306 KETIREMENT, TO 1897 : DARWINIANA, ETC. 



matter of expression by words, and this no one can do so 

 well as you, or better than by a Primer. 



Spencer has alone I think tried to account for variation 

 on scientific grounds. I thought at the time his ways were 

 good but not all in the right direction but I forget what 

 they were ! 



The Camp, Sunningdale : May 2, 1888. 



DEAR HUXLEY, The evolution of Darwin is excellent, 

 it makes quite a Natural Order of him. 



You will find an X on page 1 in reference to Darwin's 

 father. I understood from D. that his father had not only 

 scientific proclivities, but ambition, and that he presented 

 to the E.S. a communication on some optical subject, which, 

 being rejected, disgusted him, and led to his stifling his own 

 early scientific tendencies and scoffing at those of others. 

 If worth following this up Frank might confirm or refute 

 my memory. 



Your treatment of two subjects, Medicine and the Church, 

 is capital the latter (quoad Paley and Pearson) is very 

 diverting from the cynical way it is put. 



Nothing could be better than your history of the Evolu- 

 tion of the doctrine of that ilk, and the showing up of the 

 erroneous, imperfect conceptions of some of its favorers. 



Your treatment of the main subject, under heredity, 

 variation and multiplication as the factors, is very happy, 

 and will instruct as well as elucidate. 



Would you not say where I have put an X on p. 10, that 

 among the non-adaptive concomitant characters some may be 

 even disadvantageous so long as they are not predominant ? 



I well remember the worry which that subject of tendency 

 to divergence caused him. I believe I first pointed the defect 

 out to him, at least I insisted from the first on his entertaining 

 a crude idea which I held, that variation was a centrifugal 

 force, whether it resulted in species or not. P. 7. Is ' malice ' * 

 the best term to apply ? I am sure you can find a better 

 it was a case of ' one for his nob ' (irony ? banter ? ) it was 

 a ' taunt.' 



The whole has interested me warmly, and I am particu- 

 larly glad to see references to his tastes and feelings that 



1 The word was used more in the sense it bears in French than English. 



