evert to it." In Sir Joseph's letter to Bates (loc. cit.,
page lii) he wrote: "Darwin also believes in some reversion to type
which is opposed to my view of variation." It may be noted in this
connection that Mr. Galton has shown reason to believe in a centripetal
tendency in variation (to use Hooker's phraseology) which is not
identical with the reversion of cultivated plants to their ancestors,
the case to which Hooker apparently refers. See "Natural Inheritance,"
by F. Galton, 1889.) I suppose you do not agree with or do not remember
my doctrine of the good of diversification (136/3. Darwin usually used
the word "divergence" in this connection.); this seems to me amply to
account for variation being centrifugal--if you forget it, look at
this discussion (page 117 of 3rd edition), it was the best point which,
according to my notions, I made out, and it has always pleased me. It is
really curiously satisfactory to me to see so able a man as Bates (and
yourself) believing more fully in Natural Selection than I think I even
do myself. (136/4. This refers to a very interesting passage in Hooker's
letter to Bates (loc. cit., page liii): "I am sure that with you, as
with me, the more you think the less occasion you will see for anything
but time and natural selection to effect change; and that this view
is the simplest and clearest in the present state of science is one
advantage, at any rate. Indeed, I think that it is, in the present state
of the inquiry, the legitimate position to take up; it is time enough to
bother our heads with the secondary cause when there is some evidence of
it or some demand for it--at present I do not see one or the other, and
so feel inclined to renounce any other for the present.") By the way, I
always boast to you, and so I think Owen will be wrong that my book will
be forgotten in ten years, for a French edition is now going through the
press and a second German edition wanted. Your long letter to Bates has
set my head working, and makes me repent of the nine months spent on
orchids; though I know not why I should not have amused myself on them
as well as slaving on bones of ducks and pigeons, etc. The orchids have
been splendid sport, though at present I am fearfully sick of them.

I enclose a waste copy of woodcut of Mormodes ignea; I wish you had a
plant at Kew, for I am sure its wonderful mechanism and structure would
amuse you. Is it not curious the way the labellum sits on the top of the