Malvern Wells. Tuesday, March, 1864.
My dear Mr. Wallace,—Your kindness is neverfailing. I got worse and worse at home and was sick every day for two months; so came here, when I suddenly broke down and could do nothing; but I hope I am now very slowly recovering, but am very weak.
Sincere thanks about Melastoma: these flowers have baffled me, and I have caused several friends much useless labour; though, Heaven knows, I have thrown away time enough on them myself.
The gorse case is very valuable, and I will quote it, as I presume I may.
I was very glad to see in the Reader that you have been [pg 152]giving a grand paper (as I infer from remarks in discussion) on Geographical Distribution.
I am very weak, so will say no more.—Yours very sincerely,
C. DARWIN.
In Vol. I., p. 93, of the "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," Darwin states the circumstances which led to his writing the "Descent of Man." He says that his collection of facts, begun in 1837 or 1838, was continued for many years without any definite idea of publishing on the subject. The letter to Wallace of May 28, 1864, in reply to the latter's of May 10, shows that in the period of ill-health and depression about 1864 he despaired of ever being able to do so.
5 Westbourne Grove Terrace, W. May 10, 1864.
My dear Darwin,—I was very much gratified to hear by your letter of a month back that you were a little better, and I have since heard occasionally through Huxley and Lubbock that you are not worse. I sincerely hope the summer weather and repose may do you real good.
The Borneo Cave exploration is to go on at present without a subscription. The new British consul who is going out to Sarawak this month will undertake to explore some of the caves nearest the town, and if anything of interest is obtained a good large sum can no doubt be raised for a thorough exploration of the whole country. Sir J. Brooke will give every assistance, and will supply men for the preliminary work.
I send you now my little contribution to the theory of the origin of man. I hope you will be able to agree with me. If you are able, I shall be glad to have your criticisms.
I was led to the subject by the necessity of explaining the vast mental and cranial differences between man and the apes combined with such small structural differences in other parts of the body, and also by an endeavour to account for the diversity of human races combined with [pg 153]man's almost perfect stability of form during all historical epochs.
It has given me a settled opinion on these subjects, if nobody can show a fallacy in the argument.
The Anthropologicals did not seem to appreciate it much, but we had a long discussion which appears almost verbatim in the Anthropological Review.39
As the Linnean Transactions will not be out till the end of the year I sent a pretty full abstract of the more interesting parts of my Papilionidæ paper40 to the Reader, which, as you say, is a splendid paper.
Trusting Mrs. Darwin and all your family are well, and that you are improving, believe me yours most sincerely,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
Down, Bromley, Kent. May 28, 1864.
Dear Wallace,—I am so much better that I have just finished a paper for the Linnean Society; but as I am not yet at all strong I felt much disinclination to write, and therefore you must forgive me for not having sooner thanked you for your paper on Man received on the 11th. But first let me say that I have hardly ever in my life been more struck by any paper than that on variation, etc. etc., in the Reader. I feel sure that such papers will do more for the spreading of our views on the modification of species than any separate treatises on the single subject itself. It is really admirable; but you ought not in the Man paper to speak of the theory as mine; it is just as much yours as mine. One correspondent has already noticed to me your "high-minded" conduct on this head. [pg 154] But now for your Man paper, about which I should like to write more than I can. The great leading idea is quite new to me, viz. that during late ages the mind will have been modified more than the body; yet I had got as far as to see with you that the struggle between the races of man depended entirely on intellectual and moral qualities. The latter part of the paper I can designate only as grand and most eloquently done. I have shown your paper to two or three persons who have been here, and they have been equally struck with it.
I am not sure that I go with you on all minor points. When reading Sir G. Grey's account of the constant battles of Australian savages, I remember thinking that Natural Selection would come in, and likewise with the Esquimaux, with whom the art of fishing and managing canoes is said to be hereditary. I rather differ on the rank under the classificatory point of view which you assign to Man: I do not think any character simply in excess ought ever to be used for the higher division. Ants would not be separated from other hymenopterous insects, however high the instinct of the one and however low the instincts of the other.
