Summary

Sets a time for CD to call.

Summary

Will not be returning to London for a week; writes to save CD’s calling.

Summary

Is not prepared to express an opinion on man’s origin. On pure anatomical grounds he would form a family of the higher division of the primates, but if man’s intellectual, moral, and religious nature is considered, then "he differs more from an Anthropoid Ape than such an Ape differs from a lump of granite".

Summary

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

Summary

Apologises for saying more than was necessary in his previous letter. Although he feels gratitude and esteem for CD, he execrates those who use natural selection to oppose man’s higher interests and impede his advance. Has seen Huxley’s Man’s place in nature for sale among a crowd of obscenities at most Italian railway stations.

Summary

Asks by what action CD believes bee, spider, and fly orchids came to resemble their namesakes

and how the beauty of bivalves could have been produced by natural or sexual selection.

Summary

In his reply to [7227] CD questions the significance of the supposed likeness of the bee, spider, and fly orchids to their presumed namesakes.

He thinks that the beauty of shells is altogether incidental and of no use to the animals.

Summary

On amount of modification and lines of descent in determining the position in man.

Reference to StGJM’s article "On the appendicular skeleton of the primates" Phil. Trans. R. Soc. [157 (1867): 299–430],

and his [and James Murie’s] article on lemurs ["On the anatomy of Lemuroidea"] Trans. Zool. Soc. [7 (1872): 1–114].