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ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE
LETTERS AND REMINISCENCES
[Illustration: A.R. WALLACE (1913)]
Alfred Russel Wallace
Letters and Reminiscences
By James Marchant
_With Two Photogravures and Eight Half-tone Plates_
IN TWO VOLUMES
Volume II
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1916
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II
PART III
I. WALLACE'S WORKS ON BIOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
II. CORRESPONDENCE ON BIOLOGY, GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, ETC. (1864-98)
III. CORRESPONDENCE ON BIOLOGY, GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, ETC.
(1894-1913)
PART IV
HOME LIFE
PART V
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS
PART VI
SOME FURTHER PROBLEMS
I. ASTRONOMY
II. SPIRITUALISM
PART VII
CHARACTERISTICS
APPENDIX: LISTS OF WALLACE'S WRITINGS
INDEX
LIST OF PLATES IN VOLUME II
A.R. WALLACE (1913) _Photogravure Frontispiece_
MRS. A.R. WALLACE (ABOUT 1895)
THE STUDY AT "OLD ORCHARD"
A.R. WALLACE ADMIRING EREMURUS ROBUSTUS (ABOUT 1905)
GRAVE OF ALFRED RUSSEL AND ANNIE WALLACE
WALLACE AND DARWIN MEDALLIONS IN THE NORTH AISLE OF THE CHOIR OF
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
Alfred Russel Wallace
Letters and Reminiscences
PART III
I.--Wallace's Works on Biology and Geographical Distribution
"I have long recognised how much clearer and deeper your insight
into matters is than mine."
"I sometimes marvel how truth progresses, so difficult is it for
one man to convince another, unless his mind is vacant."
"I grieve to differ from you, and it actually terrifies me, and
makes me constantly distrust myself. I fear we shall never quite
understand each other."
--DARWIN TO WALLACE.
During the period covered by the reception, exposition, and gradual
acceptance of the theory of Natural Selection, both Wallace and Darwin
were much occupied with closely allied scientific work.
The publication in 1859 of the "Origin of Species"[1] marked a distinct
period in the course of Darwin's scientific labours; his previous
publications had, in a measure, prepared the way for this, and those
which immediately followed were branches growing out from the main line
of thought and argument contained in the "Origin," an overflow of the
"mass of facts" patiently gathered during the preceding years. With
Wallace, the end of the first period of his literary work was completed
by the publication of his two large volumes on "The Geographical
Distribution of Animals," towards which all his previous thought and
writings had tended, and from which, again, came other valuable works
leading up to the publication of "Darwinism" (1889).
It will be remembered that Darwin and Wallace, on their respective
returns to England, after many years spent in journeyings by land and
sea and in laborious research, found the first few months fully occupied
in going over their large and varied collections, sorting and arranging
with scrupulous care the rare specimens they had taken, and in
discovering the right men to name and classify them into correct groups.
At this point it will be useful to arrange Darwin's writings under three
heads, namely: (1) His zoological and geological books, including "The
Voyage of the _Beagle_" (published in 1839), "Coral Reefs" (1842), and
"Geological Observations on South America" (1846). In this year he also
began his work on Barnacles, which was published in 1854; and in
addition to the steady work on the "Origin of Species" from 1837
onwards, his observations on "Earthworms," not published until 1881,
formed a distinct phase of his study during the whole of these years
(1839-59). (2) As a natural sequence we have "Variations of Animals and
Plants under Domestication" (1868), "The Descent of Man" (1871), and
"The Expression of the Emotions" (1872). (3) What may be termed his
botanical works, largely influenced by his evolutionary ideas, which
include "The Fertilisation of Orchids" (1862), "Movements and Habits of
Climbing Plants" (1875), "Insectivorous Plants" (1876), "The Different
Forms of Flowers and Plants of the same Species" (1877), and "The Power
of Movement in Plants" (1880).
A different order, equally characteristic, is discovered in Wallace's
writings, and it is to be noted that while Darwin devoted himself
entirely to scientific subjects, Wallace diverged at intervals from
natural science to what may be termed the scientific consideration of
social conditions, in addition to his researches into spiritualistic
phenomena.
The many enticing interests arising out of the classifying of his birds
and insects led Wallace to the conclusion that it would be best to
postpone the writing of his book on the Malay Archipelago until he could
embody in it the more generally important results derived from the
detailed study of certain portions of his collections. Thus it was not
until seven years later (1869) that this complete sketch of his travels
"from the point of view of the philosophic naturalist" appeared.
Between 1862 and 1867 he wrote a number of articles which were published
in various journals and magazines, and he read some important papers
before the Linnean, Entomological, and other learned Societies. These
included several on physical and zoological geography; six on questions
of anthropology; and five or six dealing with special applications of
Natural Selection. As these papers "discussed matters of considerable
interest and novelty," such a summary of them may be given as will serve
to indicate their value to natural science.
The first of them, read before the Zoological Society in January, 1863,
gave some detailed information about his collection of birds brought
from Buru. In this he showed that the island was originally one of the
Moluccan group, as every bird found there which was not widely
distributed was either identical with or closely allied to Moluccan
species, while none had special affinities with Celebes. It was clear,
then, that this island formed the most westerly outlier of the Moluccan
group.
The next paper of importance, read before the same Society in November
(1863), was on the birds of the chain of islands extending from Lombok
to the great island of Timor. This included a list of 186 species of
birds, of which twenty-nine were altogether new. A special feature of
the paper was that it enabled him to mark out precisely the boundary
line between the Indian and Australian zoological regions, and to trace
the derivation of the rather peculiar fauna of these islands, partly
from Australia and partly from the Moluccas, but with a strong recent
migration of Javanese species due to the very narrow straits separating
most of the islands from each other. In "My Life" some interesting
tables are given to illustrate how the two streams of immigration
entered these islands, and further that "as its geological structure
shows ... Timor is the older island and received immigrants from
Australia at a period when, probably, Lombok and Flores had not come
into existence or were unhabitable.... We can," he says, "feel confident
that Timor has not been connected with Australia, because it has none of
the peculiar Australian mammalia, and also because many of the commonest
and most widespread groups of Australian birds are entirely wanting."[2]
Two other papers, dealing with parrots and pigeons respectively
(1864-5), were thought by Wallace himself to be among the most important
of his studies of geographical distribution. Writing of them he says:
"These peculiarities of distribution and coloration in two such very
diverse groups of birds interested me greatly, and I endeavoured to
explain them in accordance with the laws of Natural Selection."
In March, 1864, having begun to make a special study of his collection
of butterflies, he prepared a paper for the Linnean Society on "The
Malayan Papilionidæ, as illustrating the Theory of Natural Selection."
The introductory portion of this paper appeared in the first edition of
his volume entitled "Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection"
(1870), but it was omitted in later editions as being too technical for
the general reader. From certain remarks found here and there, both in
"My Life" and other works, butterflies would appear to have had a
special charm and attraction for Wallace. Their varied and gorgeous
colourings were a ceaseless delight to his eye, and when describing them
one feels the sense of pleasure which this gave him, together with the
recollection of the far-off haunts in which he had first discovered
them.
This series of papers on birds and insects, with others on the physical
geography of the Archipelago and its various races of man, furnished all
the necessary materials for the general sketch of the natural history of
these islands, and the many problems arising therefrom, which made the
"Malay Archipelago" the most popular of his books. In addition to his
own personal knowledge, however, some interesting comparisons are drawn
between the accounts given by early explorers and the impressions left
on his own mind by the same places and people. On the publication of
this work, in 1869, extensive and highly appreciative reviews appeared
in all the leading papers and journals, and to-day it is still looked
upon as one of the most trustworthy and informative books of travel.
When the "Malay Archipelago" was in progress, a lengthy article on
"Geological Climates and the Origin of Species" (which formed the
foundation for "Island Life" twelve years later) appeared in the
_Quarterly Review_ (April, 1869). Several references in this to the
"Principles of Geology"--Sir Charles Lyell's great work--gave much
satisfaction both to Lyell and to Darwin. The underlying argument was a
combination of the views held by Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Croll
respectively in relation to the glacial epoch, and the great effect of
changed distribution of sea and land, or of differences of altitude, and
how by combining the two a better explanation could be arrived at than
by accepting each theory on its own basis.
His next publication of importance was the volume entitled
"Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," consisting of ten
essays (all of which had previously appeared in various periodicals)
arranged in the following order:
1. On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species.
2. On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original
Type.
3. Mimicry, and other Protective Resemblances among Animals.
4. The Malayan Papilionidæ.
5. Instinct in Man and Animals.
6. The Philosophy of Birds' Nests.
7. A Theory of Birds' Nests.
8. Creation by Law.
9. The Development of Human Races under the Law of Natural Selection.
10. The Limits of Natural Selection as applied to Man.
His reasons for publishing this work were, first, that the first two
papers of the series had gained him the reputation of being an
originator of the theory of Natural Selection, and, secondly, that there
were a few important points relating to the origin of life and
consciousness and the mental and moral qualities of man and other views
on which he entirely differed from Darwin.
Though in later years Wallace's convictions developed considerably with
regard to the spiritual aspect of man's nature, he never deviated from
the ideas laid down in these essays. Only a very brief outline must
suffice to convey some of the most important points.
In the childhood of the human race, he believed, Natural Selection would
operate mainly on man's body, but in later periods upon the mind. Hence
it would happen that the physical forms of the different races were
early fixed in a permanent manner. Sharper claws, stronger muscles,
swifter feet and tougher hides determine the survival value of lower
animals. With man, however, the finer intellect, the readier
adaptability to environment, the greater susceptibility to improvement,
and the elastic capacity for co-ordination, were the qualities which
determined his career. Tribes which are weak in these qualities give way
and perish before tribes which are strong in them, whatever advantages
the former may possess in physical structure. The finest savage has
always succumbed before the advance of civilisation. "The Red Indian
goes down before the white man, and the New Zealander vanishes in
presence of the English settler." Nature, careless in this stage of
evolution about the body, selects for survival those varieties of
mankind which excel in mental qualities. Hence it has happened that the
physical characteristics of the different races, once fixed in very
early prehistoric times, have never greatly varied. They have passed out
of the range of Natural Selection because they have become comparatively
unimportant in the struggle for existence.
After going into considerable detail of organic and physical
development, he says: "The inference I would draw from this class of
phenomena is, that a superior intelligence has guided the development of
man in a definite direction, and for a special purpose, just as man
guides the development of many animal and vegetable forms." Thus he
foreshadows the conclusion, to be more fully developed in "The World of
Life" (1910), of an over-ruling God, of the spiritual nature of man, and
of the other world of spiritual beings.
An essay that excited special attention was that on Mimicry. The two on
Birds' Nests brought forth some rather heated correspondence from
amateur naturalists, to which Wallace replied either by adducing
confirmation of the facts stated, or by thanking them for the
information they had given him.
With reference to the paper on Mimicry, it is interesting to note that
the hypothesis therein adopted was first suggested by H.W. Bates,
Wallace's friend and fellow-traveller in South America. The essay under
this title dealt with the subject in a most fascinating manner, and was
probably the first to arouse widespread interest in this aspect of
natural science.
The next eight years saw the production of many important and valuable
works, amongst which the "Geographical Distribution of Animals" (1876)
occupies the chief place. This work, though perhaps the least known to
the average reader, was considered by Wallace to be the most important
scientific work he ever attempted. From references in letters written
during his stay in the Malay Archipelago, it is clear that the subject
had a strong attraction for him, and formed a special branch of study
and observation many years before he began to work it out systematically
in writing. His decision to write the book was the outcome of a
suggestion made to him by Prof. A. Newton and Dr. Sclater about 1872. In
addition to having already expressed his general views on this subject
in various papers and articles, he had, after careful consideration,
come to adopt Dr. Sclater's division of the earth's surface into six
great zoological regions, which he found equally applicable to birds,
mammalia, reptiles, and other great divisions; while at the same time
it helped to explain the apparent contradictions in the distribution of
land animals. Some years later he wrote:
In whatever work I have done I have always aimed at systematic
arrangement and uniformity of treatment throughout. But here the immense
extent of the subject, the overwhelming mass of detail, and above all
the excessive diversities in the amount of knowledge of the different
classes of animals, rendered it quite impossible to treat all alike. My
preliminary studies had already satisfied me that it was quite useless
to attempt to found any conclusions on those groups which were
comparatively little known, either as regards the proportion of species
collected and described, or as regards their systematic classification.
It was also clear that as the present distribution of animals is
necessarily due to their past distribution, the greatest importance must
be given to those groups whose fossil remains in the more recent strata
are the most abundant and the best known. These considerations led me to
limit my work in its detailed systematic groundwork, and study of the
principles and law of distribution, to the mammalia and birds, and to
apply the principles thus arrived at to an explanation of the
distribution of other groups, such as reptiles, fresh-water fishes, land
and fresh-water shells, and the best-known insect Orders.
There remained another fundamental point to consider. Geographical
distribution in its practical applications and interest, both to
students and to the general reader, consists of two distinct divisions,
or rather, perhaps, may be looked at from two points of view. In the
first of these we divide the earth into regions and sub-regions, study
the causes which have led to the difference in their animal productions,
give a general account of these, with the amount of resemblance to and
difference from other regions; and we may also give lists of the
families and genera inhabiting each, with indications as to which are
peculiar and which are also found in adjacent regions. This aspect of
the study I term zoological geography, and it is that which would be of
most interest to the resident or travelling naturalist, as it would give
him, in the most direct and compact form, an indication of the numbers
and kinds of animals he might expect to meet with.[3]
The keynote of the general scheme of distribution, as set forth in these
two volumes, may be expressed as an endeavour to compare the extinct and
existing fauna of each country and to trace the course by which what is
now peculiar to each region had come to assume its present character.
The main result being that all the higher forms of life seem to have
originally appeared in the northern hemisphere, which has sent out
migration after migration to colonise the three southern continents; and
although varying considerably from time to time in form and extent, each
has kept essentially distinct, while at the same time receiving
periodically wave after wave of fresh animal life from the northward.
This again was due to many physical causes such as peninsulas parting
from continents as islands, islands joining and making new continents,
continents breaking up or effecting junction with or being isolated from
one another. Thus Australia received the germ of her present abundant
fauna of pouched mammals when she was part of the Old-World continent,
but separated from that too soon to receive the various placental
mammals which have, except in her isolated area, superseded those older
forms. So, also, South America, at one time unconnected with North
America, developed her great sloths and armadilloes, and, on fusing with
the latter, sent her megatheriums to the north, and received mastodons
and large cats in exchange.
Some of the points, such for instance as the division of the sub-regions
into which each greater division is separated, gave rise to
considerable controversy. Wallace's final estimate of the work stands:
"No one is more aware than myself of the defects of the work, a
considerable portion of which are due to the fact that it was written a
quarter of a century too soon--at a time when both zoological and
palæontological discovery were advancing with great rapidity, while new
and improved classifications of some of the great classes and orders
were in constant progress. But though many of the details given in these
volumes would now require alteration, there is no reason to believe that
the great features of the work and general principles established by it
will require any important modification."[4]
About this time he wrote the article on "Acclimatisation" for the
"Encyclopædia Britannica"; and another on "Distribution-Zoology" for the
same work. As President of the Biological Section of the British
Association he prepared an address for the meeting at Glasgow; wrote a
number of articles and reviews, as well as his remarkable book on
"Miracles and Modern Spiritualism." In 1878 he published "Tropical
Nature," in which he gave a general sketch of the climate, vegetation,
and animal life of the equatorial zone of the tropics from his own
observations in both hemispheres. The chief novelty was, according to
his own opinion, in the chapter on "climate," in which he endeavoured to
show the exact causes which produce the difference between the uniform
climate of the equatorial zone, and that of June and July in England.
Although at that time _we_ receive actually more of the light and heat
of the sun than does Java or Trinidad in December, yet these places have
then a mean temperature very much higher than ours. It contained also a
chapter on humming-birds, as illustrating the luxuriance of tropical
nature; and others on the colours of animals and of plants, and on
various biological problems.[5]
"Island Life"[6] (published 1880) was begun in 1877, and occupied the
greater part of the next three years. This had been suggested by certain
necessary limitations in the writing of "The Geographical Distribution
of Animals." It is a fascinating account of the relations of islands to
continents, of their unwritten records of the distribution of plant and
animal life in the morning time of the earth, of the causes and results
of the glacial period, and of the manner of reckoning the age of the
world from geological data. It also included several new features of
natural science, and still retains an important place in scientific
literature. No better summary can be given than that by the author
himself:
In my "Geographical Distribution of Animals" I had, in the first place,
dealt with the larger groups, coming down to families and genera, but
taking no account of the various problems raised by the distribution of
particular _species_. In the next place, I had taken little account of
the various islands of the globe, excepting as forming sub-regions or
parts of sub-regions. But I had long seen the great interest and
importance of these, and especially of Darwin's great discovery of the
two classes into which they are naturally divided--oceanic and
continental islands. I had already given lectures on this subject, and
had become aware of the great interest attaching to them, and the great
light they threw upon the means of dispersal of animals and plants, as
well as upon the past changes, both physical and means of dispersal and
colonisation of animals is so connected with, and often dependent on,
that of plants, that a consideration of the latter is essential to any
broad views as to the distribution of life upon the earth, while they
throw unexpected light upon those exceptional means of dispersal which,
because they are exceptional, are often of paramount importance in
leading to the production of new species and in thus determining the
nature of insular floras and faunas.
