lusively occupied with domestic varieties), I shall
have to study and re-study your paper, and no doubt shall then have to
plague you with questions. I am heartily glad to hear that you are well.
I have been compelled to write in a hurry; so excuse me.

LETTER 149. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, December 7th [1862].

I was on the point of adding to an order to Williams & Norgate for your
Lectures (149/1. "A Course of Six Lectures to Working Men," published in
six pamphlets by Hardwicke, and later as a book. See Letter 156.) when
they arrived, and much obliged I am. I have read them with interest, and
they seem to me very good for this purpose and capitally written, as is
everything which you write. I suppose every book nowadays requires some
pushing, so that if you do not wish these lectures to be extensively
circulated, I suppose they will not; otherwise I should think they would
do good and spread a taste for the natural sciences. Anyhow, I have
liked them; but I get more and more, I am sorry to say, to care for
nothing but Natural History; and chiefly, as you once said, for the mere
species question. I think I liked No. III. the best of all. I have often
said and thought that the process of scientific discovery was identical
with everyday thought, only with more care; but I never succeeded in
putting the case to myself with one-tenth of the clearness with which
you have done. I think your second geological section will puzzle your
non-scientific readers; anyhow, it has puzzled me, and with the strong
middle line, which must represent either a line of stratification or
some great mineralogical change, I cannot conceive how your statement
can hold good.

I am very glad to hear of your "three-year-old" vigour [?]; but I fear,
with all your multifarious work, that your book on Man will necessarily
be delayed. You bad man; you say not a word about Mrs. Huxley, of whom
my wife and self are always truly anxious to hear.

P.S. I see in the "Cornhill Magazine" a notice of a work by Cohn, which
apparently is important, on the contractile tissue of plants. (149/2.
"Ueber contractile Gewebe im Pflanzenreiche." "Abhand. der Schlesischen
Gesellschaft fur vaterlandische Cultur," Heft I., 1861.) You ought to
have it reviewed. I have ordered it, and must try and make out, if
I can, some of the accursed german, for I am much interested in the
subject, and experimented a little on it this summer, and came to
the conclusion that plants must