To T. H. Huxley 11 April [1864]1
Down Bromley Kent
April 11
My dear Huxley
I am very much obliged for your present of your Comp. Anatomy.2 When strong enough I am sure I shall read it with greatest interest. I cd not resist the last chapter, of which I have read a part, & have been much interested about the “inspired idiot”.3 If Owen wrote article “Oken” & the French work on the Archetype (points which you do not put quite clearly) he never did a baser act, & that is saying a good deal.4 You are so good a Christian that you will hardly understand how I chuckle over this bit of baseness.—
I hope you keep well & hearty: I honour your wisdom at giving up at present Society for Science.5 But, on other hand, I feel it in myself possible to get to care too much for Nat. Science & too little for other things—
I am getting better, I almost dare to hope permanently; for my sickness is decidedly less— for 27 days consecutively I was sick many times daily; & lately I was five days free—6 I long to do a little work again.
The magnificent (by far the most magnificent & too magnificent) compliment which you paid me at end of your Origin of Species I have met with reprinted from you two or three times lately.7
My dear Huxley | Yours most sincerely | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Desmond, Adrian. 1982. Archetypes and ancestors: palaeontology in Victorian London, 1850–1875. London: Blond & Briggs.
Di Gregorio, Mario A. 1984. T. H. Huxley’s place in natural science. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
[Lubbock, John.] 1864b. Huxley’s lectures on the origin of species. Natural History Review n.s. 4: 37–43.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
ML: More letters of Charles Darwin: a record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. Edited by Francis Darwin and Albert Charles Seward. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1903.
Oken, Lorenz. 1807. Ueber die Bedeutung der Schädelknochen. Ein Programm beim Antritt der Professur an der Gesammt-Universität zu Jena. Bamberg: J. A. Göbhardt.
Owen, Richard. 1848. On the archetypes and homologies of the vertebrate skeleton. London: John Van Voorst.
Owen, Richard Startin. 1894. The life of Richard Owen … With the scientific portions revised by C. Davies Sherborn; also an essay on Owen’s position in anatomical science by the Right Hon. T. H. Huxley, F.R.S. 2 vols. London: John Murray.
Rupke, Nicolaas A. 1994. Richard Owen, Victorian naturalist. New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press.
Summary
Thanks for Lectures on the elements of comparative anatomy [1864].
If Owen wrote article on "Oken" [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th ed.] and French work on archetype he never did a baser act [see ML 1: 246 n.].
Bad health lately.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4459
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 203)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4459,” accessed on 18 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4459.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12