Down, Beckenham, Kent. July 9, 1871.
My dear Wallace,—I send by this post a review by Chauncey Wright, as I much want your opinion of it, as soon as you can send it. I consider you an incomparably better critic than I am. The article, though not very clearly written, and poor in parts for want of knowledge, seems to me admirable.
Mivart's book is producing a great effect against Natural Selection, and more especially against me. Therefore, if you think the article even somewhat good, I will write and get permission to publish it as a shilling pamphlet, together with the MS. addition (enclosed), for which there was not room at the end of the review. I do not suppose I should lose more than £20 or £30.
I am now at work at a new and cheap edition of the "Origin," and shall answer several points in Mivart's book and introduce a new chapter for this purpose; but I treat [pg 265]the subject so much more concretely, and I daresay less philosophically, than Wright, that we shall not interfere with each other. You will think me a bigot when I say, after studying Mivart, I was never before in my life so convinced of the general (i.e. not in detail) truth of the views in the "Origin." I grieve to see the omission of the words by Mivart, detected by Wright.89 I complained to M. that in two cases he quotes only the commencement of sentences by me and thus modifies my meaning; but I never supposed he would have omitted words. There are other cases of what I consider unfair treatment. I conclude with sorrow that though he means to be honourable, he is so bigoted that he cannot act fairly.
I was glad to see your letter in Nature, though I think you were a little hard on the silly and presumptuous man.
I hope that your house and grounds are progressing well, and that you are in all ways flourishing.
I have been rather seedy, but a few days in London did me much good; and my dear good wife is going to take me somewhere, nolens volens, at the end of this month.
C. DARWIN.
Holly Home, Barking, E. July 12, 1871.
Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for giving me the opportunity to read at my leisure the very talented article of Mr. C. Wright. His criticism of Mivart, though very severe, is, I think, in most cases sound; but I find the larger part of the article so heavy and much of the language and argument so very obscure, that I very much doubt the utility of printing it separately. I do not think the readers of Mivart could [pg 266]ever read it in that form, and I am sure your own answer to Mivart's arguments will be so much more clear and to the point, that the other will be unnecessary. You might extract certain portions in your own chapter, such as the very ingenious suggestion as to the possible origin of mammary glands, as well as the possible use of the rattle of the rattlesnake, etc.
I cannot see the force of Mivart's objection to the theory of production of the long neck of the giraffe (suggested in my first Essay), and which C. Wright seems to admit, while his "watch-tower" theory seems to me more difficult and unlikely as a means of origin. The argument, "Why haven't other allied animals been modified in the same way?" seems to me the weakest of the weak. I must say also I do not see any great reason to complain of the "words" left out by Mivart, as they do not seem to me materially to affect the meaning. Your expression, "and tends to depart in a slight degree," I think hardly grammatical; a tendency to depart cannot very well be said to be in a slight degree; a departure can, but a tendency must be either a slight tendency or a strong tendency; the degree to which the departure may reach must depend on favourable or unfavourable causes in addition to the tendency itself. Mivart's words, "and tending to depart from the parental type," seem to me quite unobjectionable as a paraphrase of yours, because the "tending" is kept in; and your own view undoubtedly is that the tendency may lead to an ultimate departure to any extent. Mivart's error is to suppose that your words favour the view of sudden departures, and I do not see that the expression he uses really favours his view a bit more than if he had quoted your exact words. The expression of yours he relies upon is evidently "the whole organism seeming to have become plastic," and he argues, no doubt erroneously, that having so become "plastic," any amount or [pg 267]a larger amount of sudden variation in some direction is likely.
Mivart's greatest error, the confounding "individual variations" with "minute or imperceptible variations," is well exposed by C. Wright, and that part I should like to see reprinted; but I always thought you laid too much stress on the slowness of the action of Natural Selection owing to the smallness and rarity of favourable variations. In your chapter on Natural Selection the expressions, "extremely slight modifications," "every variation even the slightest," "every grade of constitutional difference," occur, and these have led to errors such as Mivart's, I say all this because I feel sure that Mivart would be the last to intentionally misrepresent you, and he has told me that he was sorry the word "infinitesimal," as applied to variations used by Natural Selection, got into his book, and that he would alter it, as no doubt he has done, in his second edition.
