70 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [i860. 



often inheritable. But grant his case, it comes that I have 

 been too cautious in not admitting great and sudden varia- 

 tions. Here again comes in the mischief of my abstract. In 

 the fuller MS. I have discussed a parallel case of a normal 

 fish like the monstrous gold-fish." 



With reference to Sir J. D. Hooker's reply, my father 

 wrote :] 



Down [February 26th, i860]. 



My dear Hooker, — Your answer to Harvey seems to me 

 admirably good. You would have made a gigantic fortune as 

 a barrister. What an omission of Harvey's about the gradu- 

 ated state of the flowers ! But what strikes me most is that 

 surely I ought to know my own book best, yet, by Jove, you 

 have brought forward ever so many arguments which I did 

 not think of! Your reference to classification (viz. I pre- 

 sume to such cases as Aspicarpa) is excellent, for the mons- 

 trous Begonia no doubt in all details would be Begonia. I 

 did not think of this, nor of the retrograde step from separ- 

 ated sexes to an hermaphrodite state ; nor of the lessened 

 fertility of the monster. Proh pudor to me. 



The world would say what a lawyer has been lost in a mere 

 botanist ! 



Farewell, my dear master in my own subject, 



Yours affectionately, 



C. Darwin. 



I am so heartily pleased to see that you approve of the 

 chapter on Classification. 



I wonder what Harvey will say. But no one hardly, I 

 think, is able at first to see when he is beaten in an argument. 



[The following letters refer to the first translation (i860) 

 of the ' Origin of Species ' into German, which was superin- 

 tended by H. G. Bronn, a good zoologist and palaeontologist, 

 who was at the time at Freiburg, but afterwards Professor at 

 Heidelberg. I have been told that the translation was not a 



