To Asa Gray 18 February [1860]
Summary
Thinks AG’s review is admirable.
Reactions of others to the Origin.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 18 Feb [1860] |
Classmark: | Gray Herbarium of Harvard University (22) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2704 |
To J. D. Hooker 5 June [1860]
Summary
CD’s response to criticism of natural selection. Exasperated at not being understood. He tries to narrow the gap between himself and JDH.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 5 June [1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 60 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2821 |
To A. R. Wallace 18 May 1860
Summary
Pleasure in ARW’s approbation of the Origin. Other supporters among scientists. ARW’s generosity.
Attacks by Owen, Sedgwick, and others.
Anticipation of natural selection by Matthew in 1830.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Date: | 18 May 1860 |
Classmark: | The British Library (Add MS 46434: 21–23v) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2807 |
To T. H. Huxley 22 November [1860]
Summary
Has had a good letter from Robert McDonnell. Thinks he will be converted in time.
Impatient to see first number of Natural History Review.
Murray wants a new edition of Origin immediately.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 22 Nov [1860] |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 147) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2994 |
From Herbert Spencer 22 February 1860
Summary
CD has caused a great change in HS’s views, in showing how a great proportion of adaptation should be explained by natural selection not direct adaptation to changing conditions. HS had remarked on the survival of the best individuals as a cause of improvement in man, but he "& every one" overlooked selection of spontaneous variation. Believes so many kinds of indirect evidence must add up to a conclusive demonstration of the doctrine.
Author: | Herbert Spencer |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 22 Feb 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/5: 107–9) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2706B |
To Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 28 January [1860]
Summary
The pamphlet on the origin or variation of species sent by IGS-H has not arrived. CD is eager to see it and requests precise reference. ["Cours de zoologie (mammifères et oiseaux), fait au Muséum d’histoire naturelle, en 1850", Revue et Magasin de Zoologie Pure et Appliquée 2d ser. 3: 12–20.]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire |
Date: | 28 Jan [1860] |
Classmark: | Uppsala University Library: Manuscripts and Music (Waller Ms gb-00521) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2665A |
To J. D. Hooker 14 [January 1860]
Summary
CD has learned from Lyell that JDH reviewed Origin in Gardeners’ Chronicle writing in Lindley’s style.
Lyell is working on man.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 14 [Jan 1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 36 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2651 |
To Asa Gray 24 February [1860]
Summary
Last sheets of AG’s review of Origin have arrived. CD’s comments and criticisms.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 24 Feb [1860] |
Classmark: | Gray Herbarium of Harvard University (23) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2713 |
From Andrew Crombie Ramsay 21 February 1860
Summary
ACR has for years had a belief in mutability and transmutation of species, prompted by disputes over the nature of species and varieties, and the existence of representative species in space and in the geological record. Could not accept a Creator employing small miracles to make species differ just a little between formations. Has maintained that one would not expect to find fine gradations between forms in the fossil record, but only representatives of very populous forms. [See 2711.]
Author: | Andrew Crombie Ramsay |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Feb 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/5: 112–16) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2706A |
Matches: 2 hits
To Asa Gray 10 September [1860]
Summary
Has received second part of AG’s Atlantic Monthly article ["Darwin on the origin of species", 6 (1860): 109–16, 229–39], and would like to have it reprinted in England with the first part.
Regrets no reviewer has touched upon embryology, which he feels provides one of his strongest arguments.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 10 Sept [1860] |
Classmark: | Gray Herbarium of Harvard University (34) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2910 |
From Joseph Beete Jukes 27 February 1860
Summary
Believes in the "perfect indefiniteness & frequently the vast length of the interval" between consecutive geological formations. Thus has little respect for arguments against CD based on the absence of transitional forms in the geological record. States that species found through series of beds do vary: some Silurian species have many synonyms which are really varieties of greatly differing ages. CD’s theory accounts for the progressive inprovement, multiplication and increase in complexity that can be seen, but which may often be only relative.