Some of Mivart's strongest points—the eye and ear, for instance—are unnoticed in the review. You will, of course, reply to these. His statement of the "missing link" argument is also forcible, and has, I have no doubt, much weight with the public. As to all his minor arguments, I feel with you that they leave Natural Selection stronger than ever, while the two or three main arguments do leave a lingering doubt in my mind of some fundamental organic law of development of which we have as yet no notion.
Pray do not attach any weight to my opinions as to the review. It is very clever, but the writer seems a little like those critics who know an author's or an artist's meaning better than they do themselves.
My house is now in the hands of a contractor, but I am wall-building, etc., and very busy.—With best wishes, believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
[pg 268]Down, Beckenham, Kent. July 12, 1871.
My dear Wallace,—Very many thanks. As soon as I read your letter I determined, not to print the paper, notwithstanding my eldest daughter, who is a very good critic, thought it so interesting as to be worth reprinting. Then my wife came in, and said, "I do not much care about these things and shall therefore be a good judge whether it is very dull." So I will leave my decision open for a day or two. Your letter has been, and will be, of use to me in other ways: thus I had quite forgotten that you had taken up the case of the giraffe in your first memoir, and I must look to this. I feel very doubtful how far I shall succeed in answering Mivart; it is so difficult to answer objections to doubtful points and make the discussion readable. I shall make only a selection. The worst of it is that I cannot possibly hunt through all my references for isolated points; it would take me three weeks of intolerably hard work. I wish I had your power of arguing clearly. At present I feel sick of everything, and if I could occupy my time and forget my daily discomforts or little miseries, I would never publish another word. But I shall cheer up, I daresay, soon, being only just got over a bad attack. Farewell. God knows why I bother you about myself.
I can say nothing more about missing links than what I have said. I should rely much on pre-Silurian times; but then comes Sir W. Thomson like an odious spectre. Farewell.—Yours most sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
I was grieved to see in the Daily News that the madman about the flat earth has been threatening your life. What an odious trouble this must have been to you. [pg 269] P.S.—There is a most cutting review of me in the Quarterly:90 I have only read a few pages. The skill and style make me think of Mivart. I shall soon be viewed as the most despicable of men. This Quarterly review tempts me to republish Ch. Wright, even if not read by anyone, just to show that someone will say a word against Mivart, and that his (i.e. Mivart's) remarks ought not to be swallowed without some reflection.
I quite agree with what you say that Mivart fully intends to be honourable; but he seems to me to have the mind of a most able lawyer retained to plead against us, and especially against me. God knows whether my strength and spirit will last out to write a chapter versus Mivart and others; I do so hate controversy, and feel I should do it so badly.
P.S.—I have now finished the review: there can be no doubt it is by Mivart, and wonderfully clever.
Holly House, Barking, E. July 16, 1871.
Dear Darwin,—I am very sorry you are so unwell, and that you allow criticisms to worry you so. Remember the noble army of converts you have made! and the host of the most talented men living who support you wholly. What do you think of putting C. Wright's article as an appendix to the new edition of the "Origin"? That would get it read, and obviate my chief objection, that the people who read Mivart and the "Origin" will very few of them buy a separate pamphlet to read. Pamphlets are such nuisances. I don't think Mivart could have written the Quarterly article, but I will look at it and shall, I think, be able to tell. Pray keep your spirits up. I am so distracted by building troubles that I can write nothing, [pg 270]and I shall not, till I get settled in my new house, some time next spring, I hope.—With best wishes, believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
Haredene, Albury, Guildford. August 1, 1871.
My dear Wallace,—Your kind and sympathetic letter pleased me greatly and did me good, but as you are so busy I did not answer it. I write now because I have just received a very remarkable letter from Fritz Müller (with butterflies' wings gummed on paper as illustrations) on mimicry, etc. I think it is well worth your reading, but I will not send it, unless I receive a 1/2d. card to this effect. He puts the difficulty of first start in imitation excellently, and gives wonderful proof of closeness of the imitation. He hints a curious addition to the theory in relation to sexual selection, which you will think madly hypothetical: it occurred to me in a very different class of cases, but I was afraid to publish it. It would aid the theory of imitative protection, when the colours are bright. He seems much pleased with your caterpillar theory. I wish the letter could be published, but without coloured illustrations [it] would, I fear, be unintelligible.
I have not yet made up my mind about Wright's review; I shall stop till I hear from him. Your suggestion would make the "Origin," already too large, still more bulky.
