So he wrote in January; and on March 19 he wrote again, with another set of proofs:—
Toujours l'audace! More proofs to look over. Don't write a critical essay, only marginal notes. Perhaps you will say, like the Roman poet to the poetaster who asked him to erase any passages he did not like, and who replied, "One erasure will suffice"—perhaps you will say, "There needs only one marginal note."
To this he received answer:—]
Casalini, W. Bournemouth, March 22, 1886.
My dear Spencer,
More power to your elbow! You will find my blessing at the end of the proof.
But please look very carefully at some comments which are not merely sceptical criticisms, but deal with matters of fact.
I see the difference between us on the speculative question lies in the conception of the primitive protoplasm. I conceive it as a mechanism set going by heat—as a sort of active crystal with the capacity of giving rise to a great number of pseudomorphs; and I conceive that external conditions favour one or the other pseudomorph, but leave the fundamental mechanism untouched.
You appear to me to suppose that external conditions modify the machinery, as if by transferring a flour-mill into a forest you could make it into a saw-mill I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything—especially as I am now so much occupied with theology—but I don't see my way to your conclusion.
And that is all the more reason why I don't want to stop you from working it out, or rather to make the "one erasure" you suggest. For as to stopping you, "ten on me might," as the navvy said to the little special constable who threatened to take him into custody.