More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I [161]
grains.): I hope that you will be so kind as to send me a copy of your paper. If I had succeeded in making a graft-hybrid of the potato, I had intended to raise seedlings from the graft-hybrid and from the two parent-forms (excluding insects) and carefully compare the offspring. This, however, would be difficult on account of the sterility and variability of the potato. When in the course of a few months you receive my second volume (206/3. This sentence may be paraphrased--"When you receive my book and read the second volume."), you will see why I think these two subjects so important. They have led me to form a hypothesis on the various forms of reproduction, development, inheritance, etc., which hypothesis, I believe, will ultimately be accepted, though how it will be now received I am very doubtful.
Once again I congratulate you on your success.
LETTER 207. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 6th [1868].
Many thanks about names of plants, synonyms, and male flowers--all that I wanted.
I have been glad to see Watson's letter, and am sorry he is a renegade about Natural Selection. It is, as you say, characteristic, with the final fling at you.
His difficulty about the difference between the two genera of St. Helena Umbellifers is exactly the same as what Nageli has urged in an able pamphlet (207/1. "Ueber Entstehung und Begriff der naturhist. Art." "Sitz. der K. Bayer. Akad. Der Wiss. zu Munchen," 1865. Some of Nageli's points are discussed in the "Origin," Edition V., page 151.), and who in consequence maintains that there is some unknown innate tendency to progression in all organisms. I said in a letter to him that of course I could not in the least explain such cases; but that they did not seem to me of overwhelming force, as long as we are quite ignorant of the meaning of such structures, whether they are of any service to the plants, or inevitable consequences of modifications in other parts.
I cannot understand what Watson means by the "counter-balance in nature" to divergent variation. There is the counterbalance of crossing, of which my present work daily leads me to see more and more the efficiency; but I suppose he means something very different. Further, I believe variation to be divergent solely because diversified forms can best subsist. But you will think me a bore.
I enclose half a letter from F. Muller (which please return) for the chance of your liking to see it; though I have doubted much about sending it, as you are so overworked. I imagine the Solanum-like flower is curious.
I heard yesterday to my joy that Dr. Hildebrand has been experimenting on the direct action of pollen on the mother-plant with success. He has also succeeded in making a true graft-hybrid between two varieties of potatoes, in which I failed. I look at this as splendid for pangenesis, as being strong evidence that bud-reproduction and seminal reproduction do not essentially differ.
My book is horribly delayed, owing to the accursed index-maker. (207/2. Darwin thoroughly appreciated the good work put into the index of "The Variation of Animals and Plants.") I have almost forgotten it!
LETTER 208. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, January 30th [1868].
Most sincere thanks for your kind congratulations. I never received a note from you in my life without pleasure; but whether this will be so after you have read pangenesis (208/1. In Volume II. of "Animals and Plants, 1868.), I am very doubtful. Oh Lord, what a blowing up I may receive! I write now partly to say that you must not think of looking at my book till the summer, when I hope you will read pangenesis, for I care for your opinion on such a subject more than for that of any other man in Europe. You are so terribly sharp-sighted and so confoundedly honest! But to the day of my death I will always maintain that you have been too sharp-sighted on hybridism; and the chapter on the subject in my book I should like you to read: not that, as I fear, it will produce any good effect, and be hanged to you.
I rejoice that your children are
Once again I congratulate you on your success.
LETTER 207. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 6th [1868].
Many thanks about names of plants, synonyms, and male flowers--all that I wanted.
I have been glad to see Watson's letter, and am sorry he is a renegade about Natural Selection. It is, as you say, characteristic, with the final fling at you.
His difficulty about the difference between the two genera of St. Helena Umbellifers is exactly the same as what Nageli has urged in an able pamphlet (207/1. "Ueber Entstehung und Begriff der naturhist. Art." "Sitz. der K. Bayer. Akad. Der Wiss. zu Munchen," 1865. Some of Nageli's points are discussed in the "Origin," Edition V., page 151.), and who in consequence maintains that there is some unknown innate tendency to progression in all organisms. I said in a letter to him that of course I could not in the least explain such cases; but that they did not seem to me of overwhelming force, as long as we are quite ignorant of the meaning of such structures, whether they are of any service to the plants, or inevitable consequences of modifications in other parts.
I cannot understand what Watson means by the "counter-balance in nature" to divergent variation. There is the counterbalance of crossing, of which my present work daily leads me to see more and more the efficiency; but I suppose he means something very different. Further, I believe variation to be divergent solely because diversified forms can best subsist. But you will think me a bore.
I enclose half a letter from F. Muller (which please return) for the chance of your liking to see it; though I have doubted much about sending it, as you are so overworked. I imagine the Solanum-like flower is curious.
I heard yesterday to my joy that Dr. Hildebrand has been experimenting on the direct action of pollen on the mother-plant with success. He has also succeeded in making a true graft-hybrid between two varieties of potatoes, in which I failed. I look at this as splendid for pangenesis, as being strong evidence that bud-reproduction and seminal reproduction do not essentially differ.
My book is horribly delayed, owing to the accursed index-maker. (207/2. Darwin thoroughly appreciated the good work put into the index of "The Variation of Animals and Plants.") I have almost forgotten it!
LETTER 208. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, January 30th [1868].
Most sincere thanks for your kind congratulations. I never received a note from you in my life without pleasure; but whether this will be so after you have read pangenesis (208/1. In Volume II. of "Animals and Plants, 1868.), I am very doubtful. Oh Lord, what a blowing up I may receive! I write now partly to say that you must not think of looking at my book till the summer, when I hope you will read pangenesis, for I care for your opinion on such a subject more than for that of any other man in Europe. You are so terribly sharp-sighted and so confoundedly honest! But to the day of my death I will always maintain that you have been too sharp-sighted on hybridism; and the chapter on the subject in my book I should like you to read: not that, as I fear, it will produce any good effect, and be hanged to you.
I rejoice that your children are