With respect to the differences of race, a conjecture has occurred to me that much may be due to the correlation of complexion (and consequently hair) with constitution. Assume that a dusky individual best escaped miasma and you will readily see what I mean. I persuaded the Director-General of the Medical Department of the Army to send printed forms to the surgeons of all regiments in tropical countries to ascertain this point, but I daresay I shall never get any returns. Secondly, I suspect that a sort of sexual selection has been the most powerful means of changing the races of man. I can show that the different races have a widely different standard of beauty. Among savages the [pg 155]most powerful men will have the pick of the women, and they will generally leave the most descendants.
I have collected a few notes on Man, but I do not suppose I shall ever use them. Do you intend to follow out your views, and if so would you like at some future time to have my few references and notes?
I am sure I hardly know whether they are of any value, and they are at present in a state of chaos.
There is much more that I should like to write but I have not strength.—Believe me, dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
Our aristocracy is handsomer? (more hideous according to a Chinese or negro) than the middle classes, from pick of women; but oh what a scheme is primogeniture for destroying Natural Selection! I fear my letter will be barely intelligible to you.
5 Westbourne Grove Terrace, W. May 29 [1864].
My dear Darwin,—You are always so ready to appreciate what others do, and especially to overestimate my desultory efforts, that I cannot be surprised at your very kind and flattering remarks on my papers. I am glad, however, that you have made a few critical observations, and am only sorry you were not well enough to make more, as that enables me to say a few words in explanation.
My great fault is haste. An idea strikes me, I think over it for a few days, and then write away with such illustrations as occur to me while going on. I therefore look at the subject almost solely from one point of view. Thus in my paper on Man41 I aim solely at showing that brutes are modified in a great variety of ways by Natural Selection, but that in none of these particular ways can man be modified, because of the superiority of his intellect. I therefore no doubt [pg 156]overlook a few smaller points in which Natural Selection may still act on men and brutes alike. Colour is one of them, and I have alluded to this in correlation to constitution in an abstract I have made at Sclater's request for the Natural History Review.42 At the same time, there is so much evidence of migrations and displacements of races of man, and so many cases of peoples of distinct physical characters inhabiting the same or similar regions, and also of races of uniform physical characters inhabiting widely dissimilar regions, that the external characteristics of the chief races of man must I think be older than his present geographical distribution, and the modifications produced by correlation to favourable variations of constitution be only a secondary cause of external modification.
I hope you may get the returns from the Army. They would be very interesting, but I do not expect the results would be favourable to your view.
With regard to the constant battles of savages leading to selection of physical superiority, I think it would be very imperfect, and subject to so many exceptions and irregularities that it could produce no definite result. For instance, the strongest and bravest men would lead, and expose themselves most, and would therefore be most subject to wounds and death. And the physical energy which led to any one tribe delighting in war might lead to its extermination by inducing quarrels with all surrounding tribes and leading them to combine against it. Again, superior cunning, stealth and swiftness of foot, or even better weapons, would often lead to victory as well as mere physical strength. Moreover this kind of more or less perpetual war goes on among all savage peoples. It could lead therefore to no differential characters, but merely to the keeping up of a certain average standard of bodily and [pg 157]mental health and vigour. So with selection of variations adapted to special habits of life, as fishing, paddling, riding, climbing, etc. etc., in different races: no doubt it must act to some extent, but will it be ever so rigid as to induce a definite physical modification, and can we imagine it to have had any part in producing the distinct races that now exist?
The sexual selection you allude to will also, I think, have been equally uncertain in its results. In the very lowest tribes there is rarely much polygamy, and women are more or less a matter of purchase. There is also little difference of social condition, and I think it rarely happens that any healthy and undeformed man remains without wife and children. I very much doubt the often-repeated assertion that our aristocracy are more beautiful than the middle classes. I allow that they present specimens of the highest kind of beauty, but I doubt the average. I have noticed in country places a greater average amount of good looks among the middle classes, and besides, we unavoidably combine in our idea of beauty, intellectual expression and refinement of manner, which often make the less appear the more beautiful. Mere physical beauty—that is, a healthy and regular development of the body and features approaching to the mean or type of European man—I believe is quite as frequent in one class of society as the other, and much more frequent in rural districts than in cities.
