To J. D. Hooker 24 December [1856]1
Down Bromley Kent
Decr 24th
My dear Hooker
I am particularly glad of the reference about Leguminosæ, as I am at a dead lock with regard to them.2 Botanists seem to differ so much about Campanulaceæ, that I have given them up almost in despair, & cannot but think old C. C. Sprengel was right.—3
What a letter of Col. Portlock;4 it beats hollow all the many proofs which I have seen how little men, who are not naturalists, understand of Nat. History.—
I shall write to Harvey as it will cost him only a brief answer.—5
How I do wish I lived near you to discuss matters with.— I have just been comparing definitions of species, & stating briefly how systematic naturalists work out their subject:—Aquilegia in F. Indica was a capital example for me.—6 It is really laughable to see what different ideas are prominent in various naturalists minds, when they speak of “species” in some resemblance is everything & descent of little weight—in some resemblance seems to go for nothing & Creation the reigning idea—in some descent the key—in some sterility an unfailing test, with others not worth a farthing. It all comes, I believe, from trying to define the undefinable.
I suppose you have lost the odd black seed from Birds Dung, which germinated— anyhow it is not worth taking trouble over— I have now got about a dozen seeds out of small Birds dung.—7
Adios— | My dear Hooker | Ever yours | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Sprengel, Christian Konrad. 1793. Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen. Berlin: Friedrich Vieweg.
Summary
On the variety of species definitions prevalent among naturalists.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2022
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 114: 187
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2022,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2022.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6