The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

RECORD: Darwin, C. R. & Emma Darwin. [4-6.1865]. Translation of a memo from Clémence Auguste Royer. CUL-DAR80.B42-B44. Edited by John van Wyhe (The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and John van Wyhe 10.2021, 8.2025. RN2

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volumes CUL-DAR80-86 contain material for Darwin's book Descent of man (1871).

The red crayon 'Man' indicates that this document was filed by Darwin in his portfolio for the research that culminated in Descent. See letter to Darwin from Clémence Auguste Royer [April-June 1865], Correspondence vol. 13. The editors note, 00. 104-5: "The memorandum is evidently a note for the second French edition of Origin (Royer trans. 1866). In the first edition of her translation (Royer trans. 1862, p. 57), Royer inserted a note comparing animal breeding practices to the strict marriage laws governing Hindu castes. This memorandum appears to be an expansion of that earlier note, and refers to the Hindu 'Laws of Menu' or 'Manu' described in the Sanskrit text Manava-Dharma-Sastra, which was translated into French in 1833 (Loiseleur Deslongchamps trans. 1833). ...CD evidently rejected the additions proposed in this memorandum, as they do not appear in the published version of Royer trans. 1866; there is a copy of this work in the Darwin Library-Down."

[B42]

(Man)

Prosper Lucas about beautiful men marrying beautiful in Crete

F. Great [illeg]

Natural selection is practically contained in the whole of these laws, & above all in all which concerns the regime of castes where one recognizes probably different races & races very unequal in their human development, at least in the origin.

This same principle of arises from the rules & counsels driven by the legislature

[B42v]

to the men of the castes — in the connections of their women. They are enjoined not to marry women who bear the signs such as having eyes & other deformities or infirmities.

It is perhaps the of these laws which have transformed the instincts, the habits & physical character of the Indo-Germanic race.

If such is the general bearing of these laws which one finds

[B43]

in the whole of them

The paragraphs where it is most clearly expressed are the following

X liv. III. parag 6. 10–14–19

liv. IX. par 72–73 & 178

liv X. par 5 to 49 — 66 to 73.

[Darwin annotation X:] I have not looked / Nothing

[B44]

Castes of India as opposed to breeding like domestic animals.

[Royer's letter not transcribed here]

Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)