With best wishes, and hoping you may have health and strength to go on with your great work, believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

My review will appear next Wednesday.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent, S.E. March 16, 1871.

My dear Wallace,—I have just read your grand review.[84] It is in every way as kindly expressed towards myself as it is excellent in matter. The Lyells have been here, and Sir C. remarked that no one wrote such good scientific reviews as you, and, as Miss Buckley added, you delight in picking out all that is good, though very far from blind to the bad. In all this I most entirely agree. I shall always consider your review as a great honour, and however much my book may hereafter be abused, as no doubt it will be, your review will console me, notwithstanding that we differ so greatly.

I will keep your objections to my views in my mind, but I fear that the latter are almost stereotyped in my mind, I thought for long weeks about the inheritance and selection difficulty, and covered quires of paper with notes, in trying to get out of it, but could not, though clearly seeing that it would be a great relief if I could. I will confine myself to two or three remarks. I have been much impressed with what you urge against colour[85] in the case of insects having been acquired through sexual selection. I always saw that the evidence was very weak; but I still think, if it be admitted that the musical instruments of insects have been gained through sexual selection, that there is not the least improbability in colour having been thus gained. Your argument with respect to the denudation of mankind, and also to insects, that taste on the part of one sex would have to remain nearly the same during many generations, in order that sexual selection should produce any effect, I agree to, and I think this argument would be sound if used by one who denied that, for instance, the plumes of birds of paradise had been so gained.

I believe that you admit this, and if so I do not see how your argument applies in other cases. I have recognised for some short time that I have made a great omission in not having discussed, as far as I could, the acquisition of taste, its inherited nature, and its permanence within pretty close limits for long periods.

One other point and I have done: I see by p. 179 of your review that I must have expressed myself very badly to have led you to think that I consider the prehensile organs of males as affording evidence of the females exerting a choice. I have never thought so, and if you chance to remember the passage (but do not hunt for it), pray point it out to me.

I am extremely sorry that I gave the note from Mr. Stebbing; I thought myself bound to notice his suggestion of beauty as a cause of denudation, and thus I was led on to give his argument. I altered the final passage which seemed to me offensive, and I had misgivings about the first part.

I heartily wish I had yielded to these misgivings. I will omit in any future edition the latter half of the note.

I have heard from Miss Buckley that you have got possession of your chalk pit, and I congratulate you on the tedious delay being over. I fear all our bushes are so large that there is nothing which we are at all likely to grub up.

Years ago we threw away loads of things. I should very much like to see your house and grounds; but I fear the journey would be too long. Going even to Kew knocks me up, and I have almost ceased trying to do so.

Once again let me thank you warmly for your admirable review.—My dear Wallace, yours ever very sincerely,

C. DARWIN.

What an excellent address you gave about Madeira, but I wish you had alluded to Lyell's discussion on land shells, etc.—not that he has said a word on the subject. The whole address quite delighted me. I hear Mr. Crotch[86] disputed some of your facts about the wingless insects, but he is a crotchety man. As far as I remember, I did not venture to ask Mr. Appleton to get you to review me, but only said, in answer to an inquiry, that you would undoubtedly be the best, or one of the very few men who could do so effectively.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent, S.E. March 24, 1871.

My dear Wallace,—Very many thanks for the new edition of your Essays. Honour and glory to you for giving list of additions. It is grand as showing that our subject flourishes, your book coming to a new edition so soon. My book also sells immensely; the edition will, I believe, be 6,500 copies. I am tired with writing, for the load of letters which I receive is enough to make a man cry, yet some few are curious and valuable. I got one to-day from a doctor on the hair on backs of young weakly children, which afterwards falls off. Also on hairy idiots. But I am tired to death, so farewell.

Thanks for your last letter.

There is a very striking second article on my book in the Pall Mall. The articles in the Spectator[87] have also interested me much.—Again farewell.

C. DARWIN.

* * * * *

Holly House, Barking, E. May 14, 1871.

Dear Darwin,—Have you read that very remarkable book "The Fuel of the Sun"? If not, get it. It solves the great problem of the almost unlimited duration of the sun's heat in what appears to me a most satisfactory manner. I recommended it to Sir C. Lyell, and he tells me that Grove spoke very highly of it to him. It has been somewhat ignored by the critics because it is by a new man with a perfectly original hypothesis, founded on a vast accumulation of physical and chemical facts; but not being encumbered with any mathematical shibboleths, they have evidently been afraid that anything so intelligible could not be sound. The manner in which everything in physical astronomy is explained is almost as marvellous as the powers of Natural Selection in the same way, and naturally excites a suspicion that the respective authors are pushing their theories "a little too far."

If you read it, get Proctor's book on the Sun at the same time, and refer to his coloured plates of the protuberances, corona, etc., which marvellously correspond with what Matthieu Williams's theory requires. The author is a practical chemist engaged in iron manufacture, and it is from furnace chemistry that he has been led to the subject. I think it the most original, most thoughtful and most carefully-worked-out theory that has appeared for a long time, and it does not say much for the critics that, as far as I know, its great merits have not been properly recognised.

I have been so fully occupied with road-making, well-digging, garden- and house-planning, planting, etc., that I have given up all other work.

Do you not admire our friend Miss Buckley's admirable article in Macmillan? It seems to me the best and most original that has been written on your book.

Hoping you are well, and are not working too hard, I remain yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. July 9, 1871.

My dear Wallace,—I send by this post a review by Chauncey Wright, as I much want your opinion of it, as soon as you can send it. I consider you an incomparably better critic than I am. The article, though not very clearly written, and poor in parts for want of knowledge, seems to me admirable.

Mivart's book is producing a great effect against Natural Selection, and more especially against me. Therefore, if you think the article even somewhat good, I will write and get permission to publish it as a shilling pamphlet, together with the MS. addition (enclosed), for which there was not room at the end of the review. I do not suppose I should lose more than L20 or L30.

I am now at work at a new and cheap edition of the "Origin," and shall answer several points in Mivart's book and introduce a new chapter for this purpose; but I treat the subject so much more concretely, and I daresay less philosophically, than Wright, that we shall not interfere with each other. You will think me a bigot when I say, after studying Mivart, I was never before in my life so convinced of the general (i.e. not in detail) truth of the views in the "Origin." I grieve to see the omission of the words by Mivart, detected by Wright.[88] I complained to M. that in two cases he quotes only the commencement of sentences by me and thus modifies my meaning; but I never supposed he would have omitted words. There are other cases of what I consider unfair treatment. I conclude with sorrow that though he means to be honourable, he is so bigoted that he cannot act fairly.

I was glad to see your letter in Nature, though I think you were a little hard on the silly and presumptuous man.

I hope that your house and grounds are progressing well, and that you are in all ways flourishing.

I have been rather seedy, but a few days in London did me much good; and my dear good wife is going to take me somewhere, nolens volens, at the end of this month.

C. DARWIN.

* * * * *

Holly Home, Barking, E. July 12, 1871.

Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for giving me the opportunity to read at my leisure the very talented article of Mr. C. Wright. His criticism of Mivart, though very severe, is, I think, in most cases sound; but I find the larger part of the article so heavy and much of the language and argument so very obscure, that I very much doubt the utility of printing it separately. I do not think the readers of Mivart could ever read it in that form, and I am sure your own answer to Mivart's arguments will be so much more clear and to the point, that the other will be unnecessary. You might extract certain portions in your own chapter, such as the very ingenious suggestion as to the possible origin of mammary glands, as well as the possible use of the rattle of the rattlesnake, etc.

I cannot see the force of Mivart's objection to the theory of production of the long neck of the giraffe (suggested in my first Essay), and which C. Wright seems to admit, while his "watch-tower" theory seems to me more difficult and unlikely as a means of origin. The argument, "Why haven't other allied animals been modified in the same way?" seems to me the weakest of the weak. I must say also I do not see any great reason to complain of the "words" left out by Mivart, as they do not seem to me materially to affect the meaning. Your expression, "and tends to depart in a slight degree," I think hardly grammatical; a tendency to depart cannot very well be said to be in a slight degree; a departure can, but a tendency must be either a slight tendency or a strong tendency; the degree to which the departure may reach must depend on favourable or unfavourable causes in addition to the tendency itself. Mivart's words, "and tending to depart from the parental type," seem to me quite unobjectionable as a paraphrase of yours, because the "tending" is kept in; and your own view undoubtedly is that the tendency may lead to an ultimate departure to any extent. Mivart's error is to suppose that your words favour the view of sudden departures, and I do not see that the expression he uses really favours his view a bit more than if he had quoted your exact words. The expression of yours he relies upon is evidently "the whole organism seeming to have become plastic," and he argues, no doubt erroneously, that having so become "plastic," any amount or a larger amount of sudden variation in some direction is likely.

Mivart's greatest error, the confounding "individual variations" with "minute or imperceptible variations," is well exposed by C. Wright, and that part I should like to see reprinted; but I always thought you laid too much stress on the slowness of the action of Natural Selection owing to the smallness and rarity of favourable variations. In your chapter on Natural Selection the expressions, "extremely slight modifications," "every variation even the slightest," "every grade of constitutional difference," occur, and these have led to errors such as Mivart's, I say all this because I feel sure that Mivart would be the last to intentionally misrepresent you, and he has told me that he was sorry the word "infinitesimal," as applied to variations used by Natural Selection, got into his book, and that he would alter it, as no doubt he has done, in his second edition.

