Summary

Disagrees with GB when he says he is not up to treating the whole subject [the present state of the species question]. He is especially equipped to handle the "great subject of affinities in relation to descent and independent creation".

Summary

Natural selection implies that a form remains unaltered unless an alteration is to its benefit. This is not inconsistent with some forms remaining stable for long periods. Natural selection must at present be grounded entirely on general considerations. Of details we are still greatly ignorant.

Summary

Has not yet read the pamphlets [selection of reviews of Origin, sent by CD at GB’s request]. Though GB does not go so far as Hooker in accepting all of CD’s hypotheses and does not feel up to a thorough discussion of his views, he hopes in his Linnean Anniversary Address [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1863): xi–xxix] to speak on the present state of the [species] question.

Summary

Sends GB a selection of reviews of the Origin from his collection of about 90, with his opinion of some of them.

Summary

Returns CD’s pamphlets.

Wishes CD would work out further what keeps certain species immutable for great periods.

Feels himself a convert, but cannot go all lengths with CD.

Feels some reviewers distort CD’s argument.

Summary

GB’s address [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1863): xi–xxix] pleased him as much as Lyell’s book [Antiquity of man] disappointed him on species question. GB has done a "real good turn to the right side".

Summary

CD’s paper [on Linum] is announced for reading at the Linnean Society on 5 February.

Summary

Asks CD whether he knows of "anything worth looking at" that has appeared abroad on his theory of the origin of species.

Summary

Herbert Spencer’s work disappointing – "all words & generalities".

Summary

Discusses role of insects in crossing varieties of Lathyrus odoratus and other species.

Comments on Hermann Müller [Die Befruchtung der Blumen (1873)],

and Anton Kerner ["Die Schutzmittel des Pollens", Ber. Naturwiss. Med. Ver. Innsbruck, 3 (1873): 100–68].

Admires FD’s work on anemophilous plants.

Summary

Includes comments about George Bentham’s anniversary address to the Linnean Society with particular notice of the favourable attention to Darwin, except for Natural Selection, and to AG’s essay in the Atlantic Monthly.

He defends [W. B.] Carpenter and [Jeffries] Wyman against [Richard] Owen.

Gossip about scientific honours and other matters.

Summary

Thanks AG for references about phyllotaxy

and information on marriage laws.

Has been looking for dimorphism in Phlox and Euonymus.

Has observed the irritability of tendrils of Echinocystis with great interest. Was also struck by the rotating movements of the leading shoots, which he proposes to investigate.

Summary

Congratulates CL on finding Arctic shells.

Comments on paper by E. B. Hunt ["On the origin, growth, substructure and chronology of the Florida reef", Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 35 (1863): 197–210].

Mentions J. D. Dana’s health.

George Bentham’s statement on species [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1863): xi–xxix].

Praises Bates’s book [Naturalist on the river Amazons (1863)].

Summary

Likes JDH’s review of Alphonse de Candolle [Mémoires et souvenirs de A. P. de Candolle (1862)].

Falconer’s article on Lyell ["Primitive man. What led to the question?", Athenæum 4 Apr 1863, pp. 459–60] too severe.

CD has written a letter to the Athenæum "to say, under the cloak of attacking Heterogeny, a word in my own defence" [Collected papers 2: 78–80].

Bates’s Travels [Naturalist on the river Amazons (1863)] are excellent.

Summary

CD’s Copley Medal. The numbers were ten to eight in CD’s favour but the Cambridge men mustered strongly for Sedgwick.

Summary

Lyell is "half-hearted but whole-headed" for CD’s theory. George Bentham wholly converted.

Bates’s book delightful but has a Darwinistic bias.

Cameroon plants.

JDH defends Bates against J. E. Gray’s slanders.

Summary

Attacks by Falconer [Athenæum 4 Apr 1863, pp. 459–60] and Joseph Prestwich on Lyell.

W. B. Carpenter fails to attack Owen.

Welwitschia male cones with useless ovules marvellous example of lost function and retained structure.

JDH evaluates his sons.

Summary

Thanks correspondent for his excellent review [of French edition of Origin (1862)], which he feels will help the spread of his views in France.