Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2Darwin, Charles
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Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2
Darwin, Charles
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Correspondence
I most fully agree to what you say about Huxley's Article ('Natural
History Review,' 1861, page 67, "On the Zoological Relations of Man with
the Lower Animals." This memoir had its origin in a discussion at the
previous meeting of the British Association, when Professor Huxley
felt himself "compelled to give a diametrical contradiction to certain
assertions respecting the differences which obtain between the brains
of the higher apes and of man, which fell from Professor Owen." But in
order that his criticisms might refer to deliberately recorded words, he
bases them on Professor Owen's paper, "On the Characters, etc., of the
Class Mammalia," read before the Linnean Society in February and April,
1857, in which he proposed to place man not only in a distinct order,
but in "a distinct su-class of the Mammalia"--the Archencephala.),
and the power of writing... The whole review seems to me excellent. How
capitally Oliver has done the resume of botanical books. Good Heavens,
how he must have read!...
I quite agree that Phillips ('Life on the Earth' (1860), by Prof.
Phillips, containing the substance of the Rede Lecture (May 1860).)
is unreadably dull. You need not attempt Bree. (The following sentence
(page 16) from 'Species not Transmutable,' by Dr. Bree, illustrates the
degree in which he understood the 'Origin of Species': "The only real
difference between Mr. Darwin and his two predecessors" [Lamarck and the
'Vestiges'] "is this:--that while the latter have each given a mode by
which they conceive the great changes they believe in have been brought
about, Mr. Darwin does no such thing." After this we need not be
surprised at a passage in the preface: "No one has derived greater
pleasure than I have in past days from the study of Mr. Darwin's other
works, and no one has felt a greater degree of regret that he should
have imperilled his fame by the publication of his treatise upon the
'Origin of Species.'")...
If you come across Dr. Freke on 'Origin of Species by means of Organic
Affinity,' read a page here and there... He tells the reader to observe
[that his result] has been arrived at by "induction," whereas all my
results are arrived at only by "analogy." I see a Mr. Neale has read
a paper before the Zoological Society on 'Typical Selection;' what it
means I know not. I have not read H. Spencer, for I find that I must
more and more husband the very little strength which I have. I sometimes
suspect I shall soon entirely fail... As soon as this dreadful weather
gets a little milder, I must try a little water cure. Have you read the
'Woman in White'? the plot is wonderfully interesting. I can recommend
a book which has interested me greatly, viz. Olmsted's 'Journey in the
Back Country.' It is an admirably lively picture of man and slavery in
the Southern States...
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. February 2, 1861.
My dear Lyell,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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