More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II

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LETTER 413. TO MAX MULLER.
Down, July 3rd, 1873.

(413/1. In June, 1873, Professor Max Muller sent to Mr. Darwin a copy of
the sixth edition of his "Lectures on the Science of Language" (413/2. A
reference to the first edition occurs in "Life and Letters," II., page
390.), with a letter concluding with these words: "I venture to send you
my three lectures, trusting that, though I differ from some of your
conclusions, you will believe me to be one of your diligent readers and
sincere admirers.")

I am much obliged for your kind note and present of your lectures. I am
extremely glad to have received them from you, and I had intended ordering
them.

I feel quite sure from what I have read in your works that you would never
say anything of an honest adversary to which he would have any just right
to object; and as for myself, you have often spoken highly of me--perhaps
more highly than I deserve.

As far as language is concerned I am not worthy to be your adversary, as I
know extremely little about it, and that little learnt from very few books.
I should have been glad to have avoided the whole subject, but was
compelled to take it up as well as I could. He who is fully convinced, as
I am, that man is descended from some lower animal, is almost forced to
believe a priori that articulate language has been developed from
inarticulate cries (413/3. "Descent of Man" (1901), page 133.); and he is
therefore hardly a fair judge of the arguments opposed to this belief.

(413/4. In October, 1875, Mr. Darwin again wrote cordially to Professor
Max Muller on receipt of a pamphlet entitled "In Self-Defence" (413/5.
Printed in "Chips from a German Workshop," Volume IV., 1875, page 473.),
which is a reply to Professor Whitney's "Darwinism and Language" in the
"North American Review," July 1874. This essay had been brought before the
"general reader" in England by an article of Mr. G. Darwin's in the
"Contemporary Review," November, 1874, page 894, entitled, "Professor
Whitney on the Origin of Language." The article was followed by "My reply
to Mr. Darwin," contributed by Professor Muller to the "Contemporary
Review," January, 1875, page 305.)

LETTER 414. G. ROLLESTON TO CHARLES DARWIN.
British Association, Bristol, August 30th, 1875.

(414/1. In the first edition of the "Descent of Man" Mr. Darwin wrote:
"It is a more curious fact that savages did not formerly waste away, as Mr.
Bagehot has remarked, before the classical nations, as they now do before
modern civilised nations...(414/2. Bagehot, "Physics and Politics,"
"Fortnightly Review," April, 1868, page 455.) In the second edition (page
183) the statement remains, but a mass of evidence (pages 183-92) is added,
to which reference occurs in the reply to the following letter.)

At pages 4-5 of the enclosed Address (414/3. "British Association
Reports," 1875, page 142.) you will find that I have controverted Mr.
Bagehot's view as to the extinction of the barbarians in the times of
classical antiquity, as also the view of Poppig as to there being some
occult influence exercised by civilisation to the disadvantage of savagery
when the two come into contact.

I write to say that I took up this subject without any wish to impugn any
views of yours as such, but with the desire of having my say upon certain
anti-sanitarian transactions and malfeasance of which I had had a painful
experience.

On reading however what I said, and had written somewhat hastily, it has
struck me that what I have said might bear the former interpretation in the
eyes of persons who might not read other papers of mine, and indeed other
parts of the same Address, in which my adhesion, whatever it is worth, to
your views in general is plainly enough implied. I have ventured to write
this explanation to you for several reasons.

LETTER 415. TO G. ROLLESTON.
Bassett, Southampton, September 2nd [1875].

I am much obliged to you for having sent me your Address, which has
interested me greatly. I quite subscribe to what you say about Mr.
Bagehot's striking remark, and wish I had not quoted it. I can perceive no
sort of reflection or blame on anything which I have written, and I know
well that I deserve many a good slap on the face. The decrease of savage
populations interests me much, and I should like you some time to look at a
discussion on this subject which I have introduced in the second edition of
the "Descent of Man," and which you can find (for I have no copy here) in
the list of additions. The facts have convinced me that lessened fertility
and the poor constitution of the children is one chief cause of such
decrease; and that the case is strictly parallel to the sterility of many
wild animals when made captive, the civilisation of savages and the
captivity of wild animals leading to the same result.

