Dear Darwin
I was very sorry to hear you had been so unwell again, and hope you will not exert yourself to write me such long letters.2
Darwinianism was in the ascendant at Norwich; (I hope you do not dislike the word, for we really must use it,—) and I think it rather disgusted some of the parsons, joined with the amount of advice they received from Hooker & Huxley.3 The worst of it is, that there are no opponents left who know any thing of Nat. Hist. so that there are none of the good discussions we used to have.
G. H. Lewes seems to me to be making a great mistake in the “Fortnightly,” advocating many distinct origins for different groups,—and even if I understand him distinct origins for some allied groups, just as the Anthropologists do who make the red man descend fr the Orang, the black man from the Chimpanzee,—or rather the Malay & Orang one ancestor, the Negro & Chimpanzee another.4
Vogt told me that the Germans are all becoming converted by your last book.5
I am certainly surprised that you should find so much evidence against protection having checked the acquirement of bright colour in females; but I console myself by presumptuously hoping that I can explain your facts, unless they are derived from the very groups on which I chiefly rest,—birds & insects.6 There is nothing necessarily requiring protection in females. It is a matter of habits. There are groups in which both sexes require protection in an exactly equal degree, & others (I think) in which the male requires most protection; & I feel the greatest confidence that these will ultimately support my view, although I do not yet know the facts they may afford.
Hoping you are in better health
Believe me Dear Darwin | yours faithfully | Alfred R Wallace
Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6334,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on