By the way, did Mr. Youmans, of the United States, apply to you to write a popular sketch of Natural Selection? I told him you would do it immeasurably better than anyone in the world. My head keeps very rocky and wretched, but I am better,—Ever yours most truly,
C. DARWIN.
[pg 271]Holly House, Barking, E. March 3, 1872.
Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your new edition of the "Origin," which I have been too busy to acknowledge before. I think your answer to Mivart on the initial stages of modification ample and complete, and the comparison of whale and duck most beautiful. I always saw the fallacy of these objections, of course. The eye and ear objection you have not so satisfactorily answered, and to me the difficulty exists of how three times over an organ of sight was developed with the apparatus even approximately identical. Why should not, in one case out of the three, the heat rays or the chemical rays have been utilised for the same purpose, in which case no translucent media would have been required, and yet vision might have been just as perfect? The fact that the eyes of insects and molluscs are transparent to us shows that the very same limited portion of the rays of the spectrum is utilised for vision by them as by us.
The chances seem to me immense against that having occurred through "fortuitous variation," as Mivart puts it.
I see still further difficulties on this point but cannot go into them now. Many thanks for your kind invitation. I will try and call some day, but I am now very busy trying to make my house habitable by Lady Day, when I must be in it.—Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
Down, Beckenham, Kent. July 27, 1872.
My dear Wallace,—I have just read with infinite satisfaction your crushing article in Nature.91 I have been the more glad to see it, as I have not seen the book itself: I [pg 272]did not order it, as I felt sure from Dr. B.'s former book that he could write nothing of value. But assuredly I did not suppose that anyone would have written such a mass of inaccuracies and rubbish. How rich is everything which he says and quotes from Herbert Spencer!
By the way, I suppose that you read H. Spencer's answer to Martineau: it struck me as quite wonderfully good, and I felt even more strongly inclined than before to bow in reverence before him. Nothing has amused me more in your review than Dr. B.'s extraordinary presumption in deciding that such men as Lyell, Owen, H. Spencer, Mivart, Gaudry, etc. etc., are all wrong. I daresay it would be very delightful to feel such overwhelming confidence in oneself.
I have had a poor time of it of late, rarely having an hour of comfort, except when asleep or immersed in work; and then when that is over I feel dead with fatigue. I am now correcting my little book on Expression; but it will not be published till November, when of course a copy will be sent to you. I shall now try whether I can occupy myself without writing anything more on so difficult a subject as Evolution.
I hope you are now comfortably settled in your new house, and have more leisure than you have had for some time. I have looked out in the papers for any notice about the curatorship of the new Museum, but have seen nothing. If anything is decided in your favour, I beg you to inform me.—My dear Wallace, very truly yours,
C. DARWIN.
How grandly the public has taken up Hooker's case.
Down. August 3, [1872].
My dear Wallace,—I hate controversy, chiefly perhaps because I do it badly; but as Dr. Bree accuses you of "blundering," I have thought myself bound to send the [pg 273]enclosed letter92 to Nature, that is, if you in the least desire it. In this case please post it. If you do not at all wish it, I should rather prefer not sending it, and in this case please tear it up. And I beg you to do the same, if you intend answering Dr. Bree yourself, as you will do it incomparably better than I should. Also please tear it up if you don't like the letter.—My dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
The Dell, Grays, Essex. August 4, 1872.
Dear Darwin,—I have sent your letter to Nature, as I think it will settle that question far better than anything I can say. Many thanks for it. I have not seen Dr. Bree's letter yet, as I get Nature here very irregularly, but as I was very careful to mention none but real errors in Dr. Bree's book, I do not imagine there will be any necessity for my taking any notice of it. It was really entertaining to have such a book to review, the errors and misconceptions were so inexplicable and the self-sufficiency of the man so amazing. Yet there is some excellent writing in the book, and to a half-informed person it has all the appearance of being a most valuable and authoritative work.
I am now reviewing a much more important book and one that, if I mistake not, will really compel you sooner or later to modify some of your views, though it will not [pg 274]at all affect the main doctrine of Natural Selection as applied to the higher animals. I allude, of course, to Bastian's "Beginnings of Life," which you have no doubt got. It is hard reading, but intensely interesting. I am a thorough convert to his main results, and it seems to me that nothing more important has appeared since your "Origin." It is a pity he is so awfully voluminous and discursive. When you have thoroughly digested it I shall be glad to know what you are disposed to think. My first notice of it will I think appear in Nature next week, but I have been hurried for it, and it is not so well written an article as I could wish.