Having no knowledge of scientific botany, it needed some courage, or, as
some may think, presumption, to deal with this aspect of the problem;
but ... I had long been excessively fond of plants, and ... interested
in their distribution. The subject, too, was easier to deal with, on
account of the much more complete knowledge of the detailed distribution
of plants than of animals, and also because their classification was in
a more advanced and stable condition. Again, some of the most
interesting islands of the globe had been carefully studied botanically
by such eminent botanists as Sir Joseph Hooker for the Galapagos, New
Zealand, Tasmania, and the Antarctic islands; Mr. H.C. Watson for the
Azores; Mr. J.G. Baker for Mauritius and other Mascarene islands; while
there were floras by competent botanists of the Sandwich Islands,
Bermuda and St. Helena....
But I also found it necessary to deal with a totally distinct branch of
science--recent changes of climate as dependent on changes of the
earth's surface, including the causes and effects of the glacial epoch,
since these were among the most powerful agents in causing the dispersal
of all kinds of organisms, and thus bringing about the actual
distribution that now prevails. This led me to a careful study of Mr.
James Croll's remarkable works on the subject of the astronomical causes
of the glacial and interglacial periods.... While differing on certain
details, I adopted the main features of his theory, combining with it
the effects of changes in height and extent of land which form an
important adjunct to the meteorological agents....
Besides this partially new theory of the causes of glacial epochs, the
work contained a fuller statement of the various kinds of evidence
proving that the great oceanic basins are permanent features of the
earth's surface, than had before been given; also a discussion of the
mode of estimating the duration of geological periods, and some
considerations leading to the conclusion that organic change is now less
rapid than the average, and therefore that less time is required for
this change than has hitherto been thought necessary. I was also, I
believe, the first to point out the great difference between the more
ancient continental islands and those of more recent origin, with the
interesting conclusions as to geographical changes afforded by both;
while the most important novelty is the theory by which I explained the
occurrence of northern groups of plants in all parts of the southern
hemisphere--a phenomenon which Sir Joseph Hooker had pointed out, but
had then no means of explaining.[7]
In 1878 Wallace wrote a volume on Australasia for Stanford's "Compendium
of Geography and Travel." A later edition was published in 1893, which
contained in addition to the physical geography, natural history, and
geology of Australia, a much fuller account of the natives of Australia,
showing that they are really a primitive type of the great Caucasian
family of mankind, and are by no means so low in intellect as had been
usually believed. This view has since been widely accepted.
Having, towards the close of 1885, received an invitation from the
Lowell Institute, Boston, U.S.A., to deliver a course of lectures in the
autumn and winter of 1886, Wallace decided upon a series which would
embody those theories of evolution with which he was most familiar, with
a special one on "The Darwinian Theory" illustrated by a set of original
diagrams on variation. These lectures eventually became merged into the
well-known book entitled "Darwinism."
On the first delivery of his lecture on the "Darwinian Theory" at
Boston it was no small pleasure to Wallace to find the audience both
large and attentive. One of the newspapers expressed the public
appreciation in the following truly American fashion: "The first
Darwinian, Wallace, did not leave a leg for anti-Darwinism to stand on
when he had got through his first Lowell Lecture last evening. It was a
masterpiece of condensed statement--as clear and simple as compact--a
most beautiful specimen of scientific work. Dr. Wallace, though not an
orator, is likely to become a favourite as a lecturer, his manner is so
genuinely modest and straightforward."
Wherever he went during his tour of the States this lecture more than
all others attracted and pleased his audiences. Many who had the
opportunity of conversing with him, and others by correspondence,
confessed that they had not been able to understand the "Origin of
Species" until they heard the facts explained in such a lucid manner by
him. It was this fact, therefore, which led him, on his return home in
the autumn of 1887, to begin the preparation of the book ("Darwinism")
published in 1889. The method he chose was that of following as closely
as possible the lines of thought running through the "Origin of
Species," to which he added many new features, in addition to laying
special emphasis on the parts which had been most generally
misunderstood. Indeed, so fairly and impartially did he set forth the
general principles of the Darwinian theory that he was able to say:
"Some of my critics declare that I am more Darwinian than Darwin
himself, and in this, I admit, they are not far wrong."
His one object, as set out in the Preface, was to treat the problem of
the origin of species from the standpoint reached after nearly thirty
years of discussion, with an abundance of new facts and the advocacy of
many new and old theories. As it had frequently been considered a
weakness on Darwin's part that he based his evidence primarily on
experiments with domesticated animals and cultivated plants, Wallace
desired to secure a firm foundation for the theory in the variation of
organisms in a state of nature. It was in order to make these facts
intelligible that he introduced a number of diagrams, just as Darwin was
accustomed to appeal to the facts of variation among dogs and pigeons.
Another change which he considered important was that of taking the
struggle for existence first, because this is the fundamental phenomenon
on which Natural Selection depends. This, too, had a further advantage
in that, after discussing variations and the effects of artificial
selection, it was possible at once to explain how Natural Selection
acts.
The subjects treated with novelty and interest in their important
bearings on the theory of Natural Selection were: (1) A proof that all
_specific_ characters are (or once have been) either useful in
themselves or correlated with useful characters (Chap. VI.); (2) a proof
that Natural Selection can, in certain cases, increase the sterility of
crosses (Chap. VII.); (3) a fuller discussion of the colour relations of
animals, with additional facts and arguments on the origin of sexual
differences of colour (Chaps. VIII.-X.); (4) an attempted solution of
the difficulty presented by the occurrence of both very simple and
complex modes of securing the cross-fertilisation of plants (Chap. XI.);
(5) some fresh facts and arguments on the wind-carriage of seeds, and
its bearing on the wide dispersal of many arctic and alpine plants
(Chap. XII.); (6) some new illustrations of the non-heredity of acquired
characters, and a proof that the effects of use and disuse, even if
inherited, must be overpowered by Natural Selection (Chap. XIV.); and
(7) a new argument as to the nature and origin of the moral and
intellectual faculties of man (Chap. XV.).
"Although I maintain, and even enforce," wrote Wallace, "my differences
from some of Darwin's views, my whole work tends forcibly to illustrate
the overwhelming importance of Natural Selection over all other agencies
in the production of new species. I thus take up Darwin's earlier
position, from which he somewhat receded in the later editions of his
works, on account of criticisms and objections which I have endeavoured
to show are unsound. Even in rejecting that phase of sexual selection
depending on female choice, I insist on the greater efficacy of Natural
Selection. This is pre-eminently the Darwinian doctrine, and I therefore
claim for my book the position of being the advocate of pure Darwinism."
In concluding this section which, like a previous one, touches upon the
intimate relations between Darwin and Wallace, and the points on which
they agreed or differed, it is well, as the differences have been
exaggerated and misunderstood, to bear in mind his own declaration:
"None of my differences from Darwin imply any real divergence as to the
overwhelming importance of the great principle of natural selection,
while in several directions I believe that I have extended and
strengthened it."[8]
With these explanatory notes the reader will now be able to follow the
two groups of letters on Natural Selection, Geographical Distribution,
and the Origin of Life and Consciousness which follow.
PART III (_Continued_)
II.--Correspondence on Biology, Geographical Distribution, etc.
[1864-93]
* * * * *
H. SPENCER TO A.R. WALLACE
_29 Bloomsbury Square, W.C. May 19, 1864._
My dear Sir,--When I thanked you for your little pamphlet[9] the other
day, I had not read it. I have since done so with great interest. Its
leading idea is, I think, undoubtedly true, and of much importance
towards an interpretation of the facts. Though I think that there are
some purely physical modifications that may be shown to result from the
direct influence of civilisation, yet I think it is quite clear, as you
point out, that the small amounts of physical differences that have
arisen between the various human races are due to the way in which
mental modifications have served in place of physical ones.
I hope you will pursue the inquiry. It is one in which I have a
direct interest, since I hope, hereafter, to make use of its
results.--Sincerely yours,
HERBERT SPENCER
* * * * *
SIR C. LYELL TO A.R. WALLACE
_53 Harley Street. May 22, [1864]._
My dear Sir,--I have been reading with great interest your paper on the
Origin of the Races of Man, in which I think the question between the
two opposite parties is put with such admirable clearness and fairness
that that alone is no small assistance towards clearing the way to a
true theory. The manner in which you have given Darwin the whole credit
of the theory of Natural Selection is very handsome, but if anyone else
had done it without allusion to your papers it would have been wrong....
With many thanks for your most admirable paper, believe me, my dear Sir,
ever very truly yours,
CHA. LYELL.
* * * * *
SIR C. LYELL TO A.R. WALLACE
_73 Harley Street. March 19, 1867._
Dear Mr. Wallace,--I am citing your two papers in my second volume of
the new edition of the "Principles"--that on the Physical Geography of
the Malay Archipelago, 1863, and the other on Varieties of Man in ditto,
1864. I am somewhat confounded with the marked line which you draw
between the two provinces on each side of the Straits of Lombok. It
seems to me that Darwin and Hooker have scarcely given sufficient weight
to the objection which it affords to some of their arguments. First, in
regard to continental extension, if these straits could form such a
barrier, it would seem as if nothing short of a land communication could
do much towards fusing together two distinct faunas and floras. But here
comes the question--are there any land-quadrupeds in Bali or in Lombok?
I think you told me little was known of the plants, but perhaps you know
something of the insects. It is impossible that birds of long flight
crossing over should not have conveyed the seeds and eggs of some
plants, insects, mollusca, etc. Then the currents would not be idle, and
during such an eruption as that of Tomboro in Sumbawa all sorts of
disturbances, aerial, aquatic and terrestrial, would have scattered
animals and plants.
When I first wrote, thirty-five years ago, I attached great importance
to preoccupancy, and fancied that a body of indigenous plants already
fitted for every available station would prevent an invader, especially
from, a quite foreign province, from having a chance of making good his
settlement in a new country. But Darwin and Hooker contend that
continental species which have been improved by a keen and wide
competition are most frequently victorious over an insular or more
limited flora and fauna. Looking, therefore, upon Bali as an outpost of
the great Old World fauna, it ought to beat Lombok, which only
represents a less rich and extensive fauna, namely the Australian.
You may perhaps answer that Lombok is an outpost of an army that may
once have been as multitudinous as that of the old continent, but the
larger part of the host have been swamped in the Pacific. But they say
that European forms of animals and plants run wild in Australia and New
Zealand, whereas few of the latter can do the same in Europe. In my map
there is a small island called Nousabali; this ought to make the means
of migration of seeds and animals less difficult. I cannot find that you
say anywhere what is the depth of the sea between the Straits of Lombok,
but you mention that it exceeds 100 fathoms. I am quite willing to infer
that there is a connection between these soundings and the line of
demarcation between the two zoological provinces, but must we suppose
land communication for all birds of short flight? Must we unite South
America with the Galapagos Islands? Can you refer me to any papers by
yourself which might enlighten me and perhaps answer some of these
queries? I should have thought that the intercourse even of savage
tribes for tens of thousands of years between neighbouring islands would
have helped to convey in canoes many animals and plants from one
province to another so as to help to confound them. Your hypothesis of
the gradual advance of two widely separated continents towards each
other seems to be the best that can be offered. You say that a rise of
a hundred fathoms would unite the Philippine Islands and Bali to the
Indian region. Is there, then, a depth of 600 feet in that narrow strait
of Bali, which seems in my map only two miles or so in breadth?
I have [been] confined to the house for a week by a cold or I should
have tried to see you. I am afraid to go out to-day.--Believe me ever
most truly yours,
CHA. LYELL.
* * * * *
SIR C. LYELL TO A.R. WALLACE
_73 Harley Street. April 4, 1867._
My dear Mr. Wallace,--I have been reading over again your paper
published in 1855 in the _Annals_ on "The Law which has regulated the
Introduction of New Species"; passages of which I intend to quote, not
in reference to your priority of publication, but simply because there
are some points laid down more clearly than I can find in the work of
Darwin itself, in regard to the bearing of the geological and zoological
evidence on geographical distribution and the origin of species. I have
been looking into Darwin's historical sketch thinking to find some
allusion to your essay at page xx., 4th ed., when he gets to 1855, but I
can find no allusion to it. Yet surely I remember somewhere a passage in
which Darwin says in print that you had told him that in 1855 you meant
by such expressions as "species being created on the type of
pre-existing ones closely allied," and by what you say of modified
prototypes, and by the passage in which you ask "what rudimentary organs
mean if each species has been created independently," etc., that new
species were created by variation and in the way of ordinary generation.
Your last letter was a great help to me, for it was a relief to find
that the Lombok barrier was not so complete as to be a source of
difficulty. I have also to thank you for your papers, one of which I had
read before in the _Natural History Review_, but I am very glad of a
separate copy. I am rather perplexed by Darwin speculating on the
possibility of New Zealand having once been united with Australia (p.
446, 4th Ed.). The puzzle is greater than I can get over, even looking
upon it as an oceanic island. Why should there have been no mammalia,
rodents and marsupials, or only one mouse? Even if the Glacial period
was such that it was enveloped in a Greenlandic winding-sheet, there
would have been some Antarctic animals? It cannot be modern, seeing the
height of those alps. It may have been a set of separate smaller
islands, an archipelago since united into fewer. No savages could have
extirpated mammalia, besides we should have found them fossil in the
same places with all those species of extinct Dinornis which have come
to light. Perhaps you will say that the absence of mammalia in New
Caledonia is a corresponding fact.
This reminds me of another difficulty. On the hypothesis of the coral
islands being the last remnants of a submerged continent, ought they not
to have in them a crowd of peculiar and endemic types, each rivalling
St. Helena, instead of which I believe they are very poor [in] peculiar
genera. Have they all got submerged for a short time during the ups and
downs to which they have been subjected, Tahiti and some others having
been built up by volcanic action in the Pliocene period? Madeira and the
Canaries were islands in the Upper Miocene ocean, and may therefore well
have peculiar endemic types of very old date, and destroyed elsewhere. I
have just got in Wollaston's "Coleoptera Atlantidum," and shall be glad
to lend it you when I have read the Introduction. He goes in for
continental extension, which only costs him two catastrophes by which
the union and disunion with the nearest mainland may readily be
accomplished.... --Believe me ever most truly yours,
CHA. LYELL.
* * * * *
SIR C. LYELL TO A.R. WALLACE
_73 Harley Street. May 2, 1867._
My dear Sir,--I forgot to ask you last night about an ornithological
point which I have been discussing with the Duke of Argyll. In Chapter
V. of his "Reign of Law" (which I should be happy to lend you, if you
have time to look at it immediately) he treats of humming-birds, saying
that Gould has made out about 400 species, every one of them very
distinct from the other, and only one instance, in Ecuadór, of a species
which varies in its tail-feathers in such a way as to make it doubtful
whether it ought to rank as a species, an opinion to which Gould
inclines, or only as a variety or incipient species, as the Duke thinks.
For the Duke is willing to go so far towards the transmutation theory as
to allow that different humming-birds may have had a common ancestral
stock, provided it be admitted that a new and marked variety appears at
once with the full distinctness of sex so remarkable in that genus.
According to his notion, the new male variety and the female must both
appear at once, and this new race or species must be regarded as an
"extraordinary birth." My reason for troubling you is merely to learn,
since you have studied the birds of South America, and I hope collected
some humming-birds, whether Gould is right in saying that there are so
many hundred very distinct species without instances of marked varieties
and transitional forms. If this be the case, would it not present us
with an exception to the rule laid down by Darwin and Hooker that when a
genus is largely represented in a continuous tract of land the species
of that genus tend to vary?
I have inquired of Sclater and he tells me that he has a considerable
distrust of Gould's information on this point, but that he has not
himself studied humming-birds.
In regard to shells, I have always found that dealers have a positive
prejudice against intermediate forms, and one of the most philosophical
of them, now no more, once confessed to me that it was very much against
his trade interest to give an honest opinion that certain varieties were
not real species, or that certain forms, made distinct genera by some
conchologists, ought not so to rank. Nine-tenths of his customers, if
told that it was not a good genus or good species, would say, "Then I
need not buy it." What they wanted was names, not things. Of course
there are genera in which the species are much better defined than in
others, but you would explain this, as Darwin and Hooker do, by the
greater length of time during which they have existed, or the greater
activity of changes, organic and inorganic, which have taken place in
the region inhabited by the generic or family type in question. The
manufactory of new species has ceased, or nearly so, and in that case I
suppose a variety is more likely to be one of the transitional links
which has not yet been extinguished than the first step towards a new
permanent race or allied species....
Your last letter will be of great use to me. I had cited the case of
beetles recovering from immersion of hours in alcohol from my own
experience, but am glad it strikes you in the same light. McAndrew told
me last night that the littoral shells of the Azores being European, or
rather African, is in favour of a former continental extension, but I
suspect that the floating of seaweed containing their eggs may dispense
with the hypothesis of the submersion of 1,200 miles of land once
intervening. I want naturalists carefully to examine floating seaweed
and pumice met with at sea. Tell your correspondents to look out. There
should be a microscopic examination of both these means of
transport.--Believe me ever truly yours,
CHA. LYELL.
* * * * *
SIR C. LYELL TO A.R. WALLACE
_73 Harley Street. July 3, 1867._
My dear Mr. Wallace,--I was very glad, though I take in the _Westminster
Review_, to have a duplicate of your most entertaining and instructive
essay on Mimicry of Colours, etc., which I have been reading with great
delight, and I may say that both copies are in full use here. I think it
is admirably written and most persuasive.--Believe me ever most truly
yours,
CHA. LYELL.
