WCP4399

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Feb[ruar]^y.. 19^th. 1895

My dear Poulton

I have read your paper on "Theories of Evolution" with great pleasure. It is very clear & very forcible, and I should think must have opened the eyes of some of your hearers. Your cases against Lamarckism were very strong, &, I think, quite conclusive. There is one, however, which seems to me weak — that about the claws of lobsters & the tails of lizards moving & acting when detached from the body. It may be argued, fairly, that this is only an incidental result of the extreme muscular irritability [2] and contractility of the organs, which might ^have been caused on the Lamarckian as well as on the Darwinian hypothoses’. The running of a fowl whe after its head is chopped off is an example ^{of the same kind of thing} & this is certainly not useful. ^The detachment ^{itself of claw & tail is no doubt useful & adaptive.1}

When discussing the objection as to failures [not?] being found fossil, there are two additional arguments to those you adduce. (1) Every failure has been, first, a success, or it could not have come into existence (as a species), — and (2) the hosts of huge ^{and very specialized} animals everywhere recently extinct, are clearly failures. They were successes so long as the struggle [3] was with animal competitors only, physical conditions being highly favourable; — but, when physical conditions became adverse, as by drought, cold, &tc.. they failed & became extinct. The entrance of new enemies from another area might equally render them failures.

As to your question about myself and Darwin. I had met him once ^only for a few minutes at the Brit[ish] Mus[eum] before I went to the East. The quotation you refer to is from a Note to the new Ed[itor] of Natural Selection & Trop[ical] Nature, p.20; and in 1887, I sent a similar statement [4]^{2 in a letter} to A[lfred?]. Newton, which is given at p.189 of the one-volume "Life of Charles Darwin" (by F[rancis] Darwin)[.] This ^letter I had totally forgotten when I wrote the Note for Nat[ural] Select[ion] ^{in 1891,} & there is some little discrepancy but of no importance. All your questions are answered in this letter to ^{A[lfred?]. Newton}.

I will send you another copy of my Art[icle] on Bateson & Galton as soon as I get the copies of the 2^nd part.

I should like to have heard the discussion at Boston — but I have long found that they really have nothing to say but to "beg the question".

Believe me| Yours very truly| Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Prof. E.B. Poulton.