18441858] ARCHETYPE 73 



To T. H. Huxley. Letter 33 



The following letter is one of the earliest of the long series addressed 



to Mr. Huxley. 



Down, April 23rd [1854]. 



My dear Sir 



I have got out all the specimens, which I have thought 

 could by any possibility be of any use to you ; but I have not 

 looked at them, and know not what state they are in, but 

 should be much pleased if they are of the smallest use to 

 you. I enclose a catalogue of habitats : I thought my 

 notes would have turned out of more use. I have copied 

 out such few points as perhaps would not be apparent in 

 preserved specimens. The bottle shall go to Mr. Gray on 

 Thursday next by our weekly carrier. 



I am very much obliged for your paper on the Mollusca ; l 

 I have read it all with much interest : but it would be 

 ridiculous in me to make any remarks on a subject on 

 which I am so utterly ignorant ; but I can see its high 

 importance. The discovery of the type or " idea ' (in your 

 sense, for I detest the word as used by Owen, Agassiz & Co.) 

 of each great class, I cannot doubt, is one of the very highest 

 ends of Natural History ; and certainly most interesting to 

 the worker-out. Several of your remarks have interested 

 me : I am, however, surprised at what you say vers2ts 

 " anamorphism," 3 I should have thought that the archetype 

 in imagination was always in some degree embryonic, and 



1 The paper of Huxley's is " On the Morphology of the Cephalous 

 Mollusca, etc." (Phil. Trans. R. Soc.^ Vol. 143, Part I., 1853, p. 29). 



2 Huxley defines his use of the word "archetype" at p. 50 : "All 

 that I mean is the conception of a form embodying the most general 

 propositions that can be affirmed respecting the Cephalous Mollusca, 

 standing in the same relation to them as the diagram to a geometrical 

 theorem, and like it, at once, imaginary and true." 



3 The passage referred to is at p. 63 : " If, however, all Cephalous 

 Mollusks ... be only modifications by excess or defect of the parts 

 of a definite archetype, then, I think, it follows as a necessary con- 

 sequence, that no anamorphism takes place in this group. There is 

 no progression from a lower to a higher type, but merely a more or 

 less complete evolution of one type." Huxley seems to use the term 

 anamorphism in a sense differing from that of some writers. Thus in 

 }o>\*i<$3afe Dictionnaire des Termes Usites dans les Sciences Naturelles, 1834, 

 it is defined as the production of an atypical form either by arrest or 

 excess of development. 



