18591863] STERILITY AND HYBRIDISM 225 



(if both had married again and both had children) would be Letter 153 

 sexually dissimilar, like their parents, or sterile together. 

 Pray forgive my dreadful writing ; I have been very unwell 

 all day, and have no strength to re-write this scrawl. I am 

 working slowly on, and I suppose in three or four months 

 shall be ready. 



I am sure I do not know whether any human being could 

 understand or read this shameful scrawl. 



To T. H. Huxley. Letter 154 



Down, Dec. 28th [1862]. 



I return enclosed : if you write, thank Mr. Kingsley 1 for 

 thinking of letting me see the sound sense of an Eastern 

 potentate. All that I said about the little book 2 is strictly 

 my opinion ; it is in every way excellent, and cannot fail to 

 do good the wider it is circulated. Whether it is worth your 

 while to give up time to it is another question for you alone 

 to decide ; that it will do good for the subject is beyond all 

 question. I do not think a dunce exists who could not under- 

 stand it, and that is a bold saying after the extent to which I 

 have been misunderstood. I did not understand what you 

 required about sterility : assuredly the facts given do not go 

 nearly so far. We differ so much that it is no use arguing. 

 To get the degree of sterility you expect in recently formed 

 varieties seems to me simply hopeless. It seems to me 

 almost like those naturalists who declare they will never 

 believe that one species turns into another till they see every 

 stage in process. 



I have heard from Tegetmeier, and have given him the 

 result of my crosses of the birds which he proposes to try, and 

 have told him how alone I think the experiment could be 



1 Kingsley's letter to Huxley, dated Dec. 2oth, 1862, contains a story 

 or parable of a heathen Khan in Tartary who was visited by a pair of 

 proselytising Moollahs. The first Moollah said : " Oh ! Khan, worship 

 my God. He is so wise that he made all things." But Moollah No. 2 

 won the day by pointing out that his God is " so wise that he makes all 

 things make themselves." 



2 The six Lectures to Working Men, published in six pamphlets and in 

 book-form in 1863. Mr. Huxley considered that Mr. Darwin's argument 

 required the production by man's selection of breeds which should be 

 mutually infertile, and thus resemble distinct species physiologically as 

 well as morphologically. 



is 