LETTER 416. TO ERNST KRAUSE.
Down, June 30th, 1877.

I have been much interested by your able argument against the belief that
the sense of colour has been recently acquired by man. (416/1. See
"Kosmos," June 1877, page 264, a review of Dr. Hugo Magnus' "Die
Geschichtliche Entwickelung des Farbensinnes," 1877. The first part is
chiefly an account of the author's views; Dr. Krause's argument begins at
page 269. The interest felt by Mr. Darwin is recorded by the numerous
pencil-marks on the margin of his copy.) The following observation bears
on this subject.

I attended carefully to the mental development of my young children, and
with two, or as I believe three of them, soon after they had come to the
age when they knew the names of all common objects, I was startled by
observing that they seemed quite incapable of affixing the right names to
the colours in coloured engravings, although I tried repeatedly to teach
them. I distinctly remember declaring that they were colour-blind, but
this afterwards proved a groundless fear.

On communicating this fact to another person he told me that he had
observed a nearly similar case. Therefore the difficulty which young
children experience either in distinguishing, or more probably in naming
colours, seems to deserve further investigation. I will add that it
formerly appeared to me that the gustatory sense, at least in the case of
my own infants, and very young children, differed from that of grown-up
persons. This was shown by their not disliking rhubarb mixed with a little
sugar and milk, which is to us abominably nauseous; and in their strong
taste for the sourest and most austere fruits, such as unripe gooseberries
and crabapples.

(PLATE: G.J. ROMANES, 1891. Elliott & Fry, photo. Walker and Cockerell,
ph. sc.)

LETTER 417. TO G.J. ROMANES.
[Barlaston], August 20th, 1878.

(417/1. Part of this letter (here omitted) is published in "Life and
Letters," III., page 225, and the whole in the "Life and Letters of G.J.
Romanes," page 74. The lecture referred to was on animal intelligence, and
was given at the Dublin meeting of the British Association.)

...The sole fault which I find with your lecture is that it is too short,
and this is a rare fault. It strikes me as admirably clear and
interesting. I meant to have remonstrated that you had not discussed
sufficiently the necessity of signs for the formation of abstract ideas of
any complexity, and then I came on the discussion on deaf mutes. This
latter seems to me one of the richest of all the mines, and is worth
working carefully for years, and very deeply. I should like to read whole
chapters on this one head, and others on the minds of the higher idiots.
Nothing can be better, as it seems to me, than your several lines or
sources of evidence, and the manner in which you have arranged the whole
subject. Your book will assuredly be worth years of hard labour; and stick
to your subject. By the way, I was pleased at your discussing the
selection of varying instincts or mental tendencies; for I have often been
disappointed by no one having ever noticed this notion.

I have just finished "La Psychologie, son Present et son Avenir," 1876, by
Delboeuf (a mathematician and physicist of Belgium) in about a hundred
pages. It has interested me a good deal, but why I hardly know; it is
rather like Herbert Spencer. If you do not know it, and would care to see
it, send me a postcard.

Thank Heaven, we return home on Thursday, and I shall be able to go on with
my humdrum work, and that makes me forget my daily discomfort.

Have you ever thought of keeping a young monkey, so as to observe its mind?
At a house where we have been staying there were Sir A. and Lady Hobhouse,
not long ago returned from India, and she and he kept [a] young monkey and
told me some curious particulars. One was that her monkey was very fond of
looking through her eyeglass at objects, and moved the glass nearer and
further so as to vary the focus. This struck me, as Frank's son, nearly
two years old (and we think much of his intellect!!) is very fond of
looking through my pocket lens, and I have quite in vain endeavoured to
teach him not to put the glass close down on the object, but he always will
do so. Therefore I conclude that a child under two years is inferior in
intellect to a monkey.

Once again I heartily congratulate you on your well-earned present, and I
feel assured, grand future success.

(417/2. Later in the year Mr. Darwin wrote: "I am delighted to hear that
you mean to work the comparative Psychology well. I thought your letter to
the "Times" very good indeed. (417/3. Romanes wrote to the "Times" August
28th, 1878, expressing his views regarding the distinction between man and
the lower animals, in reply to criticisms contained in a leading article in
the "Times" of August 23rd on his lecture at the Dublin meeting of the
British Association.) Bartlett, at the Zoological Gardens, I feel sure,
would advise you infinitely better about hardiness, intellect, price, etc.,
of monkey than F. Buckland; but with him it must be viva voce.

