GHL to Charles Robert Darwin, London, 8 August 1868
Title
GHL to Charles Robert Darwin, London, 8 August 1868
Title
GHL to Charles Robert Darwin, London, 8 August 1868
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
Charles Robert Darwin
Date(s)
- 1868-08-08
Place
London
Letter Content
GHL to Charles Robert Darwin, London, 8 August 1868
MS: Cambridge University Library.
The Priory, | 21 North Bank, | Regents Park.
8th August 1868.
Dear Mr. Darwin
You can understand how deeply gratified I am by your approval, which is all the more pleasant because I have the best reasons for supposing that the articles have not been much liked by the public of the Review -- the editor is urgent that they should close! I am also indebted to you for your notes and hope I may be allowed to use them in the Reprint.
As to my absurdly obscure sentence -- which I see now to be obscure -- it was meant to express a very plain position, namely that from very different starting points a similar result might be reached. 808 A pus cell or a blood corpuscle has a genesis wholly distinct from the forms indistingu[ish]ably similar which are produced in a viscid substance by slow imbibition -- here a difference of genesis and an identity of form are demonstrable. In animal identities a like difference of origin (genesis) is conceivable.
I am not defending my phrase which will be abolished -- only hinting that I had an idea to express.
You have no doubt seen it but if not may be interested in Kowalefsky's Memoir on the Development of Amphioxus in the St. Petersburg Academy Memoirs (tome XI, no. 4). 809 It has made me restless with desire to find myself somewhere on the Mediterranean coast with a supply of embryos! His observations are all in favor of your view and against mine. -- which is not pleasant (for me). Believe me
Yours very sincerely
G. H. Lewes.
Charles Darwin Esq.
MS: Cambridge University Library.
The Priory, | 21 North Bank, | Regents Park.
8th August 1868.
Dear Mr. Darwin
You can understand how deeply gratified I am by your approval, which is all the more pleasant because I have the best reasons for supposing that the articles have not been much liked by the public of the Review -- the editor is urgent that they should close! I am also indebted to you for your notes and hope I may be allowed to use them in the Reprint.
As to my absurdly obscure sentence -- which I see now to be obscure -- it was meant to express a very plain position, namely that from very different starting points a similar result might be reached. 808 A pus cell or a blood corpuscle has a genesis wholly distinct from the forms indistingu[ish]ably similar which are produced in a viscid substance by slow imbibition -- here a difference of genesis and an identity of form are demonstrable. In animal identities a like difference of origin (genesis) is conceivable.
I am not defending my phrase which will be abolished -- only hinting that I had an idea to express.
You have no doubt seen it but if not may be interested in Kowalefsky's Memoir on the Development of Amphioxus in the St. Petersburg Academy Memoirs (tome XI, no. 4). 809 It has made me restless with desire to find myself somewhere on the Mediterranean coast with a supply of embryos! His observations are all in favor of your view and against mine. -- which is not pleasant (for me). Believe me
Yours very sincerely
G. H. Lewes.
Charles Darwin Esq.
Signature
G. H. Lewes.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to Charles Robert Darwin, London, 8 August 1868, Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/94487