This is all I have to say about Dr. B.'s book, and it certainly has not
been worth saying. Nevertheless, reward me whenever you can by giving me
any news about your appointment to the Bethnal Green Museum.--My dear
Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
* * * * *
_The Dell, Grays, Essex. August 31, 1872._
Dear Darwin,--Many thanks for your long and interesting letter about
Bastian's book, though I almost regret that my asking you for your
opinion should have led you to give yourself so much trouble. I quite
understand your frame of mind, and think it quite a natural and proper
one. You had hard work to hammer your views into people's heads at
first, and if Bastian's theory is true he will have still harder work,
because the facts he appeals to are themselves so difficult to
establish. Are not you mistaken about the Sphagnum? As I remember it,
Huxley detected a fragment of Sphagnum leaf _in the same solution in
which a fungoid growth had been developed_. Bastian mistook the Sphagnum
also for a vegetable growth, and on account of this ignorance of the
character of Sphagnum, and its presence in the solution, Huxley rejected
somewhat contemptuously (and I think very illogically) all Bastian's
observations.
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