I sincerely hope your health is improving.—Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.—I fear Lubbock's motion is being pushed off to the end of the Session, and Hooker's case will not be fairly considered. I hope the matter will not be allowed to drop.—A.R.W.
Down, Beckenham, Kent. August 28, 1872.
My dear Wallace,—I have at last finished the gigantic job of reading Dr. Bastian's book, and have been deeply interested in it. You wished to hear my impression, but it is not worth sending.
He seems to me an extremely able man, as indeed I thought when I read his first essay. His general argument in favour of archebiosis93 is wonderfully strong; though I cannot think much of some few of his arguments. The result is that I am bewildered and astonished by his statements, but am not convinced; though on the whole it seems to me probable that archebiosis is true. I am not convinced partly I think owing to the deductive [pg 275]cast of much of his reasoning; and I know not why, but I never feel convinced by deduction, even in the case of H. Spencer's writings. If Dr. B.'s book had been turned upside down, and he had begun with the various cases of heterogenesis, and then gone on to organic and afterwards to saline solutions, and had then given his general arguments, I should have been, I believe, much more influenced. I suspect, however, that my chief difficulty is the effect of old convictions being stereotyped on my brain. I must have more evidence that germs or the minutest fragments of the lowest forms are always killed by 212° of Fahr. Perhaps the mere reiteration of the statements given by Dr. B. by other men whose judgment I respect and who have worked long on the lower organisms would suffice to convince me. Here is a fine confession of intellectual weakness; but what an inexplicable frame of mind is that of belief.
As for Rotifers and Tardigrades being spontaneously generated, my mind can no more digest such statements, whether true or false, than my stomach can digest a lump of lead.
Dr. B. is always comparing archebiosis as well as growth to crystallisation; but on this view a Rotifer or Tardigrade is adapted to its humble conditions of life by a happy accident; and this I cannot believe. That observations of the above nature may easily be altogether wrong is well shown by Dr. B. having declared to Huxley that he had watched the entire development of a leaf of Sphagnum. He must have worked with very impure materials in some cases, as plenty of organisms appeared in a saline solution not containing an atom of nitrogen.
I wholly disagree with Dr. B. about many points in his latter chapters. Thus the frequency of generalised forms in the older strata seems to me clearly to indicate the common descent with divergence of more recent forms. [pg 276] Notwithstanding all his sneers, I do not strike my colours as yet about pangenesis. I should like to live to see archebiosis proved true, for it would be a discovery of transcendent importance; or if false I should like to see it disproved, and the facts otherwise explained; but I shall not live to see all this. If ever proved, Dr. B. will have taken a prominent part in the work. How grand is the onward rush of science; it is enough to console us for the many errors which we have committed and for our efforts being overlaid and forgotten in the mass of new facts and new views which are daily turning up.
This is all I have to say about Dr. B.'s book, and it certainly has not been worth saying. Nevertheless, reward me whenever you can by giving me any news about your appointment to the Bethnal Green Museum.—My dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
The Dell, Grays, Essex. August 31, 1872.
Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your long and interesting letter about Bastian's book, though I almost regret that my asking you for your opinion should have led you to give yourself so much trouble. I quite understand your frame of mind, and think it quite a natural and proper one. You had hard work to hammer your views into people's heads at first, and if Bastian's theory is true he will have still harder work, because the facts he appeals to are themselves so difficult to establish. Are not you mistaken about the Sphagnum? As I remember it, Huxley detected a fragment of Sphagnum leaf in the same solution in which a fungoid growth had been developed. Bastian mistook the Sphagnum also for a vegetable growth, and on account of this ignorance of the character of Sphagnum, and its presence in the solution, Huxley rejected somewhat contemptuously (and I think very illogically) all Bastian's [pg 277]observations. Again, as to the saline solution without nitrogen, would not the air supply what was required?
I quite agree that the book would have gained force by rearrangement in the way you suggest, but perhaps he thought it necessary to begin with a general argument in order to induce people to examine his new collection of facts, I am impressed most by the agreement of so many observers, some of whom struggle to explain away their own facts. What a wonderfully ingenious and suggestive paper that is by Galton on "Blood Relationship." It helps to render intelligible many of the eccentricities of heredity, atavism, etc.
