Hodeslea, February 20, 1894.
My dear Mr. Bateson,
I have put off thanking you for the volume "On Variation" which you have been so good as to send me in the hope that I should be able to look into it before doing so.
But as I find that impossible, beyond a hasty glance, at present, I must content myself with saying how glad I am to see from that glance that we are getting back from the region of speculation into that of fact again.
There have been threatenings of late that the field of battle of
Evolution was being transferred to Nephelococcygia.
I see you are inclined to advocate the possibility of considerable "saltus" on the part of Dame Nature in her variations. I always took the same view, much to Mr. Darwin's disgust, and we used often to debate it.
If you should come across my article in the "Westminster" (1860) you will find a paragraph on that question near the end. I am writing to Macmillan to send you the volume.
Yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
By the way, have you ever considered this point, that the variations of which breeders avail themselves are exactly those which occur when the previously wild stocks are subjected to exactly the same conditions?