To A. R. Wallace   22 January [1869]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Jan 22nd.

My dear Wallace

Your intended dedication pleases me much & I look at it as a great honour & this is nothing more than the truth.2 I am glad to hear for Lyell’s sake & on general grounds that you are going to write in the Quarterly.3 Some little time ago I was actually wishing that you wrote in the Quarterly, as I knew that you occasionally contributed to periodicals, & I thought that your articles would thus be more widely read.

Thank you for telling me about the Guardian which I will borrow from Lyell.4 I did note the article in the Q. Journal of Science & put it aside to read again with the articles in Frazer & the Spectator.5

I have been interrupted in my regular work in preparing a new edit of the Origin, which has cost me much labour & which I hope I have considerably improved in two or three important points.6 I always thought individual differences more important than single variations, but now I have come to the conclusion that they are of paramount importance, & in this I believe I agree with you. Fleming Jenkyn’s arguments have convinced me.7

I heartily congratulate you on your new book being so nearly finished be

Believe me, | My dear Wallace | yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS(A)

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from A. R. Wallace, 20 January 1869.
2
CD refers to the dedication of The Malay Archipelago (Wallace 1869a). See letter from A. R. Wallace, 20 January 1869 and n. 1.
5
See letter from A. R. Wallace, 20 January 1869 and nn. 3 and 4. CD also alludes to an article in the Spectator (Anon. 1868), written in response to the article in Fraser’s ([Greg] 1868).
6
CD had started work on the fifth edition of Origin on 26 December 1868 (Correspondence vol. 16, Appendix II). He finished corrections on 10 February 1869 (see ‘Journal’, Appendix II).
7
The North British Review had published an unsigned article, with several criticisms of CD’s theory, by Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin in June 1867 ([Jenkin] 1867). Wallace responded to these criticisms in his article ‘Creation by law’ in the Quarterly Journal of Science (Wallace 1867; see Correspondence vol. 15). For CD’s discussion of ‘individual differences’ and his response to Jenkin’s argument on how rarely variations in a single individual could be perpetuated, see Origin 5th ed., pp. 104–5.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

3.2 improved] interl in CD’s hand

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6567,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6567