To W. D. Fox [6 October 1859]
Summary
First impressions of the water-cure establishment are not favourable – "I always hate everything new".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
| Date: | [6 Oct 1859] |
| Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 123) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2502 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … Correspondence vol. 4, letters to Susan Darwin, [19 March 1849] , and to W. D. Fox, 4 …
- … letter to Mary Butler, 11 September [1859] . Edmund Smith was the proprietor of Ilkley Wells ( Metcalfe 1906 ,p. 107). Homoeopathy, the treatment of disease with minute doses of materials that cause symptoms identical to those of the disease itself, was favoured by several hydropathic doctors including James Manby Gully of Malvern, under whom CD had placed himself in 1849 ( …
To J. D. Dana 30 December [1859]
Summary
Grieved at JDD’s illness. Recommends water-cure. Describes his own illness.
The reception of Origin has been more successful than he dreamed.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | James Dwight Dana |
| Date: | 30 Dec [1859] |
| Classmark: | DAR 143: 366 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2615 |
To Adam Sedgwick 24 August [1859]
Summary
Sorry to hear of AS’s poor health.
Would like to attend Aberdeen meeting [BAAS, 1859] but is unfit for so great an exertion. Has been told he has "suppressed gout".
Pleased that AS remembers their 1831 geological trip, which made CD appreciate the noble science of geology.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Adam Sedgwick |
| Date: | 24 Aug [1859] |
| Classmark: | Cleveland Health Sciences Library (Robert M. Stecher collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2482 |
To J. D. Hooker 26 [December 1859]
Summary
High, detailed praise for introductory essay to Flora Tasmaniae [reprinted as On the flora of Australia (1859)]. CD expects it to convert botanists from doctrine of immutable creation.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 26 [Dec 1859] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 33, 30a |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2606 |
To James Dwight Dana 11 November [1859]
Summary
Has sent JDD a copy of Origin; knows it will horrify him, but hopes JDD will credit him with an honest search for truth. Believes that JDD may come to think there is more to be said "in favour of mutability of species than is at first appreciated".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | James Dwight Dana |
| Date: | 11 Nov [1859] |
| Classmark: | Yale University Library: Manuscripts and Archives (Dana Family Papers (MS 164) Series 1, Box 2, folder 44) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2516 |
Matches: 1 hit
To W. D. Fox 23 September [1859]
Summary
His book [Origin] is nearly done. Is not so silly as to expect to convert WDF. Lyell is wavering; Hooker has come round.
Family news.
Asks WDF to find out if a cross between differently coloured horses produces a dun.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
| Date: | 23 Sept [1859] |
| Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 122) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2493 |
From T. H. Huxley [9–12 March 1859]
Summary
Serial homologies in the Mollusca. Gives instances of repetition of homological parts in Radiata.
| Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [9–12 Mar 1859] |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 288 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2427 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter at the same time, but this has not been found. CD adopted Huxley’s explanation in Origin , p. 438. CD discussed serial homologies in the animal and plant kingdoms in Origin , pp. 435–9, but did not mention any supposed parallels between the Radiata and plants. Huxley had used the concept of homologous organs of Medusae to great effect in his first published paper ( T. H. Huxley 1849 ). …
To Charles Lyell 25 October [1859]
Summary
Discusses P. S. Pallas’ theory of origin of domestic dog breeds. CD believes domestic dogs descended from more than one aboriginal wild species but ultimately "we believe all canine species have descended from one parent and the only question is whether the whole or only part of difference in our domestic breeds has arisen since man domesticated them".
Races of man offer great difficulty. The doctrine of Pallas and Agassiz that there are several species "does not help us" in the least.
Hopes Henry Holland will not review Origin.
