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
I have now read your article (The article, "Charles Darwin," in the
series of "Scientific Worthies" ('Nature,' June 4, 1874). This admirable
estimate of my father's work in science is given in the form of a
comparison and contrast between Robert Brown and Charles Darwin.) in
'Nature,' and the last two paragraphs were not included in the slip sent
before. I wrote yesterday and cannot remember exactly what I said, and
now cannot be easy without again telling you how profoundly I have been
gratified. Every one, I suppose, occasionally thinks that he has worked
in vain, and when one of these fits overtakes me, I will think of your
article, and if that does not dispel the evil spirit, I shall know that
I am at the time a little bit insane, as we all are occasionally.
What you say about Teleology ("Let us recognise Darwin's great service
to Natural Science in bringing back to it Teleology: so that instead
of Morphology versus Teleology, we shall have Morphology wedded to
Teleology.") pleases me especially, and I do not think any one else
has ever noticed the point. (See, however, Mr. Huxley's chapter on the
'Reception of the Origin of Species' in volume i.) I have always said
you were the man to hit the nail on the head.
Yours gratefully and affectionately, CH. DARWIN.
[As a contribution to the history of the reception of the 'Origin of
Species,' the meeting of the British Association in 1874, at Belfast,
should be mentioned. It is memorable for Professor Tyndall's brilliant
presidential address, in which a sketch of the history of Evolution is
given culminating in an eloquent analysis of the 'Origin of Species,'
and of the nature of its great success. With regard to Prof. Tyndall's
address, Lyell wrote ('Life,' ii. page 455) congratulating my father on
the meeting, "on which occasion you and your theory of Evolution may
be fairly said to have had an ovation." In the same letter Sir Charles
speaks of a paper (On the Ancient Volcanoes of the Highlands, 'Journal
of Geological Soc.,' 1874.) of Professor Judd's, and it is to this that
the following letter refers:]
CHARLES DARWIN TO C. LYELL. Down, September 23, 1874.
My dear Lyell,
I suppose that you have returned, or will soon return, to London (Sir
Charles Lyell returned from Scotland towards the end of September.);
and, I hope, reinvigorated by your outing. In your last letter you
spoke of Mr. Judd's paper on the Volcanoes of the Hebrides. I have just
finished it, and to ease my mind must express my extreme admiration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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