Some of Mivart's strongest points—the eye and ear, for instance—are unnoticed in the review. You will, of course, reply to these. His statement of the "missing link" argument is also forcible, and has, I have no doubt, much weight with the public. As to all his minor arguments, I feel with you that they leave Natural Selection stronger than ever, while the two or three main arguments do leave a lingering doubt in my mind of some fundamental organic law of development of which we have as yet no notion.

Pray do not attach any weight to my opinions as to the review. It is very clever, but the writer seems a little like those critics who know an author's or an artist's meaning better than they do themselves.

My house is now in the hands of a contractor, but I am wall-building, etc., and very busy.—With best wishes, believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. July 12, 1871.

My dear Wallace,—Very many thanks. As soon as I read your letter I determined, not to print the paper, notwithstanding my eldest daughter, who is a very good critic, thought it so interesting as to be worth reprinting. Then my wife came in, and said, "I do not much care about these things and shall therefore be a good judge whether it is very dull." So I will leave my decision open for a day or two. Your letter has been, and will be, of use to me in other ways: thus I had quite forgotten that you had taken up the case of the giraffe in your first memoir, and I must look to this. I feel very doubtful how far I shall succeed in answering Mivart; it is so difficult to answer objections to doubtful points and make the discussion readable. I shall make only a selection. The worst of it is that I cannot possibly hunt through all my references for isolated points; it would take me three weeks of intolerably hard work. I wish I had your power of arguing clearly. At present I feel sick of everything, and if I could occupy my time and forget my daily discomforts or little miseries, I would never publish another word. But I shall cheer up, I daresay, soon, being only just got over a bad attack. Farewell. God knows why I bother you about myself.

I can say nothing more about missing links than what I have said. I should rely much on pre-Silurian times; but then comes Sir W. Thomson like an odious spectre. Farewell.—Yours most sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

I was grieved to see in the Daily News that the madman about the flat earth has been threatening your life. What an odious trouble this must have been to you.

P.S.—There is a most cutting review of me in the Quarterly:[89] I have only read a few pages. The skill and style make me think of Mivart. I shall soon be viewed as the most despicable of men. This Quarterly review tempts me to republish Ch. Wright, even if not read by anyone, just to show that someone will say a word against Mivart, and that his (i.e. Mivart's) remarks ought not to be swallowed without some reflection.

I quite agree with what you say that Mivart fully intends to be honourable; but he seems to me to have the mind of a most able lawyer retained to plead against us, and especially against me. God knows whether my strength and spirit will last out to write a chapter versus Mivart and others; I do so hate controversy, and feel I should do it so badly.

P.S.—I have now finished the review: there can be no doubt it is by Mivart, and wonderfully clever.

* * * * *

Holly House, Barking, E. July 16, 1871.

Dear Darwin,—I am very sorry you are so unwell, and that you allow criticisms to worry you so. Remember the noble army of converts you have made! and the host of the most talented men living who support you wholly. What do you think of putting C. Wright's article as an appendix to the new edition of the "Origin"? That would get it read, and obviate my chief objection, that the people who read Mivart and the "Origin" will very few of them buy a separate pamphlet to read. Pamphlets are such nuisances. I don't think Mivart could have written the Quarterly article, but I will look at it and shall, I think, be able to tell. Pray keep your spirits up. I am so distracted by building troubles that I can write nothing, and I shall not, till I get settled in my new house, some time next spring, I hope.—With best wishes, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Haredene, Albury, Guildford. August 1, 1871.

My dear Wallace,—Your kind and sympathetic letter pleased me greatly and did me good, but as you are so busy I did not answer it. I write now because I have just received a very remarkable letter from Fritz Mueller (with butterflies' wings gummed on paper as illustrations) on mimicry, etc. I think it is well worth your reading, but I will not send it, unless I receive a 1/2d. card to this effect. He puts the difficulty of first start in imitation excellently, and gives wonderful proof of closeness of the imitation. He hints a curious addition to the theory in relation to sexual selection, which you will think madly hypothetical: it occurred to me in a very different class of cases, but I was afraid to publish it. It would aid the theory of imitative protection, when the colours are bright. He seems much pleased with your caterpillar theory. I wish the letter could be published, but without coloured illustrations [it] would, I fear, be unintelligible.

I have not yet made up my mind about Wright's review; I shall stop till I hear from him. Your suggestion would make the "Origin," already too large, still more bulky.

By the way, did Mr. Youmans, of the United States, apply to you to write a popular sketch of Natural Selection? I told him you would do it immeasurably better than anyone in the world. My head keeps very rocky and wretched, but I am better,—Ever yours most truly,

C. DARWIN.

* * * * *

Holly House, Barking, E. March 3, 1872.

Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your new edition of the "Origin," which I have been too busy to acknowledge before. I think your answer to Mivart on the initial stages of modification ample and complete, and the comparison of whale and duck most beautiful. I always saw the fallacy of these objections, of course. The eye and ear objection you have not so satisfactorily answered, and to me the difficulty exists of how three times over an organ of sight was developed with the apparatus even approximately identical. Why should not, in one case out of the three, the heat rays or the chemical rays have been utilised for the same purpose, in which case no translucent media would have been required, and yet vision might have been just as perfect? The fact that the eyes of insects and molluscs are transparent to us shows that the very same limited portion of the rays of the spectrum is utilised for vision by them as by us.

The chances seem to me immense against that having occurred through "fortuitous variation," as Mivart puts it.

I see still further difficulties on this point but cannot go into them now. Many thanks for your kind invitation. I will try and call some day, but I am now very busy trying to make my house habitable by Lady Day, when I must be in it.—Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. July 27, 1872.

My dear Wallace,—I have just read with infinite satisfaction your crushing article in Nature.[90] I have been the more glad to see it, as I have not seen the book itself: I did not order it, as I felt sure from Dr. B.'s former book that he could write nothing of value. But assuredly I did not suppose that anyone would have written such a mass of inaccuracies and rubbish. How rich is everything which he says and quotes from Herbert Spencer!

By the way, I suppose that you read H. Spencer's answer to Martineau: it struck me as quite wonderfully good, and I felt even more strongly inclined than before to bow in reverence before him. Nothing has amused me more in your review than Dr. B.'s extraordinary presumption in deciding that such men as Lyell, Owen, H. Spencer, Mivart, Gaudry, etc. etc., are all wrong. I daresay it would be very delightful to feel such overwhelming confidence in oneself.

I have had a poor time of it of late, rarely having an hour of comfort, except when asleep or immersed in work; and then when that is over I feel dead with fatigue. I am now correcting my little book on Expression; but it will not be published till November, when of course a copy will be sent to you. I shall now try whether I can occupy myself without writing anything more on so difficult a subject as Evolution.

I hope you are now comfortably settled in your new house, and have more leisure than you have had for some time. I have looked out in the papers for any notice about the curatorship of the new Museum, but have seen nothing. If anything is decided in your favour, I beg you to inform me.—My dear Wallace, very truly yours,

C. DARWIN.

How grandly the public has taken up Hooker's case.

* * * * *

Down. August 3, [1872].

My dear Wallace,—I hate controversy, chiefly perhaps because I do it badly; but as Dr. Bree accuses you of "blundering," I have thought myself bound to send the enclosed letter[91] to Nature, that is, if you in the least desire it. In this case please post it. If you do not at all wish it, I should rather prefer not sending it, and in this case please tear it up. And I beg you to do the same, if you intend answering Dr. Bree yourself, as you will do it incomparably better than I should. Also please tear it up if you don't like the letter.—My dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

* * * * *

The Dell, Grays, Essex. August 4, 1872.

Dear Darwin,—I have sent your letter to Nature, as I think it will settle that question far better than anything I can say. Many thanks for it. I have not seen Dr. Bree's letter yet, as I get Nature here very irregularly, but as I was very careful to mention none but real errors in Dr. Bree's book, I do not imagine there will be any necessity for my taking any notice of it. It was really entertaining to have such a book to review, the errors and misconceptions were so inexplicable and the self-sufficiency of the man so amazing. Yet there is some excellent writing in the book, and to a half-informed person it has all the appearance of being a most valuable and authoritative work.

I am now reviewing a much more important book and one that, if I mistake not, will really compel you sooner or later to modify some of your views, though it will not at all affect the main doctrine of Natural Selection as applied to the higher animals. I allude, of course, to Bastian's "Beginnings of Life," which you have no doubt got. It is hard reading, but intensely interesting. I am a thorough convert to his main results, and it seems to me that nothing more important has appeared since your "Origin." It is a pity he is so awfully voluminous and discursive. When you have thoroughly digested it I shall be glad to know what you are disposed to think. My first notice of it will I think appear in Nature next week, but I have been hurried for it, and it is not so well written an article as I could wish.

I sincerely hope your health is improving.—Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

P.S.—I fear Lubbock's motion is being pushed off to the end of the Session, and Hooker's case will not be fairly considered. I hope the matter will not be allowed to drop.—A.R.W.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. August 28, 1872.

