^T. 64.] TO G. FREDERICK WRIGHT. 655 



TO G. FREDERICK WKIGHT."^ 



Botanic Gabden, July 1, 1875. 

 Dear Mr. Wright, — Thanks for your letter. It 

 may be that the time has come in which a collection 

 of my popular articles on Darwinism, etc., would be 

 useful.^ Your thinking so would go far to make me 

 believe it. But then, you are one of the moderate 

 number of people who have carefully read them, and 

 one of the few who well understand and appreciate 

 them, — because you have given the subject an atten- 

 tive consideration, — and who are awake to the harm 

 that comes from theologians and ministers denoun- 

 cing a view that scientific men are more and more 

 receiving as probably true. I should like to know 

 how Professor Park regards the proposition. 



1 will say that while I am not unwilling to collect 

 them for reprinting, in case they are called for, it would 

 not quite do for me, in the position I occupy (I mean 

 as a man of science), to republish them in a collected 

 form, without entering anew and further into some of 

 the pending questions ; to do which would seriously 

 interrupt the legitimate work which I have in hand, 

 and to which I am deeply pledged. I suppose I could 

 add, and should be disposed to add, a note or two, — 

 especially one upon teleology from a Darwinian point 

 of view, — a subject upon which there is something 

 stm to be said, though I do not see the way to say it 

 conclusively. You will probably do it better than I 

 ever can. 



At present, I think I should let them alone, unless 

 there comes what you ministers recognize as a call for 

 them, and such a call I should defer to. 



^ Rev. G. Frederick Wright, then a clergyman at Andover, Mass., 

 now professor at Oberlin, Ohio. 



2 The book was published with Mr. Wright's assistance. 