With regard to the rank of man in zoological classification, I fear I have not made myself intelligible. I never meant to adopt Owen's or any other such views, but only to point out that from one point of view he was right. I hold that a distinct family for man, as Huxley allows, is all that can possibly be given him zoologically. But at the same time, if my theory is true—that while the animals which surrounded him have been undergoing modification [pg 158]in all parts of their bodies to a generic or even family degree of difference, he has been changing almost wholly in the brain and head—then, in geological antiquity the species of man may be as old as many mammalian families, and the origin of the family man may date back to a period when some of the orders first originated.
As to the theory of Natural Selection itself, I shall always maintain it to be actually yours and yours only. You had worked it out in details I had never thought of, years before I had a ray of light on the subject, and my paper would never have convinced anybody or been noticed as more than an ingenious speculation, whereas your book has revolutionised the study of natural history, and carried away captive the best men of the present age. All the merit I claim is the having been the means of inducing you to write and publish at once.
I may possibly some day go a little more into this subject (of Man), and, if I do, will accept the kind offer of your notes. I am now, however, beginning to write the "Narrative of my Travels" which will occupy me a long time, as I hate writing narrative, and after Bates's brilliant success rather fear to fail. I shall introduce a few chapters on geographical distribution and other such topics.
Sir C. Lyell, while agreeing with my main argument on Man, thinks I am wrong in wanting to put him back into Miocene times, and thinks I do not appreciate the immense interval even to the later Pliocene. But I still maintain my view, which in fact is a logical result of my theory, for if man originated in later Pliocene times, when almost all mammalia were of closely allied species to those now living, and many even identical, then man has not been stationary in bodily structure while animals have been varying, and my theory will be proved to be all wrong. [pg 159] In Murchison's address to the Geographical Society just delivered he points out Africa, as being the oldest existing land. He says there is no evidence of its having been ever submerged during the tertiary epoch. Here, then, is evidently the place to find early man. I hope something good may be found in Borneo, and that then means may be found to explore the still more promising regions of tropical Africa, for we can expect nothing of man very early in Europe.
It has given me great pleasure to find that there are symptoms of improvement in your health. I hope you will not exert yourself too soon or write more than is quite agreeable to you. I think I made out every word of your letter though it was not always easy.—Believe me, my dear Darwin, yours very sincerely,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. June 15, 1864.
Dear Wallace,—You must not suppose from my delay that I have not been much interested by your long letter. I write now merely to thank you, and just to say that probably you are right on all the points you touch on except, as I think, about sexual selection, which I will not give up.
My belief in it, however, is contingent on my general beliefs in sexual selection. It is an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed; but believing it, I believe in the same principle somewhat modified applied to man.
I doubt whether my notes would be of any use to you, and as far as I remember they are chiefly on sexual selection.
I am very glad to hear that you are on your Travels. I believe you will find it a very convenient vehicle for miscellaneous discussion. With your admirable powers of [pg 160]writing, I cannot doubt that you will make an excellent book.—Believe me, dear Wallace, yours sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
P.S.—A great gun, Flourens, has written a little dull book against me; which pleases me much, for it is plain that our good work is spreading in France. He speaks of the engouement about this book, "so full of empty and presumptuous thoughts."
Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. January 29, 1865.
My dear Wallace,—I must ease my mind by saying how much I admire the two papers you have sent me.
That on parrots43 contained most new matter to me, and interested me extremely; that in the Geographical Journal44 strikes me as an epitome of the whole theory of geographical distribution: the comparison of Borneo and New Guinea, the relation of the volcanic outbursts and the required subsidence, and the comparison of the supposed conversion of the Atlantic into a great archipelago, seemed to me the three best hits. They are both indeed excellent papers.—Believe me yours very sincerely,
CHARLES DARWIN.
Do try what hard work will do to banish painful thoughts.45
P.S.—During one of the later French voyages, a wild pig was killed and brought from the Aru Islands to Paris. Am I not right in inferring that this must have been introduced and run wild? If you have a clear opinion on this head, may I quote you?
[pg 161]5 Westbourne Grove Terrace, W. January 31, [1865?].
Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your kind letter. I send you now a few more papers. One on Man is not much in your line. The other three are bird lists, but in the introductory remarks are a few facts of distribution that may be of use to you, and as you have them already in the Zoological Proceedings, you can cut these up if you want "extracts."
