Lot 526

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Description:

Darwin Re: Origin of the Species and "development of the wings of birds" Fantastic Content About His Watershed Work!

Two pages of a bifolium, measuring 5" x 8", Beckenham, dated March 18, 1870. Addressed to an unknown recipient, and signed "Ch. Darwin." Darwin grants permission for his work on birds to be quoted in a scientific pamphlet. Potentially unpublished, as there is no record of this letter in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. With flattened mail folds and light edge toning. Pencil notation at the top left corner. Boldly signed, very fine.

Darwin writes, in full: "You are perfectly welcome to give quotations from my works; for I cannot suppose that the German publishers could object, unless you extracted a whole chapter. The subject of the development of the wings of birds is a very interesting one, but I fear you will find it extremely difficult. I am much obliged for your kind offer of sending me yr pamphlets when published."

Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" was published in Great Britain in 1859, and the book would be widely translated around the world. He approved having the book translated by naturalist and geologist Heinrich Georg Bronn however, the German translation published in 1860 imposed some of Bronn's own ideas into the text and added controversial themes that Darwin had deliberately omitted. An improved translation was finally put forth in 1867 by German zoologist Julius Victor Carus, with whom Darwin worked closely.

In regard to his views on "the wings of birds", Darwin believed that fossils would be found that showed intermediate structures between early and modern birds. In short, transitional fossils of bird wings show evolution. He wrote in "Origin of the Species", "I may here recall a remark formerly made, namely, that it might require a long succession of ages to adapt an organism to some new and peculiar line of life, for instance, to fly through the air; and consequently that the transitional forms would often long remain confined to some one region; but that, when this adaptation had once been affected, and a few species had thus acquired a great advantage over other organisms, a comparatively short time would be necessary to produce many divergent forms, which would spread rapidly and widely throughout the world. Professor Pictet, in his excellent Review of this work, in commenting on early transitional forms, and taking birds as an illustration, cannot see how the successive modifications of the anterior limbs of a supposed prototype could possibly have been of any advantage. But look at the penguins of the Southern Ocean; have not these birds their front limbs in this precise intermediate state of "neither true arms nor true wings?" Yet these birds hold their place victoriously in the battle for life; for they exist in infinite numbers and of many kinds. I do not suppose that we here see the real transitional grades through which the wings of birds have passed; but what special difficulty is there in believing that it might profit the modified descendants of the penguin, first to become enabled to flap along the surface of the sea like the logger-headed duck, and ultimately to rise from its surface and glide through the air?"

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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