Sir Charles Lyell was good enough to write to Lord Ripon and Mr. Cole94 about me and the Bethnal Green Museum, and the answer he got was that at present no appointment of a director is contemplated. I suppose they see no way of making it a Natural History Museum, and it will have to be kept going by Loan Collections of miscellaneous works of art, in which case, of course, the South Kensington people will manage it. It is a considerable disappointment to me, as I had almost calculated on getting something there.
With best wishes for your good health and happiness, believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.—I have just been reading Howorth's paper in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute. How perverse it is. He throughout confounds "fertility" with "increase of population," which seems to me to be the main cause of his errors. His elaborate accumulation of facts in other papers in Nature, on "Subsidence and Elevation of Land," I believe to be equally full of error, and utterly untrustworthy as a whole.—A.R.W.
[pg 278]Down, Beckenham, Kent. September 2, 1872.
My dear Wallace,—I write a line to say that I understood—but I may of course have been mistaken—from Huxley that Bastian distinctly stated that he had watched the development of the scale of Sphagnum: I was astonished, as I knew the appearance of Sphagnum under a high power, and asked a second time; but I repeat that I may have been mistaken. Busk told me that Sharpey had noticed the appearance of numerous Infusoria in one of the solutions not containing any nitrogen; and I do not suppose that any physiologist would admit the possibility of Infusoria absorbing nitrogen gas. Possibly I ought not to have mentioned statements made in private conversation, so please do not repeat them.
I quite agree about the extreme importance of such men as Cohn [illegible] and Carter having observed apparent cases of heterogenesis. At present I should prefer any mad hypothesis, such as that every disintegrated molecule of the lowest forms can reproduce the parent-form, and that the molecules are universally distributed, and that they do not lose their vital power until heated to such a temperature that they decompose like dead organic particles.
I am extremely grieved to hear about the Museum: it is a great misfortune.—Yours most sincerely,
C. DARWIN.
I have taken up old botanical work and have given up all theories.
I quite agree about Howorth's paper: he wrote to me and I told him that we differed so widely it was of no use our discussing any point.
As for Galton's paper, I have never yet been able to fully digest it: as far as I have, it has not cleared my [pg 279]ideas, and has only aided in bringing more prominently forward the large proportion of the latent characters.
Down, Beckenham, Kent. October 20, 1872.
My dear Wallace,—I have thought that you would perhaps like to see enclosed specimen and extract from letter (translated from the German by my son) from Dr. W. Marshall, Zoological Assistant to Schlegel at Leyden. Neither the specimen nor extract need be returned; and you need not acknowledge the receipt. The resemblance is not so close, now that the fragments are gummed on card, as I at first thought. Your review of Houzeau was very good: I skimmed through the whole gigantic book, but you managed to pick out the plums much better than I did for myself. You are a born critic. What an admirable number that was of Nature.
I am writing this at Sevenoaks, where we have taken a house for three weeks and have one more week to stay. We came here that I may get a little rest, of which I stood in much need.—Ever yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
With respect to what you say about certain instincts of ants having been acquired by experience or sense, have you kept in mind that the neuters have no progeny? I wish I knew whether the fertile females, or queens, do the same work (viz. placing the eggs in warm places, etc.) as the neuters do afterwards; if so the case would be comparatively simple; but I believe this is not the case, and I am driven to selection of varying pre-existing instincts.
The Dell, Grays, Essex. November 15, 1872.
Dear Darwin,—I should have written earlier to thank you for your book,95 but was hoping to be able to read more [pg 280]of it before doing so. I have not, however, found time to get beyond the first three chapters, but that is quite sufficient to show me how exceedingly interesting you have made the subject, and how completely and admirably you have worked it out. I expect it will be one of the most popular of your works. I have just been asked to write a review of it for the Quarterly Journal of Science, for which purpose I shall be in duty bound to seek out some deficiencies, however minute, so as to give my notice some flavour of criticism.
The cuts and photos are admirable, and my little boy and girl seized it at once to look at the naughty babies.
With best wishes, believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.—I will take this opportunity of asking you if you know of any book that will give me a complete catalogue of vertebrate fossils with some indication of their affinities.—A.R.W.
Down, Beckenham, Kent. January 13, 1873.
