That the pages of a Flora or Fauna should give the idea of fixity and clear limitation which does not well or wholly represent the reality, is natural enough; is, indeed, inevitable. The object in these works is to set forth the differences, and put them in the strongest and clearest light, so that the forms may be readily discriminated. The nearer two forms are alike, the more pains the naturalist takes to set forth the differences, while the likeness “goes without saying,” and is therefore overlooked by the outsider, though it may have been almost an even chance that the describer merged the two in one. The thoughtful and experienced naturalist does not get a wrong impression from all this, but the outsider almost certainly will. A. G. January 14, 1876. DEAR MR. WRIGHT,--Thanks for your line of the 8th. By this week’s “Nation,”[99] you see that, long as the talk is, I have not yet touched the critical question, nor have I yet got an opportunity to apply myself to it. But I hope to do so soon. Meanwhile, the number of the “Westminster Review,” which you called my attention to, has passed through my hands in our book club, and I shall soon have it in my hands again. It makes a very strong presentation, and the question is, how its points are to be met on purely scientific grounds. If I can meet them fairly, and reëstablish the evidence of design on the basis it ought to stand upon, I shall be satisfied and happy. Anyway, it is a help to me to have this able presentation brought before me.... May 21. ...I have here and there seen references to St. Augustine as maintaining views of indirect creation, such as now would be termed, or might be termed, evolutionary. Can you conveniently put me in the way of understanding his ideas? It is matter for you to work up in your article on Calvinism and Evolution.... December 20. ... Do you see No. 1 of the new agnostic weekly, “Evolution,” and its review of “Darwiniana”? It insists that such a world as ours is too full of imperfections to have had any intellectual originator.... TO JOHN H. REDFIELD. July 1, 1876. DEAR REDFIELD,--I doubt if you know that the late John Stuart Mill, the philosopher, was a keen botanist. His herbarium, rich in European plants and with a good many Indian, etc. (small specimens from Royle, etc.), was given by his stepdaughter to Kew. But Hooker asked leave, after taking a certain amount, to present the rest to me, with leave to choose where all I did not care to have incorporated in the herbarium here should go to. I think it should go to a public herbarium, and as I think the Academy’s is not supplied well with European species of at all recent date, or recent collecting, perhaps it should go to you.... TO MRS. GRAY. June 11, 1876.