WCP4024

Letter (WCP4024.3967)

[1]

Hurstpierpoint

Febr. 19th. 1868

Dear Newton

I have written to Gurney1 to say I shall be glad to meet him & compare the birds at Hanover Sq[uare]. on the 6th or 7th of March. As my "Ibis"2 & copies of papers are I suppose sent to 9 St Marks Crescent, I will keep Gurney’s letter3 till I come to town, in order to make use of his other notes.

I think many people will be disappointed with Darwin’s book4; as the first vol. is especially heavy [2] with details,— but still there are hosts of valuable & interesting facts. I am now in the 2nd. vol. which is much more interesting and novel, and the hypothesis of "Pangenesis" is grand & suggestive, & to me extremely satisfying. Darwin here has gone a step beyond Spencer5, & has offered a practical working solution of a problem infinitely more difficult & unintelligible than the mere "origin of species". We must remember that this work [3] is really only written to establish the reality of the foundation of facts on which the "Origin"6 was written. It is to prove that Darwin did not merely speculate, but reasoned;— and that in such a work we should get so much that is new and curious, and such a grand and totally new hypothesis as "Pangenesis", which explains such a vast mass of the most curious and extraordinary phenomena of reproduction,— is I think more than we had reason to expect.

What do you think of the miserable [4]7 weak, ignorant & sneering article in the Athenaeum?8 Who can be the writer, who has the impudence to declare (after pretending to read the book) that — "specific characters never vary"!!! and that Darwin "has never told us anything, and never will be able to tell us anything of the origin of species",— but only of the variations of pigeons! &c. &c. The "Athenaeum" ought to be cut by every naturalist for admitting such an article,— but there is no substitute for it.

Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Alfred Newton Esq.

1
Gurney, John Henry (1819-1890). British banker, politician and ornithologist.
2
Ibis, the journal of the British Ornithologists' Union was founded in 1859 by Philip Lutley Sclater. The journal was edited by Sclater from 1859-64. In 1865 Alfred Newton became the journal editor until 1870. ARW probably refers to the Ibis issue published in January 1868 which contained his essay 'On Raptorial Birds of the Malay Archipelago'. (Hale, W. G. 2016. Sacred Ibis: The Ornithology of Canon Henry Baker Tristram. Durham: Sacristy Press. pp.40-48).
3
Gurney's letter is presumed lost.
4
Darwin, C. 1868. The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, 2 vols. London, UK: John Murray
5
Spencer, Herbert (1820-1903). British philosopher, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist.
6
Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London, UK: John Murray.
7
An annotation is written in Newton's hand at the upper left-hand corner of page 4. "A. R. Wallace. Feb. 14/20/[18]168. | Answered Feb. 21/[18]68."
8
Anon. 1868. [Review of] variation of plants and animals under domestication. Athenaeum. 15 Feb 1868: 243-244.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP4024.3967)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Bevan, Deniz [2012-08-13] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Beros, Matt [2020-06-10]

Please cite as “WCP4024,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 12 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4024