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More Letters of Charles Darwin

CHAPTER 1
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Trans.

R.Soc." Volume 143, Part I., 1853, page 29.)); I have read it all with much interest: but it would be ridiculous in me to make any remarks on a subject on which I am so utterly ignorant; but I can see its high importance.

The discovery of the type or "idea" (33/3.
Huxley defines his use of the word "archetype" at page 50: "All that I mean is the conception of a form embodying the most general propositions that can be affirmed respecting the Cephalous Mollusca, standing in the same relation to them as the diagram to a geometrical theorem, and like it, at once, imaginary and true.") (in your sense, for I detest the word as used by Owen, Agassiz & Co.) of each great class, I cannot doubt, is one of the very highest ends of Natural History; and certainly most interesting to the worker-out.

Several of your remarks have interested me: I am, however, surprised at what you say versus "anamorphism" (33/4.
The passage referred to is at page 63: "If, however, all Cephalous Mollusks...be only modifications by excess or defect of the parts of a definite archetype, then, I think, it follows as a necessary consequence, that no anamorphism takes place in this group.

There is no progression from a lower to a higher type, but merely a more or less complete evolution of one type." Huxley seems to use the term anamorphism in a sense differing from that of some writers.


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