My dear Wallace,—I have at last finished the gigantic job of reading Dr. Bastian's book, and have been deeply interested in it. You wished to hear my impression, but it is not worth sending.

He seems to me an extremely able man, as indeed I thought when I read his first essay. His general argument in favour of archebiosis[92] is wonderfully strong; though I cannot think much of some few of his arguments. The result is that I am bewildered and astonished by his statements, but am not convinced; though on the whole it seems to me probable that archebiosis is true. I am not convinced partly I think owing to the deductive cast of much of his reasoning; and I know not why, but I never feel convinced by deduction, even in the case of H. Spencer's writings. If Dr. B.'s book had been turned upside down, and he had begun with the various cases of heterogenesis, and then gone on to organic and afterwards to saline solutions, and had then given his general arguments, I should have been, I believe, much more influenced. I suspect, however, that my chief difficulty is the effect of old convictions being stereotyped on my brain. I must have more evidence that germs or the minutest fragments of the lowest forms are always killed by 212 deg. of Fahr. Perhaps the mere reiteration of the statements given by Dr. B. by other men whose judgment I respect and who have worked long on the lower organisms would suffice to convince me. Here is a fine confession of intellectual weakness; but what an inexplicable frame of mind is that of belief.

As for Rotifers and Tardigrades being spontaneously generated, my mind can no more digest such statements, whether true or false, than my stomach can digest a lump of lead.

Dr. B. is always comparing archebiosis as well as growth to crystallisation; but on this view a Rotifer or Tardigrade is adapted to its humble conditions of life by a happy accident; and this I cannot believe. That observations of the above nature may easily be altogether wrong is well shown by Dr. B. having declared to Huxley that he had watched the entire development of a leaf of Sphagnum. He must have worked with very impure materials in some cases, as plenty of organisms appeared in a saline solution not containing an atom of nitrogen.

I wholly disagree with Dr. B. about many points in his latter chapters. Thus the frequency of generalised forms in the older strata seems to me clearly to indicate the common descent with divergence of more recent forms.

Notwithstanding all his sneers, I do not strike my colours as yet about pangenesis. I should like to live to see archebiosis proved true, for it would be a discovery of transcendent importance; or if false I should like to see it disproved, and the facts otherwise explained; but I shall not live to see all this. If ever proved, Dr. B. will have taken a prominent part in the work. How grand is the onward rush of science; it is enough to console us for the many errors which we have committed and for our efforts being overlaid and forgotten in the mass of new facts and new views which are daily turning up.

This is all I have to say about Dr. B.'s book, and it certainly has not been worth saying. Nevertheless, reward me whenever you can by giving me any news about your appointment to the Bethnal Green Museum.—My dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

* * * * *

The Dell, Grays, Essex. August 31, 1872.

Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your long and interesting letter about Bastian's book, though I almost regret that my asking you for your opinion should have led you to give yourself so much trouble. I quite understand your frame of mind, and think it quite a natural and proper one. You had hard work to hammer your views into people's heads at first, and if Bastian's theory is true he will have still harder work, because the facts he appeals to are themselves so difficult to establish. Are not you mistaken about the Sphagnum? As I remember it, Huxley detected a fragment of Sphagnum leaf in the same solution in which a fungoid growth had been developed. Bastian mistook the Sphagnum also for a vegetable growth, and on account of this ignorance of the character of Sphagnum, and its presence in the solution, Huxley rejected somewhat contemptuously (and I think very illogically) all Bastian's observations. Again, as to the saline solution without nitrogen, would not the air supply what was required?

I quite agree that the book would have gained force by rearrangement in the way you suggest, but perhaps he thought it necessary to begin with a general argument in order to induce people to examine his new collection of facts, I am impressed most by the agreement of so many observers, some of whom struggle to explain away their own facts. What a wonderfully ingenious and suggestive paper that is by Galton on "Blood Relationship." It helps to render intelligible many of the eccentricities of heredity, atavism, etc.

Sir Charles Lyell was good enough to write to Lord Ripon and Mr. Cole[93] about me and the Bethnal Green Museum, and the answer he got was that at present no appointment of a director is contemplated. I suppose they see no way of making it a Natural History Museum, and it will have to be kept going by Loan Collections of miscellaneous works of art, in which case, of course, the South Kensington people will manage it. It is a considerable disappointment to me, as I had almost calculated on getting something there.

With best wishes for your good health and happiness, believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

P.S.—I have just been reading Howorth's paper in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute. How perverse it is. He throughout confounds "fertility" with "increase of population," which seems to me to be the main cause of his errors. His elaborate accumulation of facts in other papers in Nature, on "Subsidence and Elevation of Land," I believe to be equally full of error, and utterly untrustworthy as a whole.—A.R.W.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. September 2, 1872.

My dear Wallace,—I write a line to say that I understood—but I may of course have been mistaken—from Huxley that Bastian distinctly stated that he had watched the development of the scale of Sphagnum: I was astonished, as I knew the appearance of Sphagnum under a high power, and asked a second time; but I repeat that I may have been mistaken. Busk told me that Sharpey had noticed the appearance of numerous Infusoria in one of the solutions not containing any nitrogen; and I do not suppose that any physiologist would admit the possibility of Infusoria absorbing nitrogen gas. Possibly I ought not to have mentioned statements made in private conversation, so please do not repeat them.

I quite agree about the extreme importance of such men as Cohn [illegible] and Carter having observed apparent cases of heterogenesis. At present I should prefer any mad hypothesis, such as that every disintegrated molecule of the lowest forms can reproduce the parent-form, and that the molecules are universally distributed, and that they do not lose their vital power until heated to such a temperature that they decompose like dead organic particles.

I am extremely grieved to hear about the Museum: it is a great misfortune.—Yours most sincerely,

C. DARWIN.

I have taken up old botanical work and have given up all theories.

I quite agree about Howorth's paper: he wrote to me and I told him that we differed so widely it was of no use our discussing any point.

As for Galton's paper, I have never yet been able to fully digest it: as far as I have, it has not cleared my ideas, and has only aided in bringing more prominently forward the large proportion of the latent characters.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. October 20, 1872.

My dear Wallace,—I have thought that you would perhaps like to see enclosed specimen and extract from letter (translated from the German by my son) from Dr. W. Marshall, Zoological Assistant to Schlegel at Leyden. Neither the specimen nor extract need be returned; and you need not acknowledge the receipt. The resemblance is not so close, now that the fragments are gummed on card, as I at first thought. Your review of Houzeau was very good: I skimmed through the whole gigantic book, but you managed to pick out the plums much better than I did for myself. You are a born critic. What an admirable number that was of Nature.

I am writing this at Sevenoaks, where we have taken a house for three weeks and have one more week to stay. We came here that I may get a little rest, of which I stood in much need.—Ever yours very sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

With respect to what you say about certain instincts of ants having been acquired by experience or sense, have you kept in mind that the neuters have no progeny? I wish I knew whether the fertile females, or queens, do the same work (viz. placing the eggs in warm places, etc.) as the neuters do afterwards; if so the case would be comparatively simple; but I believe this is not the case, and I am driven to selection of varying pre-existing instincts.

* * * * *

The Dell, Grays, Essex. November 15, 1872.

Dear Darwin,—I should have written earlier to thank you for your book,[94] but was hoping to be able to read more of it before doing so. I have not, however, found time to get beyond the first three chapters, but that is quite sufficient to show me how exceedingly interesting you have made the subject, and how completely and admirably you have worked it out. I expect it will be one of the most popular of your works. I have just been asked to write a review of it for the Quarterly Journal of Science, for which purpose I shall be in duty bound to seek out some deficiencies, however minute, so as to give my notice some flavour of criticism.

The cuts and photos are admirable, and my little boy and girl seized it at once to look at the naughty babies.

With best wishes, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

P.S.—I will take this opportunity of asking you if you know of any book that will give me a complete catalogue of vertebrate fossils with some indication of their affinities.—A.R.W.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. January 13, 1873.

My dear Wallace,—I have read your review with much interest, and I thank you sincerely for the very kind spirit in which it is written. I cannot say that I am convinced by your criticisms.[95] If you have ever actually observed a kitten sucking and pounding with extended toes its mother, and then seen the same kitten when a little older doing the same thing on a soft shawl, and ultimately an old cat (as I have seen), and do not admit that it is identically the same action, I am astonished.

With respect to the decapitated frog,[96] I have always heard of Pflueger as a most trustworthy observer. If, indeed, anyone knows a frog's habits so well as to say that it never rubs off a bit of leaf or other object, which may stick to its thigh, in the same manner as it did the acid, your objection would be valid. Some of Flourens' experiments, in which he removed the cerebral hemisphere from a pigeon, indicate that acts apparently performed consciously can be done without consciousness—I presume through the force of habit; in which case it would appear that intellectual power is not brought into play. Several persons have made such suggestions and objections as yours about the hands being held up in astonishment:[97] if there was any straining of the muscles, as with protruded arms under fright, I would agree: as it is I must keep to my old opinion, and I daresay you will say that I am an obstinate old blockhead.—My dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

The book has sold wonderfully; 9,000 copies have now been printed.

