Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington Rare Books.
One page, creased where folded. Docketed XXXVII at head in red pencil and with faint red mark. Very good.
Darwin writes late at night to report that “I have this minute finished your Address to Geolog. Socy. & I must just thank you for sending it me. – I have read it with uncommon interest. It is a wonderful condensed & original summary on Palæontology, & I should think & hope will do much good. – I hope you are not killing yourself with too much work – Good night – yours very sincerely, C. Darwin”. A remarkable and generous letter from Darwin to his best known supporter. Huxley had delivered the anniversary address to the Geological Society on 21 February 1862, standing in for the absent president. Darwin did not attend, but the address was printed in the Quarterly Journal of the society. This is the report that Huxley had sent and Darwin just read. Huxley had already established himself as “Darwin’s Bulldog” by this date, especially after the famous debate at Oxford University in June 1860, where Huxley took on Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, Huxley defending evolutionary theory and attacking adherence to scripture as a scientific document. But the relationship was never entirely simple, as Huxley was a significant scientist in his own right and sometimes seemed to question Darwin’s theory. Huxley responded to this letter on 6 May, saying that he had indeed been ill, but not through over-work, and demanding to know if Darwin “agree with what I say about contemporaneity or not and whether you are prepared to admit as I think your views compel you to do – that the whole Geological Record is only the skimmings of the pot of life”. Darwin’s reply suggests that Huxley has pushed his ideas too far and includes the curious phrase “I cannot help hoping that you are not quite as right as you seem to be”.
