In Aug. 1867, when Lyell was reading the proofs of the book, my father wrote:—
"I thank you cordially for your last two letters. The former one did me real good, for I had got so wearied with the subject that I could hardly bear to correct the proofs, and you gave me fresh heart. I remember thinking that when you came to the Pigeon chapter you would pass it over as quite unreadable. I have been particularly pleased that you have noticed Pangenesis. I do not know whether you ever had the feeling of having thought so much over a subject that you had lost all power of judging it. This is my case with Pangenesis (which is 26 or 27 years old), but I am inclined to think that if it be admitted as a probable hypothesis it will be a somewhat important step in Biology."
His theory of Pangenesis, by which he attempted to explain "how the characters of the parents are 'photographed' on the child, by means of material atoms derived from each cell in both parents, and developed in the child," has never met with much acceptance. Nevertheless, some of his contemporaries felt with him about it. Thus in February 1868, he wrote to Hooker:—
"I heard yesterday from Wallace, who says (excuse horrid vanity), 'I can hardly tell you how much I admire the chapter on Pangenesis. 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.' Now his foregoing [italicised] words express my sentiments exactly and fully: though 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, has the 'potentiality' of reproducing the whole—or 'diffuses an influence,' 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 and capable of development, I gain a distinct idea."
Immediately after the publication of the book, he wrote:
Down, February 10 [1868].
My dear Hooker,—What is the good of having a friend, if one may not boast to him? I heard yesterday that Murray has sold in a week the whole edition of 1500 copies of my book, and the sale so pressing that he has agreed with Clowes to get another edition in fourteen days! This has done me a world of good, for I had got into a sort of dogged hatred of my book. And now there has appeared a review in the Pall Mall which has pleased me excessively, more perhaps than is reasonable. I am quite content, and do not care how much I may be pitched into. If by any chance you should hear who wrote the article in the Pall Mall, do please tell me; it is some one who writes capitally, and who knows the subject. I went to luncheon on Sunday, to Lubbock's, partly in hopes of seeing you, and, be hanged to you, you were not there.
Your cock-a-hoop friend,
C. D.
Independently of the favourable tone of the able series of notices in the Pall Mall Gazette (Feb. 10, 15, 17, 1868), my father may well have been gratified by the following passages:—