* * * * *
TO HERBERT SPENCER
_Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. October 26, 1867._
My dear Mr. Spencer,--After leaving you yesterday I thought a little
over your objections to the Duke of Argyll's theory of flight on the
ground that it does not apply to insects, and it seems to me that
exactly the same general principles do apply to insects as to birds. I
read over the Duke's book without paying special attention to that part
of it, but as far as I remember, the case of insects offers no
difficulty in the way of applying his principles. If any wing were a
rigid plane surface, it appears to me that there are only two ways in
which it could be made to produce flight. Firstly, on the principle that
the resistance in a fluid, and I believe also in air, increases in a
greater ratio than the velocity (? as the square), the descending stroke
might be more rapid than the ascending one, and the resultant would be
an upward or forward motion. Secondly, some kind of furling or
feathering by a rotatory motion of the wing might take place on raising
the wings. I think, however, it is clear that neither of these actions
occurs during the flight of insects. In both slow- and quick-flying
species there is no appearance of such a difference of velocity, and I
am not aware that anyone has attempted to prove that it occurs; and the
fact that in so many insects the edges of the fore and hind wings are
connected together, while their insertions at the base are at some
distance apart, _entirely precludes a rotation of the wings_. The whole
structure and form of the wings of insects, moreover, indicate an action
in flight quite analogous to that of birds. I believe that a careful
examination will show that the wings of almost all insects are slightly
concave beneath. Further, they are all constructed with a strong and
rigid anterior margin, while the outer and hinder margins are
exceedingly thin and flexible. Yet further, I feel confident (and a
friend here agrees with me) that they are much more rigid against
_upward_ than against _downward_ pressure. Now in most insects (take a
butterfly as an example) the body is weighted behind the insertion of
the wings by the long and heavy abdomen, so as to produce an oblique
position when freely suspended. There is also much more wing surface
behind than before the fulcrum. Now if such an insect produces by
muscular action a regular flapping of the wings, flight must result. At
the downward stroke the pressure of the air against the hind wings would
raise them all to a nearly horizontal position, and at the same time
bend up their posterior margins a little, producing an upward and onward
motion. At the upward stroke the pressure on the hind wings would
depress them considerably into an oblique position, and from their great
flexibility in that direction would bend down their hind margins. The
resultant would be a slightly downward and considerably onward motion,
the two strokes producing that undulating flight so characteristic of
butterflies, and so especially observable in the broad-winged tropical
species. Now all this is quite conformable to the action of a bird's
wing. The rigid anterior margin, the slender and flexible hind margin;
the greater resistance to upward than to downward pressure, and the
slight concavity of the under surface, are all characters common to the
wings of birds and most insects, and, considering the totally different
structure and homologies of the two, I think there is at least an _a
priori_ case for the function they both subserve being dependent upon
these peculiarities. If I remember rightly, it is on these principles
that the Duke of Argyll has explained the flight of birds, in which,
however, there are of course some specialities depending on the more
perfect organisation of the wing, its greater mobility and flexibility,
its capacity for enlargement and contraction, and the peculiar
construction and arrangement of the feathers. These, however, are
matters of detail; and there are no doubt many and important differences
of detail in the mode of flight of the different types of insects which
would require a special study of each. It appeared to me that the Duke
of Argyll had given that special study to the flight of birds, and
deserved praise for having done so successfully, although he may not
have quite solved the whole problem, or have stated quite accurately the
comparative importance of the various causes that combine to effect
flight.
--Believe me yours very sincerely,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
HERBERT SPENCER TO A.R. WALLACE
_57 Queen's Gardens, Bayswater, W. December 5, 1867._
My dear Mr. Wallace,--I did not answer your last letter, being busy in
getting out my second edition of "First Principles."
I was quite aware of the alleged additional cause of flight which you
name, and do not doubt that it is an aid. But I regard it simply as an
aid. If you will move an outstretched wing backwards and forwards with
equal velocity, I think you will find that the difference of resistance
is nothing like commensurate with the difference in size between the
muscles that raise the wings and the muscles that depress them. It seems
to me quite out of the question that the principles of flight are
fundamentally different in a bat and a bird, which they must be if the
Duke of Argyll's interpretation is correct. I write, however, not so
much to reply to your argument as to correct a misapprehension which my
expressions seem to have given you. The objections are not made by
Tyndall or Huxley; but they are objections made by me, which I stated to
them, and in which they agreed--Tyndall expressing the opinion that I
ought to make them public. I name this because you may otherwise some
day startle Tyndall or Huxley by speaking to them of _their_ objections,
and giving me as the authority for so affiliating them.--Very truly
yours,
HERBERT SPENCER.
* * * * *
SIR C. LYELL TO A.R. WALLACE
_73 Harley Street, London, W. November, 1867._
Dear Wallace,--You probably remember an article by Agassiz in an
American periodical, the _Christian Observer_, on the diversity of human
races, etc., to prove that each distinct race was originally created for
each zoological and botanical province. But while he makes out a good
case for the circumscription of the principal races to distinct
provinces, he evades in a singular manner the community of the Red
Indian race to North and South America. He takes pains to show that the
same American race pervades North and South America, or at least all
America south of the Arctic region. This was Dr. Morton's opinion, and
is, I suppose, not to be gainsaid. In other words, while the Papuan,
Indo-Malayan, Negro and other races are strictly limited each of them to
a particular region of mammalia, the Red Indian type is common to
Sclater's Neo-arctic and Neo-tropical regions. Have you ever considered
the explanation of this fact on Darwinian principles? If there were not
barbarous tribes like the Fuegians, one might imagine America to have
been peopled when mankind was somewhat more advanced and more capable of
diffusing itself over an entire continent. But I cannot well understand
why isolation such as accompanies a very low state of social progress
did not cause the Neo-tropical and Neo-arctic regions to produce by
varieties and Natural Selection two very different human races. May it
be owing to the smaller lapse of time, which time, nevertheless, was
sufficient to allow of the spread of the representatives of one and the
same type from Canada to Cape Horn? Have you ever touched on this
subject, or can you refer me to anyone who has?--Believe me ever most
truly yours,
CHA. LYELL.
* * * * *
TO SIR C. LYELL
1867.
Dear Sir Charles,--Why the colour of man is sometimes constant over
large areas while in other cases it varies, we cannot certainly tell;
but we may well suppose it to be due to its being more or less
correlated with constitutional characters favourable to life. By far the
most common colour of man is a warm brown, not very different from that
of the American Indian. White and black are alike deviations from this,
and are probably correlated with mental and physical peculiarities which
have been favourable to the increase and maintenance of the particular
race. I shall infer, therefore, that the brown or red was the original
colour of man, and that it maintains itself throughout all climates in
America because accidental deviations from it have not been accompanied
by any useful constitutional peculiarities. It is Bates's opinion that
the Indians are recent immigrants into the tropical plains of South
America, and are not yet fully acclimatised.--Yours faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
SIR C. LYELL TO A.R. WALLACE
_73 Harley Street. March 13, 1869._
Dear Wallace,-- ...I am reading your new book,[10] of which you kindly
sent me a copy, with very great pleasure. Nothing equal to it has come
out since Darwin's "Voyage of the _Beagle_." ... The history of the Mias
is very well done. I am not yet through the first volume, but my wife is
deep in the second and much taken with it. It is so rare to be able to
depend on the scientific knowledge and accuracy of those who have so
much of the wonderful to relate....--Believe me ever most truly yours,
CHA. LYELL.
* * * * *
CANON KINGSLEY TO A.R. WALLACE
_Eversley Rectory, Winchfield. May 5, 1869._
My dear Sir,--I am reading--or rather have all but read--your new
book,[10] with a delight which I cannot find words to express save those
which are commonplace superlatives. Let me felicitate you on having, at
last, added to the knowledge of our planet a chapter which has not its
equal (as far as I can recollect) since our friend Darwin's "Voyage of
the _Beagle_." Let me, too, compliment you on the modesty and generosity
which you have shown, in dedicating your book to Darwin, and speaking of
him and his work as you have done. Would that a like unselfish chivalry
were more common--I do not say amongst scientific men, for they have it
in great abundance, but--in the rest of the community.
May I ask--as a very great favour--to be allowed to call on you some day
in London, and to see your insects? I and my daughter are soon, I hope,
going to the West Indies, for plants and insects, among other things;
and the young lady might learn much of typical forms from one glance at
your treasures.
I send this letter by our friend Bates--being ignorant of your
address.--Believe me, my dear Sir, ever yours faithfully,
C. KINGSLEY.
* * * * *
TO MISS A. BUCKLEY[11]
_Holly House, Barking, E. February 2, 1871._
Dear Miss Buckley,--I have read Darwin's first volume,[12] and like it
very much. It is overwhelming as proving the origin of man from some
lower form, but that, I rather think, hardly anyone doubts now.
He is very weak, as yet, on my objection about the "hair," but promises
a better solution in the second volume.
Have you seen Mivart's book, "Genesis of Species"? It is exceedingly
clever, and well worth reading. The arguments against Natural Selection
as the exclusive mode of development are some of them exceedingly
strong, and very well put, and it is altogether a most readable and
interesting book.
Though he uses some weak and bad arguments, and underrates the power of
Natural Selection, yet I think I agree with his conclusion in the main,
and am inclined to think it is more philosophical than my own. It is a
book that I think will please Sir Charles Lyell.--Believe me, yours very
truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MISS A. BUCKLEY
_Holly House, Barking, E. March 3, 1871._
Dear Miss Buckley,--Thanks for your note. I am hard at work criticising
Darwin. I admire his Moral Sense chapter as much as anything in the
book. It is both original and the most satisfactory of all the
theories, if not quite satisfactory....--Believe me yours very
faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.--Darwin's book on the whole is wonderful! There are plenty of
points open to criticism, but it is a marvellous contribution to the
history of the development of the forms of life.
* * * * *
SIR C. LYELL TO A.R. WALLACE
_February 15, 1876._
Dear Wallace,--I have read the Preface,[13] and like and approve of it
much. I do not believe there is a word which Darwin would wish altered.
It is high time this modest assertion of your claims as an independent
originator of Natural Selection should be published.--Ever most truly,
CHA. LYELL.
* * * * *
SIR J. HOOKER TO A.R. WALLACE
_Royal Gardens, Kew. August 2, 1880._
My dear Wallace,--I think you have made an immense advance to our
knowledge of the ways and means of distribution, and bridged many great
gaps.[14] Your reasoning seems to me to be sound throughout, though I am
not prepared to receive it in all its details.
I am disposed to regard the Western Australian flora as the latest in
point of origin, and I hope to prove it by development, and by the
absence of various types. If Western Australia ever had an old flora, I
am inclined to suppose that it has been destroyed by the invasion of
Eastern types after the union with East Australia. My idea is that these
types worked round by the south, and altered rapidly as they proceeded
westward, increasing in species. Nor can I conceive the Western Island,
when surrounded by sea, harbouring a flora like its present one.
I have been disposed to regard New Caledonia and the New Hebrides as the
parent country of many New Zealand and Australian forms of vegetation,
but we do not know enough of the vegetation of the former to warrant the
conclusion; and after all it would be but a slight modification of your
views.
I very much like your whole working of the problem of the isolation and
connection of New Zealand and Australia _inter se_ and with the
countries north of them, and the whole treatment of that respecting
north and south migration over the globe is admirable....--Ever most
truly yours,
J.D. HOOKER.
* * * * *
SIR J. HOOKER TO A.R. WALLACE
_Royal Gardens, Kew. November 10, 1880._
Dear Mr. Wallace,--I have been waiting to thank you for "Island Life"
till I should have read it through as carefully as I am digesting the
chapters I have finished; but I can delay no longer, if only to say that
I heartily enjoy it, and believe that you have brushed away more cobwebs
that have obscured the subject than any other, besides giving a vast
deal that is new, and admirably setting forth what is old, so as to
throw new light on the whole subject. It is, in short, a first-rate
book. I am making notes for you, but hitherto have seen no defect of
importance except in the matter of the Bahamas, whose flora is Floridan,
not Cuban, in so far as we know it....--Very truly yours,
JOS. D. HOOKER.
* * * * *
TO SIR W. THISELTON-DYER
_Pen-y-bryn, St. Peter's Road, Croydon. January 7, 1881._
Dear Mr. Thiselton-Dyer,--If I had had your lecture before me when
writing the last chapters of my book I should certainly have quoted you
in support of the view of the northern origin of the Southern flora by
migration along existing continents. On reading it again I am surprised
to find how often you refer to this; but when I read it on its first
appearance I did not pay special attention to this point except to note
that your views agreed more closely with those I had advanced, derived
from the distribution of animals, than those of any previous writer on
botanical distribution. When, at a much later period, on coming to the
end of my work, I determined to give a chapter to the New Zealand flora
in order to see how far the geological and physical relations between
New Zealand and Australia would throw light on its origin, I went for my
facts to the works of Sir Joseph Hooker and Mr. Bentham, and also to
your article in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," and worked out my
conclusions solely from these, and from the few facts referring to the
migration of plants which I had collected. Had I referred again to your
lecture I should certainly have quoted the cases you give (in a note, p.
431) of plants extending along the Andes from California to Peru and
Chile, and vice versa. Whatever identity there is in our views was
therefore arrived at independently, and it was an oversight on my part
not referring to your views, partly due to your not having made them a
more prominent feature of your very interesting and instructive lecture.
Working as I do at home, I am obliged to get my facts from the few books
I can get together; and I only attempted to deal with these great
botanical questions because the facts seemed sufficiently broad and
definite not to be much affected by errors of detail or recent additions
to our knowledge, and because the view which I took of the past changes
in Australia and New Zealand seemed calculated to throw so much light
upon them. Without such splendid summaries of the relations of the
Southern floras as are given in Sir J. Hooker's Introductions, I should
not have touched the subject at all; and I venture to hope that you or
some of your colleagues will give us other such summaries, brought down
to the present date, of other important floras--as, for example, those
of South Africa and South Temperate America.
Many thanks for additional peculiar British plants. When I hear what Mr.
Mitten has to say about the mosses, etc., I should like to send a
corrected list to _Nature_, which I shall ask you to be so good as to
give a final look over.--Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.--Mr. Darwin strongly objects to my view of the migration of plants
along mountain-ranges, rather than along lowlands during cold periods.
This latter view seems to me as difficult and inadequate as mine does to
him.--A.R.W.
* * * * *
Wallace was in frequent correspondence with Professor Raphael Meldola,
the eminent chemist, a friend both of Darwin and of Wallace, a student
of Evolution, and a stout defender of Darwinism. I received from him
much help and advice in connection with this work, and had he lived
until its completion--he died, suddenly, in 1914--my indebtedness to him
would have been even greater.
The following letter to Meldola refers to a suggestion that the white
colour of the undersides of animals might have been developed by
selection through the _physical_ advantage gained from the protection of
the vital parts by a _lighter_ colour and therefore by a surface of less
radiative activity. The idea was that there would be less loss of animal
heat through such a white coating. We were at that time unaware of
Thayer's demonstration of the value of such colouring for the purposes
of concealment among environment. Wallace accepted Thayer's view at once
when it was subsequently put forward; as do most naturalists at the
present time.
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Frith Hill, Godalming. April 8, 1885._
My dear Meldola,--Your letter in _Nature_ last week "riz my dander," as
the Yankees say, and, for once in a way, we find ourselves deadly
enemies prepared for mortal combat, armed with steel (pens) and prepared
to shed any amount of our own--ink. Consequently I rushed into the fray
with a letter to _Nature_ intended to show that you are as wrong (as
wicked) as are the Russians in Afghanistan. Having, however, the most
perfect confidence that the battle will soon be over,... --Yours very
faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The following letter refers to the theory of physiological selection
which had recently been propounded by Romanes, and which Prof. Meldola
had criticised in _Nature_, xxxix. 384.
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Frith Hill, Godalming. August 28, 1886._
My dear Meldola,--I have just read your reply to Romanes in _Nature_,
and so far as your view goes I agree, but it does not go far enough.
Professor Newton has called my attention to a passage in Belt's
"Nicaragua," pp. 207-8, in which he puts forth very clearly exactly your
view. I find I had noted the explanation as insufficient, and I hear
that in Darwin's copy there is "No! No!" against it. It seems, however,
to me to summarise _all_ that is of the slightest value in Romanes'
wordy paper. I have asked Newton (to whom I had lent it) to forward to
you at Birmingham a proof of my paper in the _Fortnightly_, and I shall
be much obliged if you will read it carefully, and, if you can, "hold a
brief" for me at the British Association in this matter. You will see
that a considerable part of my paper is devoted to a demonstration of
the fallacy of that part of "Romanes" which declares species to be
distinguished generally by useless characters, and also that
"simultaneous variations" do not usually occur.
On the question of sterility, which, as you well observe, is the core of
the question, I think I show that it could not work in the way Romanes
puts it. The objection to Belt's and your view is, also, that it would
not work unless the "sterility variation" was correlated with the
"useful variation." You assume, I think, this correlation, when you
speak of two of your varieties, B. and K., being _less fertile with the
parent form_. Without correlation they could not be so, only some few of
them. Romanes always speaks of his physiological variations as being
independent, "primary," in which case, as I show, they could hardly ever
survive. At the end of my paper I show a correlation which is probably
general and sufficient.
