WCP3165

[1]¹

Heronswood,

Dromana

Near Melbourne

Victoria

April 17th 1898

Dear Sir,

I have asked my publishers Mssrs Longmans Green and co. to send you a copy of a book of mine which they have just published. It is subtitled "The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct".

As I have been a zealous reader of your great work and a great admirer of its noble qualities, I feel that I am deeply indebted to you, and am therefore a little ashamed that my ac[2]knowledgement is rather a form of self-gratification than a simple expression of gratitude.

But I have felt a strong impulse that one of the six copies thus to be sent to writers whose influence has done much to shape my mind, should be forwarded to you because my book is intended to make some sort of effort to remove that haitus or hitch in the story of evolution which you have always perceived, but which, as it seems to me, has no real existence.

I should dearly like to know whether this book makes any impression on your views in that respect, but must not ask of you to let me know, because I well understand, you must [3] be very busy and must receive many other such books and letters from distant egoists like myself.

But I shall flatter myself in imagining that you have turned over the leaves of my book volumes, and though it is unlikely that you will find anything very new therein; I shall be gratified if I have been able to occupy more or less pleasantly a few odd half hours of your leisure.

Yours sincerely | Alexander Sutherland² [signature]