"Frank says you ought to keep a idiot, a deaf mute, a monkey, and a baby in
your house.")

LETTER 418. TO G.A. GASKELL.
Down, November 15th, 1878.

(418/1. This letter has been published in Clapperton's "Scientific
Meliorism," 1885, page 340, together with Mr. Gaskell's letter of November
13th (page 337). Mr. Gaskell's laws are given in his letter of November
13th, 1878. They are:--

I. The Organological Law:
Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest.

II. The Sociological Law:
Sympathetic Selection, or Indiscriminate Survival.

III. The Moral Law:
Social Selection, or the Birth of the Fittest.)

Your letter seems to me very interesting and clearly expressed, and I hope
that you are in the right. Your second law appears to be largely acted on
in all civilised countries, and I just alluded to it in my remarks to the
effect (as far as I remember) that the evil which would follow by checking
benevolence and sympathy in not fostering the weak and diseased would be
greater than by allowing them to survive and then to procreate.

With regard to your third law, I do not know whether you have read an
article (I forget when published) by F. Galton, in which he proposes
certificates of health, etc., for marriage, and that the best should be
matched. I have lately been led to reflect a little, (for, now that I am
growing old, my work has become [word indecipherable] special) on the
artificial checks, but doubt greatly whether such would be advantageous to
the world at large at present, however it may be in the distant future.
Suppose that such checks had been in action during the last two or three
centuries, or even for a shorter time in Britain, what a difference it
would have made in the world, when we consider America, Australia, New
Zealand, and S. Africa! No words can exaggerate the importance, in my
opinion, of our colonisation for the future history of the world.

If it were universally known that the birth of children could be prevented,
and this were not thought immoral by married persons, would there not be
great danger of extreme profligacy amongst unmarried women, and might we
not become like the "arreoi" societies in the Pacific? In the course of a
century France will tell us the result in many ways, and we can already see
that the French nation does not spread or increase much.

I am glad that you intend to continue your investigations, and I hope
ultimately may publish on the subject.

LETTER 419. TO K. HOCHBERG.
Down, January 13th, 1879.

I am much obliged for your note and for the essay which you have sent me.
I am a poor german scholar, and your german is difficult; but I think that
I understand your meaning, and hope at some future time, when more at
leisure, to recur to your essay. As far as I can judge, you have made a
great advance in many ways in the subject; and I will send your paper to
Mr. Edmund Gurney (The late Edmund Gurney, author of "The Power of Sound,"
1880.), who has written on and is much interested in the origin of the
taste for music. In reading your essay, it occurred to me that facility in
the utterance of prolonged sounds (I do not think that you allude to this
point) may possibly come into play in rendering them musical; for I have
heard it stated that those who vary their voices much, and use cadences in
long continued speaking, feel less fatigued than those who speak on the
same note.

LETTER 420. TO G.J. ROMANES.
Down, February 5th, 1880.

(420/1. Romanes was at work on what ultimately came to be a book on animal
intelligence. Romanes's reply to this letter is given in his "Life," page
95. The table referred to is published as a frontispiece to his "Mental
Evolution in Animals," 1885.)

As I feared, I cannot be of the least use to you. I could not venture to
say anything about babies without reading my Expression book and paper on
Infants, or about animals without reading the "Descent of Man" and
referring to my notes; and it is a great wrench to my mind to change from
one subject to another.