I hope you do not very much want the Aru pig to be a domestic animal run wild, because I have no doubt myself it was the species peculiar to the New Guinea fauna (Sus papuensis, Less.), a very distinct form. I have no doubt it is this species, though I did not get it myself there, because I was told that on a small island near, called there Pulo babi (Pig Island), was a race of pigs (different from and larger than those of the large islands) which had originated from the wreck of a large ship near a century ago. The productions of the Aru Islands closely resemble those of New Guinea, more than half the species of birds being identical, as well as about half of the few known mammals.
I am beginning to work at some semi-mechanical work, drawing up catalogues of parts of my collection for publication.
I enclose my "carte." Have you a photograph of yourself of any kind you can send me? When you come to town next, may I beg the honour of a sitting for my brother-in-law, Mr. Sims, 73 Westbourne Grove?—Yours very sincerely,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.—Your paper on Lythrum salicaria46 is most beautiful. What a wonderful plant it is! I long to hear your paper on Tendrils and hear what you have got out of them. My old friend Spruce, a good botanist and close observer, [pg 162]could probably supply you with some facts on that or other botanical subjects if you would write to him. He is now at Kew, but almost as ill as yourself.—A.R.W.
Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. February 1, 1865.
My dear Wallace,—I am much obliged for your photograph, for I have lately set up a scientific album; and for the papers, which I will read before long. I enclose my own photo, taken by my son, and I have no other.
I fear it will be a long time before I shall be able to sit to a photographer, otherwise I should be happy to sit to Mr. Sims.
Thanks for information about the Aru pig, which will make me very cautious.
It is a perplexing case, for Nathusius says the skull of the Aru resembles that of the Chinese breed, and he thinks that Sus papuensis has been founded on a young skull; D. Blainville stating that an old skull from New Guinea resembles that of the wild pigs of Malabar, and these belong to the S. scrofa type, which is different from the Chinese domestic breed. The latter has not been found in a wild condition.—Believe me, dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
9 St. Mark's Crescent, Regent's Park, N.W. Sept. 18, 1865.
Dear Darwin,—I should have written before to thank you for the copy of your paper on climbing plants, which I read with great interest; I can imagine how much pleasure the working out must have given you. I was afraid you were too ill to make it advisable that you should be bothered with letters.
I write now, in hopes you are better, to communicate a curious case of variation becoming at once hereditary, which was brought forward at the British Association. I send a [pg 163]note of it on the other side, but if you would like more exact particulars, with names and dates and a drawing of the bird, I am sure Mr. O'Callaghan would send them to you.
I hope to hear that you are better, and that your new book is really to come out next winter.—Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
NOTE.—Last spring Mr. O'Callaghan was told by a country boy that he had seen a blackbird with a topknot; on which Mr. O'C. very judiciously told him to watch it and communicate further with him. After a time the boy told him he had found a blackbird's nest, and had seen this crested bird near it and believed he belonged to it. He continued watching the nest till the young were hatched. After a time he told Mr. O'C. that two of the young birds seemed as if they would have topknots. He was told to get one of them as soon as it was fledged. However, he was too late, and they left the nest, but luckily he found them near and knocked one down with a stone, which Mr. O'C. had stuffed and exhibited. It has a fine crest, something like that of a Polish fowl, but larger in proportion to the bird, and very regular and well formed. The male must have been almost like the Umbrella bird in miniature, the crest is so large and expanded.—A.R.W.
Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. September 22, 1865.
Dear Wallace,—I am much obliged for your extract; I never heard of such a case, though such a variation is perhaps the most likely of any to occur in a state of nature and be inherited, inasmuch as all domesticated birds present races with a tuft or with reversed feathers on their heads. I have sometimes thought that the progenitor of the whole class must have been a crested animal.
