explain the differences between species, Darwin realised that …
Essay: Evolutionary teleology
Summary
—by Asa Gray EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY When Cuvier spoke of the ‘combination of organs in such order that they may be in consistence with the part which the animal has to play in Nature,’ his opponent, Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, rejoined, ‘I know nothing of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … —by Asa Gray EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY When Cuvier spoke of the ‘ combination of …
Race, Civilization, and Progress
Summary
Darwin's first reflections on human progress were prompted by his experiences in the slave-owning colony of Brazil, and by his encounters with the Yahgan peoples of Tierra del Fuego. Harsh conditions, privation, poor climate, bondage and servitude,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Letters | Selected Readings Darwin's first reflections on human progress were …
The Lyell–Lubbock dispute
Summary
In May 1865 a dispute arose between John Lubbock and Charles Lyell when Lubbock, in his book Prehistoric times, accused Lyell of plagiarism. The dispute caused great dismay among many of their mutual scientific friends, some of whom took immediate action…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In May 1865 a dispute arose between John Lubbock and Charles Lyell when Lubbock, in his book …
4.13 'Fun' cartoon by Griset, 'Emotional'
Summary
< Back to Introduction Ernest Griset’s drawing titled ‘Emotional!’ was published in Fun magazine on 23 November 1872, and is another skit referring to Darwin’s recently published Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. A hippopotamus had been…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction Ernest Griset’s drawing titled ‘Emotional!’ was published in …
German poems presented to Darwin
Summary
Experiments in deepest reverence The following poems were enclosed with a photograph album sent as a birthday gift to Charles Darwin by his German and Austrian admirers (see letter from From Emil Rade, [before 16] February 1877). The poems were…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Experiments in deepest reverence The following poems were enclosed with a …