i6o.j DR. GRAY'S CRITICISMS. 271 



them at their word, offering to aid their reprint, to give them 

 the use of the alterations in the London reprint, as soon as I 

 find out what they are, &c. &c. And I sent them the first 

 leaf, and asked them to insert in their future issue the addi- 

 tional matter from Butler,* which tells just right. So there 

 the matter stands. If you furnish any matter in advance of 

 the London third edition, I will make them pay for it. 



I may get something for you. All got is clear gain ; but it 

 will not be very much, I suppose. 



Such little notices in the papers here as have yet appeared 

 are quite handsome and considerate. 



I hope next week to get printed sheets of my review from 

 New Haven, and send [them] to you, and will ask you to pass 

 them on to Dr. Hooker. 



To fulfil your request, I ought to tell you what I think 

 the weakest, and what the best, part of your book. But 

 this is not easy, nor to be done in a word or two. The best 

 part t I think, is the whole, i.e. its plan and treatment, the vast 

 amount of facts and acute inferences handled as if you had a 

 perfect mastery of them. I do not think twenty years too 

 much time to produce such a book in. 



Style clear and good, but now and then wants revision for 

 little matters (p. 97, self-fertilises itself, &c.). 



Then your candour is worth everything to your cause. It 

 is refreshing to find a person with a new theory who frankly 

 confesses that he finds difficulties, insurmountable, at least 

 for the present. I know some people who never have any 

 difficulties to speak of. 



The moment I understood your premisses, I felt sure you 

 had a real foundation to hold on. Well, if one admits your 

 premisses, I do not see how he is to stop short of your conclu- 

 sions, as a probable hypothesis at least. 



* A quotation from Butler's tion is placed with the passages 

 ' Analogy,' on the use of the word from Whewell and Bacon on p. ii, 

 natural, which in the second edi- opposite the title-page. 



