2 6o 'VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION.' [1868. 



chiefly getting up facts on sexual selection, therefore I have 

 felt no inclination to write to you, and now I mean to write 

 solely about my book for my own satisfaction, and not at all 

 for yours. The first edition was 1500 copies, and now the 

 second is printed off ; sharp work. Did you look at the re- 

 view in the Athenaum* showing profound contempt of me ? 

 ... It is a shame that he should have said that I have taken 

 much from Pouchet, without acknowledgment ; for I took 

 literally nothing, there being nothing to take. There is a 

 capital review in the Gardeners' Chronicle which will sell the 

 book if anything will. I don't quite see whether I or the 

 writer is in a muddle about man causing variability. If a 

 man drops a bit of iron into sulphuric acid he does not cause 

 the affinities to come into play, yet he may be said to make 

 sulphate of iron. I do not know how to avoid ambiguity. 



After what the Pall Mall Gazette and the Chronicle have 

 said I do not care a d . 



I fear Pangenesis is stillborn-; Bates says he has read it 

 twice, and is not sure that he understands it. H. Spencer 

 says the view is quite different from his (and this is a great 

 relief to me, as I feared to be accused of plagiarism, but 



* Athenaum, February 15, 1868. My father quoted Pouchet's assertion 

 that "variation under domestication throws no light on the natural modifi- 

 cation of species." The reviewer quotes the end of a passage in which my 

 father declares that he can see no force in Pouchet's arguments, or rather 

 assertions, and then goes on : " We are sadly mistaken if there are not 

 clear proofs in the pages of the book before us that, on the contrary, Mr. 

 Darwin has perceived, felt, and yielded to the force of the arguments or 

 assertions of his French antagonist." The following may serve as samples 

 of the rest of the review : 



" Henceforth the rhetoricians will have a better illustration of anti-cli- 

 max than the mountain which brought forth a mouse, ... in the dis- 

 coverer of the origin of species, who tried to explain the variation of 

 pigeons ! 



" A few summary words. On the ' Origin of Species ' Mr. Darwin has 

 nothing, and is never likely to have anything, to say ; but on the vastly 

 important subject of inheritance, the transmission of peculiarities once ac- 

 quired through successive generations, this work is a valuable store-house 

 of facts for curious students and practical breeders." 



