From G. H. Lewes 8 August 1868
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
8th. Augt 1868
Dear Mr Darwin
You can understand how deeply gratified I am by your approval, which is all the more pleasant because I have the best reasons for supposing that the articles have not been much liked by the public of the Review— the editor is urgent that they should close! I am also indebted to you for your notes, & hope I may be allowed to use them in the Reprint.1
As to my absurdly obscure sentence—which I see now to be obscure—it was meant to express a very plain position, namely that from very different starting points a similar result might be reached.2 A pus cell or a blood corpuscle has a genesis wholly distinct from the forms indistinguably similar which are produced in a viscid substance by slow imbibition— here a difference of genesis & an identity of form are demonstrable. In animal identities a like difference of origin (genesis) is conceivable.
I am not defending my phrase which will be abolished—only hinting that I had an idea to express.
You have no doubt seen it but if not may be interested in Kowalefsky’s Memoir on the Development of Amphioxus in the St. Petersburg Academy Memoirs (tome XI: No 4).3 It has made me restless with desire to find myself somewhere on the Mediterranean coast with a supply of embryos! His observations are all in favor of your view & against mine.—which is not pleasant (for me).
Believe me | Yours very sincerely | G H Lewes
Charles Darwin Esq
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Lewes, George Henry. 1868b. Mr. Darwin’s hypotheses. Fortnightly Review n.s. 3: 353–73, 611–28; 4: 61–80, 492–509.
Summary
Gratified by CD’s approval of his articles, which the public has not much liked.
Clarifies the obscure sentence CD criticised – forms having a different genesis can be similar.
Calls CD’s attention to Kovalevsky’s memoir on Amphioxus [Mem. Acad. Imp. Sci. St.-Pétersbourg 7th ser. 11 (1868) no.4]. K’s views are all in favour of CD’s and against GHL’s.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6309
- From
- George Henry Lewes
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Regents Park
- Source of text
- DAR 99: 31–2
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6309,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6309.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16