Do you make any progress with your Journal of travels? I am the more anxious that you should do so as I have lately read with much interest some papers by you on the ouran-outang, [pg 164]etc., in the Annals, of which I have lately been reading the latter volumes, I have always thought that Journals of this nature do considerable good by advancing the taste for natural history; I know in my own case that nothing ever stimulated my zeal so much as reading Humboldt's Personal Narrative. I have not yet received the last part of Linnean Transactions, but your paper47 at present will be rather beyond my strength, for though somewhat better I can as yet do hardly anything but lie on the sofa and be read aloud to. By the way, have you read Tylor and Lecky?48 Both these books have interested me much. I suppose you have read Lubbock?49 In the last chapter there is a note about you in which I most cordially concur.50 I see you were at the British Association, but I have heard nothing of it except what I have picked up in the Reader. I have heard a rumour that the Reader is sold to the Anthropological Society. If you do not begrudge the trouble of another note (for my sole channel of news through Hooker is closed by his illness), I should much like to hear whether the Reader is thus sold. I should be very sorry for it, as the paper would thus become sectional in its tendency. If you write, tell me what you are doing yourself.
The only news which I have about the "Origin" is that Fritz Müller published a few months ago a remarkable book51 in its favour, and secondly that a second French edition is just coming out.—Believe me, dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
9 St. Mark's Crescent, Regents Park. October 2, 1865.
Dear Darwin,—I was just leaving town for a few days when I received your letter, or should have replied at once.
The Reader has no doubt changed hands, and I am inclined to think for the better. It is purchased, I believe, by a gentleman who is a Fellow of the Anthropological Society, but I see no signs of its being made a special organ of that Society. The Editor (and, I believe, proprietor) is a Mr. Bendyshe, the most talented man in the Society, and, judging from his speaking, which I have often heard, I should say the articles on "Simeon and Simony," "Metropolitan Sewage," and "France and Mexico," are his, and these are in my opinion superior to anything that has been in the Reader for a long time; they have the point and brilliancy which are wanted to make leading articles readable and popular. The articles on Mill's Political Economy and on Mazzini are also first-rate. He has introduced also the plan of having two, and now three, important articles in each number—one political or social, one literary, and one scientific. Under the old regime they never had an editor above mediocrity, except Masson (? Musson); there was a want of unity among the proprietors as to the aims and objects of the journal; and there was a want of capital to secure the services of good writers. This seems to me to be now all changed for the better, and I only hope the rumour of that bête noire, the Anthropological Society, having anything to do with it may not cause our best men of science to withdraw their support and contributions.
I have read Tylor, and am reading Lecky. I found the former somewhat disconnected and unsatisfactory from the absence of any definite result or any decided opinion on most of the matters treated of.
Lecky I like much, though he is rather tedious and [pg 166]obscure at times. Most of what he says has been said so much more forcibly by Buckle, whose work I have read for the second time with increased admiration, although with a clear view of some of his errors. Nevertheless, his is I think unapproachably the grandest work of the present century, and the one most likely to liberalise opinion. Lubbock's book is very good, but his concluding chapter very weak. Why are men of science so dreadfully afraid to say what they think and believe?
In reply to your kind inquiries about myself, I can only say that I am ashamed of my laziness. I have done nothing lately but write a paper on Pigeons for the Ibis, and am drawing up a Catalogue of my Collection of Birds.
As to my "Travels," I cannot bring myself to undertake them yet, and perhaps never shall, unless I should be fortunate enough to get a wife who would incite me thereto and assist me therein—which is not likely.
I am glad to hear that the "Origin" is still working its revolutionary way on the Continent. Will Müller's book on it be translated?
I am glad to hear you are a little better. My poor friend Spruce is still worse than you are, and I fear now will not recover. He wants to write a book if he gets well enough.—With best wishes, believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. January 22, 1866.
My dear Wallace,—I thank you for your paper on Pigeons,52 which interested me, as everything that you [pg 167]write does. Who would ever have dreamed that monkeys influenced the distribution of pigeons and parrots! But I have had a still higher satisfaction; for I finished yesterday your paper in the Linnean Transactions.53 It is admirably done. I cannot conceive that the most firm believer in Species could read it without being staggered. Such papers will make many more converts among naturalists than long-winded books such as I shall write if I have strength.
I have been particularly struck with your remarks on dimorphism; but I cannot quite understand one point (p. 22), and should be grateful for an explanation, for I want fully to understand you.54 How can one female form be selected and the intermediate forms die out, without also the other extreme form also dying out from not having the advantages of the first selected form? for, as I understand, both female forms occur on the same island. I quite agree with your distinction between dimorphic forms and varieties; but I doubt whether your criterion of dimorphic forms not [pg 168]producing intermediate offspring will suffice; for I know of a good many varieties, which must be so called, that will not blend or intermix, but produce offspring quite like either parent.
