Summary

Pleased to have encouraged CD to look at Kant.

Summary

Copies of the French translation of Orchids were sent to C. V. Naudin, Quatrefages de Bréau, and Charles Martins at CD’s request and to Duchartre, Brongniart, Baillon, Lecoq, Godron, and Alphonse de Candolle on Rérolle’s initiative.

Summary

Has not heard of Curtis on Dionaea.

Duke of Argyll is clever, but it is a sin to speak of a real old Duke as a "little beggar".

"My theology is a simple muddle: I cannot look at the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent Design."

On spontaneous generation and Bastian.

Summary

Believes AG’s cases of incipient dimorphism are due to mere variability. Has found examples in Nolana and Amsinckia; believes such variation is the basis for the development of dimorphism. Was unaware of variations in Phlox.

Sensitivity of Drosera and Dionaea.

Summary

Thanks JL for his book [Origin of civilization (1870)], which he has read with "extreme interest". Wishes JL had published four or five months earlier as CD would have "so profited & saved so much work". CD will have to modify some of what he has written [in Descent]. Sees they differ a good deal about moral sense "but hardly two men ever do agree on this perplexing subject".

JL’s note of the 16th [see 7277] about the Census arrived too late for CD to answer.

Summary

Sends seeds from R. L. Playfair in Algiers.

F. Delpino writes asking where M. A. Curtis has published physiological observations on Dionaea ["Enumeration of plants growing spontaneously around Wilmington, North Carolina", Boston J. Nat. Hist. 1 (1834–7): 82–140; see Insectivorous plants, p. 301 n.].

Talk with Duke of Argyll on CD’s and Wallace’s views on man.

Summary

CD lost first round of nominations at the Académie Française to Jean-Frédéric de Brandt. QdeB and Milne-Edwards continue the battle, but CD is fiercely attacked.

Asks for complete citation of CD’s geological work on South America because it has to be shown he did more than collect objects.

Summary

Plans to visit Down in a week.

Summary

Has no chance of paying his debts, and asks for money.

Summary

Printed acknowledgment of the receipt of a letter.

Summary

Query [possibly for publication] on ridges and furrows in pasture-land that had been ploughed long ago. Gives directions for measuring ridges on sloping land.

Summary

Brief observations on expression in Africa.

Alexander Agassiz is a good investigator, who differs with his father on evolution.

The behaviour of women and savages is a little easier to understand than that of civilised men.

Summary

Thanks QdeB for his continued support of CD’s election to French Academy.

Discusses views of Milne-Edwards on species.

Comments on views of Élie de Beaumont.

"I fear my next book [Descent] … will greatly displease you."

Summary

Thanks StGJM for prompt answer correcting inaccuracies in CD’s notes on StGJM’s opinions. Expects "universal disapprobation" when he publishes Descent.

Summary

Encloses part of letter from Fritz Müller on Passiflora, with seeds.

Is endeavouring to have included in next census a question as to whether the parents in each household are cousins.

Summary

Thanks CD for compliments on the first part of his "discours",

but the later part was critical of natural selection. Nevertheless, CD should see him not as a systematic adversary, but in the camp of Quatrefages de Bréau and Milne-Edwards.

Summary

CD has been nominated as a Membre Associé of the Belgian Royal Academy.

Discusses crustacean embryology; EvB is at variance with Dohrn.

Summary

Concerning an American edition of Descent by Appleton’s.

Summary

Returns H. C. Watson’s letter.

CD must study JDH’s manner of arrangement of varieties and subspecies, etc.

Summary

Has sent F. Müller "a long screed" about the Passiflora.