Volume II., page 69.) does behave in a state of nature in the provoking

manner described by me. With respect to Wagner's curious discovery my

opinion is worth nothing; no doubt it is a great anomaly, but it does

not appear to me nearly so incredible as to you. Remember how allied

forms in the Hydrozoa differ in their so-called alternate generations;

I follow those naturalists who look at all such cases as forms of

gemmation; and a multitude of organisms have this power or traces

of this power at all ages from the germ to maturity. With respect to

Agassiz's views, there were many, and there are still not a few, who

believe that the same species is created on many spots. I wrote to

Bates, and he will send you his mimetic paper; and I dare say others: he

is a first-rate man.

Your case of the wingless insects near the Rocky Mountains is extremely

curious. I am sure I have heard of some such case in the Old World:

I think on the Caucasus. Would not my argument about wingless insular

insects perhaps apply to truly Alpine insects? for would it not be

destruction to them to be blown from their proper home? I should like to

write on many points at greater length to you, but I have no strength to

spare.

LETTER 187. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, September 22nd [1865].

I am much obliged for your extract (187/1. Mr. Wallace had sent Darwin

a note about a tufted cock-blackbird, which transmitted the character

to some of its offspring.); I never heard of such a case, though such

a variation is perhaps the most likely of any to occur in a state of

nature, and to be inherited, inasmuch as all domesticated birds present

races with a tuft or with reversed feathers on their heads. I have

sometimes thought that the progenitor of the whole class must have been

a crested animal.

Do you make any progress with your journal of travels? I am the more

anxious that you should do so as I have lately read with much interest

some papers by you on the ourang-outan, etc., in the "Annals," of which

I have lately been reading the later volumes. I have always thought that

journals of this nature do considerable good by advancing the taste for

Natural History: I know in my own case that nothing ever stimulated my

zeal so much as reading Humboldt's "Personal Narrative." I have not yet

received the last part of the "Linnean Transactions," but your paper

(187/2. Probably on the variability and distribution of the butterflies

of the Malayan region: "Linn. Soc. Trans." XXV., 1866.) at present will

be rather beyond my strength, for though somewhat better, I can as yet

do hardly anything but lie on the sofa and be read aloud to. By the

way, have you read Tylor and Lecky? (187/3. Tylor, "Early History of

Mankind;" Lecky's "Rationalism.") Both these books have interested me

much. I suppose you have read Lubbock. (187/4. Lubbock, "Prehistoric

Times," page 479: "...the theory of Natural Selection, which with

characteristic unselfishness he ascribes unreservedly to Mr. Darwin.")

In the last chapter there is a note about you in which I most cordially

concur. I see you were at the British Association but I have heard

nothing of it except what I have picked up in the "Reader." I have heard

a rumour that the "Reader" is sold to the Anthropological Society. If

you do not begrudge the trouble of another note (for my sole channel of

news through Hooker is closed by his illness) I should much like to hear

whether the "Reader" is thus sold. I should be very sorry for it, as the

paper would thus become sectional in its tendency. If you write, tell

me what you are doing yourself. The only news which I have about the

"Origin" is that Fritz Muller published a few months ago a remarkable

book (187/5. "Fur Darwin.") in its favour, and secondly that a second

French edition is just coming out.

LETTER 188. TO F. MULLER. Down, January 11th [1866].

I received your interesting letter of November 5th some little time ago,

and despatched immediately a copy of my "Journal of Researches." I

fear you will think me troublesome in my offer; but have you the second

German edition of the "Origin?" which is a translation, with additions,

of the third English edition, and is, I think, considerably improved

compared with the first edition. I have some spare copies which are of

no use to me, and it would be a pleasure to me to send you one, if it

would be of any use to you. You would never require to re-read the book,

but you might wish to refer to some passage. I am particularly obliged

for your photograph, for one likes to have a picture in one's mind of

any one about whom one is interested. I have received and read with

interest your paper on the sponge with horny spicula. (188/1. "Ueber

Darwinella aurea, einen Schwamm mit sternformigen Hornnadeln."--"Archiv.

Mikrosk. Anat." I., page 57, 1866.) Owing to ill-health, and being

busy when formerly well, I have for some years neglected periodical

scientific literature, and have lately been reading up, and have thus

read translations of several of your papers; amongst which I have been

particularly glad to read and see the drawings of the metamorphoses

of Peneus. (188/2. "On the Metamorphoses of the Prawns," by Dr. Fritz

Muller.--"Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist." Volume XIV., page 104 (with plate),

1864. Translated by W.S. Dallas from "Wiegmann's Archiv," 1863 (see also

"Facts and Arguments for Darwin," passim, translated by W.S. Dallas:

London, 1869).) This seems to me the most interesting discovery in

embryology which has been made for years.

