MEMOIR. xlix 
«| have arranged those species which gave me the data for the conclusions 
which I try to establish in my memoir. 
“They are only a fraction of the whole series, but too many would only 
confuse. I have endeavoured to put them in such a shape that a general 
naturalist would perceive the drift of the argument at a glance. Still, many 
doubts must arise in some minds, and I desire nothing so much as to hear 
them stated, and to try to answer them. If you correspond with Mr. 
Lubbock, I hope you will mention that I wish him to put all sorts of difficult 
questions on the subject. It appears to me that the whole question of 
natural selection might be put to the test by a close examination of these few 
insects. 
‘‘ They show that the same species varies in a different way in different 
localities, therefore that natural selection does not explain everything ; the 
local conditions determine what variations shall arise—natural selection 
creates nothing. I find this latter point is difficult to keep always steadily 
before the mind. 
‘« These specimens show also the divergence of character, that one species 
tends to become many in a region when the conditions are favourable to its 
increase, and so forth. 
‘«T hope it will not be inconvenient to you if I avail myself of the privilege 
you have given me to visit you at Kew. Would Thursday suit? Probably I 
may stay Saturday over; Friday I shall be engaged. 
‘* My address is: John o’Groat’s Hotel, Rupert Street, Haymarket. 
‘« Yours sincerely, 
‘‘H. W. BATES.” 
Dr. . D. Hooker to H. W. Bates. 
‘“ KEw, Fanuary 13th, 1862. 
“My DEAR MR. BATES, 
‘‘T am sorry to say that I have to be in town all Thursday, or I 
should have been delighted to see you. . . . If you say Saturday I shall try 
to get some one to meet you at dinner. 
‘I am delighted to hear that we shall have the mimetic butterflies at the 
Linnean. I hardly understand you when you say that natural selection 
creates nothing, because you do not give the sense in which you use the word 
‘create.’ I quite agree that natural selection does not explain everything ; 
but it may often swgges¢ an explanation. After all to me the mystery is 
variation.* Why should it be that in inorganic nature definite forms and 
definite proportions are the rule, whilst in biology no two individuals, or parts 
of individuals, correspond? It is, I find, most difficult with our poor language 
to keep up a strictly logical method of treating these subjects. I had once 
the same difficulty in keeping clearly before me the fact that creazzov, in the 
sense of making species by variation, is not necessarily the English correlative 
term with ‘creation’ by a miracle out of 0; and yet the words have come 
to be synouymous as to stating a result. Turn the thing the other way: 
suppose we had always thought and believed, as a dogma, that all species 
* Cf Huxley’s Critiques and Addresses, p. 229 ; Sctence and Culture, p. 307. 
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