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Letter from Francis Galton to Charles Robert Darwin 25 April 1871
42 Rutland Gate
April 25 71
My dear Darwin
I am grieved beyond measure, to learn that I have misrepresented your doctrine,— and the only consolation I can feel is that your letter to ‘Nature’ may place the doctrine in a clearer light and attract more attention to it.1 I write hurriedly, as time is important, to save the mornings post, in order to point out two passages which, I hope, in your letter to Nature, you will explain at length, so as to remove the false impression of Pangenesis under which I & probably others labour. In “Domestication Animals &c” p 374 “… throw of minute granules or atoms, which circulate freely throughout the system …”2 & p. 379 “… the gemmules .... . must be thoroughly diffused; nor does this seem improbable considering … the steady circulation of fluids throughout the body.”3
(Is there not also, a passage in which the words “circulating fluid” are used?— I cannot hurriedly lay my hand on it, but believe it to exist)4
Believe me—necessary in great haste—very | sincerely yours | Francis Galton
1
On 30 March 1871, Galton gave a paper before the Royal Society of London, in which he discussed experiments on transfusing rabbits’ blood in an attempt to demonstrate pangenesis, on the understanding that according to CD gemmules travelled through the blood (Galton 1871; see letter from Francis Galton, 9 January 1871, n. 1). CD published a letter in Nature, 27 April 1871, pp. 502–3, in order to clarify his position on gemmules (see letter to Nature, [before 27 April 1871]). No letter to Galton concerning Galton 1871 or CD’s letter to Nature has been found.
2
Galton quotes Variation 2: 374: ‘throw off minute granules or atoms, which circulate freely throughout the system’. The emphasis is Galton’s.
3
Variation 2: 379. CD discusses this passage in his letter to Nature, [before 27 April 1871].
4
There is no other passage containing the phrase ‘circulation of fluids’ or ‘circulating fluid’ in Variation.