I am much obliged to you for telling me a little of your plans for the

future; what a strange, but to my taste interesting life you will lead

when you retire to your estate on the Itajahy!

You refer in your letter to the facts which Agassiz is collecting,

against our views, on the Amazons. Though he has done so much for

science, he seems to me so wild and paradoxical in all his views that I

cannot regard his opinions as of any value.

LETTER 189. TO A.R. WALLACE. Down, January 22nd, 1866.

I thank you for your paper on pigeons (189/1. "On the Pigeons of the

Malay Archipelago" (The "Ibis," October, 1865). Mr. Wallace points out

(page 366) that "the most striking superabundance of pigeons, as well

as of parrots, is confined to the Australo-Malayan sub-region in

which...the forest-haunting and fruit-eating mammals, such as monkeys

and squirrels, are totally absent." He points out also that monkeys are

"exceedingly destructive to eggs and young birds."), which interested

me, as everything that you write does. Who would ever have dreamed that

monkeys influenced the distribution of pigeons and parrots! But I have

had a still higher satisfaction, for I finished your paper yesterday in

the "Linnean Transactions." (189/2. "Linn. Soc. Trans." XXV.: a paper

on the geographical distribution and variability of the Malayan

Papilionidae.) It is admirably done. I cannot conceive that the most

firm believer in species could read it without being staggered. Such

papers will make many more converts among naturalists than long-winded

books such as I shall write if I have strength. I have been particularly

struck with your remarks on dimorphism; but I cannot quite understand

one point (page 22), (189/3. The passage referred to in this letter as

needing further explanation is the following: "The last six cases of

mimicry are especially instructive, because they seem to indicate one of

the processes by which dimorphic forms have been produced. When, as in

these cases, one sex differs much from the other, and varies greatly

itself, it may happen that individual variations will occasionally

occur, having a distant resemblance to groups which are the objects

of mimicry, and which it is therefore advantageous to resemble. Such

a variety will have a better chance of preservation; the individuals

possessing it will be multiplied; and their accidental likeness to the

favoured group will be rendered permanent by hereditary transmission,

and each successive variation which increases the resemblance being

preserved, and all variations departing from the favoured type having

less chance of preservation, there will in time result those singular

cases of two or more isolated and fixed forms bound together by that

intimate relationship which constitutes them the sexes of a single

species. The reason why the females are more subject to this kind of

modification than the males is, probably, that their slower flight,

when laden with eggs, and their exposure to attack while in the act of

depositing their eggs upon leaves, render it especially advantageous

for them to have some additional protection. This they at once obtain

by acquiring a resemblance to other species which, from whatever cause,

enjoy a comparative immunity from persecution." Mr. Wallace has been

good enough to give us the following note on the above passage: "The

above quotation deals solely with the question of how certain females

of the polymorphic species (Papilio Memnon, P. Pammon, and others) have

been so modified as to mimic species of a quite distinct section of

the genus; but it does not attempt to explain why or how the other very

variable types of female arose, and this was Darwin's difficulty. As

the letter I wrote in reply is lost, and as it is rather difficult to

explain the matter clearly without reference to the coloured figures,

I must go into some little detail, and give now what was probably the

explanation I gave at the time. The male of Papilio Memnon is a large

black butterfly with the nervures towards the margins of the wings

bordered with bluish gray dots. It is a forest insect, and the very

dark colour renders it conspicuous; but it is a strong flier, and thus

survives. To the female, however, this conspicuous mass of colour

would be dangerous, owing to her slower flight, and the necessity for

continually resting while depositing her eggs on the leaves of the

food-plant of the larva. She has accordingly acquired lighter and more

varied tints. The marginal gray-dotted stripes of the male have become

of a brownish ash and much wider on the fore wings, while the margin

of the hind wings is yellowish, with a more defined spot near the

anal angle. This is the form most nearly like the male, but it is

comparatively rare, the more common being much lighter in colour, the

bluish gray of the hind wings being often entirely replaced by a broad

band of yellowish white. The anal angle is orange-yellow, and there is

a bright red spot at the base of the fore wings. Between these two

extremes there is every possible variation. Now, it is quite certain

that this varying mixture of brown, black, white, yellow, and red is far

less conspicuous amid the ever-changing hues of the forest with their

glints of sunshine everywhere penetrating so as to form strong contrasts

and patches of light and shade. Hence ALL the females--one at one time

and one at another--get SOME protection, and that is sufficient to

enable them to live long enough to lay their eggs, when their work is

finished. Still, under bad conditions they only just managed to

survive, and as the colouring of some of these varying females very

much resembled that of the protected butterflies of the P. coon

group (perhaps at a time when the tails of the latter were not fully

developed) any rudiments of a prolongation of the wing into a tail added

to the protective resemblance, and was therefore preserved. The woodcuts

of some of these forms in my "Malay Archipelago" (i., page 200) will

enable those who have this book at hand better to understand the

foregoing explanation."), and should be grateful for an explanation, for

I want fully to understand you. How can one female form be selected and

the intermediate forms die out, without also the other extreme form also

dying out from not having the advantages of the first selected form?

