My dear Huxley

I had no intention to make you to write to me, or expectation of your doing so; but your note has been so far “cheerier” to me than mine could have been to you, that I must & will write again.—¹ I saw your motive for not alluding to natural selection & quite agreed in my mind in its wisdom.² But at the same time it occurred to me that you might be giving it up, & that anyhow you could not safely allude to it, without various ‘providos’ too long to give in a Lecture. If I think continuously on some half-dozen structures of which we can at present see no uses, I can persuade myself that natural selection is of quite subordinate importance. On the other hand when I reflect on the innumerable structures, especially in plants, which 20 years ago would have been called simply ‘morphological’ & useless, & which are now known to be highly important, I can persuade myself that every structure may have been developed through natural selection.— It is really curious how many out of a list of Structures which Bronn enumerated, as not possibly due to natural selection because of no functional importance, can now be shown to be highly important.³ Lobed leaves was, I believe, one case & only 2 or 3 days ago, Frank showed me how they act in a manner quite sufficiently important to account for the lobing of any large leaf.—⁴

I am particularly delighted at what you say

⁠⟨⁠$\frac{1}{3}$ of page⁠⟩⁠ arrived in ‘Var. of Dom animals’ at exactly the same conclusion with respect to the domestic dogs of Europe & N. America.—⁵ See how important in another way this conclusion is; for no one can doubt that

⁠⟨⁠$\frac{1}{3}$ of page⁠⟩⁠ & how well this supports the Paflasian doctrine that domestication eliminates the sterility almost universal between forms slowly developed in a state of Nature.—⁶

⁠⟨⁠$\frac{1}{3}$ of page⁠⟩⁠ but ⁠⟨⁠rest of line missing⁠⟩⁠ own fault.

Ever yours | Ch. Darwin

Plants are splendid for making one believe in natural selection, as will & consciousness are excluded. I

⁠⟨⁠$\frac{1}{3}$ of page⁠⟩⁠ ⁠⟨⁠mi⁠⟩⁠ght as will say that a pair of scissors or nutcrackers had been developed through external conditions as the structure in question.⁷