In criticising Romanes, however, at the British Association, I want to
call your special attention to a point I have hardly made clear enough
in my paper. Romanes always speaks of the "physiological variety" as if
it were like any other _simple_ variety, and could as easily (he says
more easily) be increased. Whereas it is really complex, requiring a
remarkable correlation between different sets of individuals which he
never recognises. To illustrate what I mean, let me suppose a case. Let
there occur in a species three individual physiological varieties--A, B
and C--each being infertile with the bulk of the species, but quite
fertile with some small part of it. Let A, for example, be fertile with
X, Y and Z. Now I maintain it to be in the highest degree improbable
that B, a quite distinct individual, with distinct parents originating
in a distinct locality, and perhaps with a very different constitution,
merely because it also is sterile with the bulk of the species, should
be fertile with the very same individuals, X, Y, Z, that A is fertile
with. It seems to me to be at least 100 to 1 that it will be fertile
with some other quite distinct set of individuals. And so with C, and
any other similar variety. I express this by saying that each has its
"sexual complements," and that the complements of the one are almost
sure not to be the complements of the other. Hence it follows that A, B,
C, though differing in the same character of general infertility with
the bulk of the species, will really be three distinct varieties
physiologically, and can in no way unite to form a single physiological
variety. This enormous difficulty Romanes apparently never sees, but
argues as if all individuals that are infertile with the bulk of the
species must be or usually are fertile with the same set of individuals
or with each other. This I call a monstrous assumption, for which not a
particle of evidence exists. Take this in conjunction with my argument
from the severity of the struggle for existence and the extreme
improbability of the respective "sexual complements" coming together at
the right time, and I think Romanes' ponderous paper is disposed of.
I wrote my paper, however, quite as much to expose the great presumption
and ignorance of Romanes in declaring that Natural Selection is _not_ a
theory of the origin of species--as it is calculated to do much harm.
See, for instance, the way the Duke of Argyll jumped at it like a trout
at a fly!--Yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The earlier part of the next letter refers to "The Experimental Proof of
the Protective Value of Colour and Markings in Insects in reference to
their Vertebrate Enemies," in the _Proceedings of the Zoological Society
of London_, 1887, p. 191.
TO PROF. POULTON
_Frith Hill, Godalming. October 20, 1887._
My dear Poulton,--It is very interesting to me to see how very generally
the facts are in accordance with theory, and I am only surprised that
the exceptions and irregularities are not more numerous than they are
found to be. The only difficult case, that of _D. euphorbiæ_, is due
probably to incomplete knowledge. Are lizards and sea-birds the only, or
even the chief, possible enemies of the species? They evidently do not
prevent its coming to maturity in considerable abundance, and it is
therefore no doubt preserved from its chief enemies during its various
stages of growth.
The only point on which I differ from you--as you know--is your
acceptance, as proved, of the theory of sexual colour selection, and
your speaking of insects as having a sense of "the beautiful" in colour,
as if that were a known fact. But that is a wide question, requiring
full discussion.--Yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO SIR FRANCIS DARWIN
_Frith Hill, Godalming. November 20, 1887._
Dear Mr. Darwin,--Many thanks for the copy of your father's "Life and
Letters," which I shall read with very great interest (as will all the
world). I was not aware before that your father had been so
distressed--or rather disturbed--by my sending him my essay from
Ternate, and I am very glad to feel that his exaggerated sense of honour
was quite needless so far as I was concerned, and that the incident did
not in any way disturb our friendly relations. I always felt, and feel
still, that people generally give me far too much credit for my mere
sketch of the theory--so very small an affair as compared with the vast
foundation of fact and experiment on which your father worked.--Believe
me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MRS. FISHER (_née_ BUCKLEY)
_Frith Hill, Godalming. February 16, 1888._
My dear Mrs. Fisher,--I know nothing of the physiology of ferns and
mosses, but as a matter of fact I think they will be found to increase
and diminish together all over the world. Both like moist, equable
climates and shade, and are therefore both so abundant in oceanic
islands, and in the high regions of the tropics.
I am inclined to think that the reason ferns have persisted so long in
competition with flowering plants is the fact that they thrive best in
shade, flowers best in the light. In our woods and ravines the flowers
are mostly spring flowers, which die away just as the foliage of the
trees is coming out and the shade deepens; while ferns are often dormant
at that time, but grow as the shade increases.
Why tree-ferns should not grow in cold countries I know not, except that
it may be the winds are too violent and would tear all the fronds off
before the spores were ripe. Everywhere they grow in ravines, or in
forests where they are sheltered, even in the tropics. And they are not
generally abundant, but grow in particular zones only. In all the Amazon
valley I don't remember ever having seen a tree-fern....
I too am struggling with my "Popular Sketch of Darwinism," and am just
now doing a chapter on the great "hybridity" question. I really think I
shall be able to arrange the whole subject more intelligibly than Darwin
did, and simplify it immensely by leaving out the endless discussion of
collateral details and difficulties which in the "Origin of Species"
confuse the main issue....
The most remarkable steps yet made in advance are, I think, the theory
of Weismann of the continuity of the germ plasm, and its corollary that
acquired modifications are never inherited! and Patrick Geddes's
explanation of the laws of growth in plants on the theory of the
antagonism of vegetative and reproductive growth....--Yours very
sincerely,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Frith Hill, Godalming. March 20, 1888._
My dear Meldola,--I have been working away at my hybridity chapters,[15]
and am almost disposed to cry "Eureka!" for I have got light on the
problem. When almost in despair of making it clear that Natural
Selection could act one way or the other, I luckily routed out an old
paper that I wrote twenty years ago, giving a demonstration of the
action of Natural Selection. It did not convince Darwin then, but it has
convinced me now, and I think it can be proved that in some cases (and
those I think most probable) Natural Selection will accumulate
variations in infertility between incipient species. Many other causes
of infertility co-operate, and I really think I have overcome the
fundamental difficulties of the question and made it a good deal clearer
than Darwin left it.... I think also it completely smashes up
Romanes.--Yours faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The next letter relates to a question which Prof. Meldola raised as to
whether, in view of the extreme importance of "divergence" (in the
Darwinian sense) for the separation and maintenance of specific types,
it might not be possible that sterility, when of advantage as a check to
crossing, had in itself, as a physiological character, been brought
about by Natural Selection, just as extreme fecundity had been brought
about (by Natural Selection) in cases where such fecundity was of
advantage.
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Frith Hill, Godalming. April 12, 1888._
My dear Meldola,--Many thanks for your criticism. It is a perfectly
sound one as against my view being a _complete explanation_ of the
phenomena, but that I do not claim. And I do not see any chance of the
required facts being forthcoming for many years to come. Experiments in
the hybridisation of animals are so difficult and tedious that even
Darwin never undertook any, and the only people who could and ought to
have done it--the Zoological Society--will not. There is one point,
however, I think you have overlooked. You urge the improbability of the
required infertility being correlated with the particular variations
which characterised each incipient species. But the whole point of my
argument is, that the physiological adjustments producing fertility are
so delicate that they are disturbed by almost any variation or change of
conditions--except in the case of domestic animals, which have been
domesticated because they are not subject to this disturbance. The whole
first half of the chapter is to bring out this fact, which Darwin has
dwelt upon, and it certainly does afford a foundation for the assumption
that usually, and in some considerable number of individuals, variation
in nature, accompanied by somewhat changed conditions of life, is
accompanied by, and probably correlated with, some amount of
infertility. No doubt this assumption wants proving, but in the meantime
I am glad you think that, granting the assumption, I have shown that
Natural Selection is able to accumulate sterility variations.
That is certainly a step in advance, and we cannot expect to do more
than take very short theoretical steps till we get more facts to rest
upon. If you should happen to come across any facts which seem to bear
upon it, pray let me know. I can find none but those I have referred to.
I have just finished a chapter on male ornament and display, which I
trust will help to clear up that point--Believe me yours very
faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO DR. W.B. HEMSLEY
_Frith Hill, Godalming. August 26, 1888._
Dear Mr. Hemsley,--You are aware that Patrick Geddes proposes to exclude
Natural Selection in the origination of thorns and spines, which he
imputes to "diminishing vegetativeness" or "ebbing vitality of the
species." It has occurred to me that insular floras should afford a test
of the correctness of this view, since in the absence of mammalia the
protection of spines would be less needed.
Your study of these floras will no doubt enable you to answer a few
questions on this point. Spines and thorns are, I believe, usually
abundant in arid regions of continents, especially in South Africa,
where large herbivorous mammals abound. Now, if the long-continued
presence of these mammals is a factor in the production of spines by
Natural Selection, they should be wholly or comparatively absent in
regions equally arid where there are no mammals. The Galapagos seem to
be such a case--also perhaps some of the Sandwich Islands, and generally
the extra-tropical volcanic islands. Also Australia comparatively, and
the highlands of Madagascar.
Of course, the endemic species must be chiefly considered, as they have
had time to be modified by the conditions. If you can give me the facts,
or your general impression from your study of these floras, I shall be
much obliged. I see, of course, many other objections to Geddes's
theory, but this seems to offer a crucial test.--Believe me yours very
truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO DR. W.B. HEMSLEY
_Frith Hill, Godalming. September 13, 1888._
Dear Mr. Hemsley,--Many thanks for your interesting letter. The facts
you state seem quite to support the usual view, that thorns and spines
have been developed as a protection against other animals. The few spiny
plants in New Zealand may be for protection against land molluscs, of
which there are several species as large as any in the tropics. Of
course in Australia we should expect only a comparative scarcity of
spines, as there are many herbivorous marsupials in the
country.--Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The next and several of the succeeding letters refer to the translations
of Weismann's "Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems"
(Oxford, 1889), and to "Darwinism" (London, 1889).
TO PROF. POULTON
_Frith Hill, Godalming. November 4, 1888._
My dear Mr. Poulton,--I returned you the two first of Weismann's essays,
with a few notes and corrections in pencil on that on "Duration of
Life." Looking over some old papers, I have just come across a short
sketch on two pages, on "The Action of Natural Selection in producing
Old Age, Decay and Death," written over twenty years ago.[16] I had the
same general idea as Weismann, but not that beautiful suggestion of the
duration of life, in each case, being the _minimum_ necessary for the
preservation of the species. _That_ I think masterly. The paper on
"Heredity" is intensely interesting, and I am waiting anxiously for the
concluding part. I will refer to these papers in notes in my book,
though perhaps yours will be out first....--Yours faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Frith Hill, Godalming. November 8, 1888._
Dear Mr. Poulton,--I return herewith (but separately) the "proofs" I
have of Weismann's Essays. The last critical one is rather heavy, and
adds nothing of importance to the earlier one on Duration of Life. I
enclose my "Note" on the subject, which was written, I think, about
1867, certainly before 1870. You will see it was only a few ideas jotted
down for further elaboration and then forgotten. I see however it _does_
contain the germ of Weismann's argument as to duration of life being
determined by the time of securing continuance of the species.--Yours
faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Frith Hall, Godalming. January 20, 1889._
My dear Mr. Poulton,--My attention has been called by Mr. Herdman, in
his Inaugural Address to the Liverpool Biological Society, to Galton's
paper on "Heredity," which I read years ago but had forgotten. I have
just read it again (in the _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
Vol. V., p. 329, Jan., 1876), and I find a remarkable anticipation of
Weismann's theories which I think should be noticed in a preface to the
translation of his book.[17] He argues that it is the undeveloped germs
or gemmules of the fertilised ovum that form the sexual elements of the
offspring, and thus heredity and atavism are explained. He also argues
that, as a corollary, "acquired modifications are barely if at all
inherited in the correct sense of the word." He shows the imperfection
of the evidence on this point, and admits, just as Weismann does, the
heredity of changes in the parent like alcoholism, which, by permeating
the whole tissues, may _directly_ affect the reproductive elements. In
fact, all the main features of Weismann's views seem to be here
anticipated, and I think he ought to have the credit of it.
Being no physiologist, his language is not technical, and for this
reason, and the place of publication perhaps, his remarkable paper
appears to have been overlooked by physiologists.
I think you will find the paper very suggestive, even supplying some
points overlooked by Weismann.--Yours faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Hamilton House, The Croft, Hastings. February 19, 1889._
Dear Mr. Poulton,--Do you happen to have, or can you easily refer to,
Grant Allen's small books of collected papers under such titles as
"Vignettes from Nature," "The Evolutionist at Large," "Colin Clout's
Calendar," and another I can't remember? In one of them is a paper on
the Origin of Wheat, in which he puts forth the theory that the grasses,
etc., are degraded forms which were once insect-fertilised, summing up
his views in the phrase, "Wheat is a degraded lily," or something like
that. Now Henslow, in his "Floral Structures,"[18] adopts the same
theory for all the wind-fertilised or self-fertilised flowers, and he
tells me that he is _alone_ in the view. I believe the view is a true
one, and I want to give G. Allen the credit of first starting it, and
want to see how far he went. If you have or can get this work of his
with that paper, can you lend it me for a few days? I know not who to
write to for it, as botanists of course ignore it, and G. Allen himself
is, I believe, in Algeria....--Yours faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
HERBERT SPENCER TO A.R. WALLACE
_38 Queen's Gardens, Lancaster Gate, W. May 18, 1889._
Dear Mr. Wallace,--A few days ago there reached me a copy of your new
book, "Darwinism," for which, along with this acknowledgment, I send my
thanks. In my present state of health I dare not read, and fear I shall
be unable to profit by the accumulation of evidence you have brought
together. I see sundry points on which I might raise discussions, but
beyond the fact that I am at present unable to enter into them, I doubt
whether they would be of any use. I regret that you have used the title
"Darwinism," for notwithstanding your qualification of its meaning you
will, by using it, tend greatly to confirm the erroneous conception
almost universally current.--Truly yours,
HERBERT SPENCER.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. November 28, 1889._
My dear Mr. Poulton,--I have much pleasure in sending you Cope's
book[19] (with the review of "Darwinism"), which I hope you will keep as
long as you like, till you have mastered all its obscurities of style
and eccentricities of argument. I think you will find a good deal in it
to criticise, and it will be well for you to know what the leader of the
Neo-Lamarckians regards as the foundation-stones of his theory. I
greatly enjoyed my visit to Oxford, and only regretted that I could not
leave more time for personal talk with yourself, for I am so deplorably
ignorant of modern physiology that I am delighted to get intelligible
explanations of its bearings on the subjects that most interest me in
science. I quite see all its importance in investigations of the
mechanism of colours, but there is so much still unknown that it will be
very hard to convince me that there is no other possible explanation of
the peacock's feather than the "continued preference by the females" for
the most beautiful males, in _this one point_, "during a long line of
descent"--as Darwin says! I expect, however, great light from your new
book....--Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
SIR FRANCIS GALTON TO A.R. WALLACE
_42 Rutland Gate, S.W. May 24, 1890._
Dear Mr. Wallace,--I send the paper with pleasure, and am glad that you
will read it, and I hope then see more clearly than the abstract could
show the grounds of my argument.
These finger-marks are most remarkable things. Of course I have made out
much more about them since writing that memoir. Indeed I have another
paper on them next Thursday at the Royal Society, but that only refers
to ways of cataloguing them, either for criminal administration, or what
I am more interested in, viz. racial and hereditary inquiry.
What I have done in this way is not ready for publication, but I may
mention (privately, please) that these persistent marks, which seem
fully developed in the sixth month of foetal life, and appear under the
reservations and in the evidence published in the memoir to be
practically _quite_ unchanged during life, are _not_ correlated with
any ordinary characteristic that I can discover. They are the same in
the lowest idiots as in ordinary persons. (I took the impressions of
some 80 of these, so idiotic that they mostly could not speak, or even
stand, at the great Darenth Asylum, Dartford.) They are the same in
clod-hoppers as in the upper classes, and _yet_ they are as hereditary
as other qualities, I think. Their tendency to symmetrical distribution
on the two hands is _marked_, and symmetry _is_ a form of kinship. My
argument is that sexual selection can have had nothing to do with the
patterns, neither can any other form of selection due to vigour, wits,
and so forth, because they are not correlated with them. They just go
their own gait, uninfluenced by anything that we can find or reasonably
believe in, of a _naturally selective influence_, in the plain meaning
of the phrase.--Very sincerely yours,
FRANCIS GALTON.
* * * * *
TO THEO. D.A. COCKERELL
_Parkstone, Dorset. March 10, 1891._
Dear Mr. Cockerell,-- ... Your theory to account for the influence of a
first male on progeny by a second seems very probable--and in fact if,
as I suppose, spermatozoa often enter ova without producing complete
fertilisation, it must be so. _That_ would be easily experimented on,
with fowls, dogs, etc., but I do not remember the fact having been
observed except with horses. It ought to be common, when females have
young by successive males.--Yours faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The next letter relates to a controversy with Romanes concerning Herbert
Spencer's argument about Co-adaptation which Romanes had urged in
support of Neo-Lamarckism as opposed to Natural Selection. Prof. Meldola
endeavoured to show that the difficulties raised by Spencer and
supported by Romanes had no real weight because the possibility of
so-called "co-adaptations" being developed _successively_ in the order
of evolution had not been reckoned with. There was no real divergence
between Wallace and Prof. Meldola on this matter when they subsequently
discussed it. The correspondence is in _Nature_, xliii. 557, and
subsequently. _See also_ "Darwin and After Darwin," by Romanes, 1895,
ii. 68.
