Ɛpsilon

WCP4459

Letter (WCP4459.4767)

[1]

Returned Letter

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Dorset.

Jany. 18th. 1913

Ben. R. Miller1 Esq.

Dear Sir

Thanks for your kind congratulations, & for the small pamphlet2 you have sent me. I have read it with much interest, as the writer3 was evidently a man of thought and talent. The first lecture certainly gives an approach to Darwin’s4theory, perhaps nearer than any other, as he almost implies the "Survival of the fittest" as the cause of progressive modification. But his language is imaginative & obscure. He uses "Education" apparently in [2] the sense of what we should term "effect of the environment".

The second lecture is even a more exact anticipation of the modern views as to microbes, including their transmissions by fleas & other insects, and the probability that the blood of healthy persons contains a sufficiency of destroyers of the pathogenic germs, such as the white blood corpuscles — to preserve us in health.

But he is so anti-clerical & anti-Biblical that it is no wonder he could not get a hearing in Boston [3] in 1847.

Yours very truly| Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

1
Miller, Ben R. has not been identified.
2
A pamphlet by George Washington Sleeper which anticipated the idea of evolution through natural selection and also the germ theory of disease. Poulton later reported in his presidential address to the Linnean Society of 25 May 1914 that the Sleeper document was a hoax.
3
See note 2.
4
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). British naturalist, geologist and author, notably of On the Origin of Species (1859).

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP4459.4767)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Lord, Annette [2012-07-19] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Published letter (WCP4459.6457)

[1] [p. 98]

Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. January 18, 1913.

Dear Sir,—Thanks for your kind congratulations, and for the small pamphlet you have sent me. I have read it with much interest, as the writer was evidently a man of thought and talent. The first lecture certainly gives [2] [p. 99] an approach to Darwin's theory, perhaps nearer than any other, as he almost implies the "survival of the fittest" as the cause of progressive modification. But his language is imaginative and obscure. He uses "education" apparently in the sense of what we should term "effect of the environment."

The second lecture is even a more exact anticipation of the modern views as to microbes, including their transmission by flies and other insects and the probability that the blood of healthy persons contains a sufficiency of destroyers of the pathogenic germs—such as the white blood-corpuscles—to preserve us in health.

But he is so anti-clerical and anti-Biblical that it is no wonder he could not get a hearing in Boston in 1847.—Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Published letter (WCP4459.6457)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Sherwood, Danni [2020-07-28] Transcription checked by Lo, Yen [2020-10-30] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Please cite as “WCP4459,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4459