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To F. W. Farrar 2 November [1865]
Summary
Has enjoyed FWF’s volume [Chapters on language]. Had found Max Müller’s theory obscure and weak.
Believes FWF would come to agree with him on species if he studied general questions in natural history. To argue for immutability of species on the basis of geology resembles a wise savage in a nation with no books saying his language has never changed.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Frederic William Farrar |
| Date: | 2 Nov [1865] |
| Classmark: | University of Virginia Library, Special Collections (3314 1: 80) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4929 |
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- … Hensleigh Wedgwood defended the view that the original roots of language derived from the imitation of natural sounds (H. Wedgwood 1859–65, 1: iii–xviii). Farrar cited many examples from Wedgwood’s Dictionary that supported the imitative theory of language against Max Müller’s criticisms (see, for example, Farrar 1865 , p. 132). For CD’s favourable assessment of Wedgwood’s Dictionary , see Correspondence vol. 8, letter to Charles Lyell, …