I will, however, hazard one or two remarks. Firstly, I should have thought
that the word "love" (not sexual passion), as shown very low in the scale,
to offspring and apparently to comrades, ought to have come in more
prominently in your table than appears to be the case. Secondly, if you
give any instance of the appreciation of different stimulants by plants,
there is a much better case than that given by you--namely, that of the
glands of Drosera, which can be touched roughly two or three times and do
not transmit any effect, but do so if pressed by a weight of 1/78000 grain
("Insectivorous Plants" 263). On the other hand, the filament of Dionoea
may be quietly loaded with a much greater weight, while a touch by a hair
causes the lobes to close instantly. This has always seemed to me a
marvellous fact. Thirdly, I have been accustomed to look at the coming in
of the sense of pleasure and pain as one of the most important steps in the
development of mind, and I should think it ought to be prominent in your
table. The sort of progress which I have imagined is that a stimulus
produced some effect at the point affected, and that the effect radiated at
first in all directions, and then that certain definite advantageous lines
of transmission were acquired, inducing definite reaction in certain lines.
Such transmission afterwards became associated in some unknown way with
pleasure or pain. These sensations led at first to all sorts of violent
action, such as the wriggling of a worm, which was of some use. All the
organs of sense would be at the same time excited. Afterwards definite
lines of action would be found to be the most useful, and so would be
practised. But it is of no use my giving you my crude notions.

LETTER 421. TO S. TOLVER PRESTON.
Down, May 22nd, 1880.

(421/1. Mr. Preston wrote (May 20th, 1880) to the effect that
"self-interest as a motive for conduct is a thing to be commended--and it
certainly [is] I think...the only conceivable rational motive of conduct:
and always is the tacitly recognised motive in all rational actions." Mr.
Preston does not, of course, commend selfishness, which is not true
self-interest.

There seem to be two ways of looking at the case given by Darwin. The man
who knows that he is risking his life,--realising that the personal
satisfaction that may follow is not worth the risk--is surely admirable
from the strength of character that leads him to follow the social instinct
against his purely personal inclination. But the man who blindly obeys the
social instinct is a more useful member of a social community. He will act
with courage where even the strong man will fail.)

Your letter appears to me an interesting and valuable one; but I have now
been working for some years exclusively on the physiology of plants, and
all other subjects have gone out of my head, and it fatigues me much to try
and bring them back again into my head. I am, moreover, at present very
busy, as I leave home for a fortnight's rest at the beginning of next week.
My conviction as yet remains unchanged, that a man who (for instance) jumps
into a river to save a life without a second's reflection (either from an
innate tendency or from one gained by habit) is deservedly more honoured
than a man who acts deliberately and is conscious, for however short a
time, that the risk and sacrifice give him some inward satisfaction.

You are of course familiar with Herbert Spencer's writings on Ethics.

(422/1. The observations to which the following letters refer were
continued by Mr. Wallis, who gave an account of his work in an interesting
paper in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society," March 2nd, 1897. The
results on the whole confirm the belief that traces of an ancestral pointed
ear exist in man.)

LETTER 422. TO H.M. WALLIS.
Down, March 22nd, 1881.

I am very much obliged for your courteous and kind note. The fact which
you communicate is quite new to me, and as I was laughed at about the tips
to human ears, I should like to publish in "Nature" some time your fact.
But I must first consult Eschricht, and see whether he notices this fact in
his curious paper on the lanugo on human embryos; and secondly I ought to
look to monkeys and other animals which have tufted ears, and observe how
the hair grows. This I shall not be able to do for some months, as I shall
not be in London until the autumn so as to go to the Zoological Gardens.
But in order that I may not hereafter throw away time, will you be so kind
as to inform me whether I may publish your observation if on further search
it seems desirable?

LETTER 423. TO H.M. WALLIS.
Down, March 31st, 1881.

I am much obliged for your interesting letter. I am glad to hear that you
are looking to other ears, and will visit the Zoological Gardens. Under
these circumstances it would be incomparably better (as more authentic) if
you would publish a notice of your observations in "Nature" or some
scientific journal. Would it not be well to confine your attention to
infants, as more likely to retain any primordial character, and offering
less difficulty in observing. I think, though, it would be worth while to
observe whether there is any relation (though probably none) between much
hairiness on the ears of an infant and the presence of the "tip" on the
folded margin. Could you not get an accurate sketch of the direction of
the hair of the tip of an ear?

The fact which you communicate about the goat-sucker is very curious.
About the difference in the power of flight in Dorkings, etc., may it not
be due merely to greater weight of body in the adults?

I am so old that I am not likely ever again to write on general and
difficult points in the theory of Evolution.

