Alfred Russel Wallace 



Notwithstanding all bis sneers, I do not strike my 

 colours as yet about pangenesis. I should like to live to 

 see archebiosis proved true, for it would be a discovery of 

 transcendent importance; or if false I should like to see 

 it disproved, and the facts otherwise explained ; but I shall 

 not live to see all this. If ever proved, Dr. B. will have 

 taken a prominent part in the work. How grand is the 

 onward rush of science; it is enough to console us for 

 the many errors which we have committed and for our 

 efforts being overlaid and forgotten in the mass of new 

 facts and new views which are daily turning up. 



This is all I have to say about Dr. B.'s book, and it 

 certainly has not been worth saying. Nevertheless, re- 

 ward me whenever you can by giving me any news about 

 your appointment to the Bethnal Green Museum. — My 

 dear Wallace, yours very sincerely, ^h. Darwin. 



The Dell, Grays, Essex. August 31, 1872. 



Dear Darwin,— Many thanks for your long and interest- 

 ing letter about Bastian's book, though I almost regret that 

 my asking you for your opinion should have led you to give 

 yourself so much trouble. I quite understand your frame 

 of mind, and think it quite a natural and proper one. You 

 had hard work to hammer your views into people's heads 

 at first, and if Bastian's theory is true he will have still 

 harder work, because the facts he appeals to are themselves 

 so difficult to establish. Are not you mistaken about the 

 Sphagnum ? As I remember it, Huxley detected a frag- 

 ment of Sphagnum leaf in the same solution in which a 

 fungoid growth had heen developed. Bastian mistook the 

 Sphagnum also for a vegetable growth, and on account 

 of this ignorance of the character of Sphagnum, and its 

 presence in the solution, Huxley rejected somewhat con-^^ 

 temptuously (and I think very illogically) all Bastian*i|H 



276 W 



