From W. S. Dallas 5 February 1880
Geological Society, | Burlington House, W.
5 Feby. 1880
My dear Mr. Darwin
I have no doubt you are quite right in abstaining from replying to Butler, & as you who are so much more aggrieved than I am let him alone, I think I may do so too.—1 If Krause would reply to him it would be the most satisfactory thing, for although by a judicious use of the pronoun “he” in the last paragraph of his letter Mr. Butler manages to leave his readers in doubt whether he charges Krause or me with having made unacknowledged use of his work, the reference must properly be to Krause.—2
The latter gentleman no doubt is acquainted with Butler’s work, which, indeed, he criticized in some of the MS. parts translated by me but not printed.—3
If you will send me the MS. of Mr. Francis Darwin’s lecture I will look through it to see whether it will suit me for Pop. Sci. Review but I am afraid I shall be unable to put it with the next (April) number.—4 I am very much obliged to you & to him for the kind offer of it.—
Believe me | Yours very truly | W. S. Dallas
Footnotes
Bibliography
Barton, Ruth. 2014. Sunday lecture societies: naturalistic scientists, Unitarians, and secularists unite against Sabbatarian legislation. In Victorian scientific naturalism: community, identity, continuity, edited by Gowan Dawson and Bernard Lightman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Butler, Samuel. 1879. Evolution, old and new: or, the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, as compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin. London: Hardwicke and Bogue.
Darwin, Francis. 1880d. Climbing plants. Popular Science Review 19: 213–29.
Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause. Translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1879.
Krause, Ernst. 1879a. Erasmus Darwin, der Großvater und Vorkämpfer Charles Darwin’s: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Descendenz-Theorie. Kosmos 4 (1878–9): 397–424.
Summary
Since CD has decided not to answer S. Butler’s charge, WSD will not reply either.
Will look over Francis Darwin’s lecture ["Climbing plants"] with a view to publishing it in Popular Science Review [19 (1880): 213–29].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12462
- From
- William Sweetland Dallas
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Geological Society
- Source of text
- DAR 99: 133–134
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12462,” accessed on
