LETTER 36. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, July 2nd [1854].

I have had the house full of visitors, and when I talk I can do absolutely
nothing else; and since then I have been poorly enough, otherwise I should
have answered your letter long before this, for I enjoy extremely
discussing such points as those in your last note. But what a villain you
are to heap gratuitous insults on my ELASTIC theory: you might as well call
the virtue of a lady elastic, as the virtue of a theory accommodating in
its favours. Whatever you may say, I feel that my theory does give me some
advantages in discussing these points. But to business: I keep my notes
in such a way, viz., in bulk, that I cannot possibly lay my hand on any
reference; nor as far as the vegetable kingdom is concerned do I distinctly
remember having read any discussion on general highness or lowness,
excepting Schleiden (I fancy) on Compositae being highest. Ad. de Jussieu
(36/1. "Monographie de la Famille des Malpighiacees," by Adrien de
Jussieu, "Arch. du Museum." Volume III., page 1, 1843.), in "Arch. du
Museum," Tome 3, discusses the value of characters of degraded flowers in
the Malpighiaceae, but I doubt whether this at all concerns you. Mirbel
somewhere has discussed some such question.

Plants lie under an enormous disadvantage in respect to such discussions in
not passing through larval stages. I do not know whether you can
distinguish a plant low from non-development from one low from degradation,
which theoretically, at least, are very distinct. I must agree with Forbes
that a mollusc may be higher than one articulate animal and lower than
another; if one was asked which was highest as a whole, the Molluscan or
Articulate Kingdom, I should look to and compare the highest in each, and