Summary

Surprised at Mivart’s harsh review [Q. Rev. 131 (1871): 47–90], considering courteous tone of his book. Assures CD he has not been converted by Mivart.

Summary

Sees his ideas on conscious and non-conscious intelligence are already in Murphy [J. J. Murphy, Habit and intelligence (1869)].

Encloses an extract from S. W. Baker’s The Albert N’yanza [1866] on the behaviour of the giraffe [See Origin, 6th ed., p. 178], and some references to Baker’s Nile tributaries [1867].

Summary

Meeting with CD postponed.

Summary

Believes CD will not consider him a good Darwinian since he accepts natural selection only as a secondary law.

Summary

Praise for gentle but resolute tone of Descent.

Summary

There is a primary law of growth and innate improvement. Natural selection is a secondary law that operates to "arrange the details". This is not Lamarckian, because will is not involved.

Thanks for Chauncey Wright’s pamphlet [Darwinism (1871)].

Amused by critics who say CD is metaphysically unsophisticated.

Summary

Thinks G. H. Lewes will review Descent in Pall Mall Gazette.

Summary

Sends quotation about Lycurgus and Spartan exposure of infants who were deemed defective.

Bibliographic references on sense of beauty and morals.

Summary

Sir Andrew Smith says Hottentots and Kaffirs laugh till they cry.

Summary

On sexual selection and the sense of beauty among the W. African Negroes.

Summary

Prefers W. C. Wells’s explanation of the formation of the Nehro type to CD’s sexual selection.

Outlines his view of the origin of man by natural selection.

Summary

Would be pleased if CD called.

Summary

Various comments on Descent;

on suicide on Gold Coast;

on mulattoes’ not being prolific.

Summary

Defends Descent against CD’s self-disparagement. The parts on the moral sense seem to him the finest in the book.

Summary

On Hottentots’ blushing.

Gives case of a baboon’s revenge. [See Descent, 2d ed. (1874), p. 69.]

Summary

Has just finished his work [? The martyrdom of man (1872)]. The new points are: (1) Negroes have whiskers; (2) their music is sometimes agreeable; (3) the Kaffirs are Negroes.

Summary

Admires CD’s ability to work so hard under adverse circumstances; finds his health makes all work an effort.

Summary

Forwards a letter. Has distributed 220 copies of the pamphlet [Darwinism 1871].

Thomas Henry Huxley has sent review of St George Jackson Mivart’s On the genesis of species and his review of Descent in Quarterly Review (Mivart 1871a and [Mivart] 1871c) to the Contemporary Review [18 (1871): 443–76] .

Summary

His book has received bad reviews; therefore CD’s letter cheers him up.

Summary

On St G. J. Mivart’s Genesis of species and Chauncey Wright’s review of it [North Am. Rev. (July 1871)].