WCP4431

[1]

Broadstone, Wimborne

July 27^th. 1907

My dear Poulton

Thanks for your very interesting letter. I am glad to hear you have a new book on "Evolution" nearly ready & that in it you will do something to expose the fallacies of the "Mutationists" & "Mendelians", who pose before the world as having got all wisdom, before which we poor Darwinians must hide our dimiⁿⁱshed heads!

Wishing to know the best that could be said for these latter-day [2] anti-Darwinians, I have just been reading Lock’s book on "Variation Heredity & Evolution". In the early part of his book he gives a tolerably fair account of Nat[ural] Selection &c. But he gradually turns to "Mendelism" as the one thing needful — stating that there can be "no sort of doubt" that Mendel’s paper is the "most important" contribution of its size ever made to biological science!

"Mutation", as a theory is absolutely nothing new — only the ^assertion that new sp[ecies] originate always [3] in sports — for which the evidence adduced is the most meagre & inconclusive of any ever set forth with such pretentious claims! I hope you will thoroughly expose this absurd claim.

"Mendelism" is something new, and within its very limited range, important, as leading to conceptions as to the causes & laws of heredity: — but only misleading when adduced as the true origin of species; [word crossed out] in Nature — as to which it seems to me to have no part whatever.

I hope you will make this clear to the general reader.

[4]¹ I do not know Birch’s address yet, as he had not reached his destination when last heard of — only Bahia. I expect the last things he sent you were put up during his illness which nearly killed him at Trinidad; & were put in a box un-corked by necessity.

I have corrected a few of the dates & examined the others². All are in the "Mal[ay] Arch[ipelago]" either at headings of Chapters — or on the Outline Maps — or in the text. I think I have put in all you want. I have given the separate visits to certain places as well as I can.

Do not kill yourself by overwork! I am now tackling Lowell on the wise men of Mars!

Yours very truly| Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

P.S. Shall be delighted to see you as proposed whenever convenient with Mrs. P[oulton] and any others you can bring.

ARW [signature]³