* * * * *

The Dell, Grays, Essex. Wednesday morning, [November, 1873].

Dear Darwin,—Yours just received. Pray act exactly as if nothing had been said to me on the subject. I do not particularly wish for the work,[98] as, besides being as you say, tedious work, it involves a considerable amount of responsibility. Still, I am prepared to do any literary work of the kind, as I told Bates some time ago, and that is the reason he wrote to me about it. I certainly think, however, that it would be in many ways more satisfactory to you if your son did it, and I therefore hope he may undertake it.

Should he, however, for any reasons, be unable, I am at your service as a dernier ressort.

In case my meaning is not quite clear, I will not do it unless your son has the offer and declines it.—Believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,

ALFRED B. WALLACE.

* * * * *

The Dell, Grays, Essex. November 18, 1873.

Dear Darwin,—I quite understand what you require, and would undertake to do it to the best of my ability. Of course in such work I should not think of offering criticisms of matter.

I do not think I could form any idea of how long it would take by seeing the MSS., as it would all depend upon the amount of revision and working-in required. I have helped Sir C. Lyell with his last three or four editions in a somewhat similar though different way, and for him I have kept an account simply of the hours I was employed in any way for him, and he paid me 5/- an hour; but (of course this is confidential) I do not think this quite enough for the class of work. I should propose for your work 7/- an hour as a fair remuneration, and I would put down each day the hours I worked at it.

No doubt you will get it done for very much less by any literary man accustomed to regular literary work and nothing else, and perhaps better done, so do not in the least scruple in saying you decide on employing the gentleman you had in view if you prefer it.

If you send it to me could you let me have all your MSS. copied out, as it adds considerably to the time required if there is any difficulty in deciphering the writing, which in yours (as you are no doubt aware) there often is.

My hasty note to Bates was not intended to be shown you or anyone. I thought he had heard of it from Murray, and that the arrangement was to be made by Murray.—Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

P.S.—I have been delighted with H. Spencer's "Study of Sociology." Some of the passages in the latter part are grand. You have perhaps seen that I am dipping into politics myself occasionally.—A.R.W.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenkam, Kent. November 19, 1873.

Dear Wallace,—I thank you for your extremely kind letter, and I am sorry that I troubled you with that of yesterday. My wife thinks that my son George would be so much pleased at undertaking the work for me, that I will write to him, and so probably shall have no occasion to trouble you. If on still further reflection, and after looking over my notes, I think that my son could not do the work, I will write again and gratefully accept your proposal. But if you do not hear, you will understand that I can manage the affair myself. I never in my lifetime regretted an interruption so much as this new edition of the "Descent." I am deeply immersed in some work on physiological points with plants.

I fully agree with what you say about H. Spencer's "Sociology"; I do not believe there is a man in Europe at all his equal in talents. I did not know that you had been writing on politics, except so far as your letter on the coal question, which interested me much and struck me as a capital letter.

I must again thank you for your letter, and remain, dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

I hope to Heaven that politics will not replace natural science.

I know too well how atrociously bad my handwriting is.

* * * * *

The Dell, Grays, Essex. December 6, 1874.

Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your kindness in sending me a copy of your new edition of the "Descent." I see you have made a whole host of additions and corrections which I shall have great pleasure in reading over as soon as I have got rid of my horrid book on Geographical Distribution, which is almost driving me mad with the amount of drudgery required and the often unsatisfactory nature of the result. However, I must finish with it soon, or all the part first done will have to be done over again, every new book, either as a monograph, or a classification, putting everything wrong (for me).

Hoping you are in good health and able to go on with your favourite work, I remain yours very sincerely,

ALFRED B. WALLACE.

* * * * *

The Dell, Grays, Essex. July 21, 1875.

Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your kindness in sending me a copy of your new book.[99] Being very busy I have only had time to dip into it yet. The account of Utricularia is most marvellous, and quite new to me. I'm rather surprised that you do not make any remarks on the origin of these extraordinary contrivances for capturing insects. Did you think they were too obvious? I daresay there is no difficulty, but I feel sure they will be seized on as inexplicable by Natural Selection, and your silence on the point will be held to show that you consider them so! The contrivance in Utricularia and Dionaea, and in fact in Drosera too, seems fully as great and complex as in Orchids, but there is not the same motive force. Fertilisation and cross-fertilisation are important ends enough to lead to any modification, but can we suppose mere nourishment to be so important, seeing that it is so easily and almost universally obtained by extrusion of roots and leaves? Here are plants which lose their roots and leaves to acquire the same results by infinitely complex modes! What a wonderful and long-continued series of variations must have led up to the perfect "trap" in Utricularia, while at any stage of the process the same end might have been gained by a little more development of roots and leaves, as in 9,999 plants out of 10,000!

Is this an imaginary difficulty, or do you mean to deal with it in future editions of the "Origin"?—Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

The Dell, Grays, Essex. November 7, 1875.

Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your beautiful little volume on "Climbing Plants," which forms a most interesting companion to your "Orchids" and "Insectivorous Plants." I am sorry to see that you have not this time given us the luxury of cut edges.

I am in the midst of printing and proof-sheets, which are wearisome in the extreme from the mass of names and statistics I have been obliged to introduce, and which will, I fear, make my book insufferably dull to all but zoological specialists.

My trust is in my pictures and maps to catch the public.

Hoping yourself and all your family are quite well, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. June 5, 1876.

My dear Wallace,—I must have the pleasure of expressing to you my unbounded admiration of your book,[100] though I have read only to page 184—my object having been to do as little as possible while resting. I feel sure that you have laid a broad and safe foundation for all future work on Distribution. How interesting it will be to see hereafter plants treated in strict relation to your views; and then all insects, pulmonate molluscs, and fresh-water fishes, in greater detail than I suppose you have given to these lower animals. The point which has interested me most, but I do not say the most valuable point, is your protest against sinking imaginary continents in a quite reckless manner, as was started by Forbes, followed, alas, by Hooker, and caricatured by Wollaston and Murray. By the way, the main impression which the latter author has left on my mind is his utter want of all scientific judgment. I have lifted up my voice against the above view with no avail, but I have no doubt that you will succeed, owing to your new arguments and the coloured chart. Of a special value, as it seems to me, is the conclusion that we must determine the areas chiefly by the nature of the mammals. When I worked many years ago on this subject, I doubted much whether the now-called Palearctic and Nearctic regions ought to be separated; and I determined if I made another region that it should be Madagascar. I have therefore been able to appreciate the value of your evidence on these points. What progress Palaeontology has made during the last 20 years! But if it advances at the same rate in the future, our views on the migration and birthplace of the various groups will, I fear, be greatly altered. I cannot feel quite easy about the Glacial period and the extinction of large mammals, but I much hope that you are right. I think you will have to modify your belief about the difficulty of dispersal of land molluscs; I was interrupted when beginning to experimentise on the just-hatched young adhering to the feet of ground-roosting birds. I differ on one other point, viz. in the belief that there must have existed a Tertiary Antarctic continent, from which various forms radiated to the southern extremities of our present continents. But I could go on scribbling for ever. You have written, as I believe, a grand and memorable work, which will last for years as the foundation for all future treatises on Geographical Distribution,—My dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,

CHARLES DARWIN.

P.S.—You have paid me the highest conceivable compliment by what you say of your work in relation to my chapters on Distribution in the "Origin," and I heartily thank you for it.

* * * * *

The Dell, Grays, Essex. June 7, 1876.

Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your very kind letter. So few people will read my book at all regularly, that a criticism from one who does so will be very welcome.

If, as I suppose, it is only to p. 184 of Vol. I. that you have read, you cannot yet quite see my conclusions on the points you refer to (land molluscs and Antarctic continent). My own conclusions fluctuated during the progress of the book, and I have, I know, occasionally used expressions (the relics of earlier ideas) which are not quite consistent with what I say further on. I am positively against any Southern continent as uniting South America with Australia or New Zealand, as you will see at Vol. I., pp. 398-403 and 459-466. My general conclusions as to Distribution of Land Mollusca[101] are at Vol. II., pp. 522-529. When you have read these passages and looked at the general facts which lead to them, I shall be glad to hear if you still differ from me.

Though, of course, present results as to origin and migrations of genera of mammals will have to be modified owing to new discoveries, I cannot help thinking that much will remain unaffected, because in all geographical and geological discoveries the great outlines are soon reached; the details alone remain to be modified. I also think much of the geological evidence is now so accordant with, and explanatory of, geographical distribution that it is prima facie correct in outline. Nevertheless, such vast masses of new facts will come out in the next few years that I quite dread the labour of incorporating them in a new edition.

Now for a little personal matter. For two years I have made up my mind to leave this place—mainly for two reasons: drought and wind prevent the satisfactory growth of all delicate plants; and I cannot stand being unable to attend evening meetings and being obliged to refuse every invitation in London. But I was obliged to stay till I had got it into decent order to attract a customer. At last it is so, and I am offering it for sale, and as soon as it is disposed of I intend to try the neighbourhood of Dorking, whence there are late trains from Cannon Street and Charing Cross.

