8 4 



'VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION.' 



[1868. 



mother-form, &c. It often appears to me almost certain that 

 the characters of the parents are ' photographed ' on the 

 child, only by means of material atoms derived from each 

 cell in both parents, and developed in the child."] 



C. Darwin to Asa Gray. 



Down, May 8 [1868]. 



My dear Gray, — I have been a most ungrateful and 

 ungracious man not to have written to you an immense time 

 ago to thank you heartily for the Nation, and for all your 

 most kind aid in regard to the American edition [of ' Animals 

 and Plants ']. But I have been of late overwhelmed with 

 letters, which I was forced to answer, and so put off writing 

 to you. This morning I received the American edition 

 (which looks capital), with your nice preface, for which hearty 

 thanks. I hope to heaven that the book will succeed well 

 enough to prevent you repenting of your aid. This arrival 

 has put the finishing stroke to my conscience, which will 

 endure its wrongs no longer. 



. . . Your article in the Nation [Mar. 19] seems to me very 

 good, and you give an excellent idea of Pangenesis — an infant 

 cherished by few as yet, except his tender parent, but which 

 will live a long life. There is parental presumption for you ! 

 You give a good slap at my concluding metaphor : * undoubt- 

 edly I ought to have brought in and contrasted natural and 

 artificial selection ; but it seemed so obvious to me that 

 natural selection depended on contingencies even more 



* A short abstract of the precipice 

 metaphor is given at p. 307, vol. i. 

 Dr. Gray's criticism on this point 

 is as follows : " But in Mr. Dar- 

 win's parallel, to meet the case of 

 nature according to his own view 

 of it, not only the fragments of rock 

 (answering to variation) should fall, 



but the edifice (answering to natural 

 selection) should rise, irrespective 

 of will or choice ! " But my father's 

 parallel demands that natural selec- 

 tion shall be the architect, not the 

 edifice — the question of design only 

 comes in with regard to the form 

 of the building materials. 



