Approaching the subject from the side which attracts me most, viz., inheritance, I have lately been inclined to speculate, very crudely and indistinctly, that propagation by true fertilisation will turn out to be a sort of mixture, and not true fusion, of two distinct individuals, or rather of innumerable individuals, as each parent has its parents and ancestors.
I can understand on no other view the way in which crossed forms go back to so large an extent to ancestral forms.

But all this, of course, is infinitely crude.

I hope to be in London in the course of this month, and there are two or three points which, for my own sake, I want to discuss briefly with you.
LETTER 58.

TO T.H.HUXLEY.

Down, September 26th [1857].
Thanks for your very pleasant note.