LETTERS FROM DARWIN TO PROFESSOR MELDOLA (1871–82).
By the kindness of my friend Professor Meldola, and the courtesy of Mr. Francis Darwin, I am enabled to publish for the first time a series of letters written by Charles Darwin to the former. The whole series consists of 33 letters, written between January 28th, 1871, and February 2nd, 1882, only a few weeks before his death.
When we remember the immense amount of correspondence with which Darwin had to cope, the constant attention required by his investigations and publications, and the state of his health, it is deeply interesting to read these letters, written with such unfailing courtesy, to a younger worker in the lines that he had suggested, and who was thereby stimulated and encouraged to undertake the researches which are now so well known.
Reading these letters and remembering the circumstances of the writer, we can understand how it is that, although ill-health prevented his presence on occasions at which the younger scientific men are wont to meet--although he was known to but few of them--nevertheless the charm of his noble and generous nature was a most potent force in influencing and attracting men; and it was this, no less than his epoch-making discoveries, which has made it one of the chief regrets of many a scientific worker that he never saw Charles Darwin.
The correspondence was opened by a letter from Meldola informing Darwin of a case of hexadactylism in a man at Turnham Green.
“DEAR SIR,--I am much obliged for your kindness in informing me of the hexadactylous case; but so many have been recorded that I do not think, except under very special circumstances, it would be worth your while further to investigate it.
“With my thanks, yours faithfully and obliged,
The next letter refers to Meldola’s communication to _Nature_ (he had recently written upon pangenesis and upon sexual selection), and his work on mimicry, protective resemblance, etc. In the latter part we meet with an interesting reference to the researches on cross-fertilisation which are now so famous.
“DEAR SIR,--I am greatly obliged by your note. I have read with much interest and carefully perused your letter in Nature, and am looking out for a paper announced for Linn. Soc. Your remarks shall all be in due time fully considered. With respect to the separation of the sexes, I have often reflected on the subject; but there is much difficulty, as it seems to me and as Nageli has insisted, inasmuch as a strong case can be made out in favour of the view that with plants at least the sexes were primordially distinct, then became in many cases united, and in not a few cases re-separated. I have during the last 5 or 6 years been making a most laborious series of experiments, by which I shall be able, I think, to demonstrate the wonderful good derived from crossing, and I am almost sure but shall not know till the end of the summer that I shall be able to prove that the good is precisely of the same kind which the adult individual derives from _slight_ changes of conditions.