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Darwin Correspondence Project

To J. E. Taylor   13 January [1872]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Jan 13th

Dear Sir

I am very much obliged to you for your kindness in having sent me your article in the Westminster Review, which I have read with great interest.2 I am also obliged for the manner in which you notice my work.—3 At present natural selection is somewhat under a cloud, but I feel the most entire conviction that it will presently be resuscitated.—

Dear Sir | Yours faithfully & obliged | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

1
The year is established by the reference to Taylor’s article in the Westminster Review of January 1872 (see n. 2, below).
2
Taylor’s article, ‘The geographical distribution of animals and plants, geologically considered’, was published in the issue of Westminster Review for January 1872 ([Taylor] 1872). There is a lightly annotated offprint of the article, signed by Taylor with the author’s compliments, in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
3
Taylor had written, ‘Natural history has received a similar impetus under the Darwinian theory that astronomy did under the older Copernicus’ ([J. E. Taylor] 1872, p. 29).

Bibliography

[Taylor, John Ellor.] 1872. The geographical distribution of animals and plants, geologically considered. Westminster Review n.s. 41: 28–49.

Summary

Thanks for sending his article in the Westminster Review [n.s. 41 (1872): 28–49] and the notice of CD’s work.

Natural selection is under a cloud at present, but CD expects that it will be resuscitated.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-8157A
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
John Ellor Taylor
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Morristown National Historical Park (Lloyd W. Smith MS 696)
Physical description
ALS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8157A,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8157A.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 20

letter

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