To T. H. Huxley 30 May [1865]1
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
May 30
My dear Huxley
I thank you most sincerely for granting my request in so kind a manner.2
When ever you read the M.S. be so kind as to suspend your judgment until you have read the whole, & then turn the subject a little in your mind. I have thought of it much, more than appears in the M.S. & am becoming convinced that some such view will have to be adopted; but I see that it over throws in an uncomfortable manner one’s common view on ordinary development.3 The style of the M.S has to be improved.
You will have to take some of my facts & partial conclusions on trust, but the greater number of the facts will be quite as familiar to you as to me.
You will really do me a very great service & with cordial thanks believe me yours sincerely | Ch Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Calendar: A calendar of the correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821–1882. With supplement. 2d edition. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994.
Churchill, Frederick B. 1979. Sex and the single organism: biological theories of sexuality in mid-nineteenth century. Studies in History of Biology 3: 139–77.
Farley, John. 1982. Gametes & spores: ideas about sexual reproduction, 1750–1914. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Geison, Gerald L. 1969. Darwin and heredity: the evolution of his hypothesis of pangenesis. Journal of the History of Medicine 24: 375–411.
Hodge, M. J. S. 1985. Darwin as a lifelong generation theorist. In The Darwinian heritage, edited by David Kohn. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press in association with Nova Pacifica (Wellington, NZ).
Kohn, David. 1980. Theories to work by: rejected theories, reproduction, and Darwin’s path to natural selection. Studies in History of Biology 4: 67–170.
Notebooks: Charles Darwin’s notebooks, 1836–1844. Geology, transmutation of species, metaphysical enquiries. Transcribed and edited by Paul H. Barrett et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the British Museum (Natural History). 1987.
Olby, Robert. 1963. Charles Darwin’s manuscript of pangenesis. British Journal for the History of Science 1: 251–63.
Olby, Robert. 1985. Origins of Mendelism. 2d edition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Summary
Thanks for THH’s willingness to read Pangenesis MS. Thinks some such view will have to be adopted but it overthrows, in an uncomfortable manner, ordinary development.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4841
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 217)
- Physical description
- LS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4841,” accessed on 21 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4841.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13