I see your post-mark was Dorking, so I suppose you have been staying there. Is it not a lovely country? I hope your health is improved, and when, quite at your leisure, you have waded through my book, I trust you will again let me have a few lines of friendly criticism and advice.—Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham. June 17, 1876.

My dear Wallace,—I have now finished the whole of Vol. I., with the same interest and admiration as before; and I am convinced that my judgment was right and that it is a memorable book, the basis of all future work on the subject. I have nothing particular to say, but perhaps you would like to hear my impressions on two or three points. Nothing has struck me more than the admirable and convincing manner in which you treat Java. To allude to a very trifling point, it is capital about the unadorned head of the Argus pheasant.[102] How plain a thing is, when it is once pointed out! What a wonderful case is that of Celebes! I am glad that you have slightly modified your views with respect to Africa,[103] and this leads me to say that I cannot swallow the so-called continent of Lemuria, i.e. the direct connection of Africa and Ceylon![104] The facts do not seem to me many and strong enough to justify so immense a change of level. Moreover, Mauritius and the other islands appear to me oceanic in character. But do not suppose that I place my judgment on this subject on a level with yours. A wonderfully good paper was published about a year ago on India in the Geological Journal—I think by Blandford.[105] Ramsay agreed with me that it was one of the best published for a long time. The author shows that India has been a continent with enormous fresh-water lakes from the Permian period to the present day. If I remember right he believes in a former connection with South Africa.

I am sure that I read, some 20 to 30 years ago, in a French journal, an account of teeth of mastodon found in Timor; but the statement may have been an error.

With respect to what you say about the colonising of New Zealand, I somewhere have an account of a frog frozen in the ice of a Swiss glacier, and which revived when thawed. I may add that there is an Indian toad which can resist salt water and haunts the seaside. Nothing ever astonished me more than the case of the Galaxias; but it does not seem known whether it may not be a migratory fish like the salmon. It seems to me that you complicate rather too much the successive colonisations with New Zealand. I should prefer believing that the Galaxias was a species, like the Emys of the Sewalik Hills, which has long retained the same form. Your remarks on the insects and flowers of New Zealand have greatly interested me; but aromatic leaves I have always looked at as a protection against their being eaten by insects or other animals; and as insects are there rare, such protection would not be much needed. I have written more than I intended, and I must again say how profoundly your book has interested me.

Now let me turn to a very different subject. I have only just heard of and procured your two articles in the Academy. I thank you most cordially for your generous defence of me against Mr. Mivart. In the "Origin" I did not discuss the derivation of any one species; but that I might not be accused of concealing my opinion I went out of my way and inserted a sentence which seemed to me (and still so seems) to declare plainly my belief. This was quoted in my "Descent of Man." Therefore it is very unjust, not to say dishonest, of Mr. Mivart to accuse me of base fraudulent concealment; I care little about myself; but Mr. Mivart, in an article in the Quarterly Review (which I know was written by him), accused my son George of encouraging profligacy, and this without the least foundation.[106] I can assert this positively, as I laid George's article and the Quarterly Review before Hooker, Huxley and others, and all agreed that the accusation was a deliberate falsification. Huxley wrote to him on the subject and has almost or quite cut him in consequence; and so would Hooker, but he was advised not to do so as President of the Royal Society. Well, he has gained his object in giving me pain, and, good God, to think of the flattering, almost fawning speeches which he has made to me! I wrote, of course, to him to say that I would never speak to him again. I ought, however, to be contented, as he is the one man who has ever, as far as I know, treated me basely.

Forgive me for writing at such length, and believe me yours very sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

P.S.—I am very sorry that you have given up sexual selection. I am not at all shaken, and stick to my colours like a true Briton. When I think about the unadorned head of the Argus pheasant, I might exclaim, Et tu, Brute!

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham. June 25, 1876.

My dear Wallace,—I have been able to read rather more quickly of late and have finished your book. I have not much to say. Your careful account of the temperate parts of South America interested me much, and all the more from knowing something of the country. I like also much the general remarks towards the end of the volume on the land molluscs. Now for a few criticisms.

P. 122:[107] I am surprised at your saying that "during the whole Tertiary period North America was zoologically far more strongly contrasted with South America than it is now." But we know hardly anything of the latter except during the Pliocene period, and then the mastodon, horse, several great Dentata, etc. etc., were common to the North and South. If you are right I erred greatly in my Journal, where I insisted on the former close connection between the two.

P. 252, and elsewhere: I agree thoroughly with the general principle that a great area with many competing forms is necessary for much and high development; but do you not extend this principle too far—I should say much too far, considering how often several species of the same genus have been developed on very small islands?

P. 265: You say that the Sittidae extend to Madagascar, but there is no number in the tabular heading.[108]

P. 359: Rhinochetus is entered in the tabular heading under No. 3 of the Neotropical sub-regions.[109]

Reviewers think it necessary to find some fault, and if I were to review you, the sole point which I should blame is your not giving very numerous references. These would save whoever follows you great labour. Occasionally I wished myself to know the authority for certain statements, and whether you or somebody else had originated certain subordinate views. Take the case of a man who had collected largely on some island, for instance St. Helena, and who wished to work out the geographical relations of his collection; he would, I think, feel very blank at not finding in your work precise references to all that had been written on St. Helena. I hope you will not think me a confoundedly disagreeable fellow.

I may mention a capital essay which I received a few mouths ago from Axel Blytt[110] on the distribution of the plants of Scandinavia; showing the high probability of there having been secular periods alternately wet and dry; and of the important part which they have played in distribution.

I wrote to Forel, who is always at work on ants, and told him of your views about the dispersal of the blind Coleoptera, and asked him to observe.

I spoke to Hooker about your book, and feel sure that he would like nothing better than to consider the distribution of plants in relation to your views; but he seemed to doubt whether he should ever have time.

And now I have done my jottings, and once again congratulate you on having brought out so grand a work. I have been a little disappointed at the review in Nature[111]—My dear Wallace, yours sincerely,

CHARLES DARWIN.

* * * * *

Rose Hill, Dorking. July 23, 1876.

My dear Darwin,—I should have replied sooner to your last kind and interesting letters, but they reached me in the midst of my packing previous to removal here, and I have only just now got my books and papers in a get-at-able state.

And first, many thanks for your close observation in detecting the two absurd mistakes in the tabular headings.

As to the former greater distinction of the North and South American faunas, I think I am right. The Edentata, being proved (as I hold) to have been mere temporary migrants into North America in the post-Pliocene epoch, form no part of its Tertiary fauna. Yet in South America they were so enormously developed in the Pliocene epoch that we know, if there is any such thing as Evolution, etc., that strange ancestral forms must have preceded them in Miocene times.

Mastodon, on the other hand, represented by one or two species only, appears to have been a late immigrant into South America from the North.

The immense development of Ungulates (in varied families, genera, and species) in North America during the whole Tertiary epoch is, however, the great feature, which assimilates it to Europe and contrasts it with South America. True camels, hosts of hog-like animals, true rhinoceroses, and hosts of ancestral horses, all bring North America much nearer to the Old World than it is now. Even the horse, represented in all South America by Equus only, was probably a temporary immigrant from the North.

As to extending too far the principle (yours) of the necessity of comparatively large areas for the development of varied faunas, I may have done so, but I think not. There is, I think, every probability that most islands, etc., where a varied fauna now exists have been once more extensive, e.g. New Zealand, Madagascar. Where there is no such evidence (e.g. Galapagos), the fauna is very restricted.

Lastly as to want of references; I confess the justice of your criticism. But I am dreadfully unsystematic. It is my first large work involving much of the labour of others. I began with the intention of writing a comparatively short sketch, enlarged it, and added to it, bit by bit; remodelled the tables, the headings, and almost everything else, more than once, and got my materials into such confusion that it is a wonder it has not turned out far more crooked and confused than it is. I, no doubt, ought to have given references; but in many cases I found the information so small and scattered, and so much had to be combined and condensed from conflicting authorities, that I hardly knew how to refer to them or where to leave off. Had I referred to all authors consulted for every fact, I should have greatly increased the bulk of the book, while a large portion of the references would be valueless in a few years owing to later and better authorities. My experience of referring to references has generally been most unsatisfactory. One finds, nine times out of ten, the fact is stated, and nothing more; or a reference to some third work not at hand!

I wish I could get into the habit of giving chapter and verse for every fact and extract, but I am too lazy and generally in a hurry, having to consult books against time when in London for a day.

However, I will try and do something to mend this matter should I have to prepare another edition.

I return you Forel's letter. It does not advance the question much, neither do I think it likely that even the complete observation he thinks necessary would be of much use; because it may well be that the ova or larvae or imagos of the beetles are not carried systematically by the ants, but only occasionally owing to some exceptional circumstances. This might produce a great effect in distribution, yet be so rare as never to come under observation.

Several of your remarks in previous letters I shall carefully consider. I know that, compared with the extent of the subject, my book is in many parts crude and ill-considered; but I thought, and still think, it better to make some generalisations wherever possible, as I am not at all afraid of having to alter my views in many points of detail. I was so overwhelmed with zoological details that I never went through the Geological Society's Journal as I ought to have done, and as I mean to do before writing more on the subject.

