i86o— 1882] DESCENT OF MAN 49 



Have you ever thought of keeping a young monkey, so as Letter 417 

 to observe its mind ? At a house where we have been stayii 

 there were- Sir A. and Lady Hobhouse, not Ion returned 



from India, and she and he kept [a] young monkey and 

 told me some curious particulars. One was that her monkey 

 was very fond of looking through her eyeglass at objects, and 

 moved the glass nearer and further so as to vary the focus. 

 This struck me, as Frank's son, nearly two years old (and we 

 think much of his intellect ! !) is very fond of looking through 

 my pocket lens, and I have quite in vain endeavoured to 

 teach him not to put the glass close down on the object, but 

 he always will do so. Therefore I conclude that a child 

 under two years is inferior in intellect to a monkey. 



Once again I heartily congratulate you on your well- 

 earned present, and I feel assured, grand future success. 



Later in the year Mr. Darwin wrote : " I am delighted to hear that you 

 mean to work the comparative Psychology well. I thought your letter to 

 the Times ' very good indeed. Bartlett, at the Zoological Gardens, I feel 

 sure, would advise you infinitely better about hardiness, intellect, price, 

 etc., of monkey than F. Buckland ; but with him it must be viva voce. 



" Frank says you ought to keep an idiot, a deaf mute, a monkey, and 

 a baby in your house." 



To G. A. Gaskell. 



Down, Nov. 15th, 1S78. 

 This letter has been published in Clapperton's Scientific Meliorism, 

 18S5, p. 340, together with Mr. Gaskell's letter of Nov. 13th (p. 337). 

 Mr. GaskelPs laws are given in his letter of Nov. 13th, 1878. They 

 are : — 



I. The Organological Law : 



Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. 

 II. The Sociological Law : 



Sympathetic Selection, or Indiscriminate Survival. 

 III. The Moral Law: 



Social Selection, or the Birth of the Fittest. 



Your letter seems to me very interesting and clearly 

 expressed, and I hope that you are in the right. Your 



1 Romanes wrote to the Times August 28th, 1878, expressing his 

 views regarding the distinction between man and the lower animals, 

 in reply to criticisms contained in a leading article in the Tunes of 

 August 23rd on his lecture at the Dublin meeting of the British 

 Association. 



VOL. II. 4 



Letter 41S 



