Search Results - The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

theory and the observations you have made show me at once what my own difficulties have been, but of these I will not speak at present, as my letter is spinning itself out to a fearful length. [After speaking of Cope's comparison of acceleration and retardation in evolution to the force of gravity in physical matters Mr. Hyatt goes on: ] Now it [acceleration] seems to me to explain less and less the origin of adult progressive characteristics or simply differences, and perhaps now I shall get

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

convinced that there are such independent of the conditions to which they are subjected. I think you have done great service to the principle of evolution, which we both support, by publishing this work. I am the more glad to read it as I had not time to read Wigand's great and tedious volume. Letter 267. TO CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. Down, March 13th, 1875. I write to-day so that there shall be no delay this time in thanking you for your interesting and long letter received this morning. I am sure that

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

wrong end of its body; it would have been beautiful thus to have explained the origin of the spider's web. Letter 277. NAPHTALI LEWY TO C. DARWIN. [The following letter refers to a book, Toledoth Adam, written by a learned Jew with the object of convincing his co-religionists of the truth of the theory of evolution. The translation we owe to the late Henry Bradshaw, University Librarian at Cambridge. The book is unfortunately no longer to be found in Mr. Darwin's library.] [1876]. To the Lord

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

one of his novels gives as a maxim of constant use by a brickmaker- It is dogged as does it 6 -and I have often 1. Published in the Life and Letters of Romanes, page 66. 2. The Scientific Evidence of Organic Evolution: a Discourse (delivered before the Philosophical Society of Ross-shire), Inverness, 1877. It was reprinted in the Fortnightly Review, and was afterwards worked up into a book under the above title. 3. And if you reject the natural explanation of hereditary descent, you can only

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

the life of former times the same law of evolution as Darwin inferred from that of the existing world. (See Obit. Notice, by Dr. W.T. Blanford, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Volume XLVI., page 54, 1890.) 2. See note to Letter 285. [page 376

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

of paramount importance for the principle of evolution. Your cases are like those on the gradation in the genus Equus, recently discovered by Marsh in North America. Letter 288. TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLL. [The following letter was published in Nature, March 5th, 1891, Volume XLIII., page 415, together with a note from the late Duke of Argyll, in which he stated that the letter had been written to him by Mr. Darwin in reply to the question, why it was that he did assume the unity of mankind as

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

for many years on this very point. If, as I am inclined to believe, your view can be widely extended, it will be a capital gain to the doctrine of evolution. I see by your various papers that you are working away energetically, and, wherever you look, you seem to discover something quite new and extremely interesting. Your brother also continues to do fine work on the fertilisation of flowers and allied subjects. I have little or nothing to tell you about myself. I go slowly crawling on with

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

of Species. The lecture was published in Nature and in Huxley's Collected Essays, Volume II., page 227. Darwin's letter to Huxley on the subject is given in Life and Letters, III., page 240; in Huxley's reply of May 10th (Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley, II., page 12) he writes: I hope you do not imagine because I had nothing to say about 'Natural Selection' that I am at all weak of faith on that article...But the first thing seems to me to be to drive the fact of evolution into people's heads

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

to give the least support to the theory which refers the evolution of species to extreme variation guided only by Natural Selection. This is a standard of criticism not uncommonly reached by theologians and metaphysicians, when they write on scientific subjects, but is something new as coming from a naturalist. Professor Huxley demurs to it in the last number of Nature; but he does not touch on the 1. See Nature, November 4th, 1880, page 1, a review of Volume I. of the publications of the

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

forward with great pleasure to reading the whole immediately. If I then have any remarks worth sending, which is not very probable, I will write again. I am greatly pleased to see how boldly you express your belief in evolution, in the preface. I have sometimes thought that some of your countrymen have been a little timid in publishing their belief on this head, and have thus failed in aiding a good cause. Letter 305. TO R.G. WHITEMAN. Down, May 5th, 1881. In the first edition of the Origin

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F1548.1 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 1 Text Image PDF

