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Ridley

 

Natural History Museum

S Kensington

July 1882

Dear Sir,

I understand that you are desirous of procuring letters written by your late father, for the purpose of illustrating his biography; I was fortunate enough to receive two from him some years back; one of which I think may be of some use to you

I therefore enclose it. It will be unnecessary to ask you to restore it when you have finished

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with it, as I feel sure you will know what a high value I attach to it.

The history of it is as follows

In 1878 Dr Pusey preached a sermon at the university church in Oxford called "Un-science not science adverse to faith"

This was afterward printed with the addition of notes which conveyed an entirely erroneous idea of the "Theory of Evolution" and the objects your father had in writing the "Origin of Species

I therefore took the trouble to remonstrate with Dr Pusey on his unfair statements, and to verify my remarks appealed on three points to your father, I may add that I should have ignored the misstatements but that the sermon seemed to have created some amount of sensation among Oxford men.

The three questions I asked were

1 Whether Mr Darwin wrote the Origin of Species, with a wish to overthrow the dogma of separate creation

2 Whether the transformation theory was a special object of his interest because it dispensed with the intervention of a personal Creator

3 Whether it was his object to establish a First Cause to save us from the conception of the eternity of matter,

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The letter is I am aware only signed by your father

Could you tell me who wrote the rest of it, of course at your father's dictation?

I remain

Yours truly

Henry. N. Ridley.

See letter from H. N. Ridley, [before 28 November 1878] and Darwin to Ridley 28 November 1878. Correspondence vol. 26.

Pusey, Edward Bouverie. 1878. Un-science, not science, adverse to faith: a sermon preached before the University of Oxford on the twentieth Sunday after Trinity, 1878. Oxford: Devonport Society of the Holy Trinity.