From T. H. Huxley 10 May 1880
4 Marlborough Place | N.W
May 10th 1880
My dear Darwin
You are the cheeriest letter writer I know & always help a man to think the best of his doings1 I hope you do not imagine because I had nothing to say about ‘Natural Selection’ that I am at all weak of faith on that article2 On the contrary I live in hope that as paleontologists work more & more in the manner of that ‘second Daniel come to judgment’ that wise young man Mr. Filhol we shall arrive at a crushing accumulation of evidence in that direction also3 But the first thing seems to me to be to drive the fact of evolution into peoples heads—when that is once safe the rest will come easy
I hear that ce cher Elam is yelping about again—but in spite of your provocative messages (which Rachel retailed with great glee) I am not going to attack him nor anybody else—4
I wish it were not such a long story—that I could tell you all about the dogs—they will make such a case for ‘Darwinismus’ as never was5 From the South American dogs at the bottom (C. vetulus cancrivorus &c) to the wolves at the top there is a regular gradual progression the range of variation of each ‘species’ overlapping the ranges of those below & above Moreover as to the domestic dogs I think I can prove that the small dogs are modified jackals & the big dogs ditto wolves I have been getting capital material from India and working the whole affair out on the basis of measurements of skulls & teeth6
However my paper for the Zoological Society is finished & I hope soon to send you a copy of it7
We were at Balliol yesterday on a visit to the Master & of inspection of our boy who seems as happy as need be & is getting on very well8
With kindest remembrances to Mrs Darwin | Ever | Yours very truly | T H Huxley
Footnotes
Bibliography
Alum. Oxon.: Alumni Oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford, 1500–1886: … with a record of their degrees. Being the matriculation register of the university. Alphabetically arranged, revised, and annotated by Joseph Foster. 8 vols. London and Oxford: Parker & Co. 1887–91.
Elam, Charles. 1880. The gospel of evolution. Contemporary Review 37: 713–40.
Huxley, Leonard, ed. 1900. Life and letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. 2 vols. London: Macmillan.
Huxley, Thomas Henry. 1880c. The coming of age of the Origin of Species. Nature, 6 May 1880, pp. 1–4.
Huxley, Thomas Henry. 1880d. On the cranial and dental characters of the Canidæ. [Read 6 April 1880.] Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1880): 238–88.
Summary
Hopes CD does not think his faith in natural selection is weak because he omitted mention of it in his lecture.
Is working on dogs. They will make a case for "Darwinismus".
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12603
- From
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Marlborough Place, 4
- Source of text
- DAR 166: 352
- Physical description
- ALS 7pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12603,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12603.xml