Summary

Various comments on Descent;

on suicide on Gold Coast;

on mulattoes’ not being prolific.

Summary

Praise for gentle but resolute tone of Descent.

Summary

Prefers W. C. Wells’s explanation of the formation of the Nehro type to CD’s sexual selection.

Outlines his view of the origin of man by natural selection.

Summary

Believes CD will not consider him a good Darwinian since he accepts natural selection only as a secondary law.

Summary

There is a primary law of growth and innate improvement. Natural selection is a secondary law that operates to "arrange the details". This is not Lamarckian, because will is not involved.

Thanks for Chauncey Wright’s pamphlet [Darwinism (1871)].

Amused by critics who say CD is metaphysically unsophisticated.

Summary

Surprised at Mivart’s harsh review [Q. Rev. 131 (1871): 47–90], considering courteous tone of his book. Assures CD he has not been converted by Mivart.

Summary

Sees his ideas on conscious and non-conscious intelligence are already in Murphy [J. J. Murphy, Habit and intelligence (1869)].

Encloses an extract from S. W. Baker’s The Albert N’yanza [1866] on the behaviour of the giraffe [See Origin, 6th ed., p. 178], and some references to Baker’s Nile tributaries [1867].

Summary

Sending sheets of his forthcoming work on Africa [Martyrdom of man (1872)] with views that differ from CD’s on music and sexual selection.

The Pall Mall Gazette will review the new [6th] edition of the Origin, together with Mivart’s Genesis of species [1871].

Summary

Defends Descent against CD’s self-disparagement. The parts on the moral sense seem to him the finest in the book.

Summary

Compares Origin to Newton’s Principia and Adam Smith’s Wealth of nations.

His view of CD’s response to Mivart.

On mammae;

gradualism of evolution;

suicide among savages.

Summary

Saw editor of the Pall Mall Gazette about review of Origin and Genesis of species.

Summary

Has just finished his work [? The martyrdom of man (1872)]. The new points are: (1) Negroes have whiskers; (2) their music is sometimes agreeable; (3) the Kaffirs are Negroes.

Summary

Plans for visit to CD.

Summary

Will see CD tomorrow.

Summary

Sends preface of his book [see 8241]; he acknowledges debt to CD, but does not claim to have given a correct exposition of Darwinism.

Summary

Glad Mrs Darwin likes his preface, but fears she will not like his tone on religion.

Summary

WWR is beginning to appreciate CD’s warnings against his polemical writing.

Summary

His book has received bad reviews; therefore CD’s letter cheers him up.

Summary

Sends extract [from Carl Johan Andersson, Lake Ngami (1856)] on expression.

Summary

Beginning work on his African travels [The African sketch-book (1873)].