WCP1483

[1]¹

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Dorset

Wimborne.²

June 22nd. 1909

To Sir W.T. Thistelton-Dyer³)

Dear Sir William

On Saturday, to my great pleasure, I received a copy of the Darwin Commemoration Volume.⁴ I at once began reading your most excellent paper on the Geog[raphical]. Distribution of Plants. It is intensely interesting to me, both because it so clearly brings out Darwin's views and so judiciously expounds his arguments — even when you intimate a difference of opinion — but, especially because you bring out so clearly and strongly his views on the general permanence of continents & oceans, which today, as much as ever, wants insisting [1 word deleted] upon. I may just mention here that none of the people who still insist on former continents where now are deep oceans, have ever dealt with the almost physical impossibility of such a change having occurred without breaking the continuity of terrestrial life; owing to the mean depth of the ocean being at least 6 times the mean height of the land, and its area nearly three times, so that the whole mass of the land of the existing continents, would be required to build up even one small continent in the depths of the Atlantic or Pacific! I have demonstrated this, with a diagram, in my "Darwinism", (chap.XII)⁵ and it has never been either refuted or noticed, but passed by as if it did not exist! Your whole discussion of Dispersal and Distribution is also admirable, and I was much interested with your quotation from Guppy,⁶ whose book⁷ I have not seen, but must read.

Most valuable to me also are your numerous references to Darwin's l letters, so that the article serves as a compendious index to the 5 volumes, as regards this subject.

Especially admirable is the way in which you have always kept Darwin before us as the centre of the whole discussion, while at the same time fairly stating the, sometimes adverse, views of those who differ from him on certain points.

Confidential!

After reading your delightful and instructive chapter, I naturally went on to Dr.Hans Gadow's⁸ on "Animals".⁹

[2]¹⁰

To Sir W.T. Thistelton-Dyer. June 22nd.1909 )

But, alas! "What a falling off is here, Horatio".¹¹ — Almost every good quality of your paper is here wanting. Through a large part of it D Darwin see ms[sic] forgotten, and when he is referred to his views are either misstated or misunderstood. At p.322 the writer intimates, that Darwin was obliged to assume the origin of each species from a "single pair", and on p.325 he states that Darwin (and Lyell¹²) held this view, and that it was Andrew Murray¹³ who was the author of the more correct view that large groups of individuals were modified together! I really wonder that the Editor permitted such gross misstatements of Darwin's views, and of views which are absolutely essential to Natural Selection, to be inserted in such a volume.

Again, the writer always quotes the first Ed[ition]. of the Origin of Species, and as I have not kept that but have only the 4th. and last, I cannot check his references. Much of the argument with which the chapter is full is vague or unintelligible -as on p.332 — 1.6.-"Further,&c."

As a whole it it seems to me a very clumsy performance, which reads very like a criticism and be-littling of Darwin,- as an antidote to which is the unmeaning bit of laudation in the last 2 lines!¹⁴

One would think Dr.Gadow was an anti-Darwinian, and why he was invited to contribute to this important volume I cannot quite understand.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace

[1]¹

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Dorset

Wimborne.²

June 22nd. 1909

To Sir W.T.Thistelton-Dyer³)

Dear Sir William

On Saturday, to my great pleasure, I received a copy of the Darwin Commemoration Volume.⁴ I at once began reading your most excellent paper on the Geog[raphical]. Distribution of Plants. It is intensely interesting to me, both because it so clearly brings out Darwin's views and so judiciously expounds his arguments — even when you intimate a difference of opinion — but, especially because you bring out so clearly and strongly his views on the general permanence of continents & oceans, which today, as much as ever, wants insisting [1 word deleted] upon. I may just mention here that none of the people who still insist on former continents where now are deep oceans, have ever dealt with the almost physical impossibility of such a change having occurred without breaking the continuity of terrestrial life; owing to the mean depth of the ocean being at least 6 times the mean height of the land, and its area nearly three times, so that the whole mass of the land of the existing continents, would be required to build up even one small continent in the depths of the Atlantic or Pacific! I have demonstrated this, with a diagram, in my "Darwinism", (chap.XII)⁵ and it has never been either refuted or noticed, but passed by as if it did not exist! Your whole discussion of Dispersal and Distribution is also admirable, and I was much interested with your quotation from Guppy,⁶ whose book⁷ I have not seen, but must read.

Most valuable to me also are your numerous references to Darwin's l letters, so that the article serves as a compendious index to the 5 volumes, as regards this subject.

Especially admirable is the way in which you have always kept Darwin before us as the centre of the whole discussion, while at the same time fairly stating the, sometimes adverse, views of those who differ from him on certain points.

Confidential!

After reading your delightful and instructive chapter, I naturally went on to Dr.Hans Gadow's⁸ on "Animals".⁹

[2]¹⁰

To Sir W.T. Thistelton-Dyer. June 22nd.1909 )

But, alas! "What a falling off is here, Horatio".¹¹ — Almost every good quality of your paper is here wanting. Through a large part of it D Darwin see ms[sic] forgotten, and when he is referred to his views are either misstated or misunderstood. At p.322 the writer intimates, that Darwin was obliged to assume the origin of each species from a "single pair", and on p.325 he states that Darwin (and Lyell¹²) held this view, and that it was Andrew Murray¹³ who was the author of the more correct view that large groups of individuals were modified together! I really wonder that the Editor permitted such gross misstatements of Darwin's views, and of views which are absolutely essential to Natural Selection, to be inserted in such a volume.

Again, the writer always quotes the first Ed[ition]. of the Origin of Species, and as I have not kept that but have only the 4th. and last, I cannot check his references. Much of the argument with which the chapter is full is vague or unintelligible -as on p.332 — 1.6.-"Further,&c."

As a whole it it seems to me a very clumsy performance, which reads very like a criticism and be-littling of Darwin,- as an antidote to which is the unmeaning bit of laudation in the last 2 lines!¹⁴

One would think Dr.Gadow was an anti-Darwinian, and why he was invited to contribute to this important volume I cannot quite understand.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

[1] [p. 90]

TO SIR W. T. THISELTON-DYER

Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. June 22, 1909.

Dear Sir William, — On Saturday, to my great pleasure, I received a copy of the Darwin Commemoration volume. I at once began reading your most excellent paper on the Geographical Distribution of Plants. It is intensely interesting to me, both because it so clearly brings out Darwin's views and so judiciously expounds his arguments — even when you intimate a difference of opinion — but especially because you bring out so clearly and strongly his views on the general permanence of continents and oceans, which to-day, as much as ever, wants insisting upon. I may just mention here that none of the people who still insist on former continents where now are deep oceans have ever dealt with the almost physical impossibility of such a change having occurred without breaking the continuity of terrestrial life, owing to the mean depth of the ocean being at least six times the mean height of the land, and its area nearly three times, so that the whole mass of the land of the existing continents would be required to build up even one small continent in the depths of the Atlantic or Pacific! I have demonstrated this, with a diagram, in my " Darwinism" (Chap. XII.), and it has never been either refuted or noticed, but passed by as if it did not exist! Your whole discussion of Dispersal and Distribution is also admirable, and I was much interested with your quotations from Guppy, whose book I have not seen, but must read.

Most valuable to me also are your numerous references to Darwin's letters, so that the article serves as a [2] compendious index to the five volumes, as regards this subject.

Especially admirable is the way in which you have always kept Darwin before us as the centre of the whole discussion, while at the same time fairly stating the some- times adverse views of those who differ from him on certain points.... —Yours very truly, | ALFRED R. WALLACE.