1886 LETTER TO H. SPENCER 443 



So he wrote in January ; and on March 19 he 

 wrote again, with another set of proofs 



Toujours 1'audace ! More proofs to look over. Don't 

 write a critical essay, only marginal notes. Perhaps you 

 will say, like the Roman poet to the poetaster who asked 

 him to erase any passages he did not like, and who replied, 

 " One erasure will suffice " perhaps you will say, " There 

 needs only one marginal note." 



To this he received answer : 



CASALINI, W. BOURNEMOUTH, 

 March 22, 1886. 



MY DEAR SPENCER More power to your elbow ! 

 You will find my blessing at the end of the proof. 



But please look very carefully at some comments 

 which are not merely sceptical criticisms, but deal with 

 matters of fact. 



I see the difference between us on the speculative 

 question lies in the conception of the primitive protoplasm. 

 I conceive it as a mechanism set going by heat as a sort 

 of active crystal with the capacity of giving rise to a 

 great number of pseudomorphs ; and I conceive that 

 external conditions favour one or the other pseudomorph, 

 but leave the fundamental mechanism untouched. 



You appear to me to suppose that external conditions 

 modify the machinery, as if by transferring a flour-mill 

 into a forest you could make it into a saw-mill. I am 

 too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything 

 especially as I am now so much occupied with theology 

 but I don't see my way to your conclusion. 



And that is all the more reason why I don't want to 

 stop you from working it out, or rather to make the 

 '* one erasure " you suggest. For as to stopping you, " ten 

 on me might," as the navvy said to the little special 