Author: | Joseph Beete Jukes |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 27 Feb 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/5: 125–7) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2716A |
To Asa Gray 3 July [1860]
Summary
Origin has "stirred up the mud with a vengeance"; AG and three or four others have saved CD from annihilation and are responsible for the attention now given to the subject. Reports events at Oxford BAAS meeting.
New evidence supports AG’s view of a warm post-glacial period.
Discusses his recent orchid observations.
Poses AG a question on design in nature.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 3 July [1860] |
Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (41) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2855 |
To J. D. Hooker [20 February 1860]
Summary
Comments on W. H. Harvey’s article on a monstrous Begonia [Gard. Chron. 18 Feb 1860].
Is astonished at being attacked for not allowing great and abrupt variations under nature. More evidence needed to make CD admit that forms have often changed "by saltum".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [20 Feb 1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 41 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2705 |
To David Forbes 11 December [1860]
Summary
Encourages Forbes to publish his geological observations on Chile.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | David Forbes |
Date: | 11 Dec [1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 185: 150 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3019F |
To J. D. Hooker 3 March [1860]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 3 Mar [1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 45 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2719 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … Oxford. See letter from Charles Lyell, [13–14 February 1860] . John Edward Gray was keeper …
- … 1860, p. 308. The letter from Hewett Cottrell Watson has not been found. William Henry Harvey’s publications were almost exclusively taxonomic or descriptive works. CD had read Harvey’s more general treatise ( Harvey 1854 ) but did not find it of great interest (see Correspondence vol. 6, letter to S. P. Woodward, 18 July 1856 ). Charles Lyell , …
To Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 12 January [1860]
Summary
Very pleased with IGStH’s approval [of Origin]. Will be proud to place IGStH’s Résumé des lecons sur la question de l’espèce (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 1851) alongside his other works in his library.
Grateful for his offer to look over the difficult passages in Origin for a translator.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire |
Date: | 12 Jan [1860] |
Classmark: | Archives de l’Académie des sciences, Paris (63 J Fonds Gabriel Bertrand) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2649F |
From Leonard Jenyns 4 January 1860
Summary
Has read Origin and considers it one of the most valuable contributions to present-day natural history. Believes, however, that there are difficulties in the extensive generalisation that all taxonomic groups are related by descent. Does not understand how Genesis is to be read unless at least the human species was created independently of other animals. Cannot bring himself to the idea that man’s reasoning and moral sense could have been obtained from "irrational progenitors": the "Divine Image" is the unsurmountable distinction between man and brutes. [See 2644.]
Author: | Leonard Jenyns; Leonard Blomefield |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 4 Jan 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/5: 95–103) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2637A |
From William Henry Harvey 24 August 1860
Summary
Continues earlier discussion, admitting his opinions have been modified. Still regards natural selection as one agent of several. States areas of disagreement.
Author: | William Henry Harvey |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 24 Aug 1860 |
Classmark: | DAR 98 (ser. 2): 33–40 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2898 |
To J. D. Hooker 12 March [1860]
Summary
Lyell and CD would urge JDH to make his essays into a book, but see he has embarked on a huge project with G. Bentham [Genera plantarum, 3 vols. (1862–83)].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 12 Mar [1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 46 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2728 |
To J. D. Hooker 26 [February 1860]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 26 [Feb 1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 43 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2715 |
letter | (127) |
Darwin, C. R. | (94) |
Lyell, Charles | (16) |
Harvey, W. H. | (2) |
Henslow, J. S. | (2) |
Blomefield, Leonard | (1) |
Lyell, Charles | (40) |
Darwin, C. R. | (32) |
Hooker, J. D. | (14) |
Gray, Asa | (12) |
Huxley, T. H. | (4) |
Darwin, C. R. | (126) |
Lyell, Charles | (56) |
Hooker, J. D. | (15) |
Gray, Asa | (12) |
Huxley, T. H. | (4) |
Darwin in Conversation exhibition
Summary
Meet Charles Darwin as you have never met him before. Come to our exhibition at Cambridge University Library, running from 9 July to 3 December 2022, and discover a fascinating series of interwoven conversations with Darwin's many hundreds of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … 9 July – 3 December 2022 Milstein Exhibition Centre, Cambridge University …