From Henry Holland to Erasmus Alvey Darwin 24 February [1869]1
Brook Street
Feb 24th
My Dear Erasmus
If Charles has not yet gone will you put this note into his hands,—otherwise forward it to him.
Looking at some old notes, I find that Quetelet’s work—“Sur la Theories des Probabilités &c” was published in 1846, & reviewed by Sir J Herschel in one of the Edinburgh Reviews of the year 18502
Lacroix, as well as Laplace, has written a work sur “le Calcul des Probabilités”.3 I have read the latter only. It is a very interesting volume like every thing that comes from the hands of Laplace
As far as I recollect Herschel’s Review of Quetelet, it will give Charles most of the facts that would interest him for his particular objects. But I may be mistaken in this
My old notes furnish me with some other facts
Out of 3,630,000 registered births in England & Wales the excess of Males is very little more than 2 per cent. It results from this, as matter of exact calculation, that a deviation of 2 per cent from the law so determined, would involve the same improbability as an ace being thrown 643 times in succession from a single die.
I see that in England, France & Belgium the rates of illegitimate children to others is as 1. to 13
Either in Quetelet’s work, or elsewhere, I have seen some curious facts, as to the mean type of stature in different countries or districts.4 I recollect that the French mean stature is considy below both Belgian & English.—the highest at that time the adult agricultural type in Lancashire.
I shall be glad if anything I have thus hastily written is worth having
Ever yours very sincerely | H. Holland
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Babbage, Charles. 1829. A letter to the Right Hon. T. P. Courtenay, on the proportionate number of births of the two sexes under different circumstances. Edinburgh Journal of Science n.s. 1 (1829): 85–104.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
[Herschel, John Frederick William.] 1850. Review of Lettres à S.A.R. le duc régnant de Saxe-Coburg et Gotha: sur la théorie des probabilités, appliquée aux sciences morales et politiques, by Adolphe Quetelet. Edinburgh Review 92: 1–57.
Lacroix, Sylvestre François. 1816. Traité élémentaire du calcul des probabilités. Paris: Courcier.
Laplace, Pierre Simon. 1814. Essai philosophique sur les probabilités. Paris: Courcier.
Quetelet, Adolphe. 1835. Sur l’homme et le développement de ses facultés, ou, Essai de physique sociale. 2 vols. Paris: Bachelier.
Quetelet, Adolphe. 1846. Lettres à S.A.R. le duc régnant de Saxe-Coburg et Gotha: sur la théorie des probabilités, appliquée aux sciences morales et politiques. Brussels: M. Hayez.
Quetelet, Adolphe. 1849. Letters addressed to H.R.H. the Grand Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, on the theory of probabilities, as applied to the moral and political sciences. Translated by Olinthus Gregory Downes. London: C. & E. Layton.
Summary
References to works on probability;
statistics on proportion of sexes in births in England and Wales.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6632
- From
- Henry Holland, 1st baronet
- To
- Erasmus Alvey Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Brook St
- Source of text
- DAR 86: A79–80
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp † (by CD)
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6632,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6632.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 17