Summary

Thanks for copy of Erasmus Darwin. The refutation of Miss Seward is admirable and conclusive.

Summary

Since CD has decided not to answer S. Butler’s charge, WSD will not reply either.

Will look over Francis Darwin’s lecture ["Climbing plants"] with a view to publishing it in Popular Science Review [19 (1880): 213–29].

Summary

Geotropism.

Experimenting on Porlieria in damp and dry earth.

Hermann Müller has been ridiculed for teaching children "in the beginning was Carbon".

Will ask about Ernst Krause.

Summary

Thanks for mentioning CarlVogt, to whom he will write.

Comments on Dr Erasmus Darwin’s interest in mental imagery.

Summary

Discusses Müller-Thurgau’s work on heliotropism. Will start on Thursday for Heidelberg and Strassburg.

Summary

He has had no success with horse or Spanish chestnuts.

Summary

Sends his review of Movement in plants from Die Gartenlaube.

Comments on the future prospects of Kosmos.

Comments on review of Samuel Butler’s Unconscious memory by Romanes in Nature [23 (1880–1): 285–7] and Romanes’ reply to Butler [pp. 335–6].

Asks whether he might have a chapter of Earthworms to print in Kosmos.

Summary

Thanks for Erasmus Darwin.

Summary

Birthday greetings.

Thinks it best not to reply further to Butler. Has read G. J. Romanes’ article with great pleasure. Romanes is right to ridicule Butler. Quotes passages about Butler from CD letters. Has received letter from F. M. Balfour urging him not to reply to Butler.

Summary

Regrets that he cannot send the promised volume [Biographie médicale, 7 vols, 1820–5, biographical appendix to Dictionaire des sciences medicales]. Offers to have his son make an abstract of the biography [of Erasmus Darwin].

Summary

Has read Krause’s "Life of Erasmus Darwin" [Kosmos 4 (1879): 397–424]; thinks it very interesting to anyone interested in "Darwinismus" – everybody.

Summary

Has been trying unsuccessfully to weigh something for CD.

Summary

On cost of the portrait of Dr Darwin, for Erasmus Darwin.

Summary

Thanks CD for his kind judgment on his book [The natural conditions of existence (1881)].

E. Ray Lankester has written an unfriendly review of it [Nature 23 (1880–1): 405–9].

Summary

Has sent 2d ed. of his book, Werden und Vergehen [1880]. Notes that book was attacked in Prussian House of Deputies by ultramontane critics of Hermann Müller who had recommended it to his pupils.

Summary

Sends suggestions for CD’s preface to Erasmus Darwin.

Summary

Regrets she has none of Dr Erasmus Darwin’s letters. Relates some anecdotes concerning her grandfather.

Summary

Contemptuous of Samuel Butler.

Has read that Huxley will be Inspector of Fisheries.

When CD visits in spring, he will acquaint him with legalities of Worthing house.

Summary

As editor of the new journal, Kosmos, thanks CD for the permission he has granted Ernst Haeckel to publish with CD’s approval.

Cites his long support for evolution as exemplified by his book [Die botanische Systematik in ihrem Verhältniss zur Morphologie (1866)].

CD has many German supporters.

Summary

There is a hyacinth growing upside down in Hankinson’s garden. Sends picture of it. Leslie Stephen knows of no worthwhile sources of information on Dr Erasmus Darwin.