Summary

Casual observations on Drosera.

Wants to know author of good review of Origin in London Review [& Wkly J. Polit. 1 (1860): 11–12, 32–3, 58–9].

Athenæum will reprint Gray’s discussion.

Summary

CD will visit Kew on way home from E. W. Lane’s hydropathy establishment.

Summary

Reread JDH’s letter "with infinite pleasure".

Plans to visit Kew.

Summary

Eldest daughter [Henrietta] very ill.

CD enjoys Owen’s having had "a good setting down".

Summary

Thanks for memoir of her father [G. Jäger, Zum Andenken an Dr. C. F. von Gärtner (1851)] and engravings.

Declines gift of CFvG’s collection of hybrid plants. Suggests Kew Herbarium.

Summary

CD, ill and despondent about hostile reviews, is cheered by JDH’s account of Oxford battle, particularly by willingness of JDH and Huxley to fight for CD’s theory in public.

Summary

Asa Gray’s articles in Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [10 Apr 1860] excellent; considering asking Athenæum to reprint them.

Summary

Thanks for orchid specimens.

On 10th and 11th will be at Tunbridge Wells.

Summary

Tells of Etty’s [Henrietta]’s illness and progress; their future plans.

Mentions some responses to the Origin; the naturalists are fighting over it in North America.

Summary

Has had a report on Oxford BAAS meeting from Hooker. Asks THH to write about it. Has heard he fought nobly with Owen and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. Regrets trouble he has caused his friends.

Summary

On the Fraser’s Magazine review by Hopkins [see 2860] and the Quarterly Review article by Wilberforce ["Darwin’s Origin of species", 108 (1860): 225–64]. The course of opinion since Oxford BAAS meeting. Asa Gray.

Need for Natural History Review, but fears it will be a burden for THH and lessen his original work. His own problem with work: if he had other duties he would be able to do absolutely nothing in science.

Summary

Greatly praises AG’s discussion of Origin in Proc. Am. Acad. Arts & Sci. [4 (1860): 411–15; 424–6].

Mentions other reviews of Origin; believes the BAAS meeting at Oxford greatly advanced the subject. Has heard his views are gaining ground in Germany.

Summary

Confirms CGBD’s impression given in a letter to J. S. Henslow that CD in the Origin did not touch directly upon the final causes of sexuality, which CD considers one of the "profoundest mysteries in nature". CD is inclined to stress sexuality as the means of keeping forms constant and checking variation although he grants its role in the origination of varieties. [See 2869.]