is:6 P-AlK GENESIS 49 



phenomena underlying the mass of fraud, and trickery, 

 and vulgarity which have surrounded the so-called 

 manifestations . 



He was always willing to investiirate such subjects 

 as hypnotism, thought reading, &c.. and in 1880 he 

 wrote an article for the September niunber of the 

 ■ Nineteenth Century.' in which he pleads for a candid 

 and unprejudiced investiiration of the facts. The 

 article was a review of Heidenhain's • Der sogenannte 

 thierische Magnetismus.' 



The work on Pangenesis and on Medusae went on 

 through 1876, and some letters to and from Mr. 

 Darwin are here inserted. 



From G. Daricin, Esq.. to G. J. Bomanes. 



Dear Romanes. — As you are interested in Pan- 

 genesis, and will some day, I hope, convert an ' airy 

 nothing ' into a substantial theory, therefore I send 

 by this post an essay by Hackel, attacking 'Pan.,' 

 and substituting a molecular hypothesis. If I under- 

 stand his views rightly, he would say that with a bird 

 which strengthened its wings by use, the formative 

 protoplasm of the strengthened parts becomes changed, 

 and its molecular vibrations consequently changed, 

 and that their vibrations are transmitted throughout 

 the whole frame of the bird. How he explains rever- 

 sion to a remote ancestor I know not. Perhaps I have 

 misxmderstood him, though I have skimmed the whole 

 with some care. He lays much stress on inheritance 

 being a form of unconscious memory, but how far this 

 is part of his molecular vibration I do not understand. 

 His views make nothing clearer to me, but this may 

 be my fault. Xo one, I presume, would doubt about 



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