Summary

Will be interested in reading AdeC’s paper on Smilax. The transition from hermaphroditic to unisexual condition is a perplexing problem.

CD agrees that there is much justice in AdeC’s criticism of his use of the terms "object", "end", and "purpose" but thinks "those who believe that organs have been gradually modified by natural selection for a special purpose, may I think use the above terms correctly though no conscious being has intervened".

CD and Francis are hard at work on the function of "bloom" but CD doubts that the experiments will tell them much.

Does AdeC have a decided opinion on whether plants with glaucous leaves are more frequent in hot or dry than in cold or wet countries?

Francis has been getting "striking" results from feeding meat to Drosera.

Summary

AdeC’s two letters on bloom will be very useful; his remarks on evaporation and absorption seem very just. CD has made few experiments as yet. The investigation has been tedious and difficult.

Summary

CD cannot say he cares greatly about his election to the Institut but he does care for the sympathy of his friends.

Will look to Smilax when he returns to Down.

Regrets the insecurity of the identification of fossil leaves.

He has heard that De Bary has cultivated Utricularia with and without aquatic animals and that the plants that have been fed flourished "in a stupendous manner".

Summary

Thanks for AdeC’s Phytographie [1880]. CD finds in it a number of "philosophical" remarks new to him. The work would have been invaluable to him in dealing with puzzles when writing his cirripede monographs.

Describes his system of keeping notes on separate pieces of paper filed in several scores of large portfolios.

Has just sent MS of Movement in plants to the printer. Thinks he has suceeded in showing "that all the more important great classes of movements are due to the modification of a kind of movement common to all plants from their earliest youth".

Summary

Thanks AdeC for interesting letter. CD has been annoyed by the multitude of new terms lately invented in all branches of biology in Germany. What AdeC says about the word "purpose" made CD vow not to use it again, but it is difficult to cure oneself of a vicious habit and difficult to avoid for anyone who tries to make out the use of a structure.

Francis will write about the diagram [see 13642].

Summary

Thanks for a "grand volume" [vol. 3 of Monographiae phanerogamarum (1878–96)].

Summary

Sends Origin as testimony to great benefit CD derived from AdeC’s works on distribution.

Summary

Is pleased that AdeC is interested in the Primula case ["Dimorphic condition of Primula", Collected papers 2: 45–63]. Is pursuing analogous experiments on other plants and on seedlings raised from the unions.

CD’s "large work" progresses slowly owing to ill health and his work on Orchids.

CD is not surprised that AdeC is unwilling to admit natural selection – "the subject hardly admits of direct proof or evidence. It will be believed in only by those who think that it connects & partly explains several large classes of facts".

Hopes AdeC will publish on Quercus

and rejoices that he intends to return to the study of geographical distribution. No one can claim to have read AdeC’s truly great work on that subject [Géographie botanique (1855)] with more care than CD.

Summary

Thanks AdeC for his memoir ["Étude sur l’espèce", Ann. Sci. Nat. (Bot.) 4th ser. 18 (1862): 59–110].

CD astonished at the amount of variability in the oaks.

CD differs from most contemporaries in thinking that the vast continental extensions of Forbes, Heer, and others are not only advanced without sufficient evidence but are opposed to much weighty evidence.

AdeC’s comment on CD’s work [Origin] is generous.

CD is satisfied at the length AdeC goes with him and is not surprised at his prudent reservations. He remembers how many years it took him to change his old beliefs. The great point is to give up immutability. So long as species are thought immutable there can be no progress in "epiontology" [see ML 1: 234 n.]. CD is sure to be proved wrong in many points but the subject will have "a grand future".

Summary

CD thinks that he believes in as much migration as AdeC, only he does not believe nearly so much in continental extensions. CD also believes more in modification in form though he suspects the difference is not so great.

Thanks AdeC for information on melons, oranges,

and Swiss lake-habitation discoveries.

CD is almost tired of his book on variation under domestication, for his knowledge is insufficient to treat the plant part well, but he has done so much that he will finish it.

Summary

Asks AdeC to observe two species of Lythrum to see whether they are dimorphic as stated by Vaucher. CD can find no trace of this in dried specimens he has examined; "if either species present any difference in length of pistil and stamens, it is most likely that three forms should be presented".

Summary

Thanks AdeC for his long letter full of interesting facts, which will be of great use if a new edition [of Variation] is demanded.

As for when CD will publish on variation in a state of nature: he has had the MS almost ready for several years but Variation fatigued him so much

that "I determined to amuse myself by publishing a short essay on the Descent of Man".

AdeC will have plenty of time to publish his views. Asks permission to quote AdeC on a case of inheritance of scalp-muscles [see Descent 1: 20].

Hooker has expressed a view, similar to AdeC’s, "that morals & politics would be very interesting if discussed like any branch of Natural History".

Agrees with AdeC on acclimatisation

and on graft-hybrids.

CD is repeating Hildebrand’s method in producing graft-hybrid potatoes.

As for Pangenesis, very few people approve of it though it has some enthusiastic friends and CD has much faith in its vitality.

Summary

Thanks AdeC for correcting an error about thorns, which CD might have quoted.

CD will be cautious in regard to the muscles of the scalp. [Descent 1: 20].

His health has failed again "in the usual manner" and he has been ordered to do no work.

Repeats how interested and pleased he was by AdeC’s last long, remarkable letter.

Summary

Thanks AdeC for his interesting letter [6915]. The experiment strikes CD as a very valuable one. CD has forwarded the letter to Hooker, who is glad to make the trial. CD will have many experiments in progress next spring but he will open the packet of seeds and if they are numerous, will try a few himself.

Summary

Thanks for AdeC’s Histoire des sciences [1873].

Sends a copy of Expression.

His health keeps him weak; he dreads grappling with the fearful subject of variation [in nature]

so he is working up some observations in botanical physiology to publish with his old papers on climbing plants.

Summary

Thanks AdeC for great pleasure his new book [Histoire des sciences (1873)] has given him. Comments on several of the essays.

When AdeC backs up Asa Gray in saying all instincts are congenital habits, CD must protest.

Asks several questions about butterflies of the Alps discussed on p. 322 [of Histoire].

Summary

The evidence of tameness of Alpine butterflies [see 8672] seems good and the fact is surprising to CD for they can hardly have acquired this in their short life-time.

The question whether butterflies are attracted to bright colours independently of the supposed presence of nectar is still unanswered.

CD has great difficulty in believing that any temporary condition of parents can affect the offspring.

Pangenesis is much reviled, but CD must still look at generation from this point of view, which makes him averse to believing that an emotion has any effect on the offspring.

Summary

Invitation to dine at the Darwins’ with J. S. Henslow.