From J. D. Hooker [16? October 1864]1
Kew
Sunday.
Dr. Darwin
Harvey will answer you categorically from Dublin whither he goes on Thursday.2
I thought Huxley’s article splendid:3—the best in the number Thomson wrote the article on Agardh,4 it is well done, but too favorable; Agardhs book is very curious, but full of paradox & mistakings of analogy for affinity,5 & so horridly jumbled that it is impossible to make any use of it, if use it has. The article fails to show that the book contains any really valuable novel matter.
I am not up in Oxlips, what is the true O. & what the Badsfield?.—6 What is the use of your making the Cowslip & Primrose good species by results of crossing, if Scott finds that red & yellow var: of Cowslip won’t breed!.7 We fall back on the idea of difference of species being only practicably defineable by morphological difference;—but then morphological species are d— —d uninteresting things compared with Physiological species!8
Ever yr affec | J D Hooker.
CD annotations9
Footnotes
Bibliography
Agardh, Jacob Georg. 1858. Theoria systematis plantarum; accedit familiarum phanerogamarum in series naturales dispositio, secundum structuræ normas et evolutionis gradus instituta. Lund, Sweden: C. W. K. Gleerup.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Macmillan dictionary of the history of science. Edited by W. F. Bynum et al. London and Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press. 1981.
McOuat, Gordon R. 1996. Species, rules and meaning: the politics of language and the ends of definitions in nineteenth century natural history. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 27: 473–519.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
[Thomson, Thomas]. 1864. Agardh’s classification of plants. [Review of Theoria systematis plantarum, by J. G. Agardh.] Natural History Review n.s. 4: 536–51.
Summary
Morphological differences only partly define species; physiological differences, e.g., incompatibility results in Primula, are far more interesting.
T. Thomson’s review of Agardh’s muddled book ["Agardh’s classification of plants", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1864): 536–51].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4638
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 101: 246, 246a
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4638,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4638.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12