From Charles Kingsley 18 November 1859
Summary
Will judge CD’s book [Origin] free from two superstitions: the dogma of the permanent species and the need of an act of intervention to bring change.
Author: | Charles Kingsley |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 18 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B7–8 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2534 |
From J. D. Hooker [21 November 1859]
Summary
JDH’s congratulations on Origin.
Lyell believes S. P. Woodward wrote review in Athenæum.
Lyell’s and Huxley’s positive responses.
JDH has only plunged into a few chapters.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [21 Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 135–6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2539 |
From H. C. Watson 21 November [1859]
Summary
Believes natural selection will become recognised as an established truth in science, though it will shock the ideas of many men.
Author: | Hewett Cottrell Watson |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B9–10 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2540 |
From Charles Lyell 21 November 1859
Summary
Questions CD’s view in Origin that domestic dogs are not descended from a single stock. Occasional crossings of domestic stock with wild species could explain cases of reversion towards wild specific forms. CD’s views on hybridity do not then have to be contradicted in constructing an ancestral stock.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/4: 195–7) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2540A |
From T. H. Huxley 23 November 1859
Summary
Has just finished Origin. CD has demonstrated a true cause for the production of species.
CD has loaded himself with unnecessary difficulty in adopting natura non facit saltum.
Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 23 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B11–13 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2544 |
From E. A. Darwin 23 November [1859]
Summary
Writes of "the Dr’s" [Henry Holland’s] mixed reactions to the book.
Adds a personal opinion, "it is the most interesting book I ever read".
Author: | Erasmus Alvey Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 23 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B14–15 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2545 |
From Adam Sedgwick 24 November 1859
Summary
Thanks CD for the Origin; AS has read the book "with more pain than pleasure". CD has deserted "the true method of induction" and many of his wide conclusions are "based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved". His "grand principle – natural selection" is "but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts".
Author: | Adam Sedgwick |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 24 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B17–18 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2548 |
From Charles Lyell [22 November 1859]
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [22 Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 205.11: 139 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2551 |
From Richard Hill 26 November 1859
Summary
Sends some bees CD requested
and discusses the differences among several animal species on islands of the West Indies.
Author: | Richard Hill |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 26 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.3: 275 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2557 |
From H. C. Watson 30 November [1859]
Summary
Sends a correction for Origin reprint.
Author: | Hewett Cottrell Watson |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 30 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 181: 37 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2562 |
From Francis Galton 9 December 1859
Summary
Congratulates CD on Origin; has been "initiated into an entirely new province of knowledge".
Notes error involving rhinoceros.
Encloses other notes.
Author: | Francis Galton |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 9 Dec 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B16 and DAR 106: D22 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2573 |
From Henry Holland 10 December [1859]
Summary
Comments on the Origin. Outlines difficulties he finds in CD’s theory. Believes CD must define natural selection more accurately and mentions instances in which that principle is an insufficient cause to account for the form of certain structures.
Author: | Henry Holland, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 10 Dec [1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 47: 148–9 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2578 |
From J. D. Hooker [12 December 1859]
Summary
JDH half through Origin. High praise for facts and reasoning.
Lyell told JDH his criticisms: small matters JDH did not appreciate.
Reactions of G. Bentham, J. S. Henslow, and C. C. Babington.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [12 Dec 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 137–8 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2579 |
From J. D. Hooker [20 December 1859]
Summary
Forwards letter from Asa Gray.
Bentham is very agitated by Origin. CD over-emphasises natural selection. His theory accounts for too much and would be improved by unburdening it of natural selection.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [20 Dec 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 104: 180–1 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2589 |
From William Jardine 20 December 1859
Summary
Cannot agree with all of CD’s views [in Origin].
Thinks too much is made of the Galapagos. The peculiarity of their ornithology will break down.
Offers to answer any questions on ornithology.
Author: | William Jardine |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 20 Dec 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.3: 278 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2590 |
From W. C. L. Martin [1859–61]
Summary
Examples of animals that dwell in dark places, some of which are blind, some not. Asks: where causes are the same, why is not the effect? Does not think disuse is the answer, but arrested development.
Comments also on the absence of a ligament in four mammals and asks how natural selection accounts for this.
Author: | William Charles Linnaeus Martin |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [1859–61] |
Classmark: | DAR 47: 211–13 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2629 |
From A. C. Ramsay [27–30 June 1859]
Summary
No doubt about worm-holes in the Long Mynd, and they are certainly lower than J. Barrande’s primordial zone. Fossils in Laurentian gneiss.
Author: | Andrew Crombie Ramsay |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [27–30 June 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 205.9: 400 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2845 |
From Charles Lyell 4 October 1859
Summary
Response to Origin. Praise for summary of chapter 10 and chapter 11.
The dissimilarity of African and American species is ‘necessary result of “Creation” adapting new species to the pre-existing ones. Granting this unknown & if you please miraculous power acting’.
C. T. Gaudin writes of Oswald Heer’s finding many species common between Miocene floras of Iceland and Switzerland. Interesting for CD’s migration theory.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 4 Oct 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 170: 81; The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Notebook 241, pp. 75–90) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3132 |
From E. A. Darwin 15 August [1859 or later]
Summary
Wonders whether CD would be interested in a book by Dr Bucknell [J. C. Bucknill?] on psychology.
Author: | Erasmus Alvey Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 15 Aug [1859 or later] |
Classmark: | DAR 105: B68 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-7301 |
From Robert Shedden Scrimgeour & John Shedden Scrimgeour & Co. 17 June 1859
Summary
Provides requested information about certain railway shares.
Author: | Scrimgeour, Robert Shedden & John Shedden & Co. |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 17 June 1859 |
Classmark: | English Heritage, Down House (CD’s Investment book, pp. 84, 74) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2469B |
Lyell, Charles | (7) |
Hooker, J. D. | (6) |
Darwin, E. A. | (2) |
Hill, Richard | (2) |
Huxley, T. H. | (2) |
Darwin, C. R. | (40) |
Darwin, E. A. | (2) |
Falconer, Hugh | (1) |
Galton, Francis | (1) |
Higgins, John | (1) |
Hill, Richard | (2) |
Holland, Henry | (1) |
Hooker, J. D. | (6) |
Huxley, T. H. | (2) |
Jardine, William | (1) |
Kingsley, Charles | (1) |
Lubbock, John | (2) |
Lyell, Charles | (7) |
Martin, W. C. L. | (2) |
Murray, John (b) | (2) |
Owen, Richard | (1) |
Ramsay, A. C. | (2) |
Scrimgeour, Robert Shedden & John Shedden & Co. | (1) |
Sedgwick, Adam | (1) |
Smith, Frederick (a) | (1) |
Watson, H. C. | (2) |
Wedgwood, Hensleigh | (1) |