If you have the patience to read it through, which is very doubtful, you will find, I think, a large accumulation of facts which will be of service to you in future papers; and they could not be put to better use, for you certainly are a master in the noble art of reasoning.
LETTER 204.

TO T.H.HUXLEY.

Down, October 3rd [no date].
I know you have no time for speculative correspondence; and I did not in the least expect an answer to my last.

But I am very glad to have had it, for in my eclectic work the opinions of the few good men are of great value to me.
I knew, of course, of the Cuvierian view of classification (204/1.
Cuvier proved that "animals cannot be arranged in a single series, but that there are several distinct plans of organisation to be observed among them, no one of which, in its highest and most complicated modification, leads to any of the others" (Huxley's "Darwiniana," page 215).); but I think that most naturalists look for something further, and search for "the natural system,"-- "for the plan on which the Creator has worked," etc., etc.

It is this further element which I believe to be simply genealogical.
But I should be very glad to have your answer (either when we meet or by note) to the following case, taken by itself, and not allowing yourself to look any further than to the point in question.