Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2Darwin, Charles
Science
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2
Darwin, Charles
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Correspondence
'Quarterly' as an immense triumph for our cause. I presume that your
remarks on Man are those to which you alluded in your note. If you had
not told me I should have thought that they had been added by some one
else. As you expected, I differ grievously from you, and I am very
sorry for it. I can see no necessity for calling in an additional and
proximate cause in regard to man. (Mr. Wallace points out that any
one acquainted merely with the "unaided productions of nature," might
reasonably doubt whether a dray-horse, for example, could have been
developed by the power of man directing the "action of the laws of
variation, multiplication, and survival, for his own purpose. We know,
however, that this has been done, and we must therefore admit the
possibility that in the development of the human race, a higher
intelligence has guided the same laws for nobler ends.") But the subject
is too long for a letter. I have been particularly glad to read your
discussion because I am now writing and thinking much about man.
I hope that your Malay book sells well; I was extremely pleased with
the article in the 'Quarterly Journal of Science,' inasmuch as it is
thoroughly appreciative of your work: alas! you will probably agree with
what the writer says about the uses of the bamboo.
I hear that there is also a good article in the "Saturday Review", but
have heard nothing more about it. Believe me my dear Wallace,
Yours ever sincerely, CH. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, May 4 [1869].
My dear Lyell,
I have been applied to for some photographs (carte de visite) to be
copied to ornament the diplomas of honorary members of a new Society
in Servia! Will you give me one for this purpose? I possess only a
full-length one of you in my own album, and the face is too small, I
think, to be copied.
I hope that you get on well with your work, and have satisfied yourself
on the difficult point of glacier lakes. Thank heaven, I have finished
correcting the new edition of the 'Origin,' and am at my old work of
Sexual Selection.
Wallace's article struck me as ADMIRABLE; how well he brought out the
revolution which you effected some 30 years ago. I thought I had fully
appreciated the revolution, but I was astounded at the extracts from
Cuvier. What a good sketch of natural selection! but I was dreadfully
disappointed about Man, it seems to me incredibly strange...; and had I
not known to the contrary, would have sworn it had been inserted by some
other hand. But I believe that you will not agree quite in all this.
My dear Lyell, ever yours sincerely, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.L.A. DE QUATREFAGES. Down, May 28 [1869 or 1870].
Dear Sir,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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