i868.] REVIEWS. 26l 



utterly failed to be sure what he meant, so thought it safest 

 to give my view as almost the same as his), and he says he is 

 not sure he understands it. ... Am I not a poor devil ? yet 

 I took such pains, I must think that I expressed myself 

 clearly. Old Sir H. Holland says he has read it twice, and 

 thinks it very tough ; but believes that sooner or later " some 

 view akin to it " will be accepted. 



You will think me very self-sufficient, when I declare that 

 I feel sure if Pangenesis is now stillborn it will, thank God, 

 at some future time reappear, begotten^ by some other father, 

 and christened by some other name. 



Have you ever met with any tangible and clear view of 

 what takes place in generation, whether by seeds or buds, or 

 how a long-lost character can possibly reappear ; or how the 

 male element can possibly affect the mother plant, or the 

 mother animal, so that her future progeny are affected ? Now 

 all these points and many others are connected together, 

 whether truely or falsely is another question, by Pangenesis. 

 You see I die hard, and stick up for my poor child. 



This letter is written for my own satisfaction, and not for 

 yours. So bear it. 



Yours affectionately, 



CH. DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to A. Newton* 



Down, February 9 [1870]. 



DEAR NEWTON, I suppose it would be universally held 

 extremely wrong for a defendant to write to a Judge to 

 express his satisfaction at a judgment in his favour ; and yet 

 I am going thus to act. I have just read what you have said 

 in the ' Record ' f about my pigeon chapters, and it has grati- 

 fied me beyond measure. I have sometimes felt a little dis- 

 appointed that the labour of so many years seemed to be 

 almost thrown away, for you are the first man capable of 



* Prof, of Zoology at Cambridge. 



| 'Zoological Record.' The volume for 1868, published Dec. 1869. 



