ng to take me somewhere, _nolens volens_, at the
end of this month.

C. DARWIN.

* * * * *

_Holly Home, Barking, E. July 12, 1871._

Dear Darwin,--Many thanks for giving me the opportunity to read at my
leisure the very talented article of Mr. C. Wright. His criticism of
Mivart, though very severe, is, I think, in most cases sound; but I find
the larger part of the article so heavy and much of the language and
argument so very obscure, that I very much doubt the utility of printing
it separately. I do not think the readers of Mivart could ever read it
in that form, and I am sure your own answer to Mivart's arguments will
be so much more clear and to the point, that the other will be
unnecessary. You might extract certain portions in your own chapter,
such as the very ingenious suggestion as to the possible origin of
mammary glands, as well as the possible use of the rattle of the
rattlesnake, etc.

I cannot see the force of Mivart's objection to the theory of production
of the long neck of the giraffe (suggested in my first Essay), and which
C. Wright seems to admit, while his "watch-tower" theory seems to me
more difficult and unlikely as a means of origin. The argument, "Why
haven't other allied animals been modified in the same way?" seems to me
the weakest of the weak. I must say also I do not see any great reason
to complain of the "words" left out by Mivart, as they do not seem to me
materially to affect the meaning. Your expression, "and tends to depart
in a slight degree," I think hardly grammatical; a _tendency_ to depart
cannot very well be said to be in a slight degree; a _departure_ can,
but a tendency must be either a _slight tendency_ or a _strong
tendency_; the degree to which the departure may reach must depend on
favourable or unfavourable causes in addition to the tendency itself.
Mivart's words, "and tending to depart from the parental type," seem to
me quite unobjectionable as a paraphrase of yours, because the "tending"
is kept in; and your own view undoubtedly is that the tendency may lead
to an ultimate departure to any extent. Mivart's error is to suppose
that your words favour the view of _sudden departures_, and I do not see
that the expression he uses really favours his view a bit more than if
he had quoted your exact words. The expression of yours he relies upon
is evidently "the whole organism seeming to have become plastic," and he
argues, no doubt erro