I shall use what little strength is left me for more confined and easy
subjects.

LETTER 424. TO MRS. TALBOT.

(Mrs. Emily Talbot was secretary of the Education Department of the
American Social Science Association, Boston, Mass. A circular and register
was issued by the Department, and answers to various questions were asked
for. See "Nature," April 28th, page 617, 1881. The above letter was
published in "The Field Naturalist," Manchester, 1883, page 5, edited by
Mr. W.E. Axon, to whom we are indebted for a copy.)

Down, July 19th [1881?]

In response to your wish, I have much pleasure in expressing the interest
which I feel in your proposed investigation on the mental and bodily
development of infants. Very little is at present accurately known on this
subject, and I believe that isolated observations will add but little to
our knowledge, whereas tabulated results from a very large number of
observations, systematically made, would probably throw much light on the
sequence and period of development of the several faculties. This
knowledge would probably give a foundation for some improvement in our
education of young children, and would show us whether the system ought to
be followed in all cases.

I will venture to specify a few points of inquiry which, as it seems to me,
possess some scientific interest. For instance, does the education of the
parents influence the mental powers of their children at any age, either at
a very early or somewhat more advanced stage? This could perhaps be
learned by schoolmasters and mistresses if a large number of children were
first classed according to age and their mental attainments, and afterwards
in accordance with the education of their parents, as far as this could be
discovered. As observation is one of the earliest faculties developed in
young children, and as this power would probably be exercised in an equal
degree by the children of educated and uneducated persons, it seems not
impossible that any transmitted effect from education could be displayed
only at a somewhat advanced age. It would be desirable to test
statistically, in a similar manner, the truth of the oft-repeated statement
that coloured children at first learn as quickly as white children, but
that they afterwards fall off in progress. If it could be proved that
education acts not only on the individual, but, by transmission, on the
race, this would be a great encouragement to all working on this
all-important subject. It is well known that children sometimes exhibit,
at a very early age, strong special tastes, for which no cause can be
assigned, although occasionally they may be accounted for by reversion to
the taste or occupation of some progenitor; and it would be interesting to
learn how far such early tastes are persistent and influence the future
career of the individual. In some instances such tastes die away without
apparently leaving any after effect, but it would be desirable to know how
far this is commonly the case, as we should then know whether it were
important to direct as far as this is possible the early tastes of our
children. It may be more beneficial that a child should follow
energetically some pursuit, of however trifling a nature, and thus acquire
perseverance, than that he should be turned from it because of no future
advantage to him. I will mention one other small point of inquiry in
relation to very young children, which may possibly prove important with
respect to the origin of language; but it could be investigated only by
persons possessing an accurate musical ear. Children, even before they can
articulate, express some of their feelings and desires by noises uttered in
different notes. For instance, they make an interrogative noise, and
others of assent and dissent, in different tones; and it would, I think, be
worth while to ascertain whether there is any uniformity in different
children in the pitch of their voices under various frames of mind.

I fear that this letter can be of no use to you, but it will serve to show
my sympathy and good wishes in your researches.

2.VIII.II. SEXUAL SELECTION, 1866-1872.

LETTER 425. TO JAMES SHAW.
Down, February 11th [1866].

I am much obliged to you for your kindness in sending me an abstract of
your paper on beauty. (425/1. A newspaper report of a communication to
the "Dumfries Antiquarian and Natural History Society.") In my opinion you
take quite a correct view of the subject. It is clear that Dr. Dickson has
either never seen my book, or overlooked the discussion on sexual
selection. If you have any precise facts on birds' "courtesy towards their
own image in mirror or picture," I should very much like to hear them.
Butterflies offer an excellent instance of beauty being displayed in
conspicuous parts; for those kinds which habitually display the underside
of the wing have this side gaudily coloured, and this is not so in the
reverse case. I daresay you will know that the males of many foreign
butterflies are much more brilliantly coloured than the females, as in the
case of birds. I can adduce good evidence from two large classes of facts
(too large to specify) that flowers have become beautiful to make them
conspicuous to insects. (425/2. This letter is published in "A Country
Schoolmaster, James Shaw." Edited by Robert Wallace, Edinburgh, 1899.)