illiterate web

LETTER 271. TO FRANCIS GALTON. Down, November 7th, 1875.

I have read your essay with much curiosity and interest, but you probably have no idea how excessively difficult it is to understand. (271/1. "A Theory of Heredity" ("Journal of the Anthropological Institute," 1875). In this paper Mr. Galton admits that the hypothesis of organic units "must lie at the foundation of the science of heredity," and proceeds to show in what respect his conception differs from the hypothesis of pangenesis. The copy of Mr. Galton's paper, which Darwin numbered in correspondence with the criticisms in his letter, is not available, and we are therefore only able to guess at some of the points referred to.) I cannot fully grasp, only here and there conjecture, what are the points on which we differ. I daresay this is chiefly due to muddy-headedness on my part, but I do not think wholly so. Your many terms, not defined, "developed germs," "fertile," and "sterile germs" (the word "germ" itself from association misleading to me) "stirp," "sept," "residue," etc., etc., quite confounded me. If I ask myself how you derive, and where you place the innumerable gemmules contained within the spermatozoa formed by a male animal during its whole life, I cannot answer myself. Unless you can make several parts clearer I believe (though I hope I am altogether wrong) that only a few will endeavour or succeed in fathoming your meaning. I have marked a few passages with numbers, and here make a few remarks and express my opinion, as you desire it, not that I suppose it will be of any use to you.

1. If this implies that many parts are not modified by use and disuse during the life of the individual, I differ widely from you, as every year I come to attribute more and more to such agency. (271/2. This seems to refer to page 329 of Mr. Galton's paper. The passage must have been hastily read, and has been quite misunderstood. Mr. Galton has never expressed the view attributed to him.)

2. This seems rather bold, as sexuality has not been detected in some of the lowest forms, though I daresay it may hereafter be. (271/3. Mr. Galton, op. cit., pages 332-3: "There are not of a necessity two sexes, because swarms of creatures of the simplest organisations mainly multiply by some process of self-division.")

3. If gemmules (to use my own term) were often deficient in buds, I cannot but think that bud-variations would be commoner than they are in a state of nature; nor does it seem that bud-variations often exhibit deficiencies which might be accounted for by the absence of the proper gemmules. I take a very different view of the meaning or cause of sexuality. (271/4. Mr. Galton's idea is that in a bud or other asexually produced part, the germs (i.e. gemmules) may not be completely representative of the whole organism, and if reproduction is continued asexually "at each successive stage there is always a chance of some one or more of the various species of germs... dying out" (page 333). Mr. Galton supposes, in sexual reproduction, where two parents contribute germs to the embryo the chance of deficiency of any of the necessary germs is greatly diminished. Darwin's "very different view of the meaning or cause of sexuality" is no doubt that given in "Cross and Self Fertilisation"--i.e., that sexuality is equivalent to changed conditions, that the parents are not representative of different sexes, but of different conditions of life.)

4. I have ordered "Fraser's Magazine" (271/5. "The History of Twins," by F. Galton, "Fraser's Magazine," November, 1875, republished with additions in the "Journal of the Anthropological Institute," 1875. Mr. Galton explains the striking dissimilarity of twins which is sometimes met with by supposing that the offspring in this case divide the available gemmules between them in such a way that each is the complement of the other. Thus, to put the case in an exaggerated way, similar twins would each have half the gemmules A, B, C,...Z., etc, whereas, in the case of dissimilar twins, one would have all the gemmules A, B, C, D,...M, and the other would have N...Z.), and am curious to learn how twins from a single ovum are distinguished from twins from two ova. Nothing seems to me more curious than the similarity and dissimilarity of twins.

5. Awfully difficult to understand.

6. I have given almost the same notion.