With best wishes, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Rose Hill, Dorking. December 13, 1876.

My dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your new book on "Crossing Plants," which I have read with much interest. I hardly expected, however, that there would have been so many doubtful and exceptional cases. I fancy that the results would have come out better had you always taken weights instead of heights; and that would have obviated the objection that will, I daresay, be made, that height proves nothing, because a tall plant may be weaker, less bulky and less vigorous than a shorter one. Of course no one who knows you or who takes a general view of your results will say this, but I daresay it will be said. I am afraid this book will not do much or anything to get rid of the one great objection, that the physiological characteristic of species, the infertility of hybrids, has not yet been produced. Have you ever tried experiments with plants (if any can be found) which for several centuries have been grown under very different conditions, as for instance potatoes on the high Andes and in Ireland? If any approach to sterility occurred in mongrels between these it would be a grand step. The most curious point you have brought out seems to me the slight superiority of self-fertilisation over fertilisation with another flower of the same plant, and the most important result, that difference of constitution is the essence of the benefit of cross-fertilisation. All you now want is to find the neutral point where the benefit is at its maximum, any greater difference being prejudicial.

Hoping you may yet demonstrate this, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Rose Hill, Dorking. January 17, 1877.

My dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your valuable new edition of the "Orchids," which I see contains a great deal of new matter of the greatest interest. I am amazed at your continuous work, but I suppose, after all these years of it, it is impossible for you to remain idle. I, on the contrary, am very idle, and feel inclined to do nothing but stroll about this beautiful country, and read all kinds of miscellaneous literature.

I have asked my friend Mr. Mott to send you the last of his remarkable papers—on Haeckel. But the part I hope you will read with as much interest as I have done is that on the deposits of Carbon, and the part it has played and must be playing in geological changes. He seems to have got the idea from some German book, but it seems to me very important, and I wonder it never occurred to Sir Charges Lyell. If the calculations as to the quantity of undecomposed carbon deposited are anything approaching to correctness, the results must be important.

Hoping you are in pretty good health, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Rose Hill, Dorking. July 23, 1877.

My dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your admirable volume on "The Forms of Flowers." It would be impertinence of me to say anything in praise of it, except that I have read the chapters on "Illegitimate Offspring of Heterostyled Plants" and on "Cleistogamic Flowers" with great interest.

I am almost afraid to tell you that in going over the subject of the Colours of Animals, etc., for a small volume of essays, etc., I am preparing, I have come to conclusions directly opposed to voluntary sexual selection, and believe that I can explain (in a general way) all the phenomena of sexual ornaments and colours by laws of development aided by simple Natural Selection.

I hope you admire as I do Mr. Belt's remarkable series of papers in support of his terrific "oceanic glacier river-damming" hypothesis. In awful grandeur it beats everything "glacial" yet out, and it certainly explains a wonderful lot of hard facts. The last one, on the "Glacial Period in the Southern Hemisphere," in the Quarterly Journal of Science, is particularly fine, and I see he has just read a paper at the Geological Society. It seems to me supported by quite as much evidence as Ramsay's "Lakes"; but Ramsay, I understand, will have none of it—as yet.—Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. August 31, 1877.

My dear Wallace,—I am very much obliged to you for sending your article, which is very interesting and appears to me as clearly written as it can be. You will not be surprised that I differ altogether from you about sexual colours. That the tail of the peacock and his elaborate display of it should be due merely to the vigour, activity, and vitality of the male is to me as utterly incredible as my views are to you. Mantegazza published a few years ago in Italy a somewhat similar view. I cannot help doubting about recognition through colour; our horses, dogs, fowls, and pigeons seem to know their own species, however differently the individuals may be coloured. I wonder whether you attribute the odoriferous and sound-producing organs, when confined to the males, to their greater vigour, etc.? I could say a good deal in opposition to you, but my arguments would have no weight in your eyes, and I do not intend to write for the public anything on this or any other difficult subject. By the way, I doubt whether the term voluntary in relation to sexual selection ought to be employed: when a man is fascinated by a pretty girl it can hardly be called voluntary, and I suppose that female animals are charmed or excited in nearly the same manner by the gaudy males.

Three essays have been published lately in Germany which would interest you: one by Weismann, who shows that the coloured stripes on the caterpillars of Sphinx are beautifully protective: and birds were frightened away from their feeding-place by a caterpillar with large eye-like spots on the broad anterior segments of the body. Fritz Mueller has well discussed the first steps of mimicry with butterflies, and comes to nearly or quite the same conclusion as you, but supports it by additional arguments.

Fritz Mueller also has lately shown that the males alone of certain butterflies have odoriferous glands on their wings (distinct from those which secrete matter disgusting to birds), and where these glands are placed the scales assume a different shape, making little tufts.

Farewell: I hope that you find Dorking a pleasant place? I was staying lately at Abinger Hall, and wished to come over to see you, but driving tires me so much that my courage failed.—Yours very sincerely,

CHAS. DARWIN.

* * * * *

Madeira Villa, Madeira Road, Ventnor, Isle of Wight. September 3, 1877.

My dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your letter. Of course I did not expect my paper to have any effect on your opinions. You have looked at all the facts so long from your special point of view that it would require conclusive arguments to influence you, and these, from the complex nature of the question, are probably not to be had. We must, I think, leave the case in the hands of others, and I am in hopes that my paper may call sufficient attention to the subject to induce some of the great school of Darwinians to take the question up and work it out thoroughly. You have brought such a mass of facts to support your view, and have argued it so fully, that I hardly think it necessary for you to do more. Truth will prevail, as you as well as I wish it to do. I will only make one or two remarks. The word "voluntary" was inserted in my proofs only, in order to distinguish clearly between the two radically distinct kinds of "sexual selection." Perhaps "conscious" would be a better word, to which I think you will not object, and I will alter it when I republish. I lay no stress on the word "voluntary."

Sound- and scent-producing organs in males are surely due to "natural" or "automatic" as opposed to "conscious" selection. If there were gradations in the sounds produced, from mere noises, up to elaborate music—the case would be analogous to that of "colours" and "ornament." Being, however, comparatively simple, Natural Selection, owing to their use as a guide, seems sufficient. The louder sound, heard at a greater distance, would attract or be heard by more females, or it may attract other males and lead to combats for the females, but this would not imply choice in the sense of rejecting a male whose stridulation was a trifle less loud than another's, which is the essence of the theory as applied by you to colour and ornament. But greater general vigour would almost certainly lead to greater volume or persistence of sound, and so the same view will apply to both cases on my theory.

Thanks for the references you give me. My ignorance of German prevents me supporting my views by the mass of observations continually being made abroad, so I can only advance my own ideas for what they are worth.

I like Dorking much, but can find no house to suit me, so fear I shall have to move again.

With best wishes, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. September 5, [1877].

My dear Wallace,—"Conscious" seems to me much better than "voluntary." Conscious action, I presume, comes into play when two males fight for a female; but I do not know whether you admit that, for instance, the spur of the cock is due to sexual selection.

I am quite willing to admit that the sounds and vocal organs of some males are used only for challenging, but I doubt whether this applies to the musical notes of Hylobates or to the howling (I judge chiefly from Rengger) of the American monkeys. No account that I have seen of the stridulation of male insects shows that it is a challenge. All those who have attended to birds consider their song as a charm to the females and not as a challenge. As the males in most cases search for the females I do not see how their odoriferous organs will aid them in finding the females. But it is foolish in me to go on writing, for I believe I have said most of this in my book: anyhow, I well remember thinking over it. The "belling" of male stags, if I remember rightly, is a challenge, and so I daresay is the roaring of the lion during the breeding season.

I will just add in reference to your former letter that I fully admit that with birds the fighting of the males co-operates with their charms; and I remember quoting Bartlett that gaudy colouring in the males is almost invariably concomitant with pugnacity. But, thank Heaven, what little more I can do in science will be confined to observation on simple points. However much I may have blundered, I have done my best, and that is my constant comfort.—Most truly yours,

C. DARWIN.

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Waldron Edge, Duppas Hill, Croydon. September 14, 1878.

Dear Darwin,—An appointment is soon to be made of someone to have the superintendence of Epping Forest under the new Act, and as it is a post which of all others I should like I am trying very hard to get up interest enough to secure it.

One of the means is the enclosed memorial, which has been already signed by Sir J. Hooker and Sir J. Lubbock, and to which I feel sure you will add your name, which I expect has weight "even in the City."

In want of anything better to do I have been grinding away at a book on the Geography of Australia for Stanford for the last six months.

Hoping you are in good health, and with my best compliments to Mrs. Darwin and the rest of your family, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE

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Down, Beckenham, Kent. September 16, 1878.

My dear Wallace,—I return the paper signed, and most heartily wish that you may be successful, not only for your own sake, but for that of Natural Science, as you would then have more time for new researches.

I keep moderately well, but always feel half-dead, yet manage to work away on vegetable physiology, as I think that I should die outright if I had nothing to do.—Believe me yours very sincerely,

CH. DARWIN

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Walron Edge, Duppas Hill, Croydon. September 23, 1878.

Dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your signature and good wishes. I have some hopes of success, but am rather doubtful of the Committee of the Corporation who will have the management, for they have just decided after a great struggle in the Court of Common Council that it is to be a rotatory Committee, every member of the Council (of whom there are 200) coming on it in succession if they please. They evidently look upon it as a Committee which will have great opportunities of excursions, picnics, and dinners, at the expense of the Corporation, while the improvement of the Forest will be quite a secondary matter.

I am very glad to hear you are tolerably well. It is all I can say of myself.—Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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Down, Beckenham, Kent. January 5, 1880.

My dear Wallace,—As this note requires no sort of answer, you must allow me to express my lively admiration of your paper in the Nineteenth Century.[112] You certainly are a master in the difficult art of clear exposition. It is impossible to urge too often that the selection from a single varying individual or of a single varying organ will not suffice. You have worked in capitally Allen's admirable researches. As usual, you delight to honour me more than I deserve. When I have written about the extreme slowness of Natural Selection (in which I hope I may be wrong), I have chiefly had in my mind the effects of intercrossing. I subscribe to almost everything you say excepting the last short sentence.

And now let me add how grieved I was to hear that the City of London did not elect you for the Epping office, but I suppose it was too much to hope that such a body of men should make a good selection. I wish you could obtain some quiet post and thus have leisure for moderate scientific work. I have nothing to tell you about myself; I see few persons, for conversation fatigues me much; but I daily do some work in experiments on plants, and hope thus to continue to the end of my days.

With all good wishes, believe me yours very sincerely,

CHARLES DARWIN.

P.S.—Have you seen Mr. Farrer's article in the last Fortnightly? It reminded me of an article on bequests by you some years ago which interested and almost converted me.

* * * * *

Waldron Edge, Duppas Hill, Croydon. January 9, 1880.

My dear Darwin,—It is a great pleasure to receive a letter from you sometimes—especially when we do not differ very much. I am, of course, much pleased and gratified that you like my article. I wrote it chiefly because I thought there was something a little fresh still to say on the subject, and also because I wished to define precisely my present position, which people continually misunderstand. The main part of the article forms part of a chapter of a book I have now almost finished on my favourite subject of "Geographical Distribution." It will form a sort of supplement to my former work, and will, I trust, be more readable and popular. I go pretty fully into the laws of variation and dispersal; the exact character of specific and generic areas, and their causes; the growth, dispersal and extinction of species and groups, illustrated by maps, etc.; changes of geography and of climate as affecting dispersal, with a full discussion of the Glacial theory, adopting Croll's views (part of this has been published as a separate article in the Quarterly Review of last July, and has been highly approved by Croll and Geikie); a discussion of the theory of permanent continents and oceans, which I see you were the first to adopt, but which geologists, I am sorry to say, quite ignore. All this is preliminary. Then follows a series of chapters on the different kinds of islands, continental and oceanic, with a pretty full discussion of the characters, affinities, and origin of their fauna and flora in typical cases. Among these I am myself quite pleased with my chapters on New Zealand, as I believe I have fully explained and accounted for all the main peculiarities of the New Zealand and Australian floras. I call the book "Island Life," etc. etc., and I think it will be interesting.

Thanks for your regrets and kind wishes anent Epping. It was a disappointment, as I had good friends on the Committee and therefore had too much hope. I may just mention that I am thinking of making some application through friends for some post in the new Josiah Mason College of Science at Birmingham, as Registrar or Curator and Librarian, etc. The Trustees have advertised for Professors to begin next October. Should you happen to know any of the Trustees, or have any influential friends in Birmingham, perhaps you could help me.

I think this book will be my last, as I have pretty well said all I have to say in it, and I have never taken to experiment as you have. But I want some easy occupation for my declining years, with not too much confinement or desk-work, which I cannot stand. You see I had some reason for writing to you; but do not you trouble to write again unless you have something to communicate.

With best wishes, yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

I have not seen the Fortnightly yet, but will do so.

* * * * *

Pen-y-bryn, St. Peter's Road, Croydon. October 11, 1880.

My dear Darwin,—I hope you will have received a copy of my last book, "Island Life," as I shall be very glad of your opinion on certain points in it. The first five chapters you need not read, as they contain nothing fresh to you, but are necessary to make the work complete in itself. The next five chapters, however (VII. to X.), I think, will interest you. As I think, in Chapters VIII. and IX. I have found the true explanation of geological climates, and on this I shall be very glad of your candid opinion, as it is the very foundation-stone of the book. The rest will not contain much that is fresh to you, except the three chapters on New Zealand. Sir Joseph Hooker thinks my theory of the Australian and New Zealand floras a decided advance on anything that has been done before.

In connection with this, the chapter on the Azores should be read.

Chap. XVI. on the British Fauna may also interest you.

I mention these points merely that you may not trouble yourself to read the whole book, unless you like.

Hoping that you are well, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. November 3, 1880.

My dear Wallace,—I have now read your book,[113] and it has interested me deeply. It is quite excellent, and seems to me the best book which you have ever published; but this may be merely because I have read it last. As I went on, I made a few notes,[114] chiefly when I differed strongly from you; but God knows whether they are worth your reading. You will be disappointed with many of them; but they will show that I had the will, though I did not know the way, to do what you wanted.

I have said nothing on the infinitely many passages and views which I admired and which were new to me. My notes are badly expressed; but I thought that you would excuse my taking any pains with my style. I wish that my confounded handwriting was better.

I had a note the other day from Hooker, and I can see that he is much pleased with the Dedication.

With all good wishes, believe me yours sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

In two or three weeks you will receive a book from me; if you care to know what it is about, read the paragraph in Introduction about new terms and then the last chapter, and you will know whole contents of book.

* * * * *

Pen-y-bryn, St. Peter's Road, Croydon. November 8, 1880.

My dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your kind remarks and notes on my book. Several of the latter will be of use to me if I have to prepare a second edition, which I am not so sure of as you seem to be.

1. In your remark as to the doubtfulness of paucity of fossils being due to coldness of water, I think you overlook that I am speaking only of waters in the latitude of the Alps, in Miocene and Eocene times, when icebergs and glaciers temporarily descended into an otherwise warm sea; my theory being that there was no glacial epoch at that time, but merely a local and temporary descent of the snow-line and glaciers owing to high excentricity and winter in aphelion.

2. I cannot see the difficulty about the cessation of the glacial period. Between the Miocene and the Pleistocene periods geographical changes occurred which rendered a true glacial period possible with high excentricity. When the high excentricity passed away the glacial epoch also passed away in the Temperate zone; but it persists in the Arctic zone, where during the Miocene there were mild climates, and this is due to the persistence of the changed geographical conditions. The present Arctic climate is itself a comparatively new and abnormal state of things due to geographical modification. As to "epoch" and "period," I use them as synonyms to avoid repeating the same word.

3. Rate of deposit and geological time: there no doubt I may have gone to an extreme, but my "twenty-eight million years" may be anything under 100 millions, as I state. There is an enormous difference between mean and maximum denudation and deposition. In the case of the great faults the upheaval along a given line would itself facilitate the denudation (whether subaerial or marine) of the upheaved portion at a rate perhaps a hundred times faster than plains and plateaux. So, local subsidence might itself lead to very rapid deposition. Suppose a portion of the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi were to subside for a few thousand years, it might receive the greater part of the sediment from the whole Mississippi valley, and thus form strata at a very rapid rate.

4. You quote the Pampas thistles, etc., against my statement of the importance of preoccupation. But I am referring especially to St. Helena, and to plants naturally introduced from the adjacent continents. Surely, if a certain number of African plants reached the island and became modified into a complete adaptation to its climatic conditions, they would hardly be expelled by other African plants arriving subsequently. They might be so conceivably, but it does not seem probable. The cases of the Pampas, New Zealand, Tahiti, etc., are very different, where highly developed aggressive plants have been artificially introduced. Under nature it is these very aggressive species that would first reach any island in their vicinity, and, being adapted to the island and colonising it thoroughly, would then hold their own against other plants from the same country, mostly less aggressive in character. I have not explained this so fully as I should have done in the book. Your criticism is therefore useful.

My Chap. XXIII. is no doubt very speculative, and I cannot wonder at your hesitating at accepting my views. To me, however, your theory of hosts of existing species migrating over the tropical lowlands from the North Temperate to the South Temperate zone appears more speculative and more improbable. For, where could the rich lowland equatorial flora have existed during a period of general refrigeration sufficient for this? and what became of the wonderfully rich Cape flora which, if the temperature of Tropical Africa had been so recently lowered, would certainly have spread northwards and on the return of the heat could hardly have been driven back into the sharply defined and very restricted area in which it now exists?

As to the migration of plants from mountain to mountain not being so probable as to remote islands, I think that is fully counterbalanced by two considerations:

(a) The area and abundance of the mountain stations along such a range as the Andes are immensely greater than those of the islands in the North Atlantic, for example.

(b) The temporary occupation of mountain stations by migrating plants (which I think I have shown to be probable) renders time a much more important element in increasing the number and variety of the plants so dispersed than in the case of islands, where the flora soon acquires a fixed and endemic character, and where the number of species is necessarily limited.

