WCP1586

[1]

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Waldron Edge, Duppas Hill, Croydon.

May 9th. 1879

My dear Sir²

Please accept my thanks for the copy of "Evolution Old & New"³ and of "Life & Habitat"⁴ you were so good as to send me.

I have just finished reading the former with mixed feelings of pleasure & regret. I am glad that a corrected account of the views of Buffon, D^r. Darwin⁵ & Lamarck and especially of Mr. Patrick Matthew,⁶ should be given to the world; but I am sorry that you should have, as I think, so completely failed in a just estimation of the value of their work as compared with that of D^rMr. Charles Darwin;⁷ — because it will necessarily predjudice [sic] naturalists against you, & will cause "Life & Habitat" — to be neglected, & this I should greatly regret.

To my mind your quotations from Mr. [2] Patrick Matthew are the most remarkable things in your whole book, because he appears to have completely anticipated the main ideas both of the "Origin of Species" & of "Life & Habitat".

I should have to write a long article to criticise your book (which perhaps I may do). In your admiration of Lamarck you do not seem to observe that his views are all pure conjecture utterly unsupported by a single fact. Where has it been proved that in any one case desires have caused variation? It is pure theory with no fact to support it. And if they might, in a long course of generations produce some effect it can be demonstrated that in the same time "nat. selection" or "survival of the fittest" would produce so much greater an effect, as to overpower them unless the two worked together.

I am sorry to see also much that seems [3] to me mere verbal quibbles. For instance at p. 3858. (last par.) your turn "spontaneous variability" into "unknown causes", & then of course make nonsense of Mr. Darwin’s words. In this way I will undertake to make nonsense of any argument. "Spontaneous variability", is a fact,— as explained, for example, in my Review⁸ of Mr. Murphy’s book⁹ (along with yours) in "Nature". It is an absolutely universal fact in the organic world, (& for all I know in the ino[r]ganic too), and is probably a fundamental fact, due to the impossibility of any two organisms ever having been subjected to exactly identical conditions, & the extreme complexity of organisms & their environment. This normal variability wants no other explanation. Its absence is inconceivable, because it would imply that diversity of conditions produced identity of results. The wishes, or actions of individuals may be one of the causes of variability, but only one out of myriads. [4] Now to say that such an universal fact as this cannot be taken as a basis of reasoning because the exact causes ^{of it} are unknown is utterly illogical. The cause, of gravitation, of electricity of heat, of all the forces of nature — are unknown. Can we not then reason on them, & explain other phenomenon by them, without having the words "unknown causes" substituted & thus making nonsense?

I am no blind admirer of Mr. Darwin, as my works show, — but I must say your criticism of him in your present work completely fails to reach him.

The mere fact that Lamarck’s views th[o]ugh well put before the world for many years by Sir C. Lyell,¹⁰ converted no one, while Darwin has converted, all the best naturalists in Europe, is a pretty good proof that the one theory is more complete than the other. —

Believe me | yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]