1869.] MR - HUXLEY ON HAECKEL. 119 



C. Darwin to T. H. Huxley. 



Down, October 14, 1869. 



MY DEAR HUXLEY, I have been delighted to see your 

 review of Hackel,* and as usual you pile honours high on my 

 head. But I write now (requiring no answer) to groan a little 

 over what you have said about rudimentary organs. \ Many 

 heretics will take advantage of what you have said. I cannot 

 but think that the explanation given at p. 541 of the last 

 edition of the ' Origin,' of the long retention of rudimentary 

 organs and of their greater relative size during early life, is 

 satisfactory. Their final and complete abortion seems to me 

 a much greater difficulty. Do look in my ' Variations under 

 Domestication/ vol. ii. p. 397, at wiiat Pangenesis suggests on 

 this head, though I did not dare to put it in the * Origin/ 

 The passage bears also a little on the struggle between the 

 molecules or gemmules.J There is likewise a word or two 

 indirectly bearing on this subject at pp. 394-395. It won't 

 take you five minutes, so do look at these passages. I am 

 very glad that you have been bold enough to give your idea 

 about Natural Selection amongst the molecules, though I 

 cannot quite follow you. 



* A review of Haeckel's ' Schop- ology." 'Critiques and Addresses,' 



fungs-Geschichte.' The Academy, p. 308. 



1869. Reprinted in ' Critiques and \ " It is a probable hypothesis, 



Addresses,' p. 303. that what the world is to organisms 



f In discussing Teleology and in general, each organism is to the 



Haeckel's " Dysteleology," Prof. molecules of which it is composed. 



Huxley says: "Such cases as Multitudes of these having diverse 



the existence of lateral rudiments tendencies, are competing with one 



of toes, in the foot of a horse, place another for opportunity to exist 



us in a dilemma. For either these and multiply ; and the organism, 



rudiments are of no use to the as a whole, is as much the product 



animals, in . which case . . . they of the molecules which are victori- 



surely ought to have disappeared ; ous as the Fauna, or Flora, of a 



or they are of some use to the country is the product of the vict- 



animal, in which case they are of orious organic beings in it." 



no use as arguments against Tele- * Critiques and Addresses,' p. 309. 