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Parkstone, Dorset, April 25, 1891._
My dear Meldola,--You have now put your foot in it! Romanes _agrees_
with you! Henceforth he will claim you as a disciple, converted by his
arguments!
There was one admission in your letter I was very sorry to see, because
it cannot be strictly true, and is besides open to much
misrepresentation. I mean the admission that Romanes pounces upon in his
second paragraph. Of course, the number of individuals in a species
being finite, the chance of four coincident variations occurring in any
one individual--each such variation being separately very common--cannot
be anything like "infinity to one." Why, then, do you concede it most
fully?--the result being that Romanes takes you to concede that it is
infinity to one against the coincident variations occurring in "_any
individuals_." Surely, with the facts of coincident independent
variation we now possess, the occurrence of three, four, or five,
coincident variations cannot be otherwise than frequent. As a fact, more
than half the whole population of most species seems to vary to a
perceptible and measurable, and therefore sufficient, amount in scores
of ways. Take a species with a million pairs of individuals--half of
these vary sufficiently, either + or -, in the four acquired characters
A, B, C, D: what will be the proportion of individuals that vary + in
these four characters according to the law of averages? Will it not be
about 1 in 64? If so it is ample--in many cases--for Natural Selection
to work on, because in many cases less than 1/64 of offspring survives.
On Romanes' view of the impossibility of Natural Selection doing
anything alone, because the required coincident variations do not occur,
the occurrence of a "strong man" or a racehorse that beats all others
easily must be impossible, since in each of these cases there must be
scores of coincident favourable variations.
Given sufficient variation, I believe divergent modification of a
species in two lines could easily occur, even if free intercrossing
occurred, because, the numbers varying being a large proportion of the
whole, the numbers which bred like with like would he sufficient to
carry on the two lines of divergence, those that intercrossed and
produced less perfectly adapted offspring being eliminated. Of course
some amount of segregate breeding does always occur, as Darwin always
maintained, but, as he also maintained, it is not absolutely essential
to evolution. Romanes argues as if "free intercrossing" meant that none
would pair like with like! I hope you will have another slap at him, and
withdraw or explain that unlucky "infinity to one," which is Romanes'
sheet-anchor.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. June 16, 1892._
My dear Mr. Poulton,--Many thanks for sending me Weismann's additional
Essays,[20] which I look forward to reading with much pleasure. I have,
however, read the first, and am much disappointed with it. It seems to
me the _weakest and most inconclusive_ thing he has yet written. At p.
17 he states his theory as to degeneration of eyes, and again, on p. 18,
of anthers and filaments; but in both cases he fails to _prove_ it, and
apparently does not see that his panmixia, or "cessation of selection,"
cannot possibly produce _continuous_ degeneration culminating in the
total or almost total disappearance of an organ. Romanes and others have
pointed out this weakness in his theory, but he does not notice it, and
goes on calmly throughout the essay to _assume_ that mere panmixia must
cause progressive degeneration to an unlimited extent; whereas all it
can do is to effect a reduction to the average of the total population
on which selection has been previously worked. He says "individuals with
weak eyes would not be eliminated," but omits to notice that individuals
with strong eyes would also "not be eliminated," and as there is no
reason alleged why variations in _all directions_ should not occur as
before, the free intercrossing would tend to keep up a mean condition
only a little below that which was kept up by selection. It is clear
that some form of selection must always co-operate in degeneration, such
as economy of growth, which he hardly notices except as a possible but
not a necessary factor, or actual injuriousness. It appears to me that
what is wanted is to take a number of typical cases, and in each of them
show how Natural Selection comes in to carry on the degeneration begun
by panmixia. Weismann's treatment of the subject is merely begging the
question.--Yours faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. August 29, 1892._
My dear Mr. Poulton,--As to panmixia you have quite misunderstood my
position. By the "mean condition," I do not mean the "mean" during the
whole course of development of the organ, as you seem to take it. That
would indeed be absurd. I do mean the "mean" of the whole series of
individual variations now occurring, during a period sufficient to
contain all or almost all the variations to which the species is _now_
subject. Take, for instance, such a case as the wings of the swallow, on
the full development of which the life of the bird depends. Many
individuals no doubt perish for lack of wing-power, due to deficiency in
size or form of wing, or in the muscles which move it. The extreme
limits of variation would be seen probably if we examined every swallow
that had reached maturity during the last century. The average of all
those would perhaps be 5 or 10 per cent. below the average of those that
survive to become the parents of the next generation in any year; and
what I maintain is, that panmixia alone could not reduce a swallow's
wings below this first average. Any further reduction must be due either
to some form of selection or to "economy of growth"--which is also,
fundamentally, a form of selection. So with the eyes of cave animals,
panmixia could only cause an imperfection of vision equal to the average
of those variations which occurred, say, during a century before the
animal entered the cave. It could only produce more effect than this if
the effects of disuse are hereditary--which is a non-Weismannian
doctrine. I think this is also the position that Romanes took.--Yours
faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MR. J.W. MARSHALL
_Parkstone, Dorset. September 23, 1892._
My dear Marshall,--I am glad you enjoyed Mr. Hudson's book. His
observations are inimitable--and his theories and suggestions, if not
always the best, at least show thought on what he has observed.
I was most pleased with his demonstration as to the supposed instincts
of young birds and lambs, showing clearly that the former at all events
are not due to inherited experience, as Darwin thought. The whole book,
too, is pervaded by such a true love of nature and such a perception of
its marvels and mysteries as to be unique in my experience. The modern
scientific morphologists seem so wholly occupied in tracing out the
mechanism of organisms that they hardly seem to appreciate the
overwhelming marvel of the powers of life, which result in such
infinitely varied structures and such strange habits and so-called
instincts. The older I grow the more marvellous seem to me the mere
variety of form and habit in plants and animals, and the unerring
certitude with which from a minute germ the whole complex organism is
built up, true to the type of its kind in all the infinitude of details!
It is this which gives such a charm to the watching of plants
growing, and of kittens so rapidly developing their senses and
habitudes!...--Yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. February 1, 1893._
My dear Poulton,--Thanks for the separate copy of your great paper on
colours of larva, pupa, etc.[21] I have read your conclusions and looked
over some of the experiments, and think you have now pretty well settled
that question.
I am reading through the new volume of the Life of Darwin, and am struck
with the curious example his own case affords of non-heredity of
acquired variations. He expresses his constant dread--one of the
troubles of his life--that his children would inherit his bad health.
It seems pretty clear, from what F. Darwin says in the new edition, that
Darwin's constant nervous stomach irritation was caused by his five
years sea-sickness. It was thoroughly established before, and in the
early years of, his marriage, and, on his own theory his children ought
all to have inherited it. Have they? You know perhaps better than I do,
whether any of the family show any symptoms of that particular form of
illness--and if not it is a fine case!--Yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
Wallace was formally admitted to the Royal Society in June, 1893. The
postscript of the following letter refers to his cordial reception by
the Fellows.
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Parkstone, Dorset. June 10, 1893._
My dear Meldola,--As we had no time to "discourse" on Thursday, I will
say a few words on the individual adaptability question. We have to deal
with facts, and facts certainly show that, in many groups, there is a
great amount of adaptable change produced in the individual by external
conditions, and that that change is not inherited. I do not see that
this places Natural Selection in any subordinate position, because this
individual adaptability is evidently advantageous to many species, and
may itself have been produced or increased by Natural Selection. When a
species is subject to great changes of conditions, either locally or at
uncertain times, it may be a decided advantage to it to become
individually adapted to that change while retaining the power to revert
instantly to its original form when the normal conditions return. But
whenever the changed conditions are permanent, or are such that
individual adaptation cannot meet the requirements, then Natural
Selection rapidly brings about a permanent adaptation which is
inherited. In plants these two forms of adaptation are well marked and
easily tested, and we shall soon have a large body of evidence upon it.
In the higher animals I imagine that individual adaptation is small in
amount, as indicated by the fact that even slight varieties often breed
true.
In Lepidoptera we have the two forms of colour-adaptability clearly
shown. Many species are, in all their stages, permanently adapted to
their environment. Others have a certain power of individual adaptation,
as of the pupæ to their surroundings. If this last adaptation were
strictly inherited it would be positively injurious, since the progeny
would thereby lose the power of individual adaptability, and thus we
should have light pupæ on dark surroundings, and vice versa. Each kind
of adaptation has its own sphere, and it is essential that the one
should be non-inheritable, the other heritable. The whole thing seems to
me quite harmonious and "as it should be."
Thiselton-Dyer tells me that H. Spencer is dreadfully disturbed on the
question. He fears that acquired characters may not be inherited, in
which case the foundation of his whole philosophy is undermined!--Yours
very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.--I am afraid you are partly responsible for that kindly meant but
too personal manifestation which disturbed the solemnity of the Royal
Society meeting on Thursday!...
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. September 25, 1893._
My dear Poulton,--I suppose you were not at Nottingham and did not get
the letter, paper, and photographs I sent you there, but to be opened
by the Secretary of Section D in case you were not there. It was about a
wonderful and perfectly authenticated case of a woman who dressed the
arm of a gamekeeper after amputation, and six or seven months afterwards
had a child born without the forearm on the right side, exactly
corresponding in _form_ and _length_ of stump to that of the man.
Photographs of the man, and of the boy seven or eight years old, were
taken _by the physician of the hospital_ where the man's arm was cut
off, and they show a most striking correspondence. These, with my short
paper, appear to have produced an effect, for a committee of Section D
has been appointed to collect evidence on this and other
matters....--Yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. November 17, 1893._
My dear Poulton,--The letter I wrote to you at Nottingham was returned
to me here (after a month), so I did not think it worth while to send it
to you again, though it did contain my congratulations on your
appointment,[22] which I now repeat. As you have not seen the paper I
sent to the British Association, I will just say that I should not have
noticed the subject publicly but, after a friend had given me the
photographs (sent with my paper), I came across the following statement
in the new edition of Chambers' Encyclopædia, art. Deformities (by Prof.
A. Hare): "In an increasing proportion of cases which are carefully
investigated, it appears that maternal impressions, the result of shock
or unpleasant experiences, may have a considerable influence in
producing deformities in the offspring." In consequence of this I sent
the case which had been furnished me, and which is certainly about as
well attested and conclusive as anything can be. The facts are these:
A gamekeeper had his right forearm amputated at the North Devon
Infirmary. He left before it was healed, thinking his wife could dress
it, but as she was too nervous, a neighbour, a young recently married
woman, a farmer's wife, still living, came and dressed it every day till
it healed. About six months after she had a child born _without right
hand and forearm_, the stump exactly corresponding in length to that of
the gamekeeper. Dr. Richard Budd, M.D., F.R.C.P.,[23] of Barnstaple, the
physician to the infirmary, when the boy was five or six years old,
himself took a photograph of the boy and the gamekeeper side by side,
showing the wonderful correspondence of the two arms. I have these facts
_direct from Dr. Budd_, who was personally cognisant of the whole
circumstances. A few years after, in November, 1876, Dr. Budd gave an
account of the case and exhibited the photographs to a large meeting at
the College of Physicians, and I have no doubt it is _one_ of the cases
referred to in the article I have quoted, though Dr. Budd thinks it has
never been published. It will be at once admitted that this is not a
chance coincidence, and that all theoretical difficulties must give way
to such facts as this, ... Of course it by no means follows that similar
causes should in all cases produce similar effects, since the
idiosyncrasy of the mother is no doubt an important factor; but where
the combined coincidences are so numerous as in this case--_place, time,
person_ and exact correspondence of _resulting deformity_--some causal
relation must exist.--Believe me yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
PART III (_Concluded_)
III.--Correspondence on Biology, Geographical Distribution, etc.
[1894--1913]
* * * * *
HERBERT SPENCER TO A.R. WALLACE
_Queen's Hotel, Cliftonville, Margate. August 10, 1894._
Dear Mr. Wallace,--Though we differ on some points we agree on many, and
one of the points on which we doubtless agree is the absurdity of Lord
Salisbury's representation of the process of Natural Selection based
upon the improbability of two varying individuals meeting. His
nonsensical representation of the theory ought to be exposed, for it
will mislead very many people. I see it is adopted by the _Pall Mall_. I
have been myself strongly prompted to take the matter up, but it is
evidently your business to do that. Pray write a letter to the _Times_
explaining that selection or survival of the fittest does not
necessarily take place in the way he describes. You might set out by
remarking that whereas he begins by comparing himself to a volunteer
colonel reviewing a regiment of regulars, he very quickly changes his
attitude and becomes a colonel of regulars reviewing volunteers and
making fun of their bunglings. He deserves a-severe castigation. There
are other points on which his views should be rectified, but this is the
essential point.
It behoves you of all men to take up the gauntlet he has thrown
down.--Very truly yours,
HERBERT SPENCER.
* * * * *
HERBERT SPENCER TO A.R. WALLACE
_Queen's Hotel, Cliftonville, Margate, Aug. 19, 1894._
Dear Mr. Wallace,--I cannot at all agree with you respecting the
relative importance of the work you are doing and that which I wanted
you to do. Various articles in the papers show that Lord Salisbury's
argument is received with triumph, and, unless it is disposed of, it
will lead to a public reaction against the doctrine of evolution at
large, a far more serious evil than any error which you propose to
rectify among biologists. Everybody will look to you for a reply, and if
you make no reply it will be understood that Lord Salisbury's objection
is valid. As to the non-publication of your letter in the _Times_, that
is absurd, considering that your name and that of Darwin are constantly
coupled together.--Truly yours,
HERBERT SPENCER.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. September 8, 1894._
My dear Poulton,--I was glad to see your exposure of another American
Neo-Lamarckian in _Nature_.[24] It is astonishing how utterly illogical
they all are! I was much pleased with your point of the adaptations
supposed to be produced by the inorganic environment when they are
related to the organic. It is I think new and very forcible. For nearly
a month I have been wading through Bateson's book,[25] and writing a
criticism of it, and of Galton, who backs him up with his idea of
"organic stability." ... Neither he nor Galton appears to have any
adequate conception of what Natural Selection is, or how impossible it
is to escape from it. They seem to think that, given a stable
variation, Natural Selection must hide its diminished head!
Bateson's preface, concluding reflections, etc., are often quite
amusing.... He is so cocksure he has made a great discovery--which is
the most palpable of mare's nests.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.--I allude of course to his grand argument--"environment
_continuous_--species _discontinuous_--therefore _variations_ which
produce species must be also _discontinuous_"! (Bateson--Q.E.D.).
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. February 19, 1895._
My dear Poulton,--I have read your paper on "Theories of Evolution"[26]
with great pleasure. It is very clear and very forcible, and I should
think must have opened the eyes of some of your hearers. Your cases
against Lamarckism were very strong, and I think quite conclusive. There
is one, however, which seems to me weak--that about the claws of
lobsters and the tails of lizards moving and acting when detached from
the body. It may be argued, fairly, that this is only an incidental
result of the extreme muscular irritability and contractibility of the
organs, which might have been caused on Lamarckian as well as on the
Darwinian hypothesis. The running of a fowl after its head is chopped
off is an example of the same kind of thing, and this is certainly not
useful. The detachment itself of claw and tail is no doubt useful and
adaptive.
When discussing the objection as to failures not being found fossil,
there are two additional arguments to those you adduce: (1) Every
failure has been, first, a success, or it could not have come into
existence (as a species); and (2) the hosts of huge and very
specialised animals everywhere recently extinct are clearly failures.
They were successes as long as the struggle was with animal competitors
only, physical conditions being highly favourable. But, when physical
conditions became adverse, as by drought, cold, etc., they failed and
became extinct. The entrance of new enemies from another area might
equally render them failures. As to your question about myself and
Darwin, I had met him once only for a few minutes at the British Museum
before I went to the East.... --Yours very faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MR. CLEMENT REID
_Parkstone, Dorset. November 18, 1894._
My dear Clement Reid,-- ... The great, the grand, and long-expected, the
prophesied discovery has at last been made--Miocene or Old Pliocene Man
in India!!! Good worked flints found _in situ_ by the palæontologist to
the Geological Survey of India! It is in a ferruginous conglomerate
lying beneath 4,000 feet of Pliocene strata and containing hippotherium,
etc. But perhaps you have seen the article in _Natural Science_
describing it, by Rupert Jones, who, very properly, accepts it! Of
course we want the bones, but we have got the flints, and they may
follow. Hurrah for the missing link! Excuse more.--Yours very
faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The next letter relates to the rising school of biologists who, in
opposition to Darwin's views, held that species might arise by what was
at the time termed "discontinuous variation."
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_February 4, 1895._
My dear Professor Meldola,--I hope to have copies of my "Evolution"
article in a few days, and will send you a couple. The article was in
print last September, but, being long, was crowded out month after
month, and only now got in by being cut in two. I think I have
demolished "discontinuous variation" as having any but the most
subordinate part in evolution of species.
Congratulations on Presidency of the Entomological Society.
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. March 15, 1895._
My dear Poulton,--I have now nearly finished reading Romanes, but do not
find it very convincing. There is a large amount of special pleading. On
two points only I feel myself hit. My doubt that Darwin really meant
that _all_ the individuals of a species could be similarly modified
without selection is evidently wrong, as he adduces other quotations
which I had overlooked. The other point is, that my suggested
explanation of sexual ornaments gives away my case as to the utility of
all specific characters. It certainly does as it stands, but I now
believe, and should have added, that all these ornaments, where they
differ from species to species, are also recognition characters, and as
such were rendered stable by Natural Selection from their first
appearance.
