To J. D. Hooker 25 December [1868]1
Down
Dec 25
My dear Hooker
Thanks for the interesting letter; I can however hardly believe that each Var. of the grasshopper has always been bred in its own district. What a pity she did not enclose under glass, living specimens on differently coloured surfaces.2
I am very glad to hear that you are going on with yr flora.3 Wd it be worth while my looking through my M.S index of Gardener’s Chron. for any little facts for you.4
Now I want to beg for assistance for the new Ed. of Origin.5 Nägeli justly urges that plants offer many morphological differences, which from being of no service cannot have been selected, & which he accounts for by an innate principle of progressive development. I find old notes about this difficulty, but I have hitherto slurred it over.6 Nägeli gives as instances the alternate & spiral arrangement of leaves, & the arrangement of the cells in the tissues.7 Wd you not consider as a morpholog. difference the trimerous tetramerous &c divisions of flowers,—the ovules being erect or suspended, their attachment being parietal or placental,—& even the shape of the seed when of no service to the plant.
Now I have thought, & want to show, that such differences follow in some unexplained manner from the growth or development of plants which have passed thro’ a long series of adaptive changes. Any how I want to shew that these differences do not support the idea of progressive development.8 Cassini states that the ovaria on the circumference & centre of Compos. flowers differ in essential characters, & so do the seeds in sculpture.9 The seeds of umbelliferæ in the same relative positions are coelospermous & orthospermous.10 There is a case given by Aug. St Hilaire of an erect & suspended ovule in the same ovarium, but perhaps this hardly bears on the point.11 The summit flower in Adoxa & rue differ from the lower flowers;12 What is difference in flowers of the Rue? how is the ovarium? especially in the rue? as Aug. St Hilaire insists on the locularity of the ovarium varying on the same plant in some of the rutaceæ.—13 Such differences do not speak, as it seems to me, in favour of progressive Development.—Will you turn subject in your mind, & tell me any sure facts.— Differences in structure in flowers in different parts of same plant, seem best to show that they are result of growth or position or amt of nutriment.—
I have got your Photograph over my chimney-piece & like it much;14 but you look down so sharp on me that I shall never be bold enough to wriggle myself out of any contradiction—
Yours affect. | C. Darwin
Owen pitches into me & Lyell in grand style in last chapt of vol. 3 of Anat. of Vertebrates.—15 He is a cool hand— he puts words from me in inverted commas & alters them.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Cassini, Henri. 1826–34. Opuscules phytologiques. 3 vols. Paris: F. G. Levrault.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
Nägeli, Carl Wilhelm von. 1865. Entstehung und Begriff der naturhistorischen Art. 2d edition. Munich: Verlag der königl. Akademie.
OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.
Origin 5th ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 5th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1869.
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.
Owen, Richard. 1866–8. On the anatomy of vertebrates. 3 vols. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
Summary
Is working on new edition of Origin [5th (1869)].
Asks JDH’s assistance on a problem posed by Nägeli on morphological differences that are of no utility to plants and hence could not be selected. CD wants to show that these differences do not support the idea of progressive development as Nägeli suggests.
Owen pitches into CD and Lyell in third volume of Anatomy of vertebrates [1866–8].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6512
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 94: 105–7
- Physical description
- LS(A) 6pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6512,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6512.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16