[London,] 7 August 1866 

Dear Frep, 

You inferred correctly from my last letter that my state of 
health has improved, although it fluctuates from one day to the 
next. Meanwhile, the feeling of being fit to work again pors much 
ror A MAN. Unfortunately, I am constantly interrupted by socrat 
rrousies and lose a lot of time. Thus, for example, the butcher has 
suspended meat supplies today, and by Saturday even my stock of 
paper will be used up. 

Since yesterday Laura is half promised to Monsieur Lafargue, 
my medical Creole. She treats him like the others, but the 

« See this volume, p. 291. - > G. von Griesheim, Vorlesungen tiber die Taktik. 

outbursts of feeling these Creoles are subject to, a slight fear that 
the jeune homme? (he is 25) might do away with himself, etc., some 
fondness for him, undemonstrative as always with Laura (he is a 
good-looking, intelligent, energetic lad of athletic build), have more 
or less led to a semi-compromise. The boy attached himself to me 
first of all, but soon transferred the attraction from the old man 
to his daughter. His economic circumstances are middling, as he is 
the only child of a former planter-family.” He is rayé de l’université 
de Paris pour deux ans‘ on account of the congrés 4 Liége,” but 
intends to sit his examination at Strasbourg. In my judgment, he 
has an outstanding gift for medicine, in which he is, however, 
infinitely more sceptical than our friend Gumpert. Scepticism in 
medical matters appears to be the order of the day with both 
professors and students in Paris. E. g., Magendie, who declares all 
therapeutics, in their present state, to be fraudulent. As always, 
this scepticism not only does not exclude crorcuets, but embraces 
them. E. g., Lafargue believes in alcohol and electricity as the chief 
cures. Fortunately, he is having a good adviser in Professor 
Carrére, a refugee (hautes mathématiques, physics and chemistry), 
and will be able to acquire much practical experience in the 
London hospitals. I have managed to get him admitted there 
through the good offices of a third party. 

A very important work which I shall send on to you (but on 
condition that you send it back, as it is not my property) as soon as 
I have made the necessary notes, is: ‘P. Trémaux, Origine et 
Transformations de 'Homme et des autres Etres, Paris 1865. In spite 
of all the shortcomings that I have noted, it represents a very 
significant advance over Darwin. The two chief theses are: 
crotsements* do not produce, as is commonly thought, variety, but, 
on the contrary, a unity typical of the espèces.' The physical 
features of the earth, on the other hand, differentiate. (they are the 
chief, though not the only basis). Progress, which Darwin regards 
as purely accidental, is essential here on the basis of the stages of 
the earth’s development, dégénérescence which Darwin cannot 
explain, is straightforward here; ditto the rapid extinction of 
merely transitional forms, compared with the slow development of 
the type of the espéce, so that the gaps in palaeontology, which 
Darwin finds disturbing, are necessary here. Ditto the fixity of the 
espece, once established, which is explained as a necessary law 

2 young man-? the family of Francois Lafargue -¢ sent down from the 
University of Paris for two years-4 higher mathematics - © crossings - £ species - 
8 degeneration 

(apart from individual, etc., variations). Here hybridisation, which 
raises problems for Darwin, on the contrary supports the system, 
as it is shown that an espéce is in fact first established as soon as 
croisement with others ceases to produce offspring or to be 
possible, etc. 

In its historical and political applications far more significant 
and pregnant than Darwin. For certain questions, such as 
nationality, etc., only here has a basis in nature been found. E.g., 
he corrects the Pole Duchinski, whose version of the geological 
differences between Russia and the Western Slav lands he does 
incidentally confirm, by saying not that the Russians are Tartars 
rather than Slavs, etc.,? as the latter believes, but that on the 
surface-formation predominant in Russia the Slav has been 
tartarised and mongolised; likewise (he spent a long time in 
Africa) he shows that the common negro type is only a 
degeneration of a far higher one. 

‘Hors des grandes lois de la nature, les projets des hommes ne sont que 
calamités, témoins les efforts des czars pour faire du peuple polonais des 
Moscovites. [...] Méme nature, mémes facultés, renaitront sur un méme sol. 
L’ceuvre de destruction ne saurait toujours durer, l’ceuvre de reconstitution est 
éternelle... Les races slaves et lithuaniennes ont avec les Moscovites, leur véritable 
limite dans la grande ligne géologique qui existe au nord des bassins du Niémen et 
du Dniéper... Au sud de cette grande ligne: les aptitudes et les types propres a 
cette région sont et demeureront toujours différents de ceux de la Russie.’> 
[P. Trémaux, Origine et transformations de Uhomme..., pp. 402, 420, 421.] 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M.