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From T. H. Huxley   10 May 1880

4 Marlborough Place | N.W

May 10th 1880

My dear Darwin

You are the cheeriest letter writer I know & always help a man to think the best of his doings1 I hope you do not imagine because I had nothing to say about ‘Natural Selection’ that I am at all weak of faith on that article2 On the contrary I live in hope that as paleontologists work more & more in the manner of that ‘second Daniel come to judgment’ that wise young man Mr. Filhol we shall arrive at a crushing accumulation of evidence in that direction also3 But the first thing seems to me to be to drive the fact of evolution into peoples heads—when that is once safe the rest will come easy

I hear that ce cher Elam is yelping about again—but in spite of your provocative messages (which Rachel retailed with great glee) I am not going to attack him nor anybody else—4

I wish it were not such a long story—that I could tell you all about the dogs—they will make such a case for ‘Darwinismus’ as never was5 From the South American dogs at the bottom (C. vetulus cancrivorus &c) to the wolves at the top there is a regular gradual progression the range of variation of each ‘species’ overlapping the ranges of those below & above   Moreover as to the domestic dogs I think I can prove that the small dogs are modified jackals & the big dogs ditto wolves  I have been getting capital material from India and working the whole affair out on the basis of measurements of skulls & teeth6

However my paper for the Zoological Society is finished & I hope soon to send you a copy of it7

We were at Balliol yesterday on a visit to the Master & of inspection of our boy who seems as happy as need be & is getting on very well8

With kindest remembrances to Mrs Darwin | Ever | Yours very truly | T H Huxley

Footnotes

2
Huxley had published an article titled ‘The coming of age of the Origin of Species’ in Nature, 6 May 1880 (T. H. Huxley 1880c).
3
The Biblical character Daniel was renowned as a wise judge, but the phrase used here is from William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, 4.1.335. According to Huxley, Henri Filhol’s fossil discovery of the common progenitor of cats, dogs, bears, civets, hyenas, and raccoons was among the evidence that contributed to making animal evolution ‘no longer a speculation, but a statement of historical fact’ (T. H. Huxley 1880c, p. 4).
4
Ce cher: that dear (French). Charles Elam published ‘The gospel of evolution’ in the Contemporary Review in response to Huxley’s lecture ‘On the coming of age of the Origin of Species’; Elam expressed his doubts about CD’s ‘doctrines’, especially the theory of natural selection, criticised Huxley for claiming that evolution was now established as a fact, and concluded that organic evolution was a mere figment of the intellect (Elam 1880; T. H. Huxley 1880c). Rachel Huxley was Huxley’s daughter.
5
On 6 and 13 April, at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Huxley had delivered two lectures, ‘On dogs and the problems connected with them’, in which he gave a complete survey of the dog family, both wild and domestic (L. Huxley ed. 1900, 2: 10). The lectures were never published, but a short report on the first one appeared in The Times, 7 April 1880, p. 7.
6
Huxley had been sent skulls from India by Joseph Fayrer (L. Huxley ed. 1900, 2: 11). Canis vetulus is a synonym of Lycalopex vetulus (the hoary fox); C. cancrivorus is a synonym of Cerdocyon thous (the crab-eating fox). Neither species is closely related to true foxes; they are more closely related to dogs.
7
Huxley refers to his paper ‘On the cranial and dental characters of the Canidae’ (T. H. Huxley 1880d).
8
Huxley’s son Leonard Huxley had matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, on 21 January 1880 (Alum. Oxon.). The master of the college was Edward Caird.

Bibliography

Alum. Oxon.: Alumni Oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford, 1500–1886: … with a record of their degrees. Being the matriculation register of the university. Alphabetically arranged, revised, and annotated by Joseph Foster. 8 vols. London and Oxford: Parker & Co. 1887–91.

Elam, Charles. 1880. The gospel of evolution. Contemporary Review 37: 713–40.

Huxley, Leonard, ed. 1900. Life and letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. 2 vols. London: Macmillan.

Huxley, Thomas Henry. 1880c. The coming of age of the Origin of Species. Nature, 6 May 1880, pp. 1–4.

Huxley, Thomas Henry. 1880d. On the cranial and dental characters of the Canidæ. [Read 6 April 1880.] Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1880): 238–88.

Summary

Hopes CD does not think his faith in natural selection is weak because he omitted mention of it in his lecture.

Is working on dogs. They will make a case for "Darwinismus".

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12603
From
Thomas Henry Huxley
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
London, Marlborough Place, 4
Source of text
DAR 166: 352
Physical description
ALS 7pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12603,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12603.xml

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