I rather doubt the view you state, and which Gulick and Romanes make
much of, that a portion of a species, separated from the main body, will
have a different average of characters, unless they are a local race
which has already been somewhat selected. The large amount of variation,
and the regularity of the curve of variation, whenever about 50 or 100
individuals are measured in the same locality, shows that the bulk of a
species are similar in amount of variation everywhere. But when a
portion of a species begins to be modified in adaptation to new
conditions, distinction of some kind is essential, and therefore any
slight difference would be increased by selection. I see no reason to
believe that species (usually) have been isolated first and modified
afterwards, but rather that new species usually arise from species which
have a wide range, and in different areas need somewhat different
characters and habits. Then _distinctness_ arises both by adaptation and
by development of recognition marks to minimise intercrossing.
I wonder Darwin did not see that if the unknown "constant causes" he
supposes can modify all the individuals of a species, either
indifferently, usefully, or hurtfully, and that these characters so
produced are, as Romanes says, very, very numerous in all species, and
are sometimes the only specific characters, then the Neo-Lamarckians are
quite right in putting Natural Selection as a very secondary and
subordinate influence, since all it has to do is to weed out the hurtful
variations.
Of course, if a species with warning colours were, in part, completely
isolated, and its colours or markings were accidentally different from
the parent form, whatever set of markings and colours it had would be, I
consider, rendered stable for recognition, and also for protection,
since if it varied too much the young birds and other enemies would take
a heavier toll in learning it was uneatable. It might then be said that
the character by which this species differs from the parent species is a
useless character. But surely this is not what is usually meant by a
"useless character." This is highly useful in itself, though the
difference from the other species is not useful. If they were in contact
it would be useful, as a distinction preventing intercrossing, and so
long as they are not brought together we cannot really tell if it is a
species at all, since it might breed freely with the parent form and
thus return back to one type. The "useless characters" I have always had
in mind when arguing this question are those which are or are supposed
to be absolutely useless, not merely relatively as regards the
difference from an allied species. I think this is an important
distinction.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
HERBERT SPENCER TO A.R. WALLACE
_64 Avenue Road, Regent's Park, London, N.W. September 28, 1895_
Dear Mr. Wallace,--As I cannot get you to deal with Lord Salisbury I
have decided to do it myself, having been finally exasperated into doing
it by this honour paid to his address in France--the presentation of a
translation to the French Academy. The impression produced upon some
millions of people in England cannot be allowed to be thus further
confirmed without protest.
One of the points which I propose to take up is the absurd conception
Lord Salisbury sets forth of the process of Natural Selection. When you
wrote you said you had dealt with it yourself in your volume on
Darwinism. I have no doubt that it is also in some measure dealt with by
Darwin himself, by implication or incidentally. You of course know
Darwin by heart, and perhaps you would be kind enough to save me the
trouble of searching by indicating the relevant passages both in his
books and in your own. My reading power is very small, and it tries me
to find the parts I want by much reading.--Truly yours,
HERBERT SPENCER.
* * * * *
To the following letter from Mr. Gladstone, Wallace attached this pencil
note: "In 1881 I put forth the first idea of mouth-gesture as a factor
in the origin of language, in a review of E.B. Tylor's 'Anthropology,'
and in 1895 I extended it into an article in the _Fortnightly Review_,
and reprinted it with a few further corrections in my 'Studies,' under
the title 'The Expressiveness of Speech or Mouth-Gesture as a Factor in
the Origin of Language.' In it I have developed a completely new
principle in the theory of the origin of language by showing that every
motion of the jaws, lips and tongue, together with inward or outward
breathing, and especially the mute or liquid consonants ending words
which serve to indicate abrupt or continuous motion, have corresponding
meanings in so many cases as to show a fundamental connection. I thus
enormously extended the principle of onomatopoeia in the origin of vocal
language. As I have been unable to find any reference to this important
factor in the origin of language, and as no competent writer has pointed
out any fallacy in it, I think I am justified in supposing it to be new
and important. Mr. Gladstone informed me that there were many thousands
of illustrations of my ideas in Homer."--A.R.W.
* * * * *
W.E. GLADSTONE TO A.R. WALLACE
_Hawarden Castle, Chester. October 18, 1895._
Dear Sir,--Your kindness in sending me your most interesting article
draws on you the inconvenience of an acknowledgment.
My pursuits in connection with Homer, especially, have made me a
confident advocate of the doctrine that there is, within limits, a
connection in language between sound and sense.
I would consent to take the issue simply on English words beginning with
_st_. You go upon a kindred class in _sn_. I do not remember a perfectly
_innocent_ word, a word habitually used _in bonam partem_, and beginning
with _sn_, except the word "snow," and "snow," as I gather from
_Schnee_, is one of the worn-down words.
May I beg to illustrate you once more on the ending in _p_. I take our
old schoolboy combinations: hop, skip and jump. Each motion an ending
motion; and to each word closed with _p_ compare the words _run, rennen,
courir, currere._
But I have now a new title to speak. It is deafness; and I know from
deafness that I run a worse chance with a man whose mouth is covered
with beard and moustache.
A young relation of mine, slightly deaf, was sorely put to it in an
University examination because one of his examiners was _secretal_ in
this way.
I will not trouble you further except to express, with misgiving, a
doubt on a single point, the final _f_.
In driving with Lord Granville, who was deaf but not very deaf, I had
occasion to mention to him the Duke of _Fife_, I used every effort, but
in no way could I contrive to make him hear the word.
I break my word to add one other particular. Out of 27,000 odd lines in
Homer, every one of them expressed, in a sense, heavy weight or force;
the blows of heavy-armed men on the breastplates of foes ... [illegible]
and the like.--With many thanks, I remain yours very faithfully,
W.E. GLADSTONE.
P.S.--I should say that the efficacy of lip-expression, undeniably, is
most subtle, and defies definite description.
* * * * *
TO DR. ARCHDALL REID
_Parkstone, Dorset. April 19, 1896._
Dear Sir,--I am sorry I had not space to refer more fully to your
interesting work.[27] The most important point on which I think your
views require emendation is on _instinct_. I see you quote Spalding's
experiments, but these have been quite superseded and shown to be
seriously incorrect by Prof. Lloyd Morgan. A paper by him in the
_Fortnightly Review_ of August, 1893, gives an account of his
experiments, and he read a paper on the same subject at the British
Association last year. He is now preparing a volume on the subject
which will contain the most valuable series of observations yet made on
this question. Another point of some importance where I cannot agree
with you is your treating dipsomania as a disease, only to be eliminated
by drunkenness and its effects. It appears to me to be only a vicious
habit or indulgence which would cease to exist in a state of society in
which the habit were almost universally reprobated, and the means for
its indulgence almost absent. But this is a matter of comparatively
small importance.--Believe me yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO DR. ARCHDALL REID
_Parkstone. April 28, 1896._
Dear Sir,--"We can but reason from the facts we know." We know a good
deal of the senses of the higher animals, very little of those of
insects. If we find--as I think we do--that all cases of supposed
"instinctive knowledge" in the former turn out to be merely intuitive
reactions to various kinds of stimulus, combined with very rapidly
acquired experience, we shall be justified in thinking that the actions
of the latter will some day be similarly explained. When Lloyd Morgan's
book is published we shall have much information on this question.
(_See_ "Natural Selection and Tropical Nature," pp. 91-7.)--Yours truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Parkstone, Dorset. October 12, 1896._
My dear Meldola,--I got Weismann's "Germinal Selection" two or three
months back and read it very carefully, and on the whole I admire it
very much, and think it does complete the work of ordinary variation and
selection. Of course it is a pure hypothesis, and can never perhaps be
directly proved, but it seems to me a reasonable one, and it enables us
to understand two groups of facts which I have never been able to work
out satisfactorily by the old method. These two facts are: (1) the
total, or almost total, disappearance of many useless organs, and (2)
the continuous development of secondary sexual characters beyond any
conceivable utility, and, apparently, till checked by inutility. It
explains both these. Disuse alone, as I and many others have always
argued, cannot do the first, but can only cause _regression to the
mean_, with perhaps some further regression from economy of material.
As to the second, I have always felt the difficulty of accounting for
the enormous development of the peacock's train, the bird of paradise
plumes, the long wattle of the bell bird, the enormous tail-feathers of
the Guatemalan trogon, of some humming-birds, etc. etc. etc. The
beginnings of all these I can explain as recognition marks, and this
explains also their distinctive character in allied species, but it does
not explain their growing on and on far beyond what is needful for
recognition, and apparently till limited by absolute hurtfulness. It is
a relief to me to have "germinal selection" to explain this.
I do not, however, think it at all necessary to explain adaptations,
however complex. Variation is so general and so large, in dominant
species, and selection is so tremendously powerful, that I believe all
needful adaptation may be produced without it. But, if it exists, it
would undoubtedly hasten the process of such adaptation and would
therefore enable new places in the economy of nature to be more rapidly
filled up.
I was thinking of writing a popular exposition of the new theory for
_Nature_, but have not yet found time or inclination for it. I began
reading "Germinal Selection" with a prejudice against it. That prejudice
continued through the first half, but when I came to the idea itself,
and after some trouble grasped the meaning and bearing of it, I saw the
work it would do and was a convert at once. It really has no relation to
Lamarckism, and leaves the non-heredity of acquired characters exactly
where it was.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The next letter relates to the great controversy then being carried on
with respect to Weismann's doctrine of the non-inheritance of "acquired"
characters, which doctrine implied complete rejection of the last trace
of Lamarckism from Darwinian evolution. Wallace ultimately accepted the
Weismannian teaching. Darwin had no opportunity during his lifetime of
considering this question, which was raised later in an acute form by
Weismann.
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Parkstane, Dorset. January 6, 1897._
My dear Meldola,--The passage to which you refer in the "Origin" (top of
p. 6) shows Darwin's firm belief in the "heredity of acquired
variations," and also in the importance of definite variations, that is,
"sports," though elsewhere he almost gives these up in favour of
indefinite variations; and this last is now the view of all Darwinians,
and even of many Lamarckians. I therefore always now assume this as
admitted. Weismann's view as to "possible variations" and "impossible
variations" on p. 1 of "Germinal Selection" is misleading, because it
can only refer to "sports" or to "cumulative results," not to
"individual variations" such as are the material Natural Selection acts
on. Variation, as I understand it, can only be a slight modification in
the offspring of that which exists in the parent. The question whether
pigs could possibly develop wings is absurd, and altogether beside the
question, which is, solely, so far as direct evidence goes, as to the
means by which the change from one species to another closely allied
species has been brought about. Those who want to begin by discussing
the causes of change from a dog to a seal, or from a cow to a whale, are
not worth arguing with, as they evidently do not comprehend the A, B, C
of the theory.
Darwin's ineradicable acceptance of the theory of heredity of the
effects of climate, use and disuse, food, etc., on the individual led to
much obscurity and fallacy in his arguments, here and there.--Yours very
sincerely,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON _Parkstone, Dorset. February 14, 1897._
My dear Poulton,--Thanks for copy of your British Association
Address,[28] which I did not read in _Nature_, being very busy just
then. I have now read it with much pleasure, and think it a very useful
and excellent discussion that was much needed. There is, however, one
important error, I think, which vitiates a vital part of the argument,
and which renders it possible so to reduce the time indicated by geology
as to render the accordance of Geology and Physics more easy to effect.
The error I allude to was made by Sir A. Geikie in his Presidential
Address[29] which you quote. Immediately it appeared I wrote to him
pointing it out, but he merely acknowledged my letter, saying he would
consider it. To me it seems a most palpable and extraordinary blunder.
The error consists in taking the rate of deposition as the same as the
rate of denudation, whereas it is about twenty times as great, perhaps
much more--because the area of deposition is at least twenty times less
than that of denudation. In order to equal the area of denudation, it
would require that _every_ bed of _every_ formation should have once
extended over the _whole area_ of all the land of the globe! The
deposition in narrow belts along coasts of all the matter brought down
by rivers, as proved by the _Challenger_, leads to the same result. In
my "Island Life," 2nd Edit., pp. 221-225, I have discussed this whole
matter, and on reading it again I can find no fallacy in it. I have,
however, I believe, overestimated the time required for deposition,
which I believe would be more nearly one-fortieth than one-twentieth
that of mean denudation; because there is, I believe, also a great
overestimate of the maximum of deposition, because it is partly made up
of beds which may have been deposited simultaneously. Also the maximum
thickness is probably double the mean thickness.
The mean rate of denudation, both for European rivers and for all the
rivers that have been measured, is a foot in three million years, which
is the figure that should be taken in calculations.--Believe me yours
very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Parkstone, Dorset. April 27, 1897._
My dear Meldola,-- ... I thought Romanes' article in reply to Spencer
was very well written and wonderfully clear for him, and I agree with
most of it, except his high estimate of Spencer's co-adaptation
argument. It is quite true that Spencer's biology rests entirely on
Lamarckism, so far as heredity of acquired characters goes. I have been
reading Weismann's last book, "The Germ Plasm." It is a wonderful
attempt to solve the most complex of all problems, and is almost
unreadable without some practical acquaintance with germs and their
development.--Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. June 13, 1897._
My dear Poulton,-- ... The rate of deposition might be modified in an
archipelago, but would not necessarily be less than now, on the
_average_. On the ocean side it might be slow, but wherever there were
comparatively narrow straits between the islands it might be even faster
than now, because the area of deposition would be strictly limited. In
the seas between Java and Borneo and between Borneo and Celebes the
deposition _may be_ above the average. Again, during the development of
continents there were evidently extensive mountain ridges and masses
with landlocked seas, or inland lakes, and in all these deposition would
be rapid. Anyhow, the fact remains that there is no necessary equality
between rates of denudation and deposition (in thickness) as Geikie has
_assumed_.
I was delighted with your account of Prichard's wonderful anticipation
of Galton and Weismann! It is so perfect and complete.... It is most
remarkable that such a complete statement of the theory and such a
thorough appreciation of its effects and bearing should have been so
long overlooked. I read Prichard when I was very young, and have never
seen the book since. His facts and arguments are really useful ones, and
I should think Weismann must be delighted to have such a supporter come
from the grave. His view as to the supposed transmission of disease is
quite that of Archdall Reid's recent book. He was equally clear as to
Selection, and had he been a _zoologist_ and _traveller_ he might have
anticipated the work of both Darwin and Weismann!
To bring out such a book as his "Researches" when only twenty-seven, and
a practising physician, shows what a remarkable man he was.--Believe me
yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Parkstone, Dorset. July 8, 1897._
My dear Meldola,-- ... I am now reading a wonderfully interesting
book--O. Fisher's "Physics of the Earth's Crust." It is really a grand
book, and, though full of unintelligible mathematics, is so clearly
explained and so full of good reasoning on all the aspects of this most
difficult question that it is a pleasure to read it. It was especially a
pleasure to me because I had just been writing an article on the
Permanence of the Oceanic Basins, at the request of the Editor of
_Natural Science_, who told me I was not orthodox on the point. But I
find that Fisher supports the same view with very great force, and it
strikes me that if weight of argument and number of capable supporters
create orthodoxy in science, it is the other side who are not orthodox.
I have some fresh arguments, and I was delighted to be able to quote
Fisher. It seems almost demonstrated now that Sir W. Thomson was wrong,
and that the earth _has_ a molten interior and a very thin crust, and in
no other way can the phenomena of geology be explained....--Yours very
truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO SIR OLIVER LODGE
_Parkstone, Dorset. March 8, 1898._
My dear Sir,--My own opinion has long been--and I have many times given
reasons for it--that there is always an ample amount of variation in all
directions to allow any useful modification to be produced, very
rapidly, as compared with the rate of those secular changes (climate and
geography) which necessitate adaptation; hence no guidance of variation
in certain lines is necessary. For proof of this I would ask you to look
at the diagrams in Chapter III. of my "Darwinism," reading the
explanation in the text. The proof of such constant indefinite
variability has been much increased of late years, and if you consider
that instead of tens or hundreds of individuals, Nature has as many
thousands or millions to be selected from, every year or two, it will be
clear that the materials for adaptation are ample.
Again, I believe that the time, even as limited by Lord Kelvin's
calculations, is ample, for reasons given in Chapter X., "On the Earth's
Age," in my "Island Life," and summed up on p. 236. I therefore consider
the difficulty set forth on p. 2 of the leaflet you send is not a real
one. To my mind, the development of plants and animals from low forms of
each is fully explained by the variability proved to exist, with the
actual rapid multiplication and Natural Selection. For this no other
intellectual agency is required. The problem is to account for the
infinitely complex constitution of the material world and its forces
which rendered living organisms possible; then, the introduction of
consciousness or sensation, which alone rendered the animal world
possible; lastly, the presence in man of capacities and moral ideas and
aspirations which could not conceivably be produced by variation and
Natural Selection. This is stated at p. 473-8 of my "Darwinism," and is
also referred to in the article I enclose (at p. 443) and which you need
not return.
The subject is so large and complex that it is not to be wondered so
many people still maintain the insufficiency of Natural Selection,
without having really mastered the facts. I could not, therefore, answer
your question without going into some detail and giving references....