I have been particularly struck with your remarks on geological distribution in Celebes. It is impossible that anything could be better put, and [it] would give a cold shudder to the immutable naturalists.
And now I am going to ask a question which you will not like. How does your Journal get on? It will be a shame if you do not popularise your researches.
My health is so far improved that I am able to work one or two hours a day.—Believe me, dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
9 St. Mark's Crescent, Regent's Park, N.W. February 4, 1866.
My dear Darwin,—I am very glad to hear you are a little better, and hope we shall soon have the pleasure of seeing your volume on "Variation under Domestication." I do not see the difficulty you seem to feel about two or more female forms of one species. The most common or typical female form must have certain characters or qualities which are sufficiently advantageous to it to enable it to maintain its existence; in general, such as vary much from it die out. But occasionally a variation may occur which has special advantageous characters of its own (such as mimicking a protected species), and then this variation will maintain itself by selection. In no less than three of my polymorphic species of Papilio, one of the female forms mimics the Polydorus group, which, like the Æneas group in America, seems to have some special protection. In two or three other cases one of the female forms is confined to a restricted locality, to the conditions of which it is probably specially adapted. In other cases one of the female forms resembles the male, [pg 169]and perhaps receives a protection from the abundance of the males, in the crowd of which it is passed over. I think these considerations render the production of two or three forms of female very conceivable. The physiological difficulty is to me greater, of how each of two forms of female produces offspring like the other female as well as like itself, but no intermediates?
If you "know varieties that will not blend or intermix, but produce offspring quite like either parents," is not that the very physiological test of a species which is wanting for the complete proof of the origin of species?
I have by no means given up the idea of writing my Travels, but I think I shall be able to do it better for the delay, as I can introduce chapters giving popular sketches of the subjects treated of in my various papers.
I hope, if things go as I wish this summer, to begin work at it next winter. But I feel myself incorrigibly lazy, and have no such system of collecting and arranging facts or of making the most of my materials as you and many of our hard-working naturalists possess in perfection.—With best wishes, believe me, dear Darwin, yours most sincerely,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
Down, Bromley, S.E. Tuesday, February, 1866.
My dear Wallace,—After I had dispatched my last note, the simple explanation which you give had occurred to me, and seems satisfactory. I do not think you understand what I mean by the non-blending of certain varieties. It does not refer to fertility. An instance will explain. I crossed the Painted Lady and Purple sweet peas, which are very differently coloured varieties, and got, even out of the same pod, both varieties perfect, but none intermediate. Something of this kind, I should think, must occur at first with your butterflies and the three forms of Lythrum; though these [pg 170]cases are in appearance so wonderful, I do not know that they are really more so than every female in the world producing distinct male and female offspring.
I am heartily glad that you mean to go on preparing your Journal.—Believe me yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. July 2, 1866.
My dear Darwin,—I have been so repeatedly struck by the utter inability of numbers of intelligent persons to see clearly, or at all, the self-acting and necessary effects of Natural Selection, that I am led to conclude that the term itself, and your mode of illustrating it, however clear and beautiful to many of us, are yet not the best adapted to impress it on the general naturalist public. The two last cases of this misunderstanding are (1) the article on "Darwin and his Teachings" in the last Quarterly Journal of Science, which, though very well written and on the whole appreciative, yet concludes with a charge of something like blindness, in your not seeing that Natural Selection requires the constant watching of an intelligent "chooser," like man's selection to which you so often compare it; and (2) in Janet's recent work on the "Materialism of the Present Day," reviewed in last Saturday's Reader, by an extract from which I see that he considers your weak point to be that you do not see that "thought and direction are essential to the action of Natural Selection." The same objection has been made a score of times by your chief opponents, and I have heard it as often stated myself in conversation. Now, I think this arises almost entirely from your choice of the term Natural Selection, and so constantly comparing it in its effects to man's selection, and also to your so frequently personifying nature as "selecting," as "preferring," as "seeking only the good [pg 171]of the species," etc., etc. To the few this is as clear as daylight, and beautifully suggestive, but to many it is evidently a stumbling-block. I wish, therefore, to suggest to you the possibility of entirely avoiding this source of misconception in your great work (if not now too late), and also in any future editions of the "Origin," and I think it may be done without difficulty and very effectually by adopting Spencer's term (which he generally uses in preference to Natural Selection), viz. "Survival of the Fittest." This term is the plain expression of the fact; "Natural Selection" is a metaphorical expression of it, and to a certain degree indirect and incorrect, since, even personifying Nature, she does not so much select special variations as exterminate the most unfavourable ones.
