Charles Darwin | Autograph letter signed, to Hugh Falconer, on being awarded the Copley Medal, 1864

Charles Darwin.

Autograph letter signed, to Hugh Falconer

thanking him for being a "good kind friend" in supporting Darwin’s award of the Copley medal, pondering his future (“...I hope that I may yet have strength to do a little more work in natural science; shaky and old though I be...”), and commenting on the increasing number of contemporary scientists who are “converts” to the theory of natural selection, 4 pages, 8vo, Down House headed stationery, 4 November [1864], with autograph envelope affixed to first page, spotting

A SPLENDID LETTER IN WHICH DARWIN COMMENTS ON THE GRADUAL ACCEPTANCE OF HIS THEORY OF EVOLUTION. Hugh Falconer, a palaeontologist and botanist, was “an admirer of Darwin, though not a convert to his theory” (Burkhardt). Darwin writes to thank him for seconding his nomination for the award of the Copley medal, the highest award of the Royal Society, given for “sustained, outstanding achievements in any field of science”. He also alludes to an anecdote told by Falconer in a previous letter, relaying the complaint of the entomologist Gaspard Auguste Brullé that he heard of nothing but Darwin from his students, and emphasises his respect for Falconer despite their scientific differences:

“I have chuckled and triumphed over your postscript about poor M. Brullé and his young pupils. About a week ago I had a nearly similar account from Germany and at the same time I heard of some splendid converts in such men as [Rudolf] Leuckart, [Carl] Gegenbaur &c. You may say what you like about yourself, but I look at a man who treats Natural History in the spirit with which you do, exactly as good for what I believe to be the truth, as a convert.”

The spirit with which Falconer treated Natural History was evidenced by his reply to Darwin’s letter, in which Falconer explained that he believed the controversial award of the Copley medal to Darwin was doubly important: “1. as regards due appreciation of yourself. 2d. as a determined protest against the profession of religious against scientific faith” (7 November 1864). Falconer was outraged by a petition that was circulating within Britain’s learned societies that attempted to limit the bounds of scientific enquiry. The petition claimed that scientific research was being “‘perverted by some … into occasion for casting doubt upon the Truth and Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures” and was aimed against evolutionary theory and investigations into the antiquity of man.

LITERATURE:

Darwin Correspondence Project DCP-LETT-4656; see Burkhardt, Frederick H. “Darwin and the Copley Medal.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 145, no. 4, 2001, pp. 510–18