WCP2253

[1]

Paddington nr Warrington¹

June 1870.

My dear friend

You will think me a wayward chiel [sic] when you hear my confession that to day [sic] feeling very squeamish mentally I happened to bethink myself of Wallace's book,² and ventured to open it with great misgivings about my coming into rapport with one whom you introduced to me as the champion of Darwinian philosophy — With fear and trembling I paused on the threshold of the book just to see what I should have to grapple with — The "Contents" or Syllabus of the work therefore engaged such attention as I could command and after examining or rather glancing at the contents of the first seven chapters without much emotion of either attractive or repulsive character, skipped over to Chapter X, the last of the series, not greatly excited at either pole of the intellect, until I came to "Matter is Force — all force is probably will force" — [1 illeg. word crossed through] Oho! said I now we come to something of interest and connected with my friend Rev^d. T. P. Kirkman's³ rather unskillfully written pamphlet⁴ on this very subject — we shall have everything in shape and properly argued by the clear minded Wallace no doubt —

My inquisitiveness however did not prevent my beginning at the beginning of the chapter, and I now write before I have come to the question of force and matter — I am delighted and most specially surprised to discover that tis [sic] Wallace whom I least expected to agree with me, confirms [2] what I said to you in a previous letter about Darwin's theory being one truth in conjunction with another (and perhaps higher) truth; not the only truth in reference to created entities —

Well, if Wallace has nothing more contrarient [sic] than the contents of this chapter are likely to present to me, I shall not fear to read the rest of his book despondent of coming into complete harmony with him, neither need you fear that I shall remain sceptical on those points where already I am willing to receive them in hypothesis for all really useful or practical purposes in reference to clarification — I have as yet to assure myself that Chapter X is not a delusive phantasmal addition, written or dreamed by myself and which I shall soon find on waking to be unreal & imaginary —

As it is all my apprehensions of a soporific, such as I found Darwin's book⁵ to be are dispelled — The book is a very readable one at any rate, and no one needs to go to sleep over it — Only one paragraph has raised my disputative faculty, and though on a second perusal I am unable to fully concur with him, still I think he may be right and myself wrong⁶ —I allude to his regarding as erroneous the view that feelings of abstract justice and benevolence could never have been acquired by a solitary individual, because they are incompatible with the law of the strongest, which is the essence of natural selection, but that they must have sprung up in the society to which he belongs, where the exercise of justice and benevolence exs towards members of the same tribe would certainly tend to strengthen that tribe, and give [3] it a superiority over another in which the right of the strongest prevailed —

I put it in rather different language, & not a strict quotation from him, just to ventilate the subject & familiarise it to my mind — It seems to me at present that some one individual of the tribe (unless we suppose a whole tribe thus suddenly elevated by an intelligent creator) must have stood out as a man wondered at and self-sacrificing, a mere fool who did not care about taking care of the "greatest number" number one — just as we see even in the present day, where good men are still rather scarce and justice and benevolence far from being conspicuously manifested by people who regard every thing as expedient that is not positively unlawful, if it only squares with their acquisitive and selfish views⁷—

Many many thanks for the loan of this book — even the little I have read would demand a most grateful return, and I would not have missed it for a good deal — I now anticipate an intellectual feast over the whole of the book, & shall carry it with me joyfully and hopefully to Southport —

I am glad to learn that Terrington Carr⁸ is not entirely obsolete and abolished — I do hope to see it again with my own eyes, & to gather the Sphagnum⁹ —

If there be muscular Christianity, why not muscological Christianity? It is a more peaceful phase of humanity one would think — "on earth peace, and good will to man"—

Ever affectionately, truly yours | W. Wilson [signature]

Rich^d. Spruce Ph.D.

[4]⁹