--Believe me yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MR. H.N. RIDLEY
_Parkstone, Dorset. October 3, 1898._
My dear Mr. Ridley,-- ... We are much interested now about De Rougemont,
and I dare say you have seen his story in the _Wide World Magazine_,
while in the _Daily Chronicle_ there have been letters, interviews and
discussions without end. A few people, who think they know everything,
treat him as an impostor; but unfortunately they themselves contradict
each other, and so far are proved to be wrong more often than De
Rougemont. I firmly believe that his story is substantially true--making
allowance for his being a foreigner who learnt one system of measures,
then lived thirty years among savages, and afterwards had to reproduce
all his knowledge in English and Australian idioms. As an intelligent
writer in the _Saturday Review_ says, putting aside the sensational
illustrations there is absolutely nothing in his story but what is quite
_possible_ and even _probable_. He must have reached Singapore the year
after I returned home, and I dare say there are people there who
remember Jensen, the owner of the schooner _Veilland_, with whom he
sailed on his disastrous pearl-fishing expedition. Jensen is said now to
be in British New Guinea, and has often spoken of his lost cargo of
pearls. ---- and ----, of the Royal Geographical Society, state that
they are convinced of the substantial truth of the main outlines of his
story, and after three interviews and innumerable questions are
satisfied of his _bona fides_--and so am I.--With best wishes, believe
me to be yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
MR. SAMUEL WADDINGTON TO A.R. WALLACE
_7 Whitehall Gardens, London, S.W. February 19, 1901._
Dear Sir,--I trust you will forgive a stranger troubling you with a
letter, but a friend has asked me whether, as a matter of fact, Darwin
held that _all_ living creatures descended from one and the same
ancestor, and that the pedigree of a humming-bird and that of a
hippopotamus would meet if traced far enough back. Can you tell me
whether Darwin did teach this?
I should have thought that as life was developed once, it probably could
and would be developed many times in different places, as month after
month, and year after year went by; and that, from the very first, it
probably took many different forms and characters, in the same way as
crystals take different forms and shapes, even when composed of the same
substance. From these many developments of "life" would descend as many
separate lines of evolution, one ending in the humming-bird, another in
the hippopotamus, a third in the kangaroo, etc., and their pedigrees
(however far back they might be traced) would not join until they
reached some primitive form of protoplasm,--Yours faithfully,
SAMUEL WADDINGTON.
* * * * *
TO MR. SAMUEL WADDINGTON
_Parkstone, Dorset. February 23, 1901._
Dear Sir,--Darwin believed that all living things originated from "a few
forms or from one"--as stated in the last sentence of his "Origin of
Species." But privately I am sure he believed in the _one_ origin. Of
course there is a possibility that there were several distinct origins
from inorganic matter, but that is very improbable, because in that case
we should expect to find some difference in the earliest forms of the
germs of life. But there is no such difference, the primitive germ-cells
of man, fish or oyster being almost indistinguishable, formed of
identical matter and going through identical primitive changes.
As to the humming-bird and hippopotamus, there is no doubt whatever of a
common origin--if evolution is accepted at all; since both are
vertebrates--a very high type of organism whose ancestral forms can be
traced back to a simple type much earlier than the common origin of
mammals, birds and reptiles.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO SIR FRANCIS DARWIN
_Parkstone, Dorset. July 3, 1901._
Dear Mr. Darwin,--Thanks for the letter returned. I _do_ hold the
opinion expressed in the last sentence of the article you refer to, and
have reprinted it in my volume of Studies, etc. But the stress must be
laid on the word _proof_. I intended it to enforce the somewhat similar
opinion of your father, in the "Origin" (p. 424, 6th Edit.), where he
says, "Analogy may be a deceitful guide." But I really do not go so far
as he did. For he maintained that there was not any proof that the
several great classes or kingdoms were descended from common ancestors.
I maintain, on the contrary, that all without exception are now proved
to have originated by "descent with modification," but that there is no
proof, and no necessity, that the very same causes which have been
sufficient to produce all the species of a genus or Order were those
which initiated and developed the greater differences. At the same time
I do _not_ say they were not sufficient. I merely urge that there is a
difference between proof and probability.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Broadstone, Wimborne. August 5, 1904._
My dear Poulton,-- ... What a miserable abortion of a theory is
"Mutation," which the Americans now seem to be taking up in place of
Lamarckism, "superseded." Anything rather than Darwinism! I am glad Dr.
F.A. Dixey shows it up so well in this week's _Nature_,[30] but too
mildly!--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Broadstone, Wimborne. April 3, 1905._
My dear Poulton,--Many thanks for copy of your Address,[31] which I have
read with great pleasure and will forward to Birch next mail. You have,
I think, produced a splendid and unanswerable set of facts proving the
non-heredity of acquired characters. I was particularly pleased with the
portion on "instincts," in which the argument is especially clear and
strong. I am afraid, however, the whole subject is above and beyond the
average "entomologist" or insect collector, but it will be of great
value to all students of evolution. It is curious how few even of the
more acute minds take the trouble to reason out carefully the teaching
of certain facts--as in the case of Romanes and the "variable
protection," and as I showed also in the case of Mivart (and also
Romanes and Gulick) declaring that isolation alone, without Natural
Selection, could produce perfect and well-defined species (see _Nature_,
Jan. 12, 1899).... --Yours faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO SIR FRANCIS DARWIN
_Broadstone, Wimborne. October 29, 1905._
Dear Mr. Darwin,--I return you the two articles on "Mutation" with many
thanks. As they are both supporters of de Vries, I suppose they put his
case as strongly as possible. Professor Hubrecht's paper is by far the
clearest and the best written, and he says distinctly that de Vries
claims that all new species have been produced by mutations, and none by
"fluctuating variations." Professor Hubrecht supports this and says that
de Vries has proved it! And all this founded upon a few "sports" from
one species of plant, itself of doubtful origin (variety or hybrid), and
offering phenomena in no way different from scores of other cultivated
plants. Never, I should think, has such a vast hypothetical structure
been erected on so flimsy a basis!
The boldness of his statements is amazing, as when he declares (as if it
were a fact of observation) that fluctuating variability, though he
admits it as the origin of all domestic animals and plants, yet "never
leads to the formation of species"! (Hubrecht, p. 216.) There is one
point where he so grossly misinterprets your father that I think you or
some other botanist should point it out. De Vries is said to quote from
"Life and Letters," II., p. 83, where Darwin refers to "chance
variations"--explained three lines on as "the slight differences
selected by which a race or species is at length formed." Yet de Vries
and Hubrecht claim that by "chance variations" Darwin meant "sports" or
"mutations," and therefore agrees with de Vries, while both omit to
refer to the many passages in which, later, he gave less and less weight
to what he termed "single large variations"--the same as de Vries'
"mutations"!--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO SIR JOSEPH HOOKER
_Broadstone, Wimborne. November 10, 1905._
My dear Sir Joseph,--I am writing to apologise for a great oversight.
When I sent my publishers a list of persons who had contributed to "My
Life" in various ways, your name, which should have been _first_, was
strangely omitted, and the omission was only recalled to me yesterday by
reading your letters to Bates in Clodd's edition of his Amazon book,
which I have just purchased. I now send you a copy by parcel-post, in
the hope that you will excuse the omission to send it sooner.
Now for a more interesting subject, I was extremely pleased and even
greatly surprised, in reading your letters to Bates, to find that at
that early period (1862) you were already strongly convinced of three
facts which are absolutely essential to a comprehension of the method of
organic evolution, but which many writers, even now, almost wholly
ignore. They are (1) the universality and large amount of normal
variability, (2) the extreme rigour of Natural Selection, and (3) that
there is no adequate evidence for, and very much against, the
inheritance of acquired characters.
It was only some years later, when I began to write on the subject and
had to think out the exact mode of action of Natural Selection, that I
myself arrived at (1) and (2), and have ever since dwelt upon them--in
season and out of season, as many will think--as being absolutely
essential to a comprehension of organic evolution. The third I did not
realise till I read Weismann, I have never seen the sufficiency of
normal variability for the modification of species more strongly or
better put than in your letters to Bates. Darwin himself never realised
it, and consequently played into the hands of the "discontinuous
variation" and "mutation" men, by so continually saying "_if_ they
vary"--"without variation Natural Selection can do nothing," etc.
Your argument that variations are not caused by change of environment is
equally forcible and convincing. Has anybody answered de Vries yet?
F. Darwin lent me Prof. Hubrecht's review from the _Popular Science
Monthly_, in which he claims that de Vries has proved that new species
have always been produced from "mutations," never through normal
variability, and that Darwin latterly agreed with him! This is to me
amazing! The Americans too accept de Vries as a second Darwin!--Yours
very sincerely,
ALFRED E. WALLACE.
* * * * *
SIR J. HOOKER TO A.R. WALLACE
_The Camp, Sunningdale. November 12, 1905._
My dear Wallace,--My return from a short holiday at Sidmouth last
Thursday was greeted by your kind and welcome letter and copy of your
"Life." The latter was, I assure you, never expected, knowing as I do
the demand for free copies that such a work inflicts on the writer. In
fact I had put it down as one of the annual Christmas gifts of books
that I receive from my own family. Coming, as it thus did, quite
unexpectedly, it is doubly welcome, and I do heartily thank you for this
proof of your greatly valued friendship. It will prove to be one of four
works of greatest interest to me of any published since Darwin's
"Origin," the others being Waddell's "Lhasa," Scott's "Antarctic
Voyage," and Mill's "Siege of the South Pole."
I have not seen Clodd's edition of Bates's "Amazon," which I have put
down as to be got, and I had no idea that I should have appeared in it.
Your citation of my letters and their contents are like dreams to me;
but to tell you the truth, I am getting dull of memory as well as of
hearing, and what is worse, in reading: what goes in at one eye goes out
at the other. So I am getting to realise Darwin's consolation of old
age, that it absolves me from being expected to know, remember, or
reason upon new facts and discoveries. And this must apply to your query
as to anyone having as yet answered de Vries. I cannot remember having
seen any answer; only criticisms of a discontinuous sort. I cannot for a
moment entertain the idea that Darwin ever assented to the proposition
that new species have always been produced from mutation and never
through normal variability. Possibly there is some quibble on the
definition of mutation or of variation. The Americans are prone to
believe any new things, witness their swallowing the thornless cactus
produced by that man in California--I forget his name--which Kew exposed
by asking for specimens to exhibit in the Cactus House....--I am, my
dear Wallace, sincerely yours,
JOS. D. HOOKER.
* * * * *
TO MR. E. SMEDLEY
_Broadstone, Wimborne. January 31, 1906._
Dear Mr. Smedley,--I have read Oliver Lodge's book in answer to Haeckel,
but I do not think it very well done or at all clearly written or well
argued. A book[32] has been sent me, however, which is a masterpiece of
clearness and sound reasoning on such difficult questions, and is a far
more crushing reply to Haeckel than O. Lodge's. I therefore send you a
copy, and feel sure you will enjoy it. It is a stiff piece of reasoning,
and wants close attention and careful thought, but I think you will be
able to appreciate it. In my opinion it comes as near to an intelligible
solution of these great problems of the Universe as we are likely to
get while on earth. It is a book to read and think over, and read again.
It is a masterpiece....--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Broadstone, Wimborne. July 27, 1907._
My dear Poulton,--Thanks for your very interesting letter. I am glad to
hear you have a new book on "Evolution"[33] nearly ready and that in it
you will do something to expose the fallacies of the Mutationists and
Mendelians, who pose before the world as having got _all_ wisdom, before
which we poor Darwinians must hide our diminished heads!
Wishing to know the best that could be said for these latter-day
anti-Darwinians, I have just been reading Lock's book on "Variation,
Heredity, and Evolution." In the early part of his book he gives a
tolerably fair account of Natural Selection, etc. But he gradually turns
to Mendelism as the "one thing needful"--stating that there can be "no
sort of doubt" that Mendel's paper is the "most important" contribution
of its size ever made to biological science!
"Mutation," as a theory, is absolutely nothing new--only the assertion
that new species originate _always_ in sports, for which the evidence
adduced is the most meagre and inconclusive of any ever set forth with
such pretentious claims! I hope you will thoroughly expose this absurd
claim.
Mendelism is something new, and within its very limited range,
important, as leading to conceptions as to the causes and laws of
heredity, but only misleading when adduced as the true origin of species
in nature, as to which it seems to me to have no part.--Yours very
truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Broadstone, Wimborne. November 26, 1907._
My dear Poulton,--Many thanks for letting me see the proofs.[34] ... The
whole reads very clearly, and I am delighted with the way you expose the
Mendelian and Mutational absurd claims. That ought to really open the
eyes of the newspaper men to the fact that Natural Selection and
Darwinism are not only holding their ground but are becoming more firmly
established than ever by every fresh research into the ways and workings
of living nature. I shall look forward to great pleasure in reading the
whole book. I was greatly pleased with Archdall Reid's view of Mendelism
in _Nature_.[35] He is a very clear and original thinker.
I see in Essay X. you use in the title the term "defensive coloration."
Why this instead of the usual "protective"? Surely the whole function of
such colours and markings is to protect from attack--not to defend when
attacked. The latter is the function of stings, spines and hard coats. I
only mention this because using different terms may lead to some
misconception.
Your illustration of mutation by throwing colours on a screen, and the
argument founded on it, I liked much. That reminds me that H. Spencer's
argument for inheritance of acquired variations--that co-ordination of
many parts at once, required for adaptations, would be impossible by
chance variations of those parts--applies with a hundredfold force to
mutations, which are admittedly so much less frequent both in their
numbers and the repetitions of them.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Broadstone, Wimborne. December 18, 1907._
My dear Poulton,--The importance of Mendelism to Evolution seems to me
to be something of the same kind, but very much less in degree and
importance, as Galton's fine discovery of the law of the average share
each parent has in the characters of the child--one quarter, the four
grandparents each one-sixteenth, and so on. That illuminates the whole
problem of heredity, combined with individual diversity, in a way
nothing else does. I almost wish you could introduce that!--Yours very
truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO DR. ARCHDALL REID
_Broadstone, Wimborne. January 19, 1908._
Dear Sir,-- ... I was much pleased the other day to read, in a review of
Mr. T. Rice Holmes's fine work on "Ancient Britain and the Invasions of
Julius Cæsar," that the author has arrived by purely historical study at
the conclusion that we have not risen morally above our primitive
ancestors. It is a curious and important coincidence.
I myself got the germ of the idea many years ago, from a very acute
thinker, Mr. Albert Mott, who gave some very original and thoughtful
addresses as President of the Liverpool Philosophical Society, one of
which dealt with the question of savages being often, perhaps always,
the descendants of more civilised races, and therefore affording no
proof of progression. At that time (about 1860-70) I could not accept
the view, but I have now come to think he was right.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. November 2, 1908._
My dear Poulton,-- ... You may perhaps have heard that I have been
invited by the Royal Institution (through Sir W. Crookes) to give them a
lecture on the jubilee of the "Origin of Species" in January, After some
consideration I accepted, because I _think_ I can give a broad and
general view of Darwinism, that will finally squash up the Mutationists
and Mendelians, and be both generally intelligible and interesting. So
far as I know this has never yet been done, and the Royal Institution
audience is just the intelligent and non-specialist one I shall be glad
to give it to if I can.
I have been very poorly the last three weeks, but am now recovering my
health and strength slowly. It will take me all my time the next two
months to get this ready, and now I must write a letter in reply to the
absurd and gross misrepresentation of Prof. Hubrecht, as to
imaginary differences between Darwin and myself, in the last
_Contemporary_!--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The next letter relates to Wallace's Friday evening Discourse at the
Royal Institution. His friends were afraid whether his voice could be
sustained throughout the hour--fears which were abundantly dispelled by
the actual performance. This was his last public lecture.
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. December 20, 1908._
My dear Meldola,--Thanks for your kind offer to read for me if
necessary. But when Sir Wm. Crookes first wrote to me about it, he
offered to read all, or any parts of the lecture, if my voice did not
hold out. I am very much afraid I cannot stand the strain of speaking
beyond my natural tone for an hour, or even for half that time--but I
may be able to do the opening and conclusion....
I am glad that you see, as I do, the utter futility of the claims of the
Mutationists. I may just mention them in the lecture, but I hope I have
put the subject in such a way that even "the meanest capacity" will
suffice to see the absurdity of their claims.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. January 26, 1909._
My dear Poulton,--I had a delightful two hours at the Museum on Saturday
morning, as Mr. Rothschild brought from Tring several of his
glass-bottomed drawers with his finest new New Guinea butterflies. They
_were_ a treat! I never saw anything more lovely and interesting!...
As to your very kind and pressing invitation,[36] I am sorry to be
obliged to decline it. I cannot remain more than one day or night away
from home, without considerable discomfort, and all the attractions of
your celebration are, to me, repulsions....
My lecture, even as it will be published in the _Fortnightly_, will be
far too short for exposition of all the points I wish to discuss, and I
hope to occupy myself during this year in saying all I want to say in a
book (of a wider scope) which is already arranged for. One of the great
points, which I just touched on in the lecture, is to show that all that
is usually considered the waste of Nature--the enormous number produced
in proportion to the few that survive--was absolutely essential in order
to secure the variety and continuity of life through all the ages, and
especially of that one line of descent which culminated in man. That, I
think, is a subject no one has yet dealt with.--Yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. March 1, 1909._
Dear Poulton,-- ... I am glad that Lankester has replied to the almost
disgraceful Centenary article in the _Times_. But it is an illustration
of the widespread mischief the Mutationists, etc., are doing. I have no
doubt, however, it will all come right in the end, though the end may be
far off, and in the meantime we must simply go on, and show, at every
opportunity, that Darwinism actually does explain the whole fields of
phenomena that they do not even attempt to deal with, or even
approach....--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MRS. FISHER
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. March 6, 1909._
Dear Mrs. Fisher,-- ... Another point I am becoming more and more
impressed with is, a teleology of fundamental laws and forces rendering
development of the infinity of life-forms possible (and certain) in
place of the old teleology applied to the production of each species.