No doubt, direct evidence of seeds being carried great distances through the air is wanted, but, I am afraid, can hardly be obtained. Yet I feel the greatest confidence that they are so carried. Take for instance the two peculiar orchids of the Azores (Habinaria species): what other mode of transit is conceivable? The whole subject is one of great difficulty, but I hope my chapter may call attention to a hitherto neglected factor in the distribution of plants.

Your references to the Mauritius literature are very interesting, and will be useful to me; and again thanking you for your valuable remarks, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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Pen-y-bryn, St. Peter's Road, Croydon. November 21, 1880.

My dear Darwin,—Many thanks for your new book containing your wonderful series of experiments and observations on the movements of plants. I have read the introduction and conclusion, which shows me the importance of the research as indicating the common basis of the infinitely varied habits and mode of growth of plants. The whole subject becomes thus much simplified, though the nature of the basic vitality which leads to such wonderful results remains as mysterious as ever.—Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Pen-y-bryn, St. Peter's Road, Croydon. January 1, 1881.

My dear Darwin,—I have been intending to write to you for some weeks to call your attention to what seems to me a striking confirmation (or at all events a support) of my views of the land migration of plants from mountain to mountain. In Nature of Dec. 9th, p. 126, Mr. Baker, of Kew, describes a number of the alpine plants of Madagascar as being identical species with some found on the mountains of Abyssinia, the Cameroons, and other African mountains. Now, if there is one thing more clear than another it is that Madagascar has been separated from Africa since the Miocene (probably the early Miocene) epoch. These plants must therefore have reached the island either since then, in which case they certainly must have passed through the air for long distances, or at the time of the union. But the Miocene and Eocene periods were certainly warm, and these alpine plants could hardly have migrated over tropical forest lands, while it is very improbable that if they had been isolated at so remote a period, exposed to such distinct climatal and organic environments as in Madagascar and Abyssinia, they would have in both places retained their specific characters unchanged. The presumption is, therefore, that they are comparatively recent immigrants, and if so must have passed across the sea from mountain to mountain, for the richness and speciality of the Madagascar forest vegetation render it certain that no recent glacial epoch has seriously affected that island.

Hoping that you are in good health, and wishing you the compliments of the season, I remain yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. January 2, 1881.

My dear Wallace,—The case which you give is a very striking one, and I had overlooked it in Nature.[115] But I remain as great a heretic as ever. Any supposition seems to me more probable than that the seeds of plants should have been blown from the mountains of Abyssinia or other central mountains of Africa to the mountains of Madagascar. It seems to me almost infinitely more probable that Madagascar extended far to the south during the Glacial period, and that the southern hemisphere was, according to Croll, then more temperate; and that the whole of Africa was then peopled with some temperate forms, which crossed chiefly by agency of birds and sea-currents; and some few by the wind from the shores of Africa to Madagascar, subsequently ascending to the mountains.

How lamentable it is that two men should take such widely different views, with the same facts before them; but this seems to be almost regularly our case, and much do I regret it.

I am fairly well, but always feel half dead with fatigue. I heard but an indifferent account of your health some time ago, but trust that you are now somewhat stronger.—Believe me, my dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. January 7, 1881.

My dear Wallace,—You know from Miss Buckley that, with her assistance, I drew up a memorial to Mr. Gladstone with respect to your services to science. The memorial was corrected by Huxley, who has aided me in every possible way. It was signed by twelve good men, and you would have been gratified if you had seen how strongly they expressed themselves on your claims.

The Duke of Argyll, to whom I sent the memorial, wrote a private note to Mr. Gladstone. The memorial was sent in only on January 5th, and I have just received a note in Mr. Gladstone's own handwriting, in which he says: "I lose no time in apprising you that although the Fund is moderate and at present poor, I shall recommend Mr. Wallace for a pension of L200 a year." I will keep this note carefully, as, if the present Government were to go out, I do not doubt that it would be binding on the next Government.

I hope that it will give you some satisfaction to see that not only every scientific man to whom I applied, but that also our Government appreciated your lifelong scientific labour.—Believe me, my dear Wallace, yours sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

I should expect that there will be some delay before you receive an official announcement.

* * * * *

Pen-y-bryn, St. Peter's Road, Croydon. January 8, 1881.

My dear Darwin,—I need not say how very grateful I am to you for your constant kindness, and especially for the trouble you have taken in recommending me to Mr. Gladstone. It is also, of course, very gratifying to hear that so many eminent men have so good an opinion of the little scientific work I have done, for I myself feel it to be very little in comparison with that of many others.

The amount you say Mr. Gladstone proposes to recommend is considerably more than I expected would be given, and it will relieve me from a great deal of the anxieties under which I have laboured for several years. To-day is my fifty-eighth birthday, and it is a happy omen that your letter should have arrived this morning.

I presume after I receive the official communication will be the proper time to thank the persons who have signed the memorial in my favour. I do not know whether it is the proper etiquette to write a private letter of thanks to Mr. Gladstone, or only a general official one. Whenever I hear anything from the Government I will let you know.

Again thanking you for your kindness, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. January 10, 1881.

My dear Wallace,—I am heartily glad that you are pleased about the memorial.

I do not feel that my opinion is worth much on the point which you mention. A relation who is in a Government office and whose judgment, I think, may be fully trusted, felt sure that if you received an official announcement without any private note, it ought to be answered officially, but if the case were mine, I would express whatever I thought and felt in an official document. His reason was that Gladstone gives or recommends the pension on public grounds alone.

If the case were mine I would not write to signers of the memorial, because I believe that they acted like so many jurymen in a claim against the Government. Nevertheless, if I met any of them or was writing to them on any other subject, I should take the opportunity of expressing my feelings. I think you might with propriety write to Huxley, as he entered so heartily into the scheme and aided in the most important manner in many ways.

Sir J. Lubbock called here yesterday and Mr. F. Balfour came here with one of my sons, and it would have pleased you to see how unfeignedly delighted they were at my news of the success of the memorial.

I wrote also to tell the Duke of Argyll of the success, and he in answer expressed very sincere pleasure.—My dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

* * * * *

Pen-y-bryn, St. Peter's Road, Croydon. January 29, 1881.

My dear Darwin,—Yours just received was very welcome, and the delay in its reaching me is of no importance whatever, as, having seen the announcement of the Queen's approval of the pension, of course I felt it was safe. The antedating of the first payment is a very liberal and thoughtful act; but I do not think it is any way exceptional as regards myself. I am informed it is the custom because, as no payment is made after the death of the person, if the first payment were delayed the proposed recipient might die before the half-year (or quarter-day) and thus receive nothing at all.

I suppose you sent the right address to Mr. Seymour. I have not yet heard from him, but I daresay I shall during the next week.

As I am assured both by Miss Buckley and by Prof. Huxley that it is to you that I owe in the first place this great kindness, and that you have also taken an immense amount of trouble to bring it to so successful issue, I must again return you my best thanks, and assure you that there is no one living to whose kindness in such a matter I could feel myself indebted with so much pleasure and satisfaction.—Believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

Down, Beckenham, Kent. July 9.

My dear Wallace,—Dr. G. Krefft has sent me the enclosed from Sydney. A nurseryman saw a caterpillar feeding on a plant and covered the whole up, but, when he searched for the cocoon [pupa], was long before he could find it, so good was its imitation, in colour and form, of the leaf to which it was attached.

I hope that the world goes well with you. Do not trouble yourself by acknowledging this.—Ever yours,

CH. DARWIN.

Accompanying this letter, which has been published in "Darwin and Modern Science" (1909), was a photograph of the chrysalis (Papilio sarpedon choredon) attached to a leaf of its food-plant. Many butterfly pupae are known to have the power of individual adjustment to the colours of the particular food-plant or other normal environment; and it is probable that the Australian Papilio referred to by Darwin possesses this power.

* * * * *

Nutwood Cottage, Frith Hill, Godalming, July 9, 1881.

My dear Darwin,—I am just doing, what I have rarely if ever done before—reading a book through a second time immediately after the first perusal. I do not think I have ever been so attracted by a book, with perhaps the exception of your "Origin of Species" and Spencer's "First Principles" and "Social Statics." I wish therefore to call your attention to it, in case you care about books on social and political subjects, but here there is also an elaborate discussion of Malthus's "Principles of Population," to which both you and I have acknowledged ourselves indebted. The present writer, Mr. George, while admitting the main principle as self-evident and as actually operating in the case of animals and plants, denies that it ever has operated or can operate in the case of man, still less that it has any bearing whatever on the vast social and political questions which have been supported by a reference to it. He illustrates and supports his views with a wealth of illustrative facts and a cogency of argument which I have rarely seen equalled, while his style is equal to that of Buckle, and thus his book is delightful reading. The title of the book is "Progress and Poverty." It has gone through six editions in America, and is now published in England by Kegan Paul. It is devoted mainly to a brilliant discussion and refutation of some of the most widely accepted maxims of political economy, such as the relation of wages and capital, the nature of rent and interest, the laws of distribution, etc., but all treated as parts of the main problem as stated in the title-page, "An Enquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth." It is the most startling novel and original book of the last twenty years, and if I mistake not will in the future rank as making an advance in political and social science equal to that made by Adam Smith a century ago.