From J. V. Carus   17 March 1868

My dear Sir,

My best thanks for the sheets of the second edition, which I got in time, to make the alterations at least from p 170 sq.¹ Besides some minor misprints I find on p 282 (1. ed.), 2 lines from bottom, p 283, 7 lines from top and p 284 note 53 the name is spelt Lucaze-D., while it is Lacaze-Duthiers²   But the chief reason I write to you is to ask you for a note, which is dropped out on p 294. (here you will find 9 lines from bottom “absortion”). But look 16 lines from bottom, here you find the number “7”, but no footnote.³ Will you send me a note for this missing number? If not I alter the following numbers.

With this same post I send you a paper on the domestic animals of the countries bordering the Nile by Prof Hartmann of Berlin, who sent me two copies, one for you.⁴ You will find some details of much interest. Hartmann is about to prepare a larger work with better illustrations than those in the “Annalen der Landwirthschaft” (Annals of Agriculture).⁵ I dare say you will peruse the paper with interest, as it contains some very good observations.

The translation is done, as far as my doing is concerned; but I am sorry to say the printing is about half done only. But it will go on now at a quicker rate. It was a hard work, not for the translation as such, but hard to keep steady and to go on quietly. Your theory of Pangenesis gave me much thinking and pondering.⁶ I shouldn’t like to pretend to be able of giving a decided opinion about it, especially as I am far too much a “Darwinist” (to use the proper term of now-a-days) to find fault with any thing that comes from you; and yet—but you must promise me not to think me immodest and conceited— it, viz. your theory, it seems rather a little too complicated, not as part of a physiological hypothesis, but as as a molecular theory. I wonder what Grove would say of this application of “the correlation of physical forces”.⁷ This law together with your selection and the struggle for life should, according to my opinion, go by far much further and in an appearingly more methodical way. But, excuse me for my telling so frankly my unasked-for opinion It is so very difficult to find the right expressions without hurting my feelings towards you, and yet I felt myself bound to tell you that the reading and re-reading of this chapter took me in completely for some time.

With the most hearty wishes for your health I remain | My dear Sir, | Yours most thankfully obliged | J. Victor Carus