WCP5413

[1]

Frith Hill, Godalming

August 29th. 1886

My dear Sir

Many thanks for your kind letter & the valuable set of your papers. I have been much interested in — "Health Matters in Japan"— because I have long been of opinion that our water sewage system is radically wrong, & a sin against nature, & certainly leads to many diseases. It is one among many other arguments in favour of a more uniform distribution of population over the country, that it would allow of the direct application of refuse & sewage [2] to the soil.

Your paper on "Man in the Tertiaries"— also interested me much, as I quite agree in your strictures on the argument as to man’s not remaining unchanged when other animals changed. I think I was the first to put forward this argument in my essay on "The Development of Human Races under the Law of Natural Selection"— (Anthropol. Rev. 1864 pp. 312-17.) In my "Tropical Nature" p. 290. I argued on similar grounds to those you put forth, that, either [3] man was Tertiary (Miocene or earlier) or he has been developed much more rapidly than other animals.

I shall hope to have the pleasure of meeting you in the coming winter. My first lecture at Boston is on Nov. 1.

Believe me | Yours faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Prof. Edw. S. Morse