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From A. R. Wallace   9 July 1881

Nutwood Cottage, Frith Hill, | Godalming.

July 9th. 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 exceptions of your Origin of Species and Spencer’s “First Principles” and Social Statics”.1 I wish therefore to call your attention to it, in case you care about books on Social & Political subjects, but here there is also an elaborate discussion of Malthus’ Principals of Population to which both you and I have acknowledged ourselves indebted.2 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 & thus his book is delightful reading.

The title of the book is—“Progress and Poverty”. It has gone through 6 editions in America and is now published in England by Kegan Paul.3 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 Rents and Interest—the Laws of Distribution &c. but all treated as parts of the main problem as stated in the titlepage—“An Enquiry into the cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of want with increase of Wealth.” It is the most startlingly novel and original book of the last 20 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.4

I am here settled in my little cottage engaged in the occupation I most enjoy—making a garden, and admiring the infinite variety and beauty of vegetable life.5 I am out of doors all day & hardly read any thing. As the long evenings come on I shall get on with my book on the “Land Question”, in which I have found a powerful ally in Mr. George.6

Hoping you are well | Believe me, | Yours most faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace

C Darwin Esq

1
The first edition of Origin was published in 1859, the year following Wallace and CD’s simultaneously published papers on evolution by natural selection (C. Darwin and Wallace 1858). Social statics (Spencer 1851) was Herbert Spencer’s first book, and predicted the withering away of the state as humans adapted to life in society. In the context of this letter, Wallace was probably most interested in chapter 9, ‘The right to the use of the earth’ (see Raby 2001, p. 228). First principles (Spencer 1860–2) argued for the existence of a universal progress towards greater complexity and heterogeneity.
2
Wallace described his discovery of Thomas Robert Malthus’s An essay on the principle of population (Malthus 1798) in his autobiography (Wallace 1905, 1: 123, 190). He cited Malthus in his Malay archipelago (Wallace 1869, 1: 141). CD cited Malthus in C. Darwin and Wallace 1858, pp. 47, 48, and in Origin, pp. 5, 63. See George 1881, pp. 81–91.
3
Henry George’s Progress and poverty was first published in New York in 1879 (George 1879). The first British edition was published in 1881 (George 1881). Henry Thomas Buckle was a historian, most famous for his History of civilisation in England (Buckle 1857–61).
4
Adam Smith published his most famous work, An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, in 1776 (A. Smith 1776).
5
Wallace had moved to Nutwood Cottage, which he had had built for him, earlier in 1881 (Wallace 1905, 2: 103).
6
Wallace had published a paper on land reform in the Contemporary Review in 1880 (Wallace 1880b), as result of which the Land Nationalization Society was formed, with Wallace as president (Wallace 1905, 2: 27). Wallace met George in 1881 when George was in Britain (Raby 2001, p. 229). Wallace published his book Land nationalisation in 1882 (Wallace 1882). In it he cited George's work but noted that he only became aware of it after most of his study was already written (ibid., p. 9).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13238,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13238