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 esse