Summary

Thanks RM for information on case of hexadactyly [see RM’s paper, "Hexadactylism", Land and Water, 11 March 1871, p. 179.

Summary

He has found passage on false belief, Variation 2: 414, and does not think the whole with context is dogmatic. [Encloses copy of the passage.]

Summary

Responds to ARW’s comments on CD’s argument about protection in Descent.

Comments on St G. Mivart’s criticism [Genesis of species (1871)]. "The pendulum will now swing against us."

Summary

Thanks JVC for his corrections. Will send other errata. Hopes to send remainder of vol. 2 [of Descent] in a fortnight.

Summary

Returns pamphlets.

B. T. Lowne’s observation [Mon. Microsc. J. 4 (1870): 326–30] that boiling does not kill certain moulds is curious, but then how account for absence of all living things in Pasteur’s experiment?

Always delighted to see a word in favour of Pangenesis.

Thiselton-Dyer’s paper ["On spontaneous generation and evolution", Q. J. Microsc. Sci. 10 (1870): 333–54] is Spencerian.

The chemical conditions for first production of life are said to exist at present, but in some warm little pond today such matter would be absorbed or devoured, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.

Summary

Sends questions on expressions of Laura Bridgman.

Has finished Descent. Believes that parts, like that on moral sense, will aggravate AG.

Working on an essay on expression.

Summary

Will send copy of Descent.

Comments on JC-B’s MS on expression among insane. Asks about weeping in insane men. Do idiots laugh when pleased?

Thanks for photographs of insane. Asks for additional photographs.

Comments on Henry Maudsley [Body and mind (1870)].

Pointed ears in the insane.

Summary

Hopes German edition [of Descent] has not yet been printed because he has fallen into a most serious blunder [about sexual selection never acting on the young] on pp. 297–9 of vol. 1.

Summary

"I have made a serious blunder in p. 297, vol 1 of my book [Descent of man]. Kindly inform me by return of post whether this is printed in Dutch; for if not I will send you a correction in M.S. There are also two short omissions to be made in Vol. 2 … "

Summary

Discusses publication of Descent. Orders copies of vol. 2 sent to Wallace, Mivart, and F. P. Cobbe.

Will attend Athenaeum and vote for RC.

Summary

Sends corrections for French edition of Descent.

Summary

JC-B’s MS most useful.

P. Gratiolet’s observations on contraction and dilation of pupils of eye of a person in extreme terror. Has JC-B ever observed this? Expression has been his hobby-horse for 30 years.

Summary

Thanks HHHvZ for a memoir

and answers some queries;

mentions some corrections for his Dutch translation of Descent.

Summary

Receipt for payment by John Murray of £630 for the first edition, consisting of 2500 copies, of Descent.

Summary

Will send F. Du Cane Godman’s book [Natural history of the Azores (1870)] as soon as he returns home.

Summary

Thinks JT’s discovery of a glycerine respirator is an interesting practical discovery. CD has been wondering about the hairs in our nostrils, but doubts that JT has explained their function, since there are hardly enough.

Will ask W. Ogle to observe hairs in nostrils of different races.

Summary

Says Descent is "selling like Mad.––" Murray will print another 1500 or 2000 copies. Has received £630 for the 2500.

On Monday he visited Mivart, who is a charming man.

He seemed to be taken aback by CD’s points about the larynx and giraffe.

[See 7507 and 7519.]

He seemed to have forgotten CD’s argument regarding the formation of the greyhound.

Discussed the larynx and the silence of the Cetaceans.

If FD mentions any of this to [Marlborough Robert] Pryor, ask him not to mention it to anyone else "as it is perhaps rather a breach of confidence to repeat even to friends private conversation."

Summary

Ogle will keep JT’s suggestion in mind in observing less hairy races of man and the lower animals.

Asks JT whether he can help Ogle on a troublesome point on the colour of tissues with olfactory nerves, and the relation of colour to the absorption of odours. Does JT’s respirator deprive odorous substances of their smell?

Summary

Ogle is unacquainted with JT; would be proud and pleased to call on him. CD likes what little he has seen of him.

Summary

Comments on Descent.

EH’s refusal of position at Vienna.