From Raphael Meldola 12 March 1872
Star Chemical Works, | Brentford, | W.
March 12th. 1872
Dear Sir,
I made notes of one or two of the facts given by Fritz Müller in the letter which you were good enough to submit to my perusal some time since.1 Do you think that this gentleman would have any objection to my publishing them in my forthcoming paper—provided of course you have no intention of doing so yourself.2 I may remark that it is only the facts that I want—as you advise, I should not dare to publish his view that ♀ butterflies have their tastes altered by constantly seeing other beautiful forms inhabiting the same district. It is a proposition at present incapable of proof. The specimens accompanying Fritz Müller’s letter, for the loan of which I am much obliged to you, I shall shortly return. Many specimens ranked by Müller as one species have been resolved by my friend Mr. A. G. Butler into several species & this considerably alters the views expressed by Müller in his letter. I will send you the names of the species with the specimens.
The case of mimicry by a ♂ butterfly only to which you referred me was given by Mr. Butler in “Nature”—3 This gentleman has since told me of other cases in which ♂s are better mimics than their ♀. These cases I propose publishing as telling against Mr. Wallace’s statement that no ♂ mimic only is known.4
I have just perused with interest the 6th. ed. of your “Origin”— I was always impressed with the idea that the theory of Nat. Selec. had nothing to fear from Mr. Mivart’s “Genesis of Species”5 & in a very warm (but entirely one-sided) debate at the London Union6 in which, (against every speaker that rose), I maintained the proposition that you had satisfactorily demonstrated the descent of man from some lower animal, I had to reply in chief part to objections taken from Mr. Mivart’s work. Your recent reply to this zoologist’s objections is to my mind eminently satisfactory, & Prof. Huxley’s criticism in “Contemporary Review” appears also to have completely answered his theological & ethical objections.7
Believe me to be, | Yours with respect, | Raphael Meldola.
C. Darwin Esq, M.A. &c.
Footnotes
Bibliography
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.
Meldola, Raphael. 1873. On a certain class of cases of variable protective colouring in insects. [Read 4 February 1873.] Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1873): 153–62.
Origin 6th ed.: The origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 6th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.
Summary
Wishes to use some of Fritz Müller’s observations in his paper on mimicry.
CD’s reply and Huxley’s article ["Mr Darwin’s critics", Contemp. Rev. 18 (1871): 443–76] have answered all of Mivart’s objections to natural selection as applied to man.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8240
- From
- Raphael Meldola
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Star Chemical Works, Brentford
- Source of text
- DAR 171: 119
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8240,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8240.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 20