CD’s and CL’s difference on "principle of improvement" and "power of adaptation" is profound. Improvement in breeds of cattle requires neither. Urges him to reread first four chapters of Origin carefully. Natural selection is not to be contrasted with "improvement": every step involves improvement in relation to the conditions of life. There is no need for a "principle" to intervene.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 25 Oct [1859] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.174) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2510 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1849. See Gully 1846 and Correspondence vol. 4. Henry Holland , a noted physician and a distant relative of CD, frequently reviewed scientific works for the Quarterly Review . The periodical was published by John Murray , as was Origin . CD had complained to Joseph Dalton Hooker that Holland ‘does not know enough of Nat. Hist. ’ following Holland’s review of Coral reefs (see Correspondence vol. 4, letter …
| Darwin, C. R. | (7) |
| Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
| Dana, J. D. | (2) |
| Fox, W. D. | (2) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (1) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
| Lyell, Charles | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (8) |
| Dana, J. D. | (2) |
| Fox, W. D. | (2) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
| Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
Darwin's health
Summary
On 28 March 1849, ten years before Origin was published, Darwin wrote to his good friend Joseph Hooker from Great Malvern in Worcestershire, where Dr James Manby Gully ran a fashionable water-cure establishment. Darwin apologised for his delayed reply to…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 28 March 1849, ten years before Origin was published, Darwin wrote to his good friend …
Darwin in letters, 1847-1850: Microscopes and barnacles
Summary
Darwin's study of barnacles, begun in 1844, took him eight years to complete. The correspondence reveals how his interest in a species found during the Beagle voyage developed into an investigation of the comparative anatomy of other cirripedes and…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Species theory In November 1845, Charles Darwin wrote to his friend and confidant Joseph …
1.3 Thomas Herbert Maguire, lithograph
Summary
< Back to Introduction This striking portrait of Darwin, dating from 1849, belonged to a series of about sixty lithographic portraits of naturalists and other scientists drawn by Thomas Herbert Maguire. They were successively commissioned over a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction This striking portrait of Darwin, dating from 1849, belonged …
Women’s scientific participation
Summary
Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants Darwin’s correspondence helps bring to light a community of women who participated, often actively and routinely, in the nineteenth-century scientific community. Here is a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants …
Scientific Practice
Summary
Specialism|Experiment|Microscopes|Collecting|Theory Letter writing is often seen as a part of scientific communication, rather than as integral to knowledge making. This section shows how correspondence could help to shape the practice of science, from…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Specialism | Experiment | Microscopes | Collecting | Theory Letter writing …
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 …
Darwin’s reading notebooks
Summary
In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to …
Scientific Networks
Summary
Friendship|Mentors|Class|Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific network is a set of connections between people, places, and things that channel the communication of knowledge, and that substantially determine both its intellectual form and content,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Friendship | Mentors | Class | Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific …
Darwin's notes for his physician, 1865
Summary
On 20 May 1865, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary that John Chapman, a prominent London publisher who had studied medicine in London and Paris in the early 1840s, visited Down to consult with Darwin about his ill health. In 1863 Chapman started to treat…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 20 May 1865, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary that John Chapman, a prominent London publisher …
What is an experiment?
Summary
Darwin is not usually regarded as an experimenter, but rather as an astute observer and a grand theorist. His early career seems to confirm this. He began with detailed note-taking, collecting and cataloguing on the Beagle, and edited a descriptive zoology…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin is not usually regarded as an experimenter, but rather as an astute observer and a grand …
Barnacles
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Darwin and barnacles Darwin’s interest in Cirripedia, a class of marine arthropods, was first piqued by the discovery of an odd burrowing barnacle, which he later named “Mr. Arthrobalanus," while he was…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Sources | Discussion Questions | Experiment Darwin and barnacles …
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
Summary
George Eliot was the pen name of celebrated Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880). She was born on the outskirts of Nuneaton in Warwickshire and was educated at boarding schools from the age of five until she was 16. Her education ended when she…
Matches: 1 hits
- … George Eliot was the pen name of the celebrated Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880). She …
John Murray
Summary
Darwin's most famous book On the origin of species by means of natural selection (Origin) was published on 22 November 1859. The publisher was John Murray, who specialised in non-fiction, particularly politics, travel and science, and had published…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin's most famous book On the origin of species by means of natural selection (Origin) was …
'An Appeal' against animal cruelty
Summary
The four-page pamphlet transcribed below and entitled 'An Appeal', was composed jointly by Emma and Charles Darwin (see letter from Emma Darwin to W. D. Fox, [29 September 1863]). The pamphlet, which protested against the cruelty of steel vermin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The four-page pamphlet transcribed below and entitled 'An Appeal', was composed jointly by Emma …
Dramatisation script
Summary
Re: Design – Adaptation of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Asa Gray and others… by Craig Baxter – as performed 25 March 2007
Matches: 1 hits
- … Re: Design – performance version – 25 March 2007 – 1 Re: Design – Adaptation of the …
Darwin's illness
Summary
Was Darwin an invalid? In many photographs he looks wearied by age, wrapped in a great coat to protect him from cold. In a letter to his cousin William Fox, he wrote: "Long and continued ill health has much changed me, & I very often think with…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Was Darwin an invalid? In many photographs he looks wearied by age, wrapped in a great coat to …
Fritz Müller
Summary
Fritz Müller, a German who spent most of his life in political exile in Brazil, described Darwin as his second father, and Darwin's son, Francis, wrote that, although they never met 'the correspondence with Müller, which continued to the close of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Francis Darwin, in Life and letters of Charles Darwin , wrote of Fritz Müller They …
Living and fossil cirripedia
Summary
Darwin published four volumes on barnacles, the crustacean sub-class Cirripedia, between 1851 and 1854, two on living species and two on fossil species. Written for a specialist audience, they are among the most challenging and least read of Darwin’s works…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin published four volumes on the crustacean sub-class Cirripedia between 1851 and 1854, two on …
Bibliography of Darwin’s geological publications
Summary
This list includes papers read by Darwin to the Geological Society of London, his books on the geology of the Beagle voyage, and other publications on geological topics. Author-date citations refer to entries in the Darwin Correspondence Project’s…
Matches: 1 hits
- … This list includes papers read by Darwin to the Geological Society of London, his books on the …
Darwin and Design
Summary
At the beginning of the nineteenth century in Britain, religion and the sciences were generally thought to be in harmony. The study of God’s word in the Bible, and of his works in nature, were considered to be part of the same truth. One version of this…
Matches: 1 hits
- … At the beginning of the nineteenth century in Britain, religion and the sciences were generally …
