From Charles Lyell 15 June 1860
June 15— 1860
Your comparison of Selection to the Architect—variations to the stones, is what I deduced from some passages but cannot accept.1 The architect who plans beforehand & executes his thoughts & invents the Corinthian & other styles of architecture & then by means of machinery, living & inanimate, cranes & horses & even sometimes intelligent men (forman allowed some discretion & power of choosing) such an architect must not be confounded in his functions with the humble office of the most sagacious of breeders. As I have said all along it is the deification of Natural Selection.
Footnotes
Summary
Rejects CD’s comparison of natural selection with the architect of a building. The architect who plans and oversees construction should not be confused in his function with the wisest breeder. That would be to deify natural selection.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2832A
- From
- Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Source of text
- The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 108–9)
- Physical description
- CC 2pp CC
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2832A,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2832A.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8