To Frances Power Cobbe 23 March [1870?]1
Down Beckenham | Kent.
Mar 23.
My dear Miss Cobbe
It was very good of you to send me nolens volens Kant, together with the other book.2 I have been extremely glad to look through the former. It has interested me much to see how differently two men may look at the same points, though I fully feel how presumptuous it sounds to put myself even for a moment in the same bracket with Kant;—the one man a great philosopher looking exclusively into his own mind, the other a degraded wretch looking from the outside thro’ apes & savages at the moral sense of mankind.
I have glanced thro’ the cut pages of Despine, but he appears to me far from being an original & vigorous thinker, but many of his facts about criminals seem very curious.
The book shall be sent to London by our carrier tonight, & thence to you by Parcels Del. Co.3
With sincere thanks | pray believe me | yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Cobbe, Frances Power. 1904. Life of Frances Power Cobbe as told by herself. Posthumous edition. London: Swan Sonnenschein.
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.
Despine, Prosper. 1868. Psychologie naturelle: étude sur les facultés intellectuelles et morales dans leur état normal et dans leur manifestations anomales chez les aliénés et chez les criminels. Paris: F. Savy.
Kant, Immanuel. 1836. Metaphysics of ethics. Translated by J. W. Semple. Edinburgh: T. Clark.
Post Office directory of the six home counties: Post Office directory of the six home counties, viz., Essex, Herts, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey and Sussex. London: W. Kelly & Co. 1845–78.
Summary
Has read and enjoyed the Kant that FPC sent.
Returns P. C. Despine [?Psychologie naturelle (1868)].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7145
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Frances Power Cobbe
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- The Huntington Library (CB 385)
- Physical description
- LS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7145,” accessed on 1 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7145.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18