1886 WORK ON THE GENTIANS 



153 



most carefully at Arolla, but its flowering time was almost over, 

 and I only got two full-blown specimens to work at. If you 

 have any in flower and don't mind sacrificing one with a bit of 

 the rhizoma, and would put it in spirit for me, I could settle one 

 or two points still wanting. Whisky will do, and you will be 

 all the better for not drinking the whisky ! 



The distributional facts, when you work them in connection 

 with morphology, are lovely. We put up with Donnelly on our 

 way here. He has taken a cottage at Felday, eleven miles from 

 hence, in lovely country — on lease. I shall have to set. up a 

 country residence some day, but as all my friends declare their 

 own locality best, I find a decision hard. And it is a bore to be 

 tied to one place. — Ever yours, T. H. Huxley. 



4 Marlborough Place, Oct. 20, 1886. 



My dear Hooker — I wish you would not mind the trouble 

 of looking through the enclosed chapter which I have written at 

 F. Darwin's request, and tell me what you think of it. F. D. 

 thinks I am hard upon the " Quarterly Article," but I read it 

 afresh and it is absolutely scandalous. The anonymous vilifiers 

 of the present day will be none the worse for being reminded 

 that they may yet hang in chains. I expect, from all I hear, 

 that Gosse has had very hard measure, and you may see that 

 Cotter Morison (who is a very good authority) says that the 

 Reviewer is quite wrong about the Harrington business, of 

 which he makes so much. 



It occurs to me that it might be well to add a paragraph or 

 two about the two chief objections made formerly and now to 

 Darwin, the one, that it is introducing " chance " as a factor in 

 nature, and the other that it is atheistic. 



Both assertions are utter bosh. None but parsons believe in . 

 " chance " ; and the philosophical difficulties of Theism now are ' 

 neither greater nor less than they have been ever since Theism 

 was invented. — Ever yours, T. H. H. 



Old experience, indeed, made him sympathise so much 

 with Mr. Edmund Gosse for his treatment in a celebrated 

 literary controversy, that he wrote him the following letter : — 



Oct. 22, 1886. 

 Dear Sir — I beg leave to offer you my best thanks for your 

 letter to the Athenceum, which I have just read, and to congratu- 

 late you on the force and completeness of your answer to your 

 assailant. 



