My dear Hooker

I have been deeply interested by y^r letter, & we had a good laugh over Huxleys remark which was so deuced clever that you c^d not recollect it.² I cannot quite follow y^r train of thought, for in the last page you admit all that I wish, having apparently denied all, or thought all mere words, in the previous pages of y^r note; but it may be my muddle. I see clearly that any satisfaction which Pan. may give will depend on the constitution of each man’s mind.³ If you have arrived already at any similar conclusion the whole will of course appear stale to you. I heard yesterday from Wallace, who says (excuse horrid vanity) “I can hardly tell you how much I admire the Chap. on Pan. It is a positive comfort to me to have any feasible explanation of a difficulty that has always been haunting me,—& I shall never be able to give it up till a better one supplies its place, & that I think hardly possible.” &c &c⁴   Now his foregoing double dashed words expresse my sentiments exactly & fully; tho’ 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 the stump of an amputated limb, have the “potentiality” of reproducing the whole—or “diffuses an influence”⁵—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 & capable of developement, I gain a distinct idea. But this idea w^d 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 &c. Therefore I fully believe that each cell does actually throw off an atom or gemmule of its contents; but whether or not, this hypothesis serves as a useful connecting link for various grand classes of phyziological facts, which at present stand absolutely isolated.—

I have touched on the doubtful point (alluded to by Huxley) how far atoms derived from the same cell may become developed into different structure accordingly as they are differently nourished; I advanced as illustrations galls & polypoid excrescences.⁶

I have numbered, answered, & corrected y^r queries as well as I can.⁷

It is a real pleasure to me to write to you on this subject, & I sh^d be delighted if we can understand each other; but you must not let y^r good nature lead you on. Remember we always fight tooth & nail.

We go to London on Tuesday, first for a week to Q. Anne St, & afterwards to Miss W^ds. in Regent’s Pk & stay the whole month, which as my gardener truly says is a “terrible thing” for my experiments.⁸

Newton told George at Cam. that Berthold Seemann wrote the Rev. in the Ath.⁹ & that he heard from Kingsley that Lewis did not write that in the Pall Mall—¹⁰

yours very affectionately | Ch. Darwin