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To John Lubbock   15 February [1868]1

Down,

Feb. 15, 1860.

My dear Lubbock—

Many thanks for Anthropological Review returned.2 Thanks also about buds and ovary. I wish I had remembered your discussion. I have now alluded to it in 2nd Edition. Taking the whole sense of Müller’s pages, especially one passage further on, I still think that he meant to say that buds and germs were essentially the same, but it is far more doubtful than I supposed.3 I have been reading your address to Ent. Soc.; and the number of first rate papers to which you refer is quite appalling.4 How do you find time to search up so much matter? I have nothing else to do, and do not hear of half so many papers. It is very unfair of you! Do you take in the Zeitschaft fur Wissen. Zoolog.; if so, can you lend me vol. xvii. p. 1, with Landois’ “On Noises of Insects”?5

Also can you lend me Desmarest on ‘Crustacea,’—a thick pinkish volume, if you have it. I want to look at sexual differences.6 I have been looking at your papers and figures in March and May, and have been fairly astonished (for I had nearly forgotten) at the wonderful structure of the geniculated antennae of male; but I wish you had figured both antennæ, i.e. the pair, in their proper position: I should have liked to have given a copy in a wood cut.7

If you ever arrive at any definite conclusion, either wholly or partially for or against Pangenesis, I should very much like to hear; for I settled some time ago, that I should think more of Huxley’s and your opinion, from the course of your studies and clearness of mind, than of that of any other man in England.8 H. Spencer’s views, I hear from him, are quite different from mine: he says he shall think over the subject, but apparently he does not yet quite understand what I mean.9

There is a rather nice Review of you in last Athenæum and a very unnice one of my book; I suspect, from two or three little points, by Owen.—10

Ever yours very truly, | C. Darwin.

Footnotes

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from John Lubbock, 12 February [1868]. The date given in the published source, Hutchinson 1914, is in error.
2
CD may refer to the January issue of Anthropological Review; it included the article ‘Darwinism in Germany’, a review of Friedrich Rolle’s Der Mensch (Rolle 1866).
3
See letter from John Lubbock, 12 February [1868] and n. 3. CD had cited Johannes Müller’s Elements of physiology (J. Müller 1838–42) in Variation.
4
CD refers to Lubbock’s presidential address to the Entomological Society of London on 27 January 1868 (Lubbock 1868). CD’s annotated copy is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
5
Hermann Landois’s article, ‘Die Ton- und Stimmapparate der Insecten in anatomisch-physiologischer und akustischer Beziehung’ was published in the first issue of volume 17 of Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie (Landois 1867). A copy of the issue is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL; Landois’s article is annotated. It is cited extensively in Descent. Lubbock had summarised the article in his presidential address (Lubbock 1868, pp. cxv–vii).
6
CD discussed secondary sexual characters in Crustacea in Descent 1: 328–37. Anselme-Gaëtan Desmarest’s Considérations générales sur la classe des Crustacés (Desmarest 1825) is not cited.
7
CD refers to Lubbock’s papers on Crustacea in Annals and Magazine of Natural History (Lubbock 1853a–c). One of these papers illustrated the right antenna of a male Labidocera (Lubbock 1853a). CD referred to these papers in Descent 1: 329, n. 5; he included the figure from Lubbock 1853a, and described how the antenna of the male served as a prehensile organ for holding the female. See also Correspondence vol. 17, letter to John Lubbock, 3 August 1869.
8
CD refers to his chapter ‘Provisional hypothesis of pangenesis’ (Variation 2: 357–404) and to Thomas Henry Huxley.
10
The Athenaeum review of Variation was by John Robertson, not Richard Owen ([Robertson] 1868a). There was a review of Nilsson 1868, a work of Scandinavian ethnography with an introduction by Lubbock, in the same issue (pp. 245–6).

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.

Desmarest, Anselm-Gaëtan. 1825. Considérations générales sur la classe des crustacés: et description des espèces de ces animaux, qui vivent dans la mer, sur les côtes, ou dans les eaux douces de la France. Paris: F. G. Levrault.

Hutchinson, Horace Gordon. 1914. Life of Sir John Lubbock, Lord Avebury. 2 vols. London: Macmillan.

Landois, Hermann. 1867. Die Ton- und Stimmapparate der Insecten in anatomisch-physiologisher und akusticher Beziehung. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie 17: 105–84.

Lubbock, John. 1868. The president’s address. [Read 27 January 1868.] Transactions of the Entomological Society of London 3d ser. 5 (1865–7): cxiii–cxxxi.

Müller, Johannes. 1838–42. Elements of physiology. Translated from the German by William Baly. 2 vols. London: Taylor and Walton.

Nilsson, Sven. 1868. The primitive inhabitants of Scandanavia: an essay on comparative ethnography, and a contribution to the history of the development of mankind. Containing a description of the implements, dwellings, tombs, and mode of living of the savages in the north of Europe during the Stone Age. Edited by John Lubbock. 3d edition. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.

Rolle, Friedrich. 1866. Der Mensch, seine Abstammung und Gesittung, im Lichte der Darwin’schen Lehre von der Art-Entstehung und auf Grundlage der neuern geologischen Entdeckungen dargestellt. Frankfurt: J. C. Hermann.

Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.

Summary

Returns Anthropological Review.

Asks to borrow Desmarest on Crustacea [Considérations générales sur la classe des crustacés (1825)].

Has been reading JL’s address to the Entomological Society [Trans. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. 3d. ser. 5 (1865–7): cxiii–cxxxi].

Would like to hear JL’s conclusion for or against Pangenesis.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-5881
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Hutchinson 1914, 1: 48

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5881,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5881.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16

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