1872.] 'PRIMITIVE CULTURE.' 33! 



C. Darwin to E. B. Tyhr* 



Down [Sept. 24, 1871]. 



MY DEAR SIR, I hope that you will allow me to have the 

 pleasure of telling you how greatly I have been interested by 

 your 'Primitive Culture,' now that I have finished it. It 

 seems to me a most profound work, which will be certain to 

 have permanent value, and to be referred to for years to come. 

 It is wonderful how you trace animism from the lower races 

 up to the religious belief of the highest races. It will make 

 me for the future look at religion a belief in the soul, &c. 

 from a new point of view. How curious, also, are the survi- 

 vals or rudiments of old customs. . . . You will perhaps be 

 surprised at my writing at so late a period, but I have had the 

 book read aloud to me, and from much ill-health of late could 

 only stand occasional short reads. The undertaking must 

 have cost you gigantic labour. Nevertheless, I earnestly hope 

 that you may be induced to treat morals in the same enlarged 

 yet careful manner, as you have animism. I fancy from the 

 last chapter that you have thought of this. No man could do 

 the work so well as you, and the subject assuredly is a most 

 important and interesting one. You must now possess refer- 

 ences which would guide you to a sound estimation of the 

 morals of savages ; and how writers like Wallace, Lubbock, 

 &c., &c., do differ on this head. Forgive me for troubling 

 you, and believe me, with much respect, 



Yours very sincerely, 



CH. DARWIN. 



1872. 



[At the beginning of the year the sixth edition of the 

 'Origin,' which had been begun in June, 1871, was nearly 

 completed. The last sheet was revised on January 10, 1872, 

 and the book was published in the course of the month. 

 This volume differs from the previous ones in appearance 



* Keeper of the Museum, and Reader in Anthropology at Oxford. 



