From John Farr 7 July 1873
Highgate, Middlesex
July 7th 1873
Dear Sir
I have never seen or conversed with you, and never may, our social positions widely differ. and “Who but wishes To invert, the laws of order Sins against the Eternal Cause”.1
I am a convert to your theory of Natural Selection, and the above lines of Pope seem to me perfectly consonant to that theory. Indeed, since perusing your Book2 I have seen more real harmony and Order in the world than I ever discovered before.
Sir, I should much like to have your Photograph in a letter, if it is not taking too great a liberty in asking you.
I am a working man among working men,3 and we frequently have discussions about Natural Selection. Many persons think that your theory of Natural Selection tends to shake the foundations of Faith My reply to that argument is, that Faith divorced from Reason is nonsense; and Religion divorced from Philosophy is equally so.
Moreover, Faith like Species, is constantly presenting us which new phazes, and is no more permanent than species are permanent.
The Faith of creeds is constantly changing, and has been through all time.
However, I don’t see what this has to do with natural selection at all.
The one is a natural study subject to observation and sense, the other a psycological one.
I am Sir | your obedient servant | John Farr
North Hill, Highgate, N.
Chas Darwin Esqr
Footnotes
Bibliography
Pope, Alexander. 1733–4. An essay on man. Address’d to a friend. 4 pts. London: J. Wilford.
Summary
Would like a photograph of CD.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8968
- From
- John Farr
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Highgate
- Source of text
- DAR 164: 27
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8968,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8968.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 21