for, as I understand, both female forms occur on the same island. I

quite agree with your distinction between dimorphic forms and varieties;

but I doubt whether your criterion of dimorphic forms not producing

intermediate offspring will suffice, for I know of a good many varieties

which must be so called that will not blend or intermix, but produce

offspring quite like either parent.

I have been particularly struck with your remarks on geographical

distribution in Celebes. It is impossible that anything could be better

put, and would give a cold shudder to the immutable naturalists.

And now I am going to ask a question which you will not like. How does

your journal get on? It will be a shame if you do not popularise your

researches.

LETTER 190. A.R. WALLACE TO CHARLES DARWIN. Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, July

2nd, 1866.

I have been so repeatedly struck by the utter inability of numbers

of intelligent persons to see clearly, or at all, the self-acting and

necessary effects of Natural Selection, that I am led to conclude that

the term itself, and your mode of illustrating it, however clear and

beautiful to many of us, are yet not the best adapted to impress it

on the general naturalist public. The two last cases of the

misunderstanding are: (1) the article on "Darwin and his Teachings" in

the last "Quarterly Journal of Science," which, though very well written

and on the whole appreciative, yet concludes with a charge of something

like blindness, in your not seeing that Natural Selection requires the

constant watching of an intelligent "chooser," like man's selection to

which you so often compare it; and (2) in Janet's recent work on the

"Materialism of the Present Day," reviewed in last Saturday's "Reader,"

by an extract from which I see that he considers your weak point to be

that you do not see that "thought and direction are essential to the

action of Natural Selection." The same objection has been made a score

of times by your chief opponents, and I have heard it as often stated

myself in conversation. Now, I think this arises almost entirely from

your choice of the term "Natural Selection" and so constantly comparing

it in its effects to Man's Selection, and also your so frequently

personifying nature as "selecting," as "preferring," as "seeking only

the good of the species," etc., etc. To the few this is as clear as

daylight, and beautifully suggestive, but to many it is evidently a

stumbling-block. I wish, therefore, to suggest to you the possibility

of entirely avoiding this source of misconception in your great work (if

not now too late), and also in any future editions of the "Origin,"

and I think it may be done without difficulty and very effectually

by adopting Spencer's term (which he generally uses in preference to

Natural Selection)--viz., "survival of the fittest."

This term is the plain expression of the fact; Natural Selection is

a metaphorical expression of it, and to a certain degree indirect and

incorrect, since, even personifying Nature, she does not so much select

special variations as exterminate the most unfavourable ones.

Combined with the enormous multiplying powers of all organisms, and the

"struggle for existence" leading to the constant destruction of by far

the largest proportion--facts which no one of your opponents, as far as

I am aware, has denied or misunderstood--"the survival of the fittest"

rather than of those who were less fit could not possibly be denied or

misunderstood. Neither would it be possible to say that to ensure the

"survival of the fittest" any intelligent chooser was necessary; whereas

when you say Natural Selection acts so as to choose those that are

fittest, it IS misunderstood, and apparently always will be. Referring

to your book, I find such expressions as "Man selects only for his

own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends." This, it

seems, will always be misunderstood; but if you had said "Man selects

only for his own good; Nature, by the inevitable 'survival of the

fittest,' only for that of the being she tends," it would have been less

liable to be so.

I find you use the term "Natural Selection" in two senses: (1) for

the simple preservation of favourable and rejection of unfavourable

variations, in which case it is equivalent to "survival of the fittest";

and (2) for the effect or change produced by this preservation, as when

you say, "To sum up the circumstances favourable or unfavourable to

Natural Selection," and again, "Isolation, also, is an important element

in the process of Natural Selection." Here it is not merely "survival

of the fittest," but change produced by survival of the fittest, that

is meant. On looking over your fourth chapter, I find that these

alterations of terms can be in most cases easily made, while in some

cases the addition of "or survival of the fittest" after "Natural

Selection" would be best; and in others, less likely to be

misunderstood, the original term may stand alone.

I could not venture to propose to any other person so great an

alteration of terms, but you, I am sure, will give it an impartial

consideration, and if you really think the change will produce a better

understanding of your work, will not hesitate to adopt it.

