I am glad you like my article. There is no doubt it is rather like a tadpole, with a very big head and a rather thin tail. But the subject is a ticklish one to deal with, and I deliberately left a good deal suggested rather than expressed. Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, February 9, 1888. My dear Donnelly, No! I don't think softening has begun yet--vide "Nature" this week. ["Nature" 37 337 for February 9, 1888: review of his article in the "Nineteenth Century" on the "Industrial Struggle for Existence."] I am glad you found the article worth a second go. I took a vast of trouble (as the country folks say) about it. I am afraid it has made Spencer very angry--but he knows I think he has been doing mischief this long time. Bellows to mend! Bellows to mend! I am getting very tired of it. If I walk two or three miles, however slowly, I am regularly done for at the end of it. I expect there has been more mischief than I thought for. How about the Bill? Ever yours, T.H. Huxley. [However, he and Mr. Spencer wrote their minds to each other on the subject, and as Huxley remarks with reference to this occasion,] "the process does us both good, and in no way interferes with our friendship." [The letter immediately following, to Mr. Romanes, answers an inquiry about a passage quoted from Huxley's writings by Professor Schurman in his "Ethical Import of Darwinism." This passage, made up of sentences from two different essays, runs as follows:--] It is quite conceivable that every species tends to produce varieties of a limited number and kind, and that the effect of natural selection is to favour the development of some of these, while it opposes the development of others along their predetermined line of modification. ("Collected Essays" 2 223.) A whale does not tend to vary in the direction of producing feathers, nor a bird in the direction of producing whalebone. (In "Mr. Darwin's Critics" 1871 "Collected Essays" 2 181.) "On the strength of these extracts" (writes Mr. Romanes), "Schurman represents you 'to presuppose design, since development takes place along certain predetermined lines of modification.' But as he does not give references, and as I do not remember the passages, I cannot consult the context, which I fancy must give a different colouring to the extracts." 4 Marlborough Place, January 5, 1888. My dear Romanes, They say that liars ought to have long memories. I am sure authors ought to. I could not at first remember where the passage Schurman quotes occurs, but I did find it in the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on "Evolution" ["Collected Essays" 2 223.], reprinted in "Science and Culture," page 307. But I do not find anything about the "whale" here. Nevertheless I have a consciousness of having said something of the kind somewhere. [In "Mr. Darwin's Critics" 1871 "Collected Essays" 2 181.] If you look at the whole passage, you will see that there is not the least intention on my part to presuppose design.