From H. E. Litchfield [13 November 1871]1
1 C.P.2
Monday
Dear Father
Thanks for Abbott letter.3 I’m sorry to say I don’t much like its tone. I call it flabby & it lowers my opinion of him. His sending the 50 dollars too shows a great want of judgement.— However this is beside the point— what I meant to beg you to consider very seriously is whether it isn’t a great pity that you should lend your name to any religious movement whatever. If you write any sentence to be printed it will mean so m. more than that you have read through the Truths for the Times once or twice & were much struck with them.4 I consider that is in your private capacity just as Jones or Smith might be struck—but printing it as the Author of the Origin it ought to & will mean very much more than I think it has a right to mean— I don’t want you to commit yourself to any definite opinions in the religious scientific questions. You have not time or strength to go in for it thoroughly. & then speaking of it damages you as a scientific man & does not do a compensating good to free thought— I feel so profound a conviction that to let people draw their own inferences if they feel that you have no party spirit will be such an infinitely stronger lever. I have felt so thankful you were not as Tyndall—5 You ought to be as careful of your fair fame as Cæsars wife or whomever it was.6 I feel very stupid this morning & can only just scrattle down my thoughts which have been coming to a head since I read Abbotts letter & wh. have been ripened by talking it over with R.7 R. & I are both rather unhappy that yr name is down for Voysey— You don’t care 2d abt Voysey’s new Church— you only think he has fought a good fight (wherein I don’t agree for I think he fought an unworthy fight) but I don’t like you to be ticketted as a Voyseyite—8 I think it damaging to you.
Forgive this cool lecture dear Father I’m too stupid to make it not read so bald & dictatorial— I only mean it is my deliberate opinion— | Ever your faithful | Rhadamantha9
Send word how much time you can allow for reading M.S. | R. & I will be delighted to read over Music M.S carefully.10
Footnotes
Bibliography
Abbot, Francis Ellingwood. [1870.] Truths for the times. Mount Pleasant, Ramsgate: Thomas Scott.
Barton, Ruth. 1987. John Tyndall, pantheist: a rereading of the Belfast address. Osiris 2d ser. 3: 111–34.
Summary
Does not want CD to put his name to any religious movement. Discourages giving money to Abbott or Voysey.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8054F
- From
- Henrietta Emma Darwin/Henrietta Emma Litchfield
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Source of text
- Cornford Family Papers (DAR 275: 41)
- Physical description
- ALS 7pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8054F,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8054F.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24 (Supplement)