My dear Wallace,—I have read your review with much interest, and I thank you sincerely for the very kind spirit in which it is written. I cannot say that I am convinced by your criticisms.96 If you have ever actually observed a kitten sucking and pounding with extended toes its mother, and then seen the same kitten when a little older doing the same thing on a soft shawl, and ultimately an old cat (as I have seen), and do not admit that it is identically the same action, I am astonished.
[pg 281]With respect to the decapitated frog,97 I have always heard of Pflüger as a most trustworthy observer. If, indeed, anyone knows a frog's habits so well as to say that it never rubs off a bit of leaf or other object, which may stick to its thigh, in the same manner as it did the acid, your objection would be valid. Some of Flourens' experiments, in which he removed the cerebral hemisphere from a pigeon, indicate that acts apparently performed consciously can be done without consciousness—I presume through the force of habit; in which case it would appear that intellectual power is not brought into play. Several persons have made such suggestions and objections as yours about the hands being held up in astonishment:98 if there was any straining of the muscles, as with protruded arms under fright, I would agree: as it is I must keep to my old opinion, and I daresay you will say that I am an obstinate old blockhead.—My dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
The book has sold wonderfully; 9,000 copies have now been printed.
The Dell, Grays, Essex. Wednesday morning, [November, 1873].
Dear Darwin,—Yours just received. Pray act exactly as if nothing had been said to me on the subject. I do not particularly wish for the work,99 as, besides being as [pg 282]you say, tedious work, it involves a considerable amount of responsibility. Still, I am prepared to do any literary work of the kind, as I told Bates some time ago, and that is the reason he wrote to me about it. I certainly think, however, that it would be in many ways more satisfactory to you if your son did it, and I therefore hope he may undertake it.
Should he, however, for any reasons, be unable, I am at your service as a dernier ressort.
In case my meaning is not quite clear, I will not do it unless your son has the offer and declines it.—Believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
The Dell, Grays, Essex. November 18, 1873.
Dear Darwin,—I quite understand what you require, and would undertake to do it to the best of my ability. Of course in such work I should not think of offering criticisms of matter.
I do not think I could form any idea of how long it would take by seeing the MSS., as it would all depend upon the amount of revision and working-in required. I have helped Sir C. Lyell with his last three or four editions in a somewhat similar though different way, and for him I have kept an account simply of the hours I was employed in any way for him, and he paid me 5/- an hour; but (of course this is confidential) I do not think this quite enough for the class of work. I should propose for your work 7/- an hour as a fair remuneration, and I would put down each day the hours I worked at it.
No doubt you will get it done for very much less by any literary man accustomed to regular literary work and nothing else, and perhaps better done, so do not in the least scruple in saying you decide on employing the gentleman you had in view if you prefer it. [pg 283] If you send it to me could you let me have all your MSS. copied out, as it adds considerably to the time required if there is any difficulty in deciphering the writing, which in yours (as you are no doubt aware) there often is.
My hasty note to Bates was not intended to be shown you or anyone. I thought he had heard of it from Murray, and that the arrangement was to be made by Murray.—Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.—I have been delighted with H. Spencer's "Study of Sociology." Some of the passages in the latter part are grand. You have perhaps seen that I am dipping into politics myself occasionally.—A.R.W.
Down, Beckenkam, Kent. November 19, 1873.
Dear Wallace,—I thank you for your extremely kind letter, and I am sorry that I troubled you with that of yesterday. My wife thinks that my son George would be so much pleased at undertaking the work for me, that I will write to him, and so probably shall have no occasion to trouble you. If on still further reflection, and after looking over my notes, I think that my son could not do the work, I will write again and gratefully accept your proposal. But if you do not hear, you will understand that I can manage the affair myself. I never in my lifetime regretted an interruption so much as this new edition of the "Descent." I am deeply immersed in some work on physiological points with plants.
I fully agree with what you say about H. Spencer's "Sociology"; I do not believe there is a man in Europe at all his equal in talents. I did not know that you had been writing on politics, except so far as your letter on the coal question, which interested me much and struck me as a capital letter. [pg 284] I must again thank you for your letter, and remain, dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
I hope to Heaven that politics will not replace natural science.
I know too well how atrociously bad my handwriting is.
The Dell, Grays, Essex. December 6, 1874.
Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your kindness in sending me a copy of your new edition of the "Descent." I see you have made a whole host of additions and corrections which I shall have great pleasure in reading over as soon as I have got rid of my horrid book on Geographical Distribution, which is almost driving me mad with the amount of drudgery required and the often unsatisfactory nature of the result. However, I must finish with it soon, or all the part first done will have to be done over again, every new book, either as a monograph, or a classification, putting everything wrong (for me).
Hoping you are in good health and able to go on with your favourite work, I remain yours very sincerely,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
The Dell, Grays, Essex. July 21, 1875.
Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your kindness in sending me a copy of your new book.100 Being very busy I have only had time to dip into it yet. The account of Utricularia is most marvellous, and quite new to me. I'm rather surprised that you do not make any remarks on the origin of these extraordinary contrivances for capturing insects. Did you think they were too obvious? I daresay there is no difficulty, but I feel sure they will be seized on as inexplicable by Natural Selection, and your silence on the [pg 285]point will be held to show that you consider them so! The contrivance in Utricularia and Dionæa, and in fact in Drosera too, seems fully as great and complex as in Orchids, but there is not the same motive force. Fertilisation and cross-fertilisation are important ends enough to lead to any modification, but can we suppose mere nourishment to be so important, seeing that it is so easily and almost universally obtained by extrusion of roots and leaves? Here are plants which lose their roots and leaves to acquire the same results by infinitely complex modes! What a wonderful and long-continued series of variations must have led up to the perfect "trap" in Utricularia, while at any stage of the process the same end might have been gained by a little more development of roots and leaves, as in 9,999 plants out of 10,000!
Is this an imaginary difficulty, or do you mean to deal with it in future editions of the "Origin"?—Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
The Dell, Grays, Essex. November 7, 1875.
Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your beautiful little volume on "Climbing Plants," which forms a most interesting companion to your "Orchids" and "Insectivorous Plants." I am sorry to see that you have not this time given us the luxury of cut edges.
I am in the midst of printing and proof-sheets, which are wearisome in the extreme from the mass of names and statistics I have been obliged to introduce, and which will, I fear, make my book insufferably dull to all but zoological specialists.
My trust is in my pictures and maps to catch the public.
Hoping yourself and all your family are quite well, believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
[pg 286]Down, Beckenham, Kent. June 5, 1876.
My dear Wallace,—I must have the pleasure of expressing to you my unbounded admiration of your book,101 though I have read only to page 184—my object having been to do as little as possible while resting. I feel sure that you have laid a broad and safe foundation for all future work on Distribution. How interesting it will be to see hereafter plants treated in strict relation to your views; and then all insects, pulmonate molluscs, and fresh-water fishes, in greater detail than I suppose you have given to these lower animals. The point which has interested me most, but I do not say the most valuable point, is your protest against sinking imaginary continents in a quite reckless manner, as was started by Forbes, followed, alas, by Hooker, and caricatured by Wollaston and Murray. By the way, the main impression which the latter author has left on my mind is his utter want of all scientific judgment. I have lifted up my voice against the above view with no avail, but I have no doubt that you will succeed, owing to your new arguments and the coloured chart. Of a special value, as it seems to me, is the conclusion that we must determine the areas chiefly by the nature of the mammals. When I worked many years ago on this subject, I doubted much whether the now-called Palearctic and Nearctic regions ought to be separated; and I determined if I made another region that it should be Madagascar. I have therefore been able to appreciate the value of your evidence on these points. What progress Palæontology has made during the last 20 years! But if it advances at the same rate in the future, our views on the migration and birthplace of the various groups will, I fear, be greatly altered. I cannot feel quite easy about [pg 287]the Glacial period and the extinction of large mammals, but I much hope that you are right. I think you will have to modify your belief about the difficulty of dispersal of land molluscs; I was interrupted when beginning to experimentise on the just-hatched young adhering to the feet of ground-roosting birds. I differ on one other point, viz. in the belief that there must have existed a Tertiary Antarctic continent, from which various forms radiated to the southern extremities of our present continents. But I could go on scribbling for ever. You have written, as I believe, a grand and memorable work, which will last for years as the foundation for all future treatises on Geographical Distribution,—My dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CHARLES DARWIN.
P.S.—You have paid me the highest conceivable compliment by what you say of your work in relation to my chapters on Distribution in the "Origin," and I heartily thank you for it.