Such are the case of feathers reproduced annually, which I gave at end
of lecture, and the still more marvellous fact of the caterpillar, often
in two or three weeks of chrysalis life, having its whole internal,
muscular, nervous, locomotive and alimentary organs decomposed and
recomposed into a totally different being--an absolute miracle if ever
there is one, quite as wonderful as would be the production of a complex
marine organism out of a mass of protoplasm. Yet, because there has
been continuity, the difficulty is slurred over or thought to be
explained!--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO SIR W.T. THISELTON-DYER
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. June 22, 1909._
Dear Sir William,--On Saturday, to my great pleasure, I received a copy
of the Darwin Commemoration volume. I at once began reading your most
excellent paper on the Geographical Distribution of Plants. It is
intensely interesting to me, both because it so clearly brings out
Darwin's views and so judiciously expounds his arguments--even when you
intimate a difference of opinion--but especially because you bring out
so clearly and strongly his views on the general permanence of
continents and oceans, which to-day, as much as ever, wants insisting
upon. I may just mention here that none of the people who still insist
on former continents where now are deep oceans have ever dealt with the
almost physical impossibility of such a change having occurred without
breaking the continuity of terrestrial life, owing to the mean depth of
the ocean being at least six times the mean height of the land, and its
area nearly three times, so that the whole mass of the land of the
existing continents would be required to build up even _one small_
continent in the depths of the Atlantic or Pacific! I have demonstrated
this, with a diagram, in my "Darwinism" (Chap, XII.), and it has never
been either refuted or noticed, but passed by as if it did not exist!
Your whole discussion of Dispersal and Distribution is also admirable,
and I was much interested with your quotations from Guppy, whose book I
have not seen, but must read.
Most valuable to me also are your numerous references to Darwin's
letters, so that the article serves as a compendious index to the five
volumes, as regards this subject.
Especially admirable is the way in which you have always kept Darwin
before us as the centre of the whole discussion, while at the same time
fairly stating the sometimes adverse views of those who differ from him
on certain points....--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
SIR W.T. THISELTON-DYER TO A.R. WALLACE
_The Ferns, Witcombe, Gloucester. June 25, 1909._
Dear Dr. Wallace,--It is difficult for me to tell you how gratified I am
by your extraordinarily kind letter.... The truth is that success was
easy. It has been my immense good fortune to know most of those who
played in the drama. The story simply wanted a straightforward
amanuensis to tell itself. But it is a real pleasure to me to know that
I have met with some measure of success.
There are many essays in the book that you will not like any more than I
do. The secret of this lies in the fact, which you pointed out in your
memorable speech at the Linnean Celebration, that no one but a
naturalist can really understand Darwin.
I did not go to Cambridge--I had my hands full here. I was not sorry for
the excuse. There seemed to me a note of insincerity about the whole
business. I am short-tempered. I cannot stand being told that the origin
of species has still to be discovered, and that specific differences
have no "reality" (Bateson's Essay, p. 89). People are of course at
liberty to hold such opinions, but decency might have presented another
occasion for ventilating them.--Yours sincerely,
W.T. THISELTON-DYER.
* * * * *
SIR W.T. THISELTON-DYER TO A.R. WALLACE
_The Ferns, Witcombe, Gloucester. July 11, 1909._
Dear Mr. Wallace,-- ... I have just got F. Darwin's "Foundations." He
tries to make out that his father could have dispensed with Malthus. But
the selection death-rate in a slightly varying large population is _the_
pith of the whole business. The Darwin-Wallace theory is, as you say,
"the continuous adjustment of the organic to the inorganic world." It is
what mathematicians call "a moving equilibrium." In fact, I have always
maintained that it is a mathematical conception.
It seemed to me there was a touch of insincerity about the whole
celebration,[37] as the younger Cambridge School as a whole do not even
begin to understand the theory.... I take it that the reason is, as you
pointed out, that none of them are naturalists.--Yours sincerely,
W.T. THISELTON-DYER.
* * * * *
TO DR. ARCHDALL REID
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. December 28, 1909._
Dear Dr. Archdall Reid,--Many thanks for your very interesting and
complimentary letter. I am very glad to hear of your new book, which I
doubt not will be very interesting and instructive. The subjects you
treat are, however, so very complex, and require so much accurate
knowledge of the facts, and so much sound reasoning upon them, that I
cannot possibly undertake the labour and thought required before I
should feel justified in expressing an opinion upon your treatment of
them....
I rejoice to hear that you have exposed the fallacy of the claims of the
Mendelians. I have also tried to do so, but I find it quite impossible
for me to follow their detailed studies and arguments. It wants a
mathematical mind, which I have not.
But on the general relation of Mendelism to Evolution I have come to a
very definite conclusion. This is, that it has no relation whatever to
the evolution of species or higher groups, but is really antagonistic to
such evolution! The essential basis of evolution, involving as it does
the most minute and all-pervading adaptation to the whole environment,
is extreme and ever-present plasticity, as a condition of survival and
adaptation. But the essence of Mendelian characters is their rigidity.
They are transmitted without variation, and therefore, except by the
rarest of accidents, can never become adapted to ever-varying
conditions. Moreover, when crossed they reproduce the same pair of types
in the same proportions as at first, and therefore without selection;
they are antagonistic to evolution by continually reproducing injurious
or useless characters--which is the reason they are so rarely found in
nature, but are mostly artificial breeds or sports. My view is,
therefore, that Mendelian characters are of the nature of abnormalities
or monstrosities, and that the "Mendelian laws" serve the purpose of
eliminating them when, as usually, they are not useful, and thus
preventing them from interfering with the normal process of natural
selection and adaptation of the more plastic races. I am also glad to
hear of your new argument for non-inheritance of acquired
characters.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO SIR W.T. THISELTON-DYER
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne, February 8, 1911._
Dear Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer,--I thank you very much for taking so much
trouble as you have done in writing your views of my new book.[38] I am
glad to find that you agree with much of what I have said in the more
evolutionary part of it, and that you differ only on some of my
suggested interpretations of the facts. I have always felt the
disadvantage I have been under--more especially during the last twenty
years--in having not a single good biologist anywhere near me, with whom
I could discuss matters of theory or obtain information as to matters of
fact. I am therefore the more pleased that you do not seem to have come
across any serious misstatements in the botanical portions, as to which
I have had to trust entirely to second-hand information, often obtained
through a long and varied correspondence.
As to your disagreement from me in the conclusions arrived at and
strenuously advocated in the latter portions of my work, I am not
surprised. I am afraid, now, that I have not expressed myself
sufficiently clearly as to the fundamental phenomena which seem to me
absolutely to necessitate a guiding mind and organising power. Hardly
one of my critics (I think absolutely not one) has noticed the
distinction I have tried and intended to draw between Evolution on the
one hand, and the fundamental powers and properties of Life--growth,
assimilation, reproduction, heredity, etc.--on the other. In Evolution I
recognise the action of Natural Selection as universal and capable of
explaining all the facts of the continuous development of species from
species, "from amoeba to man." But this, as Darwin, Weismann, Kerner,
Lloyd-Morgan, and even Huxley have seen, has nothing whatever to do with
the basic mysteries of life--growth, etc. etc. The chemists think they
have done wonders when they have produced in their laboratories certain
organic substances--always by the use of other organic products--which
life builds up within each organism, and from the few simple elements
available in air, earth, and water, innumerable structures--bone, horn,
hair, skin, blood, muscle, etc. etc.; and these are not amorphous--mere
lumps of dead matter--but organised to serve certain definite purposes
in each living organism. I have dwelt on this in my chapter on "The
Mystery of the Cell." Now I have been unable to find any attempt by any
biologist or physiologist to grapple with this problem. One and all,
they shirk it, or simply state it to be insoluble. It is here that I
state guidance and organising power are essential. My little
physiological parable or allegory (p. 296) I think sets forth the
difficulty fairly, though by no means adequately, yet not one of about
fifty reviews I have read even mentions it.
If you know of any writer of sufficient knowledge and mental power, who
has fully recognised and fairly grappled with this fundamental problem,
I should be very glad to be referred to him. I have been able to find no
approach to it. Yet I am at once howled at, or sneered at, for pointing
out the facts that such problems exist, that they are not in any way
touched by Evolution, but are far before it, and the forces, laws and
agencies involved are those of existences possessed of powers, mental
and physical, far beyond those mere mechanical, physical, or chemical
forces we see at work in nature....--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
SIR W.T. THISELTON-DYER TO A.R. WALLACE
_The Ferns, Witcombe, Gloucester. February 12, 1911._
Dear Mr. Wallace,-- ... You must let me correct you on one technical
point in your letter. It is no longer possible to say that chemists
effect the synthesis of organic products "by the use of other organic
substances." From what has been already effected, it cannot be doubted
that eventually every organic substance will be built up from "the few
simple elements available in air, earth and water." I think you may take
it from me that this does not admit of dispute....
At any rate we are in agreement as to Natural Selection being capable of
explaining evolution "from amoeba to man."
It is generally admitted that that is a mechanical or scientific
explanation. That is to say, it invokes nothing but intelligible actions
and causes.
De Vries, however, asserts that the Darwinian theory is _not_ scientific
at all, and that is of course a position he has a right to take up.
But if we admit that it is scientific, then we are precluded from
admitting a "directive power."
This was von Baer's position, also that of Kant and of Weismann.
But von Baer remarks that the naturalist is not precluded from asking
"whether the _totality_ of details leads him to a general and final
basis of intentional design." I have no objection to this, and offer it
as an olive-branch which you can throw to your howling and sneering
critics.
As to "structures organised to serve certain definite purposes," surely
they offer no more difficulty as regards "scientific" explanation than
the apparatus by which an orchid is fertilised.
We can work back to the amoeba to find ourselves face to face with a
scarcely organised mass of protoplasm. And then we find ourselves face
to face with a problem which will, perhaps, for ever remain insoluble
scientifically. But as for that, so is the primeval material of which it
(protoplasm) is composed. "Matter" itself is evaporating, for it is
being resolved by physical research into something which is intangible.
We cannot form the slightest idea how protoplasm came into existence.
It is impossible to regard it as a mere substance. It is a mechanism.
Although the chemist may hope to make eventually all the substances
which protoplasm fabricates, and will probably do so, he can only build
them up by the most complicated processes. Protoplasm appears to be able
to manufacture them straight off in a way of which the chemist cannot
form the slightest conception. This is one aspect of the mystery of
_life_. Herbert Spencer's definition tells one nothing.
Science can only explain nature as it reveals itself to the senses in
terms of consciousness. The explanation may be all wrong in the eyes of
omniscience. All one can say is that it is a practical working basis,
and is good enough for mundane purposes. But if I am asked if I can
solve the riddle of the Universe I can only answer, No. Brunetière then
retorts that science is bankrupt. But this is equivocal. It only means
that it cannot meet demands beyond its power to satisfy.
I entirely sympathise with anyone who seeks an answer from some other
non-scientific source. But I keep scientific explanations and spiritual
craving wholly distinct.
The whole point of evolution, as formulated by Lyell and Darwin, is to
explain phenomena by known causes. Now, directive power is not a known
cause. Determinism compels me to believe that every event is inevitable.
If we admit a directive power, the order of nature becomes capricious
and unintelligible. Excuse my saying all this. But that is the dilemma
as it presents itself to _my_ mind. If it does not trouble other people,
I can only say, so much the better for them. Briefly, I am afraid I must
say that it is ultra-scientific. I think that would have been pretty
much Darwin's view.
I do not think that it is quite fair to say that biologists shirk the
problem. In my opinion they are not called upon to face it. Bastian, I
suppose, believed that he had bridged the gulf between lifeless and
living matter. And here is a man, of whom I know nothing, who has
apparently got the whole thing cut and dried.--Yours sincerely,
W.T. THISELTON-DYER.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. May 28, 1912._
My dear Poulton,--Thanks for your paper on Darwin and Bergson.[39] I
have read nothing of Bergson's, and although he evidently has much in
common with my own views, yet all vague ideas--like "an internal
development force"--seem to me of no real value as an explanation of
Nature.
I claim to have shown the necessity of an ever-present Mind as the
primal cause both of all physical and biological evolution. This Mind
works by and through the primal forces of nature--by means of Natural
Selection in the world of life; and I do not think I could read a book
which rejects this method in favour of a vague "law of sympathy." He
might as well reject gravitation, electrical repulsion, etc. etc., as
explaining the motions of cosmical bodies....--Yours very truly, ALFRED
R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MR. BEN R. MILLER
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset, January 18, 1913._
Dear Sir,--Thanks for your kind congratulations, and for the small
pamphlet[40] you have sent me. I have read it with much interest, as the
writer was evidently a man of thought and talent. The first lecture
certainly gives an approach to Darwin's theory, perhaps nearer than any
other, as he almost implies the "survival of the fittest" as the cause
of progressive modification. But his language is imaginative and
obscure. He uses "education" apparently in the sense of what we should
term "effect of the environment."
The second lecture is even a more exact anticipation of the modern views
as to microbes, including their transmission by flies and other insects
and the probability that the blood of healthy persons contains a
sufficiency of destroyers of the pathogenic germs--such as the white
blood-corpuscles--to preserve us in health.
But he is so anti-clerical and anti-Biblical that it is no wonder he
could not get a hearing in Boston in 1847.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. April 2, 1913._
My dear Poulton,--About two months ago an American ... sent me the
enclosed booklet,[41] which he had been told was very rare, and
contained an anticipation of Darwinism.
This it certainly does, but the writer was highly imaginative, and, like
all the other anticipators of Darwin, did not perceive the whole scope
of his idea, being, as he himself says, not sufficiently acquainted with
the facts of nature.
His anticipations, however, of diverging lines of descent from a common
ancestor, and of the transmission of disease germs by means of insects,
are perfectly clear and very striking.
As you yourself made known one of the anticipators of Darwin, whom he
himself had overlooked, you are the right person to make this known in
any way you think proper. As you have so recently been in America, you
might perhaps ascertain from the librarian of the public library in
Boston, or from some of your biological friends there, what is known of
the writer and of his subsequent history.
If the house at Down is ever dedicated to Darwin's memory it would seem
best to preserve this little book there; if not you can dispose of it as
you think best.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
P.S.--Two of my books have been translated into Japanese: will you
ascertain whether the Bodleian would like to have them?
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON[42]
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset, June 3, 1913._
My dear Poulton,--I am very glad you have changed your view about the
"Sleeper" lectures being a "fake." The writer was too earnest, and too
clear a thinker, to descend to any such trick. And for what? "Agnostic"
is not in Shakespeare, but it may well have been used by someone before
Huxley. The parts of your Address of which you send me slips are
excellent, and I am sure will be of great interest to your audience. I
quite agree with your proposal that the "Lectures" shall be given to the
Linnean Society.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MR. E. SMEDLEY
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. August 26, 1913._
Dear Mr. Smedley,--I am glad to see you looking so jolly. I return the
photo to give to some other friend. Mr. Marchant, the lecturer you
heard, is a great friend of mine, but is now less dogmatic. The
Piltdown skull does not prove much, if anything!
The papers are wrong about me. I am not writing anything now; perhaps
shall write no more. Too many letters and home business. Too much
bothered with many slight ailments, which altogether keep me busy
attending to them. I am like Job, who said "the grasshopper was a
burthen" to him! I suppose its creaking song.--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MR. W.J. FARMER
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. 1913._
Dear Sir,-- ... I presume your question "Why?" as to the varying colour
of individual hairs and feathers, and the regular varying of adjacent
hairs, etc., to form the surface pattern, applies to the ultimate cause
which enables those patterns to be hereditary, and, in the case of
birds, to be reproduced after moulting yearly.
The purpose, or end they serve, I have, I think, sufficiently dealt with
in my "Darwinism"; the method by which such useful tints and markings
are produced, because useful, is, I think, clearly explained by the law
of Natural Selection or Survival of the Fittest, acting through the
universal facts of heredity and variation.
But the "why"--which goes further back, to the directing agency which
not only brings each special cell of the highly complex structure of a
feather into its exactly right position, but, further, carries pigments
or produces surface striæ (in the case of the metallic or interference
colours) also to their exactly right place, and nowhere else--is the
mystery, which, if we knew, we should (as Tennyson said of the flower in
the wall) "know what God and Man is."
The idea that "cells" are all conscious beings and go to their right
places has been put forward by Butler in his wonderful book "Life and
Habit," and now even Haeckel seems to adopt it. All theories of
heredity, including Darwin's pangenesis, do not touch it, and it seems
to me as fundamental as life and consciousness, and to be absolutely
inconceivable by us till we know what life is, what spirit is, and what
matter is; and it is probable that we must develop in the spirit world
some few thousand million years before we get to this knowledge--if
then!
My book, "Man's Place in the Universe," shows, I think, indications of
the vast importance of that Universe as the producer of Man which so
many scientific men to-day try to belittle, because of what may be, in
the infinite!--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.