Letter 311. TO W. HORSFALL. Down, February 8th, 1882. In the succession of the older Formations the species and genera of trilobites do change, and then they all die out. To any one who believes that geologists know the dawn of life (i.e., formations contemporaneous with the first appearance of living creatures on the earth) no doubt the sudden appearance of perfect trilobites and other organisms in the oldest known life-bearing strata would be fatal to evolution. But I for one, and many

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F1548.2 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2 Text Image PDF

we know, if there is any such thing as evolution, etc., that strange ancestral forms must have preceded them in Miocene times. Mastodon, on the other hand, represented by one or two species only, appears to have been a late immigrant into South America from the north. The immense development of ungulates (in varied families, genera, and species) in North America during the whole Tertiary epoch is, however, the great feature which assimilates it to Europe, and contrasts it with South America. True

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F1548.2 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2 Text Image PDF

the race is as everything; Nature being wholly careless of the former except as a contributor to the maintenance and evolution of the latter. Myriads of inchoate lives are produced in what, to our best judgment, seems a wasteful and reckless manner, in order that a few selected specimens may survive, and be the parents of the next generation. It is as though individual lives were of no more consideration than are the senseless chips which fall from the chisel of the artist who is elaborating

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F1548.2 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2 Text Image PDF

.J. ROMANES. Down, February 5th, 1880. [Romanes was at work on what ultimately came to be a book on animal intelligence. Romanes's reply to this letter is given in his Life, page 95. The table referred to is published as a frontispiece to his Mental Evolution in Animals, 1885.] As I feared, I cannot be of the least use to you. I could not venture to say anything about babies without reading my Expression book and paper on Infants, or about animals without reading the Descent of Man and referring

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F1548.2 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2 Text Image PDF

margin. Could you not get an accurate sketch of the direction of the hair of the tip of an ear? The fact which you communicate about the goat-sucker is very curious. About the difference in the power of flight in Dorkings, etc., may it not be due merely to greater weight of body in the adults? I am so old that I am not likely ever again to write on general and difficult points in the theory of Evolution. I shall use what little strength is left me for more confined and easy subjects. Letter

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F1548.2 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2 Text Image PDF

. -Descent of Man (1901), page 637. 2. We have not been able to find Mr. Wallace's letter to which this is a reply. It evidently refers to Mr. Wallace's belief in the paramount importance of protection in the evolution of colour. This is clear from the P.S. to the present letter and from the passages in the Origin referred to. The first reference, Edition IV., page 240, is as follows: We can sometimes plainly see the proximate cause of the transmission of ornaments to the males alone; for a pea-hen

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F1548.2 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2 Text Image PDF

, not as yet altogether convincing, though, of course, I fully agree with every word and every argument which goes to prove the evolution or development of man out of a lower form. My only difficulties are, as to whether you have accounted for every step of the development by ascertained laws. I feel sure that the book will keep up and increase your high reputation, and be immensely successful, as it deserves to be... Letter 458. TO G.B. MURDOCH. Down, March 13th, 1871. I am much obliged for your

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F1548.2 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2 Text Image PDF

I can. As yet the publishers have kept up type, and grumble dreadfully if I make heavy corrections. I am very far from surprised that you have not committed yourself to full acceptation of the evolution of man. Difficulties and objections there undoubtedly are, enough and to spare, to stagger any cautious man who has much knowledge like yourself. I am now at work at my hobby-horse essay on Expression, and I have been reading some old notes of yours. In one you say it is easy to see that the

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F1548.2 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2 Text Image PDF

rising areas, which looks so pretty on the coral maps, I have formerly felt uncomfortable on exactly the same grounds with you, 1. See Life and Letters, II., page 74; Letter to Lyell, June 25th, 1856: also letters in the sections of the present work devoted to Evolution and Geographical Distribution. [page 136

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F1548.2 Book: Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C. eds. 1903. More letters of Charles Darwin. A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. London: John Murray. Volume 2 Text Image PDF

Glacial Period. From 1867 to 1881 he held an appointment in the department of the Geological Survey in Edinburgh. In 1876 Croll was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. His last work, The Philosophical Basis of Evolution, was published in the year of his death. (Nature, Volume XLIII., page 180, 1891.) 2. Croll discussed the power of icebergs as grinding and striating agents in the latter part of a paper ( On Geological Time, and the [page 162