The Wallace-Darwin Correspondence 



only just heard of and procured your two articles in the 

 Academy. I thank you most cordially for your generous 

 defence of me against Mr. Mivart. In the ^* Origin " I did 

 not discuss the derivation of any one species; but that I 

 might not be accused of concealing my opinion I went out 

 of my way and inserted a sentence which seemed to me 

 (and still so seems) to declare plainly my belief. This 

 was quoted in my ^^ Descent of Man.'' Therefore it isf 

 very unjust, not to say dishonest, of Mr. Mivart to accuse 

 me of base fraudulent concealment; I care little about 

 myself; but Mr. Mivart, in an article in the Quarterly 

 Review (which I know was written by him), accused my 

 son George of encouraging profligacy, and this without the 

 least foundation.^ I can assert this positively, as I laid 

 George's article and the Quarterly Review before Hooker, 

 Huxley and others, and all agreed that the accusation 



1 In the Contemporary Review for August, 1873, Mr. George Darwin wrote 

 an article " On Beneficial Restrictions to Liberty of Marriage." In the July 

 number of the Quarterly Review, 1874, p. 70, in an article entitled " Primitive 

 Man — Tylor and Lubbock," Mr. Mivart thus referred to Mr. Darwin's article : 

 " Elsewhere (pp. 424-5) Mr. George Darwin speaks (1) in an approving strain 

 of the most oppressive laws and of the encouragement of vice to check popu- 

 lation. (2) There is no sexual criminality of Pagan days that might not be 

 defended on the principles advocated by the school to which this writer belongs." 

 In the Quarterly Review for October, 1874, p. 587, appeared a letter from Mr. 

 George Darwin " absolutely denying " charge No. 1, and with respect to charge 

 No. 2 he wrote : " I deny that there is any thought or word in my essay which 

 could in any way lend itself to the support of the nameless crimes here referred 

 to." To the letter was appended a note from Mr. Mivart, in which he said : 

 " Nothing would have been further from our intention than to tax Mr. Darwin 

 personally (as he seems to have supposed) with the advocacy of laws or acts 

 which he saw to be oppressive or vicious. We, therefore, most willingly accept 

 his disclaimer, and are glad to find that he does not, in fact, apprehend the 

 full tendency of the doctrines which he has helped to propagate. Neverthe- 

 less, we cannot allow that we have enunciated a single proposition which is 

 either * false ' or ' groundless.' . . . But when a writer, according to his own 

 confession, comes before the public ' to attack the institution of marriage ' 

 ... he must expect searching criticism ; and, without implying that Mr. 

 Darwin has in ' thought ' or * word ' approved of anything which he wishes 

 to disclaim, we must still maintain that the doctrines which he advocates are 

 most dangerous and pernicious."— Editor. 



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