299). The
discussion of 1868 began with a letter from Wallace, written towards the
end of February, giving his opinion on the "Variation of Animals and
Plants"; the discussion on the sterility of hybrids is at p. 185, Vol.
II., 1st edit.
* * * * *
(_Second and third sheets of a letter from Wallace, apparently of
February, 1868._)
I am in the second volume of your book, and I have been astonished at
the immense number of interesting facts you have brought together. I
read the chapter on Pangenesis first, for I could not wait. I can hardly
tell you how much I admire it. 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. You have now fairly beaten
Spencer on his own ground, for he really offered no solution of the
difficulties of the problem. The incomprehensible minuteness and vast
numbers of the physiological germs or atoms (Which themselves must be
compounded of numbers of Spencer's physiological units) is the only
difficulty, but that is only on a par with the difficulties in all
conceptions of matter, space, motion, force, etc.
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