1844—1858] ARCHETYPE 71 



To T. II. Huxley. 



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" 2 (in yo*ir 

 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 versus 

 "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). 



3 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 

 Jourdan's Die tionnaire des Termes Usitis dans Tes Sciences Naturelles, 1834, 

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

 excess of development. 



