I was on the point of adding to an order to Williams & Norgate for your
Lectures (149/1. "A Course of Six Lectures to Working Men," published in
six pamphlets by Hardwicke, and later as a book. See Letter 156.) when
they arrived, and much obliged I am. I have read them with interest, and
they seem to me very good for this purpose and capitally written, as is
everything which you write. I suppose every book nowadays requires some
pushing, so that if you do not wish these lectures to be extensively
circulated, I suppose they will not; otherwise I should think they would do
good and spread a taste for the natural sciences. Anyhow, I have liked
them; but I get more and more, I am sorry to say, to care for nothing but
Natural History; and chiefly, as you once said, for the mere species
question. I think I liked No. III. the best of all. I have often said and
thought that the process of scientific discovery was identical with
everyday thought, only with more care; but I never succeeded in putting the
case to myself with one-tenth of the clearness with which you have done. I
think your second geological section will puzzle your non-scientific
readers; anyhow, it has puzzled me, and with the strong middle line, which
must represent either a line of stratification or some great mineralogical
change, I cannot conceive how your statement can hold good.

I am very glad to hear of your "three-year-old" vigour [?]; but I fear,
with all your multifarious work, that your book on Man will necessarily be
delayed. You bad man; you say not a word about Mrs. Huxley, of whom my
wife and self are always truly anxious to hear.

P.S. I see in the "Cornhill Magazine" a notice of a work by Cohn, which
apparently is important, on the contractile tissue of plants. (149/2.
"Ueber contractile Gewebe im Pflanzenreiche." "Abhand. der Schlesischen
Gesellschaft fur vaterlandische Cultur," Heft I., 1861.) You ought to have