Combined with the enormous multiplying powers of all organisms, and the "struggle for existence," leading to the constant destruction of by far the largest proportion—facts which no one of your opponents, as far as I am aware, has denied or misunderstood—"the survival of the fittest," rather than of those which were less fit, could not possibly be denied or misunderstood. Neither would it be possible to say that to ensure the "survival of the fittest" any intelligent chooser was necessary, whereas when you say "Natural Selection" acts so as to choose those that are fittest it is misunderstood, and apparently always will be. Referring to your book, I find such expressions as "Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends." This, it seems, will always be misunderstood; but if you had said, "Man selects only for his own good; Nature, by the inevitable survival of the fittest, only for that of the being she tends," it would have been less liable to be so.
I find you use the term Natural Selection in two senses—(1) for the simple preservation of favourable and rejection [pg 172]of unfavourable variations, in which case it is equivalent to "survival of the fittest"; (2) for the effect or change produced by this preservation, as when you say, "To sum up the circumstances favourable or unfavourable to natural selection," and, again, "Isolation, also, is an important element in the process of natural selection": here it is not merely "survival of the fittest," but change produced by survival of the fittest, that is meant. On looking over your fourth chapter, I find that these alterations of terms can be in most cases easily made, while in some cases the addition of "or survival of the fittest" after "natural selection" would be best; and in others, less likely to be misunderstood, the original term might stand alone.
I could not venture to propose to any other person so great an alteration of terms, but you, I am sure, will give it an impartial consideration, and, if you really think the change will produce a better understanding of your work, will not hesitate to adopt it. It is evidently also necessary not to personify "nature" too much, though I am very apt to do it myself, since people will not understand that all such phrases are metaphors. Natural Selection is, when understood, so necessary and self-evident a principle that it is a pity it should be in any way obscured; and it therefore occurs to me that the free use of "survival of the fittest", which is a compact and accurate definition of it, would tend much to its being more widely accepted and prevent its being so much misrepresented and misunderstood.
There is another objection made by Janet which is also a very common one. It is that the chances are almost infinite against the particular kind of variation required being coincident with each change of external conditions, to enable an animal to become modified by Natural Selection [pg 173]in harmony with such changed conditions; especially when we consider that, to have produced the almost infinite modifications of organic beings, this coincidence must have taken place an almost infinite number of times.
Now it seems to me that you have yourself led to this objection being made by so often stating the case too strongly against yourself. For example, at the commencement of Chapter IV. you ask if it is "improbable that useful variations should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations"; and a little further on you say, "unless profitable variations do occur, natural selection can do nothing." Now, such expressions have given your opponents the advantage of assuming that favourable variations are rare accidents, or may even for long periods never occur at all, and thus Janet's argument would appear to many to have great force. I think it would be better to do away with all such qualifying expressions, and constantly maintain (what I certainly believe to be the fact) that variations of every kind are always occurring in every part of every species, and therefore that favourable variations are always ready when wanted. You have, I am sure, abundant materials to prove this, and it is, I believe, the grand fact that renders modification and adaptation to conditions almost always possible. I would put the burthen of proof on my opponents to show that any one organ, structure, or faculty does not vary, even during one generation, among all the individuals of a species; and also to show any mode or way in which any such organ, etc., does not vary. I would ask them to give any reason for supposing that any organ, etc., is ever absolutely identical at any one time in all the individuals of a species, and if not, then it is always varying, and there are always materials which, from the simple fact that the "fittest survive," will [pg 174]tend to the modification of the race into harmony with changed conditions.
I hope these remarks may be intelligible to you, and that you will be so kind as to let me know what you think of them.
I have not heard for some time how you are getting on. I hope you are still improving in health, and that you will be able now to get on with your great work, for which so many thousands are looking with interest.—With best wishes, believe me, my dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.