“You will think me very self-sufficient, when I declare that I feel _sure_ if Pangenesis is now still-born it will, thank God, at some future time reappear, begotten by some other father, and christened by some other name. Have you ever met with any tangible and clear view of what takes place in generation, whether by seeds or buds, or how a long-lost character can possibly reappear; or how the male element can possibly affect the mother plant, or the mother animal, so that her future progeny are affected? Now all these points and many others are connected together, whether truly or falsely is another question, by Pangenesis. You see I die hard, and stick up for my poor child.” _To_ WALLACE, _February 27th_ [1868]. “You cannot well imagine how much I have been pleased by what you say about ‘Pangenesis’.... What you say exactly and fully expresses my feeling, viz. that it is a relief to have some feasible explanation of the various facts, which can be given up as soon as any better hypothesis is found. It has certainly been an immense relief to my mind; for I have been stumbling over the subject for years, dimly seeing that some relation existed between the various classes of facts.... You have indeed pleased me, for I had given up the great god Pan as a still-born deity.” _To_ HOOKER, _February 28th_ [1868]. “I see clearly that any satisfaction which Pan may give will depend on the constitution of each man’s mind.... I heard yesterday from Wallace, who says (excuse horrid vanity), ‘I can hardly tell you how much I admire the chapter on “Pangenesis.” It is a _positive comfort_ to me to have any feasible explanation of a difficulty that has always been haunting me, and I shall never be able to give it up till a better one supplies its place, and that I think hardly possible, &c.’ Now his foregoing [italicised] words express my sentiments exactly and fully: though perhaps I feel the relief extra strongly from having during many years vainly attempted to form some hypothesis. When you or Huxley say that a single cell of a plant, or stump of an amputated limb, has the ‘potentiality’ of reproducing the whole--or ‘diffuses an influence,’ these words give me no positive idea;--but, when it is said that the cells of a plant, or stump, include atoms derived from every other cell of the whole organism and capable of development, I gain a distinct idea. But this idea would not be worth a rush, if it applied to one case alone; but it seems to me to apply to all the forms of reproduction--inheritance--metamorphosis--to the abnormal transposition of organs--to the direct action of the male element on the mother plant, &c. Therefore I fully believe that