It is evidently also necessary not to personify "Nature" too

much--though I am very apt to do it myself--since people will not

understand that all such phrases are metaphors. Natural Selection is,

when understood, so necessary and self-evident a principle, that it is a

pity it should be in any way obscured; and it therefore seems to me

that the free use of "survival of the fittest," which is a compact and

accurate definition of it, would tend much to its being more widely

accepted, and prevent it being so much misrepresented and misunderstood.

There is another objection made by Janet which is also a very common

one. It is that the chances are almost infinite against the particular

kind of variation required being coincident with each change of external

conditions, to enable an animal to become modified by Natural Selection

in harmony with such changed conditions; especially when we consider

that, to have produced the almost infinite modifications of organic

beings, this coincidence must have taken place an almost infinite number

of times.

Now, it seems to me that you have yourself led to this objection being

made, by so often stating the case too strongly against yourself. For

example, at the commencement of Chapter IV. you ask if it is "improbable

that useful variations should sometimes occur in the course of thousands

of generations"; and a little further on you say, "unless profitable

variations do occur, Natural Selection can do nothing." Now, such

expressions have given your opponents the advantage of assuming that

favourable variations are rare accidents, or may even for long periods

never occur at all, and thus Janet's argument would appear to many to

have great force. I think it would be better to do away with all such

qualifying expressions, and constantly maintain (what I certainly

believe to be the fact) that variations of every kind are always

occurring in every part of every species, and therefore that favourable

variations are always ready when wanted. You have, I am sure, abundant

materials to prove this; and it is, I believe, the grand fact that

renders modification and adaptation to conditions almost always

possible. I would put the burthen of proof on my opponents to show that

any one organ, structure, or faculty does not vary, even during one

generation, among all the individuals of a species; and also to show any

mode or way in which any such organ, etc., does not vary. I would ask

them to give any reason for supposing that any organ, etc., is ever

absolutely identical at any one time in all the individuals of a

species, and if not then it is always varying, and there are always

materials which, from the simple fact that "the fittest survive,"

will tend to the modification of the race into harmony with changed

conditions.

I hope these remarks may be intelligible to you, and that you will be so

kind as to let me know what you think of them.

I have not heard for some time how you are getting on. I hope you are

still improving in health, and that you will now be able to get on with

your great work, for which so many thousands are looking with interest.

LETTER 191. TO A.R. WALLACE.

(191/1. From "Life and Letters," III., page 45.)

Down, July 5th [1866].

I have been much interested by your letter, which is as clear as

daylight. I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H.

Spencer's excellent expression of "the survival of the fittest."

This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is,

however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a

substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I

infer from H. Spencer continually using the words Natural Selection. I

formerly thought, probably in an exaggerated degree, that it was a great

advantage to bring into connection natural and artificial selection;

this indeed led me to use a term in common, and I still think it some

advantage. I wish I had received your letter two months ago, for I would

have worked in "the survival," etc., often in the new edition of the

"Origin," which is now almost printed off, and of which I will of

course send you a copy. I will use the term in my next book on domestic

animals, etc., from which, by the way, I plainly see that you expect

MUCH too much. The term Natural Selection has now been so largely used

abroad and at home that I doubt whether it could be given up, and with

all its faults I should be sorry to see the attempt made. Whether it

will be rejected must now depend "on the survival of the fittest." As in

time the term must grow intelligible the objections to its use will grow

weaker and weaker. I doubt whether the use of any term would have made

the subject intelligible to some minds, clear as it is to others; for

do we not see even to the present day Malthus on Population absurdly

misunderstood? This reflection about Malthus has often comforted me when

I have been vexed at this misstatement of my views. As for M. Janet, he

is a metaphysician, and such gentlemen are so acute that I think they

often misunderstand common folk. Your criticism on the double sense in

which I have used Natural Selection is new to me and unanswerable;

but my blunder has done no harm, for I do not believe that any one,

excepting you, has ever observed it. Again, I agree that I have said too

much about "favourable variations," but I am inclined to think that you

put the opposite side too strongly: if every part of every being varied,

I do not think we should see the same end or object gained by such

wonderfully diversified means.

I hope you are enjoying the country, and are in good health, and are

working hard at your "Malay Archipelago" book, for I will always put

this wish in every note I write to you, as some good people always put

in a text. My health keeps much the same, or rather improves, and I am

able to work some hours daily.

LETTER 192. TO C. LYELL. Down, October 9th [1866].

One line to say that I have received your note and the proofs safely,

and will read them with the greatest pleasure; but I am certain I shall

not be able to send any criticism on the astronomical chapter (192/1.

"Principles of Geology," by Sir Charles Lyell; Edition X., London, 1867.