Dear Sir

It is a pleasure to me to answer as far as I can any enquiry from so earnest a student of science as yourself¹

Unfortunately I have never studied political economy, and it has always seemed to me a very abstruse subject. Nevertheless I cannot doubt that it would be very interesting if discussed under the light of the principle of evolution. M^r Bagehot has partially so considered political economy or more strictly speaking, politics, in relation to primitive races of man, as may be seen in his ‘Physics and Politics’ a volume of the International Series²

With respect to the moral sense, I have discussed its source in the first volume of my Descent of Man, and after having read many hostile criticisms, still think that I have thrown some light on its development³

With much respect | Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin